He Is Different from Other Men

Qin Hao nodded. "I won't laugh."

The man took a deep breath and pointed to the footprint on his robe, his expression indescribably aggrieved. "Heaven is my witness, we didn't even pass by Wangchen Nunnery. The three of us have long heard of their deeds, so we went completely out of our way to bypass them this time!"

"Pfft—"

Seeing the man's earnest yet wronged expression, Qin Hao couldn't hold back and burst into laughter.

The man's face turned green. "You promised not to laugh!"

"Sorry." Qin Hao cleared his throat, suppressing his amusement. "Please continue."

"We took a detour. Since we are sworn brothers traveling together, we obviously had to chat a bit, right?"

Qin Hao nodded, only to hear the man continue, "But guess what? A group of nuns suddenly charged out of Wangchen Nunnery and beat us up!"

Qin Hao raised an eyebrow, asking with great interest, "Why did they beat you? Was it like the rumors say, that your scent drifted into their Wangchen Nunnery?"

The man shook his head. "Not quite. The stinky nuns of Wangchen Nunnery said the sound of our voices drifted in. They claimed they couldn't stand the sound of lowly men, so they beat us up."

"Voices?" Qin Hao clicked his tongue. This Wangchen Nunnery truly lived up to its reputation as the number one man-hating sect in the Three Realms and Nine Heavens. First it was scents drifting in, and now it was voices.

Qin Hao even began to suspect that the nuns of Wangchen Nunnery had been repressed for too long, and were just trying to find any excuse to interact with male cultivators from the outside world.

The three men in front of Qin Hao were filled with grief and indignation. "Fellow Daoist, judge for yourself! We detoured a full three miles and were separated by an entire mountain. How could they blame us for that?"

Qin Hao looked at the three men with sympathy, then cupped his hands to them. "You three have suffered!"

The three repeatedly waved their hands. "Don't mention it, don't mention it."

Just as the three were about to turn and leave, they saw Qin Hao walking along the mountain path in the direction of Wangchen Nunnery.

"Fellow Daoist! Where are you going? Up there is forbidden ground for male cultivators, it's Wangchen Nunnery!"

Seeing the three of them acting as if facing a great enemy, Qin Hao chuckled lightly. "I know. Wangchen Nunnery is exactly where I am going."

"Ah?" The three looked at each other in dismay, then hurriedly advised, "Fellow Daoist, did you run into something that made you lose your will to live?"

Qin Hao waved his hand. "I go today to seek justice for the vast number of male cultivators!"

As soon as these words were spoken, the way the three men looked at Qin Hao changed. With solemn expressions, they cupped their hands to him. "Fellow Daoist, come back alive! We have three-thousand-year-old mothers above us and three-year-old toddlers below us, so we won't risk our lives to accompany you."

Qin Hao cupped his hands in farewell to them, then continued up the mountain path.

Before long, Qin Hao arrived at the entrance of Wangchen Nunnery. The nunnery before him was not the solemn, thousand-year-old ancient temple he had imagined.

The mountain gate of Wangchen Nunnery was very low, with grayish-white stone walls and black tiles. There wasn't even a proper plaque above the lintel. Compared to other holy lands, it was truly somewhat inconspicuous.

Just as Qin Hao was considering how to announce his arrival, the sound of chanting scriptures inside the nunnery suddenly stopped.

The leading nun suddenly stopped what she was doing, a cold gleam bursting from her eyes. "There's the scent of a man!"

Immediately after, she abruptly stood up and headed outside the nunnery. The other disciples closely followed their senior martial sister's footsteps, rushing outside.

In a short while, dozens of grayish-white figures filed out, bringing with them a faint scent of sandalwood.

The leading young nun was extremely beautiful, with delicate features as if she had walked right out of a painting. Holding a sword in her hand, she pointed it at Qin Hao with an unkind expression:

"Lecher! Why did you smoke out our Wangchen Nunnery and disrupt our peaceful cultivation?"

"What?" Qin Hao was completely dumbfounded.

"No, wait, what did I even do? How am I a lecher? And what the hell do you mean by smoking out your Wangchen Nunnery?"

Gu Qingxue pointed her sword at Qin Hao. "Despicable man, you still dare to argue! That nauseating stench on your body can be smelled from thirty feet away!"

Qin Hao stiffened. He looked down at himself. Before leaving today, he had specifically changed into clean, simple clothes. Besides, as cultivators, how could they possibly have any body odor?

"Thirty feet away? And separated by a door, how did you even smell it?" Qin Hao's gaze swept across the nuns in front of him, and he asked back, somewhat speechless:

"Reverend masters, are your noses specially used for sniffing out men?"

"With all due respect, have you not yet severed your mortal desires? Are your minds full of nothing but men?"

A deathly silence fell over the mountain gate. Gu Qingxue and the group of disciples behind her, every single one of them, flushed red to the tips of their ears.

"You!" The hand Gu Qingxue used to grip her sword trembled slightly.

"You are spitting venom! We have cultivated in purity for a hundred years and have long since severed our ties to the mortal world!"

A disciple beside her flew into a shameful rage and shouted at Gu Qingxue, "Senior Sister, why waste words with this despicable man? What kind of good person wears a mask and trespasses into a nunnery alone?"

Hearing this, Qin Hao slowly and deliberately took off the mask covering his face.

Dusk was gathering from all directions. The flickering paper lantern in front of Wangchen Nunnery swayed. Gu Qingxue's sword froze in midair, and a chorus of sharp gasps echoed from behind her.

"Reverend masters, please do not misunderstand. I am a good person."

Gu Qingxue tightened her grip on the sword hilt, constantly telling herself not to look at that face, but her eyes completely disobeyed her commands, her gaze landing squarely on Qin Hao's face.

At this moment, Gu Qingxue had only one thought in her mind: So handsome.

His eyebrows were like distant mountains, his eyes like cold stars. Gu Qingxue did not know if it was her own illusion, but as the twilight fell upon Qin Hao's shoulders, it seemed to drape him in a layer of pure radiance.

The hand Gu Qingxue used to hold her sword slowly lowered. The tip of the blade touched the ground, dragging out a shallow scratch, much like her currently tangled state of mind.

She had lived for three hundred years, and her cultivation base had even reached the Void Refinement Realm. The scriptures she had read were full of cautionary proverbs like beauty is but a flesh-covered skeleton and physical appearances are all emptiness.

Yet, not a single scroll of scripture had ever told her how to deal with the kind of person who, with just one glance, would uncontrollably burst into your heart and make it impossible for you to look away.

Just as Gu Qingxue was in a daze, her junior sister behind her tugged at the corner of her clothes:

"Senior Sister, I feel like he is different from those men before. He should... really be a good person."

Listening to her junior sister's words and taking another deep look at Qin Hao, Gu Qingxue finally spoke:

"I see that you indeed do not look like a bad person. We will drop this matter. You may leave!"

Leave? He was here to complete a quest, how could he possibly leave?

Qin Hao cupped his hands toward Gu Qingxue and immediately said:

"Reverend, I was invited here by the Abbess of your noble nunnery. Please inform her of my arrival."

As soon as these words came out, it went quiet in front of the mountain gate for a moment.

And then—

"What did you say?" Gu Qingxue's eyes widened into perfect circles, her gaze filled with absolute disbelief:

"Our Abbess invited you? Are you kidding me? Do you even know who our Abbess is? Do you have any idea that the one thing she loathes most in her entire life is men? How could she possibly invite a man to the Convent of Forgotten Dust?"