Nine Tails of Twin Brothers

Old debts, settled

"It is my wish to repay the debt my brother owes you by serving you"

Mo Yuan sighed internally, he did not like this. In fact he did not like the entire western wilderness territory, if they weren't allied territory, he'd have done something drastic a long time ago but they were allied to the nine heavens and he was mindful of the politics.

"Your brother owes me nothing and even if he did, I do not accept debt transfer when it comes to people's lives" Mo Yuan tried again and watched as the entire sentence flew past the head of the little child pretending to be a grown woman in front of him. He was so grateful Ye Hua was in the residence today, he was fairly certain this child had ill intentions and was committed to getting what she wanted regardless of what he might say or do. While everyone would accept his word regardless of what happened, it was not something he wanted to deal with. 

"My brother believes he owes you his life and as he is ill, the best I can do as a sister is to repay that debt on his behalf. I believe removing that burden will help him recover faster"

The Fan family were social climbers, they never did anything if it didn't have a specific social impact that they wanted. The presence of the Fan daughter or princess; they tended to call themselves royalty; unsettled him. He was without doubt a target of one of their schemes. The fact that it was a daughter not a son suggested this scheme was targeted towards romance. If he sent her away without attempting, they would find another way to get back but if they used the so-called debt, it would be harder for them to regroup.

"Very well then you may serve me for one day. Come back tomorrow morning and by nightfall, your brother's debt will be repaid" Mo Yuan said. He was not looking forward to it and he felt no need to pretend he was.

"My brother's life is only worth a day of servitude?" she asked, voice full of skepticism and barely concealed anger

"Your brother does not owe me his life, the debt he owes me is equivalent to a day of servitude and not a shichen more" Mo Yuan replied with a straight face and nearly laughed as the Fan girl struggled to keep a pleasant expression on her face while bowing.

The Fan girl was back midday the next day, full of apologies for being late but determined to serve the full 12 hours. Mo Yuan had simple looked up at her and asked her to come back the next day as he was not willing to start the clock in the middle of the day. Such service, he had explained was useless to him. What he did not add was that Ye Hua had been called to the nine heavens and the thought of sitting outside way into the night in a bid to avoid her  was too daunting. Also, between the twins, Ye Hua was the one most familiar with food and cooking and thus if anyone could smell any sort of potion or poison, it was him. Mo Yuan had his way of testing but it was easier to let Ye Hua handle these things.

She came back the following day at nightfall and Mo Yuan had told her very plainly that he had no need for nighttime service as he was going to be sleeping. Before she had a chance to respond, Mo Yuan had decided he'd had enough of the games and called her family honor into question asking if the Fan family repaid their debts by being discourteous. 

That apparently hit home because she was here again and it was just dawn now. The twin dragons had barely finished their morning meditation, when they sensed a presence outside the house. Usually Zhe Yan's enchantment on his house allowed anyone in, it just prevented you from using magic inside it but Mo Yuan had grown up with Zhe Yan and knew how to modify the wards. Normally he wouldn't but since the Fan girl visited for the first time, he'd decided to take extra measures; he'd modified the wards to only let in certain people. Others had to be let in by either him or Ye Hua.

The girl bristled when she was told to stick to the common areas but bowed in acceptance when Ye Hua explained it was a borrowed home. Ye Hua set up his work area and dived into it directly. Mo Yuan sat across from him and went into a meditative state.

"Do you want me to reheat the tea?" She asked just a few minutes later. 

The question was clearly directed at Mo Yuan who refused to acknowledge it even though Ye Hua could tell he heard it so Ye Hua responded 'No' on his behalf.

Less than an hour later she was back with a question on whether she could clean the bedrooms. Mo Yuan saw the smirk on his brother's face when she asked but ignored it and the question leaving Ye Hua to answer that she could.

"Um... I was trying to clean the bedrooms but I noticed I can't use spiritual energy in there but I can use it outside here. How do I turn it off?" She asked

"Da ge" Ye Hua growled in frustration

Mo Yuan sighed and opened his eyes "The enchantment belongs to the home owner, I'm afraid it cannot be undone. You can only use physical effort within the walls of the house regardless of what you want to do. If it is too much effort, just stick to the common areas, those should be easy to clean without spiritual energy"

"B...But, I don't know how to do that? I've never done anything without spiritual energy, I was born immortal" She replied

"Just stick to the area outside the house then" Mo Yuan replied. She bowed and left

"This is going to be a long day" Ye Hua muttered and Mo Yuan had to agree. Still he would be free to refuse to have any member of the Fan family in his personal space

She served lunch and the twins ate. Mo Yuan, ate only what he saw Ye Hua eat. When Ye Hua pushed the rice away to the side at the start of the meal, Mo Yuan felt justified in his paranoia.

Towards the end of the day; the deflated girl had served them dinner but before they could get to it, Bai Qian had arrived.

"I'm just here to pick up some wine, ignore me" She said to the twins after greeting. 

Neither of them had ignored her, they'd both gone into the house with her drawing her into a conversation that lasted about half an hour before she'd excused herself as she had to attend an event. 

"I will come visiting soon, excuse the briefness of this visit" Bai Qian said and got ready to leave. she lifted her feet to take a step then paused and turned around just as the Fan girl was picked up by an invisible force and seemingly thrown

"What just happened?" Ye Hua asked

"Someone tried to push me down with spiritual energy but I didn't think there was anyone else apart from you two" Bai Qian replied

"There was but she isn't here anymore. Where is she?" Mo Yuan asked

"Oh! it worked!! 2500 years later, we can finally test it" Bai Qian exclaimed

"What do you mean?" Ye Hua asked

"The old Phoenix and I worked on a little spell so that if someone with ill intent tried to attack us with spiritual energy, they would be physically expelled from Qing Qiu and unable to return for a while. We could never test it though as we didn't have anyone with ill intent to test it with. I almost forgot it was there"

"So she can't enter Qing Qiu anymore?" Mo Yuan asked

"Not for 5 years. Who was she?"

Mo Yuan breathed a sigh of relief "Never mind that. Don't you have somewhere to go?" 

A/N: Apologies for this chapter, it is far from being good enough but I am distracted by a lot of things. Also this is a filler chapter, the next 2 story arcs are exciting but I realized after I started on them that I need some of the background provided in this chapter so here it is.