Jiang Xidai saw that Yan Huirou wasn’t heading back to the Shasheng Sect. After taking a breath, she transformed into a small orange cat again, leaped onto a wall, and followed her with nimble steps.
Never in a million years did I think I’d be so disgraced, turning into this ugly thing to tail her on a wall.
Jiang Xidai thought to herself.
But the spot where Yan Huirou had kissed her was still damp. Although she was pretending to wipe it with a handkerchief, she had actually pressed down on it for a long time.
…Being like this, there’s still a chance to be kissed.
The tip of her tail twitched, still not used to this transformed body.
The small cat squatted on the wall, watching with dark eyes as Yan Huirou left that Su Yuxi and returned to the teahouse.
After greeting the tea-selling woman, Yan Huirou sat quietly. She took out a pen from her Storage Ring and began to write something on the table.
The small cat’s eyes darted around. It silently leaped onto the roof of the bamboo house, squatted on a jutting bamboo stalk, and continued to observe Yan Huirou’s movements.
After getting a clear look at the characters on the paper—
A letter to Sect Master Xie of the Haoran Sect?
As expected, there’s no smoke without fire. Jiang Xidai had wondered why Xie Minting’s words were so strange.
So the two of them had hooked up long ago.
Yan Huirou was writing on another sheet of paper. It didn’t look like her first or second letter.
In the letter, she thanked Xie Minting for her concern about her health, described the effects of the medicinal herbs she had taken from the Haoran Sect, and then added some trivial things.
It seemed that Yan Huirou had wanted to pay Xie Minting back, but the Sect Master didn’t seem to want to take her money.
So she then saw Yan Huirou logically write: [Since the Sect Master doesn’t need repayment, I will definitely prepare a small gift to present in person, just as a token of my appreciation…]
If nothing unexpected happened, Xie Minting would not refuse Yan Huirou.
That woman always had a strange sense of responsibility. She believed that since the Qingxu Sect was part of the same alliance and had made such a mistake, she should subconsciously compensate Yan Huirou.
After folding the letter, Yan Huirou patted it gently in her palm.
A bird flew down from the sky, a silk ribbon of blue and gold tied to its leg, like the symbol of the Haoran Sect. It took the letter from her hand and flew away.
After all this was done, as luck would have it, the male lead arrived in a hurry, pretending it was a chance encounter and making small talk with her for a while, holding a box in his hands, seemingly a gift for Yan Huirou.
Yan Huirou also immediately put on a surprised expression. “What a coincidence, I ran into you again?”
As if she had no idea how far Lanyue Pavilion was from here.
Jiang Xidai: “…”
That little brat was quite busy, not wasting a single moment, one after another, her schedule exceptionally tight.
Sharp claws dug into the bamboo, making a soft sound.
The small cat jumped down from the bamboo, landing on the ground silently and nimbly.
After walking into an inconspicuous shadow, a puff of light smoke passed, and the red dress trailing on the ground gradually transformed back into Jiang Xidai’s original appearance.
A shadow was cast under her lashes, and in the darkness, her face was even more blurry, looking exceptionally obscure.
This scene, although it meant nothing in terms of Yan Huirou’s favorability, was particularly disgusting.
Perhaps Yan Huirou’s affection for that person was fake.
But the smiles he received from Yan Huirou were real.
Jiang Xidai quietly watched all of this, thinking that it was indeed so.
As long as Yan Huirou was willing, she could be friends with anyone.
She was very well-liked.
But Jiang Xidai herself was different. She had never known what that felt like.
She had only seen it briefly in Yan Huirou’s eyes, just tasted a hint of the sweet aftertaste, and now she had to share it with others.
Her heart stirred.
Disgust, envy, and jealousy… she couldn’t even tell if it was envy of Yan Huirou or jealousy of Li Xinghe being able to enjoy Yan Huirou’s gaze. They all twisted together into a vine, tightening around her precarious heart.
[Monitoring Host’s emotional fluctuations.]
Jiang Xidai tilted her head up, took a slow, deep breath, then lowered her lashes, suppressing the bloodthirsty killing intent in her bones.
Just because he’s the male lead, Yan Huirou has to play this boring game with him. What right does that boy have to be looked at like that… damn it, damn it, bastard.
If not for the System’s obstruction, she would have torn that face off a hundred times by now.
The woman’s eyes pierced through the dense gaps in the fence, landing on the boy’s face, cold and dark like a snake, cutting across that human skin.
Li Xinghe had been sitting there just fine, but he suddenly felt a palpitation in his heart. He stopped his endless boasting to Yan Huirou about the Immortal Alliance and followed a gaze from the depths of the dim shadows.
With that look, he vaguely saw a half-profile. And an eye that had lost all its light.
His heart tightened, and he gripped his sword. But when he tried to look closer, the shadow was gone.
The ripples subsided, as if it had all been a trick of the eye.
Every time Jiang Xidai saw her, every time she thought of her, it was as if a snowflake fell on the osmanthus tree at the entrance of Qionghua Hall.
She had left in a hurry and returned a little disheveled.
“Sect Master…?”
Jiang Xidai even rushed past Wen Xianyin, passing by in the senior disciple’s surprised gaze, completely unaware that someone had passed by.
She returned to Qionghua Hall, exhausted, and slammed the main gate shut with a flick of her sleeve.
On the way back, there was nothing pleasing to the eye.
So many people, so many people… but none of them are me.
Does the System’s update develop according to that little brat’s wishes?
Will she like so many people in the future?
At this thought, even the honor of having the “highest favorability” was gone. In the end, it was just one among many affections.
The main hall was empty, and the surroundings were too quiet, making it easier for her mind to become unsettled.
Jiang Xidai went up another floor and returned to her bedchamber. She shrank into the bed in a rather pathetic state. After a while, she reached out and pulled down the curtain.
Buried in the familiar and soft fabric, she could still vaguely smell the scent of where Yan Huirou had lain, but it was fading with the passage of time.
To want to love but not dare, to let go but be unwilling.
Just like many days in her childhood, she would watch from afar as others had close friends and family, elders who doted on them, lovers… and then let jealousy consume her.
A person’s own flaws, when seen in their own reflection, are not conspicuous. But from then on, one cannot bear to see others’ perfection.
Jealousy brewed into venomous resentment. In her youth, she had done many unjust things, living up to her name as a demoness.
Now, it was the same again.
When the nauseating feeling was at its most intense, she even seriously thought, it was just a matter of cutting down Su Yuxi with one strike, then going to the Haoran Sect to wipe out Xie Minting.
And the male lead couldn’t die, but she could completely break his arms and legs, gouge out his eyes and cut out his tongue, and plant him in a flowerpot to be placed in Bright Moon Pavilion for Yan Huirou to look at every day.
That little brat was so timid. Seeing such a scene, how could she still smile? She would probably be too busy trying not to vomit.
Jiang Xidai lay on her back on the bed, her hand covering her eyes, the corners of her lips slightly curved in something that looked more like a cry than a smile.
She knew that if she did that, the person Yan Huirou would most likely despise would be her. No one likes a cruel madman.
And that thing, the System, would also stop her.
So everything could only return to a resentful peace.
Jiang Xidai slowly closed her eyes, always wanting to grab onto something. She clutched a piece of clothing.
She pulled it over unintentionally, and a familiar, warm osmanthus scent enveloped her nose.
Jiang Xidai’s eyes opened slightly. She picked up the garment and smoothed it out tightly.
This was the nightgown Yan Huirou had worn that day. After she left, the clothes had been left in the bedchamber of Qionghua Hall, not yet taken away.
It was a pale white, very fitting for her, like it was woven from gentle moonlight.
Jiang Xidai turned over, burying her nose and mouth in the fabric that carried her scent, rubbing against the pattern.
She almost suffocated herself. The feeling of choking came from her throat, but she didn’t let go even in pain, as if it would make her heart feel a little better.
Breathing was too difficult.
After a long time, her eyes were slightly red, with a hint of tears.
Jiang Xidai finally let go of the garment, exhausted. A large gulp of air filled her lungs, making her panting sound exceptionally heavy in the canopy.
Her slightly haggard appearance from the past few days finally, like a flower after a spring breeze, became much more charming.
She slowly closed her eyes, thinking, I can’t let the favorability continue to drop like this.
In the evening, Jiang Xidai sat by the window on the second floor, her dress gathered, and she looked down at Yan Huirou’s shadow walking in from the dim daylight.
“Yan Huirou.”
When Yan Huirou approached, she tried to call out.
The girl downstairs looked up. “Sect Master. Is there something?”
The woman’s nails unknowingly dug into the window frame. When she felt the pain, Jiang Xidai was stunned for a moment and pulled her hand back.
But her face showed nothing. She just lowered her eyes and said, “There’s nothing now, but can’t I call you?”
“A name is for calling people,” Yan Huirou said. “My name, of course the Sect Master can call it as she pleases.”
“Tomorrow, I have something to give you. We’ll meet at the waterfall again.”
Yan Huirou did not speak for a moment.
Jiang Xidai felt that holding her hand in one place was too deliberate. She reached out and rested her hand on the window frame, leaning against it as softly as possible, her tone as relaxed as she could make it. “Yan Huirou?”
“That day, I was late… are you still angry about that?”
Yan Huirou looked at her quietly for a long while, then smiled. “Actually, I was late that day too. How could I be angry at you?”
[Beep! Female Lead favorability -1]
“…”
Still saying you’re not angry, still putting on an act.
“It’s just,” Yan Huirou thought for a moment and looked at her with some difficulty, “Sect Master, I might have to go on a long trip tomorrow. I don’t know how many days it will take for me to return.”
Jiang Xidai asked, “Where are you going?”
Yan Huirou replied, “The Haoran Sect.”
“That’s the Immortal Alliance’s territory.”
Jiang Xidai looked at her. “And you are a person of the Shasheng Sect.”
“Are you worried I’ll be taken?” Yan Huirou looked up. “Sect Master Xie is a good person. Plus, with the matter of the Qingxu Sect before, as long as I’m under her nose, nothing will happen.”
“Is that so?” Jiang Xidai lowered her lashes. “A good person?”
She really thinks everyone is a good person.
Yan Huirou opened her palm, and a hibiscus-red jade lay in it. “Besides, you can rest assured. If I’m in trouble, I will smash the jade in time.”
“…”
The resentment that Jiang Xidai had just buried in the dust was once again wiped clean by Yan Huirou’s words.
So she was still wearing the jade, and hadn’t thrown it away.
