Zhou Ying thought that she would hold Chen Chaoran tightly in her hands for the rest of her life. She was the only one who hid everything from Chen Chaoran, not Chen Chaoran who hid it from her.
What Zhou Ying didn't expect at all was that not only Chen Yuefang, the daughter she loved since childhood, betrayed her to be with Lian Anping and told Chen Chaoran what she said, but also Chen Yuefang, whom she regarded as easy to deceive and only focused on work.
Chen Chaoran also hides a huge secret from her.
The big secret is Xiao Cui, and her actual age is far more than thirteen or fourteen, but already twenty years old.
She was not brought back by Chen Chaoran from western Sichuan, but she followed Chen Chaoran not long after she was born.
Chen Chaoran had been raising her in the home of an old couple with five guarantees. When Xiao Cui was two years old, Chen Chaoran had already accepted her as his apprentice, teaching her Western Sichuan dialect and the art of yin and yang.
When Xiaocui was five years old, she began to enter the Tianshi Mansion for training. However, no one else knew about her existence except Chen Chaoran and the other three elders of the Tianshi Mansion.
As for the origin of Xiaocui, no one knows. Some say that it is a child that Chen Chaoran picked up on the roadside, while others say that it is Chen Chaoran's illegitimate child with another woman.
But if Xiaocui is Chen Chaoran's illegitimate daughter, and no one has ever seen Chen Chaoran get close to any woman, his whereabouts are almost transparent among the senior officials of Tianshi Mansion, except at work, only at home.
Chen Chaoran's behavior style is different from that of his father-in-law. The more dangerous the matter, the less likely it is to be left to others and he will take action himself.
Those three elders all had a life-long friendship with Chen Chaoran, so even if Chen Chaoran secretly raised a child for more than ten years, they would not tell Zhou Ying secretly.
Xiao Cui is a natural talent for practicing yin and yang psychic skills. However, when she was fourteen years old, she went out to practice with Chen Chaoran and was hit by a strong yin evil spirit in a ghost building. She was seriously injured and almost died. After being rescued, she died.
It won't grow any bigger.
Until she was twenty years old, she still looked and sounded like a thirteen or fourteen year old, but since she grew up, her cultivation has been improving by leaps and bounds over the years.
Even in the Tianshi Mansion where there are many talents, apart from Chen Chaoran and the three elders, there are not many people with higher cultivation than her.
Xiaocui, who looked like she was only fourteen or fifteen years old when she lived in the Chen family, was actually a twenty-year-old girl with a cultivation level close to the heavenly level.
After the old couple who raised Xiaocui passed away, Xiaocui heard from her master Chen Chaoran that the Chen family's daughter would eat her husband's soul, so she persuaded Chen Chaoran and asked to go to Chen's house to keep an eye on her master.
She would never allow the mentor who raised him since childhood to end up with his soul devoured by others.
Zhao Ke became Chen Chaoran's apprentice when Xiaocui moved into the Chen family.
Zhao Ke was five years old that year.
His mother and Zhou Ying were distant cousins, but because Zhou Ying had been proud and looked down on others since she was a child, and Zhao Ke's mother was a generation younger than her, the two families had never had much contact with each other.
Zhao Ke is the only son in his family. Due to his constitution, he has been weak and sick since he was a child, and he is also very prone to evil spirits. Later, a senior monk from Tianyin Temple said that if he wanted Zhao Ke to grow up safely, there were only two ways.
Either you become a monk from a young age, live in a temple, lead your disciples to practice, and then leave the temple when you are twenty-eight years old.
Either you can learn the art of yin and yang from a high-minded person as your teacher, and practice martial arts since childhood to strengthen your body, and you can live to the age of twenty-eight safely.
The Zhao family has done a lot of business in Kyoto. Although they are not rich and powerful, they are still relatively famous. Of course they are not willing to send their only son, who is only five years old, to a temple.
There is one person of high moral character, Zhou Ying's husband, Chen Chaoran.
Not only does he have high moral standards, he is also the chief heavenly master of the Tianshi Mansion.
For the sake of her son, Zhao Ke's mother lost her face and used the excuse of distant relatives to establish friendship with Zhou Ying through the Chen family and asked Chen Chaoran to accept her son as his disciple.
Zhou Ying's temperament has softened a lot over the years, and because he has been with Chen Jiayu for a long time, his personality has subtly become a lot gentler, so he agreed.
Chen Chaoran has always been friendly. Although he has always been wary of Zhou Ying, after seeing Zhao Ke's face, he did not refuse and directly agreed.
Due to Chen Chaoran's unusual identity, only the Chen family and the Zhao family knew about this apprenticeship. In private, Zhao Ke called Chen Chaoran master, but in front of outsiders, Zhao Ke still called Chen Chaoran uncle.
Apparently Zhao Ke was Chen Chaoran's only apprentice. It wasn't until Zhao Ke was fifteen years old that he unexpectedly learned that the little sister of the Chen family who would never grow up was his senior sister.
Zhao Ke is not a stupid person. After knowing that Xiao Cui is his senior sister, he does not show any half-heartedness in front of Zhou Ying. He even often laughs at Xiao Cui in front of Zhou Ying and Chen Jiayu for calling him a little monster who will not grow up.
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He didn't know why Master Chen Chaoran wanted to hide Xiaocui's abilities from everyone, but these were not important. Master was not only his master, but also his savior. Since it was something that Master wanted to hide, he must
Help Master hide it well.
When he was young, his thoughts were always very strange. At that time, Zhao Ke felt that by showing hostility to Xiao Cui and pretending to suppress Xiao Cui in front of Zhou Ying, he could help his master hide Xiao Cui's secret forever.
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So from that time on, Zhao Ke and Xiaocui have always been the same as I saw when I came to Chen's house. Later, when they got older, even Zhao Ke himself found it ridiculous, but it seemed too difficult to change their attitude.
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Lian Ruowei was already eleven or twelve years old at that time. Every time Lian Ruowei was at her grandfather's house, Zhao Ke would often express his goodwill in front of Lian Ruowei in order to show his distance from Xiao Cui.
Lian Ruowei didn't know the relationship between Zhao Ke and her grandfather, and because of this, she always thought that Zhao Ke wanted to pursue her.
When Zhao Ke was twenty years old, Xiao Cui secretly told him that the daughter of the Zhou family would eat the soul of her husband.
In order to help Chen Chaoran, twenty-year-old Zhao Ke entered the Tianshi Mansion.
Therefore, Lian Ruowei, a little girl who just entered the Tianshi Mansion for training, did not know Zhao Ke's true identity and always thought that he was just an ignorant young man.
Chen Chaoran himself is a very smart person, and with the help of the Chen family and his two apprentices, Xiaocui and Zhao Ke, Chen Chaoran has been living well.
Until three years ago, Chen Chaoran suddenly fell ill.
Xiaocui and Zhao Ke originally thought they could stop everything, but after all, one of them is an outsider and the other is just a little girl. There are always places that their hands can't reach.
For example, Chen Chaoran and Zhou Ying's bedroom.
After Chen Chaoran fell ill, Xiaocui and Zhao Ke had always taken good care of him. Except for sleeping, they almost never left him. They watched Chen Chaoran's illness improve day by day.
But at this time, Zhou Ying, who had always been in good health, suddenly fell ill. He could not afford to fall ill, and he gave up and returned to the west in just one day.
After Zhou Ying's death, Chen Chaoran's illness completely recovered. This chapter has been completed!