xiaojie - to have a xiaojie temper means to act like a princess. Jin Ling is often described as such.
The boys finally stopped bothering him.
No insults, no vandalised homework and no flame talismans slipped between the pages of his books.
For a few days, Master Hu relished the peace, fearing it would soon be over. But as the week passed, he became equal parts curious and concerned what the boys might be plotting. As he walked up to their group sat around a table playing dice, they quickly picked up their things and hurried away. Master Hu began to notice the other juniors who had once been friendly albeit aloof towards him, keeping their distance away from him as though they were afraid of him.
He was telling Master Jin about it as they walked through the Cloud's Recesses to the training ground, where a group of boys dressed in GusuLan uniforms were doing more sitting-around-and-chatting than training.
'Jin xiaojie!' A boy piped up seeing Master Jin.
'Jingyi, will you ever stop calling him that?' A boy stood up, saluting them. 'Master Jin. And you must be Master Hu. Master Jin and Senior Wei told me about you.'
'Senior Wei?' Master Hu repeated, forgetting to return the etiquette of saluting the boy back. He turned to Master Jin, 'is that the man who has been training with us?'
Before Master Jin could respond, the familiar, black-robed figure appeared. Master Hu didn't have time to ask what he could possibly be doing in the Lan Sect's residence, before the GusuLan juniors all greeted him as Senior Wei. They all know him?
'Senior!' He called, 'Senior Wei! Your surname is Wei?'
Senior Wei grinned, 'My surname is indeed Wei. Couldn't keep it from you forever, huh?'
Putting an arm around the boy who had just saluted Master Hu, Senior Wei introduced, 'meet my son Sizhui.'
Senior Wei looked no older than 30. Master Hu would have believed him if he said he was 25. He imagined his son was around six, maybe seven or eight at the oldest. How could he have a son who looked older than Master Hu himself?
Remembering he never returned the salute earlier, he saluted the boy. 'Master Wei.'
The boy he thought was Master Wei looked like he was about to choke. Regaining his composure, he said 'Master Hu, my surname is Lan.'
Confused, he turned to Senior Wei. 'If your surname is Wei, and he's your son…'
'This one,' Senior Wei laughed, slapping Lan Sizhui's shoulder, 'you nai bian shi niang, you qian bian shi die. My missus bought him a few toys, a year later, he took my missus' last name.'
At being accused of being a gold-digger who considered anyone with money his father, Lan Sizhui protested, 'that's not what happened—'
'That's not what happened?' Senior Wei interrupted, 'exactly which part of that didn't happen?'
Lan Sizhui opened and closed his mouth as though he wanted to refute Senior Wei's statement, but couldn't figure out how.
Master Hu turned to Senior Wei, 'Senior Wei, you never told me your wife and son were cultivators. Your wife is of the GusuLan Sect, one of the Great Sects?'
Senior Wei laughed. Before he could reply, everyone stood up to salute the famous white-robed figure approaching the training grounds.
'Hanguang-Jun.' The GusuLan juniors and Master Jin saluted in unison.
'Han- Hanguang-Jun.' Master Hu found himself awkwardly greeting him out of time from the other juniors.
'Lan Zhan!' Senior Wei called, grinning.
For a moment, Master Hu thought he was greeting someone else. After all, he couldn't immediately recall Hanguang-Jun's birth name, given he didn't know anyone who addressed him as such. But no one else had arrived, and Hanguang-Jun had nodded towards Senior Wei in response. He didn't think he could be more shocked and confused after Senior Wei told his bizarre story about his son taking his wife's surname, but here he was, watching a man who wasn't even a cultivator call out Hanguang-Jun's birth name and…
… walking up to him and planting a kiss on his cheek.
Turning to Master Hu, Senior Wei grinned, 'meet my wife.'