Clan Building System: I'm not the Protagonist?! - Chapter 310

Chapter 310: 310- [Side Dish]
“Dear, look what I caught today!” Xiao Pei burst into the room, waving his arms like a child presenting a treasure.

“Shhh! Shhh!” Du Juan immediately raised a hand, her voice barely above a whisper as she formed a silencing hand seal.

Xiao Pei stiffened, lowering his voice at once.

“R-Right… yes, yes, quiet,” he whispered back, hands behind his back like a scolded student.

Du Juan exhaled softly.

With gentle hands, she placed the egg resting in her embrace onto a silk-cushioned basket, as if the slightest sound might startle the life within. Only then did she walk toward him, her tone soft and refined.

“Alright… what is it that you caught?” she asked.

Xiao Pei’s grin returned instantly.

He raised his spatial ring, and then pulled out a ginseng radiating a faint mist of pinkish spiritual essence.

Du Juan’s eyes widened. She leaned closer, her voice a breath.

“It’s… pink?”

Xiao Pei nodded excitedly, restraining his volume with visible effort.

“Yes! With this, you can nurture the egg even faster. This is a ten-thousand-year Red Ginseng! It will definitely accelerate the little one’s growth by days!”

But Du Juan’s expression sharpened.

“No. Absolutely not.” She stepped back.

“You found it so you should use it to improve your cultivation. Your foundation is still unstable.”

“I brought it for you,” he insisted.

“No.” Du Juan crossed her arms, not harshly, but with that gentle firmness she reserved for him alone.

“Xiao Pei, this could help you reach Nascent Soul. I have other resources to nurture the egg, but this” she gestured at the ginseng, “is extremely rare. You can’t just give it away.”

Xiao Pei blinked at her, genuinely confused, as if she had spoken nonsense.

“Give it away? What are you talking about?” He puffed his chest slightly, “What’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine! So here, take it.”

He tried to place it in her hands.

Du Juan stepped back and kept her palms firmly behind her. “No.”

He followed and slipped it toward her again.

She pressed it right back against his chest.

“I said no.”

He tried to sneak it into her hands a third time.

She narrowed her eyes, caught his wrist mid-move, and pushed it back again.

Finally, Xiao Pei stopped. His shoulders slumped, his head lowered.

“I… I caught it for you,” he said, voice trembling with just the right touch of sorrow.

“But… you don’t want it?”

Du Juan’s lips twitched. She knew he was acting. She knew this was one of his emotional ambushes. And yet… a small part of her whispered, what if he’s truly hurt this time?

Xiao Pei peeked up just enough to see that tiny softening in her eyes and struck while the iron was hot.

“We’re family… aren’t we?” His voice was fragile, almost breaking.

“You, me… and your sister,” Xiao Pei murmured, voice soft and fragile.

He hesitated, then added, barely above a whisper, “Or… maybe you don’t really see me as family at all. Maybe I’m just… an outsider—”

The word outsider hit Du Juan like a blade.

Her breath caught.

For a heartbeat, something in her eyes flickered, hurt, sharp and unguarded, as if he had unknowingly stepped on a wound she kept carefully hidden.

Her fingers curled slightly, nails digging into her own palm as though to steady herself.

Before he could finish the sentence, she snatched the ginseng out of his hand, not out of defeat, but as if pulling the word “outsider” out of his mouth.

“Enough!” she hissed, emotion trembling beneath the surface.

“Fine—fine, I’ll take it!”

Her voice cracked, and she stared up at him with eyes glistening, not with anger, but with a pain she didn’t know how to show properly.

“You are family,” Du Juan said, the words escaping like a vow.

“Don’t you ever…” Her voice wavered, and she swallowed hard, “…ever say something like that again. If you call yourself an outsider one more time, I swear I’ll—” her voice broke, “—I’ll kill you.”

The last part wasn’t a threat. It was a plea.

She bit her lip and quickly turned her face away, as if afraid he would see how much that thought hurt her.

A faint flush crept over her cheeks, not from embarrassment but from raw emotion she rarely let anyone see.

Xiao Pei didn’t hesitate. He stepped forward and wrapped her gently in his arms.

“Dear,” he whispered against her hair, “if you cry now, you’ll ruin your makeup.”

Du Juan let out a watery laugh and punched him square in the abdomen.

He swallowed a yelp.

She hadn’t used qi, but she was a Nascent Soul cultivator while he was merely at Golden Core. His internal organs definitely felt that.

Du Juan looked up at him through her damp lashes, her chest rising and falling with the emotions she had been holding back.

Xiao Pei was still catching his breath from her punch, ready to say something comforting but before he could, Du Juan reached up, cupped his cheeks with both hands, and pulled him down into a kiss.

There was no hesitation.

It wasn’t soft at first, it was the kind of kiss that came from a heart overflowing with affection she had been trying so hard to restrain.

Warmth, relief, gratitude, and something deeper all pressed into him at once.

Xiao Pei froze for a heartbeat and then melted into her, hands instinctively wrapping around her waist.

For a fleeting moment, the world disappeared. It was just the two of them.

Just Du Juan, who would bear any burden alone if it meant protecting her family, and Xiao Pei, foolish and sincere enough to give her a priceless treasure without a second thought.

When she finally pulled back, her forehead rested against his, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Thank you, Xiao… truly.” Her fingers brushed his cheek tenderly.

“You are a lifesaver.”

Xiao Pei blinked, still stunned by the kiss she had stolen from him.

The warmth of her lips lingered, and the gratitude in her voice echoed in his chest.

For a moment, he could only stare at her, dazed, lovestruck, and utterly ruined.

Then, very slowly, a grin spread across his face.

He leaned in again, aiming for her lips with the confidence of a man who had just been handed heaven on a silver platter.

But Du Juan slipped a hand to his chest and tilted her head away, smiling as she dodged him by a hair’s breadth.

“Mm-mm,” she hummed, eyes curving in amusement. “Once is not enough to satisfy you?”

Before he could try a second time, she caught his collar, pulled him in, and this time she kissed him again, slow, lingering and with deliberate affection.

Her lips moved against his with a tenderness that unraveled the rest of his composure.

When she finally drew back, their breaths brushed together, her hand still curled in his collar.

This kiss was gentler, more intimate than the first.