My CEO Harem Cultivation System

"What?!" Taiga stared at Li Yang unsure if she heard correctly. 

"Luo Ju Di, are you alright?" Li Yang asked. He didn't know how else to approach the woman. He may have been able to be more inquisitive if he was the one who saved her and carried her in his arms, but now that it was all over, he kept a polite distance.

"I'm okay… perhaps a tad shaken up." Luo Ju Di answered and looked at her own hands. They weren't exactly shaking, but it may have been because she was still frozen up in shock. "All in all, I'm fine. Chunhua—she's safe isn't she?" 

"Yes, she is." Li Yang assured the woman with a firm nod. 

Luo Ju Di looked up to him and briefly smiled.. "Thank you."

"You don't need to thank me—it's my responsibility." Li Yang said. "That's the least that I could do for Chunhua." 

It didn't seem like she was aware of how long Li Yang was actually gone.

"Still…" Luo Ju Di sighed but nodded. "I'll just take your word for it then."

Taiga stared back at Li Yang and Luo Ju Di, both were respectfully distant and aloof with one another. Somehow, the way that they treated each other in Taiga's eyes was something of a cool restraint and it was like watching two cold people talk to each other.

Li Yang wasn't like that to Taiga—maybe he was, but he softened up to her.

Still, did Taiga really say all those words in front of a woman who actually mothered a child of Li Yang's? The Tigress Spirit was caught in surprise.

Despite meeting Chunhua at Li Yang's home, Taiga had never met Luo Ju Di in the flesh.

Taiga was expecting some sort of negative reaction—with Chunhua's mother dragging her by the hair and calling Taiga a harlot and whore for being overly affectionate with the CEO—regardless if Taiga had saved her life.

But none of that happened.

Luo Ju Di stood just a couple inches away from them and had her arms crossed together. She didn't look uncomfortable per se, but her gaze was clearly focused around the forest around them instead of directly at Li Yang and the woman who saved her life.

A part of Luo Ju Di was still wondering if this was some sort of dream—maybe she was just comatose? 

Still, it was quite weird of her to fantasize about Li Yang being an extremely doting man towards a different woman. 

Sure, Luo Ju Di could still remember the moments when he smiled and actually ran throughout the entire city to bring Chunhua to her and the romantic atmosphere back then…

But she thought it was a fluke.

A great number of CEOs were said to have machiavellian tendencies and that whatever tender side she saw was an illusion, his genial nature a facade.

  Even though she remembered Li Yang as nothing but a competent, if not aloof part of the student body during his university years—she was sure that he had changed.

Luo Ju Di built walls around her… but not it was crumbling and giving her a different perspective to the man she hesitated over. 

"Ah, by the way, Mrs. Luo Ju Di—I'm not sure if we've met properly before, but I'm Taiga." Taiga decided to break the ice between all of them and beamed brightly.

Luo Ju Di stared at the woman who saved her and bowed lightly. 

"Yes, we've now met. Thank you for saving my life, I am unsure of what those creatures were but I am now aware that I could have been gone without your intervention. I'm not married though, so please drop the Missus title."

"O-oh, okay!" Taiga said.

Luo Ju Di offered her a nod, before glancing at Li Yang. "I do not know where we are, but I wish to return back to my daughter. Since you… since you came here to help me, I'd like to impose on you once again, Yang."

She seemed to have dropped the last name basis. 

Li Yang was actually more surprised at her question and with the way she handled this situation—Ying Yue He nearly hyperventilated when he told her that she was a cultivator.

For a woman who had no blood of a fighter and didn't believe her daughter's vision, she was taking it well. Li Yang immediately pulled up his System's screen and entered the shop section.

  "I first entered this plane through the help of the Grim Reaper, but now that she's gone, I will have to find a way out of here. Or perhaps there is a natural way to leave this place without the need of anything else?"

[ Welcome Host To The Immaterial Realm! ]

[ You And One Of Your Companion Has Their Physical Forms ]

It is essential to return to the physical domain to avoid continuous damage to your cultivation body and realms. Your spiritual cultivation is severely lacking and your spiritual qi is being drained within each moment you reside in this place.

Li Yang didn't even bother batting an eye at the System's 'innocuous' ways of not mentioning anything before. Even with the Patch Update, it seemed to have neglected this—albeit he should have been aware firsthand.

[ Would You Like To Use World Warper's Power By 15% To Return To Mortal Plane? ]

Included wherein are you and your two companions.

"Is there anything else that may incur damage to me or them?" Li Yang asked.

Both Taiga and Luo Ju Di stared at the man who was talking loudly to himself. His voice had taken a somewhat tired and lacklustre tone, before he glanced back at them and then grabbed both of their hands.

"Please do not let go—especially you, Ju Di. Please hold on to me, even if you find it repulsive." Li Yang stared up at her spirit with a careful look. It was even more dangerous for a soul to return back to earth when she was untethered to her body.

The connection cut away by the Sluaghs who took her away.

If she disintegrated and was vaporized throughout the warping despite all of his counteractions—then he wouldn't know what to do.

Luo Ju Di stared at him and blinked. "I don't find you anything like that." 

Li Yang looked back at her and nodded slowly. "Good." 

Taiga squeezed his arm and pressed herself closer to him. "Let's go now, Bossman. I don't like it here—it's a little bit out of Taiga's league."

"And yet you've managed to escape those creatures," Li Yang said. Without another moment of hesitation, he confirmed the System's prompt to activate the portal. The entire spiritual forest was basked in a spray of light that cast the entirety of it into light.

Then they were gone.

.

.

.

After a couple of moments, Thana shot back into the forest with an entire flock of spirits right behind her back and them floating behind her. She stared at the subtle spiritual distortion within that point in this plane and found herself with a rather flat expression on her face.

"Geez, he couldn't even wait for me to say goodbye?" she said.

"Well, did you tell him to wait for you?" One of the spirits that she captured and was currently hovering right over her shoulder asked. The spirit seemed to be still in a chatting mood despite nearly facing their ultimate death.

Thana didn't need to warrant the spirit a response, and yet she still did.

"Not exactly, but—"

"Then I guess he assumed that you weren't coming back at all when you started hunting us down, Miss Greaper." The spirit shrugged.

"It's Grim Reaper."

"Eh, Greaper is easier."

One of Thana's eyes flickered and she actually smiled. "You know what—I'm throwing you into the lowest pits of tartarus. Forget the station to find your proper afterlife, you're going in the thirteenth circle, alright?"

"Woah there, Miss!"

The Grim Reaper sighed and pursed her lips. Thana was overreacting a tad bit about her situation—it was technically far easier for her to simply visit the man if she wanted to. Her people were tasked to guard and watch after mortal souls… well, collect them. 

But that was almost the same thing, right?

—-—-

Author's Note: Cheers for Taiga. The first proper, proper meeting since Li Yang's return? You betcha! I could have skimmed and skipped over the character development and made everyone extremely happy, but uh, we'll go through a natural process? Thanks for reading!

Phew, gotta rename old chapters, realized there was some repetition lol.