Love from the Male Protagonist's Harem

Searching for pretexts to stall until Ye Ze was done with classes for the day, Xia Ge found none.  Although loath to do so, she began to tidy up Siguo Pavilion.

Naturally, it was impossible for Xia Ge to be quiet.

Ladylike reserve could only be expected when she was stuffing her face with steamed buns.  The rest of the time…heh.

Xia Ge leaned against the one unbroken table and lamented the wreckage surrounding her: “Little puppet, are you a monkey sent by Senior Sister?  She commands me to clean, so you command me to clean too?”

The cold system was clear on the key point: [I Am Not A Monkey.]

Xia Ge: “But you weren’t like this before.”

System: [……]

Xia Ge: “Do you find her attractive?  I remember you gave her a beauty rating of SSS.”

Saying anything more was not beneficial.  The system selected ‘silence is golden.’

Xia Ge: “You’re too biased.  Giving me a rating of ‘none.’  Do you disapprove of me?”

Now the system was very happy to answer straightforwardly.  [Yes.]

Xia Ge: “……don’t be like that.  It’s important that we stay friends.”

System: Indifferent.jpg

After dawdling for a whole morning, without seeing even the shadow of ‘cleaning expert’ Ye Ze, her savior, Xia Ge finally acknowledged that he wasn’t coming.  She continued wearily tidying up Siguo Pavilion.

By the time she’d finally started, Ye Ze’s noon break had already been over.

Ai……if only she could have dragged the male protagonist into lending a hand.

Xia Ge felt sadly disappointed for a moment.

Though that killer girl sure had been formidable.  Sweeping the floor, Xia Ge lackadaisically calculated.  When the killer girl had sent the gray puppet flying, fourteen pearwood tables had been smashed through.  The strength and ruthlessness of that single kick was unbelievable.

A lethal kick.  Not giving the gray puppet a chance to survive.

In the end, killer girl could be blamed for killing the Yimei.  Wasn’t that logical?

Xia Ge instinctively disregarded the fact that the body being harmed wouldn’t have actually effected the Yimei.  Internally denouncing the killer girl’s actions to her heart’s content, Xia Ge eventually put the broom back in its proper spot.  She rubbed her eyes, yawned, and at last walked out of Siguo Pavilion, carrying her Liuli tree with her.

Met by a tragic sunset in the sky, Xia Ge squinted her eyes.

“But……why would a young girl of Jianfeng dress up like an assassin and come to Siguo Pavilion?”

The system was surprised: [How Do You Know She Is In Lingxi Sect?  Or That She Is From Jianfeng?]

“Simple.  She didn’t kill me.”  Xia Ge’s tone was matter-of-fact, “She kept saying she was going to kill me.  And she had many opportunities to do so, but in the end, she only burned my Danxun copy—–”

“If she wasn’t a Lingxi disciple, how else would she have known that I was copying the Danxun and deliberately burn my work?”

The system couldn’t follow Xia Ge’s reasoning: [Why Would A Lingxi Disciple Know That You Were Copying A Book……]

Xia Ge: “The Danfeng Siguo Pavilion of Lingxi Sect is where disciples punished to copy books go.”

Remembering, a wave of bitterness washed over Xia Ge: “What a vicious girl!  Luckily I’d only finished one copy.  If I’d actually done thirty copies……I don’t care that she’d saved me, I would have torn off her face covering and turned her in to Senior Sister!!”

System: [Huh? She Saved You?]

Xia Ge: “Little puppet, why haven’t I realized you’re stupid before now?”

System: [……]

“She did save me,” Xia Ge patiently explained, “The Yimei wanted to kill me.”

Those extremely poisonous pentagonal darts would have killed Xia Ge if she hadn’t been pulled down.

Therefore……

“She’s definitely a disciple of Lingxi,” Xia Ge spoke heedlessly, “I mean, I asked if Lingxi Sect doesn’t have the ancestral precept that when someone saves your skin, you repay the kindness with devotion or you ‘pledge to marry.’  She didn’t deny it.”

System: [……]

Since ancient times, deep feelings could not be indefinitely preserved, only ‘taolu’ could consistently win hearts.

Yes, it was true that Lingxi Peak had such a difficult-to-explain old teaching.

It was said to be an ancestral rule passed down by the founding ancestor of Lingxi Peak five hundred years ago.  Every disciple, no matter if inner or outer, had to memorize all the founder’s maxims.

“A pervert with the strength to kick something and smash through a dozen tables could only come from Jianfeng.”

Sighing, Xia Ge moved onto another topic: “Little puppet, now that I’ve got the materials, how do we go about the upgrade?”

Aren’t you curious which disciple of Jianfeng that killer girl was?!

The system pushed aside its vigorous craving for knowledge: [……Find A Hidden Area And Follow The Prompts Correctly.]

“Ye Ze is almost out of class—being an inner disciple seems too tiring.  Why do I even wanna pass the examination……”  Xia Ge counted the days.  “Ai, come to think of it, tomorrow is payday.  Gu Peijiu……no, my Senior Sister did say I wasn’t penalized my salary, right?”

The system ignored Xia Ge once again.

Xia Ge was used to it.  Her system had never been very talkative.  And ever since she’d tried to trap it a few times, it spoke even less.

Alas, the little puppet had grown wiser, said fewer words, and so Xia Ge had an even harder time getting anything out of it.  Enough to make one very distressed.

“Let’s fill our belly first.”

(TN- how the author intended ‘taolu’ I’m not sure, so…-)

Today’s Chinese slang phrase is VERY popular, and I hope you’ll start noticing it around 

Imagine you hate seafood and LOVE beer. Your friends know it, so they tell you about this new place with AWESOME beers. You decide to check it out, but when you arrive, you discover that their menu is… all about seafood!

套路 tàolù 

套路 tàolù – It’s a trap! It’s a set up!

全都是套路 quán dōu shì tàolù – It’s all a trap!

The word 套路 tàolù itself isn’t new. If you check the dictionary, you’ll see it described something like “a series of movements in martial arts”. But its meaning is now changing. People have started to use it to refer to any kind of hidden agenda: marketing traps, “behind-the-back” conspiracies, and your own friends trying to trick you

You can also use it as a verb:

别套路我 bié tàolù wǒ – Don’t play tricks with me (“Don’t taolu me”)