Miss Fairy, Please Hear Me Out

SMACK! A crisp, ringing slap echoed through the silent cave.

Ran Qingmo instinctively tightened her grip around her sword.

Xu Yuan raised a hand to stop her. His eyes remained fixed on Tian Yan. On his handsome cheek, five vivid red fingerprints slowly surfaced, and blood seeped faintly into his mouth.

Tian Yan had put real strength into that slap.

Pressing his lips together against the metallic taste of blood, Xu Yuan wiped the corner of his mouth. When he saw the crimson on his fingertip, he gave a faint smile.

“Feel better?”

A flash of heartache crossed Tian Yan’s eyes, but the moment she heard his words, she clenched her fists and gritted her teeth. “No.”

Xu Yuan said nothing more. He simply turned the other side of his face toward her.

At the sight of it, Tian Yan’s pupils shrank. Anger made her entire slender body tremble.

Xu Yuan only looked at her calmly. Their positions were different. There was nothing to say.

Even if that sword intent had cut away his emotions, those memories had long since fused with him.

Whenever someone mentioned the Chancellor, the stern, unsmiling middle-aged man would surface in his mind without fail. Whenever someone mentioned the Eldest Young Master, he would think of that elder brother who always wore a look of disgust, yet would still spend the whole day playing with him.

And whenever someone mentioned the Second Young Master, he would remember the second brother who, every time Xu Changge was about to beat him, would grab a stick and stand in front of him, only to end up getting beaten alongside him in the end.

Xu Yuan and Xu Changtian had long since become one person.

The real world did not have so many romance-addled fools like those in Qiong Yao melodramas, where love was greater than heaven itself.

Abandoning everything for love and betraying his family was something Xu Yuan simply could not do.

And Xu Yuan believed Tian Yan could not do it either.

Looking at her silence, he spoke gently. “Not going to hit me anymore?”

SMACK! Another bright red palm print landed on Xu Yuan’s cheek.

It was on the same side as before, and it burned like hell. It appeared what he had just said had stirred up this woman’s rebellious streak.

But after taking two slaps, Xu Yuan actually felt quite at peace. He did not regret the choice he had made. But if he put himself in her shoes, he could understand how Tian Yan felt right now.

Although most of the memories from the illusion had already blurred so much that even the emotions attached to them could no longer be seen, the faint images and impressions that remained were still enough for him to roughly know what the two of them had gone through inside.

Being hunted down, then getting beaten once so she could vent? Perfectly normal.

After a long silence, seeing that she had no intention of striking again, Xu Yuan looked at her and laughed softly. The smile was full of helplessness. “I can more or less understand how you feel right now. But there’s one thing I want to ask you, Tian Yan. If you were me, or rather, if our cultivation and our positions were completely swapped, and you were standing where I am now, what would you do? Would you gamble your life on that one faint, illusory chance? Or would you make the safest decision, just like I did, leave first, then figure out what to do afterward?”

A faint mist gathered in Tian Yan’s beautiful eyes. She said nothing, her delicate body trembling slightly.

Xu Yuan looked at the girl before him and made his tone a little heavier. “Answer me, Tian Yan.”

Tian Yan’s red lips moved faintly. She turned her eyes away and shook her head. “I... I don’t know.”

Hearing that answer, Xu Yuan gently shook his head. “Tian Yan, if I had Xu Changge’s cultivation right now... hell, even if I only had Jing He’s cultivation from the illusion, I wouldn’t have run.”

He lowered his eyes and glanced at the Beguiling Sakura Dao Essence in his palm, then clenched his fist and crushed it apart.

“Although what happened in the illusion is no longer clear, your strength left a very deep impression on me. Even when you were poisoned by the Beguiling Sakura Flower, and even with me holding the Beguiling Sakura Dao Essence, I only dared to fight you while your injuries still hadn’t healed. That is reality. Killing me would be as easy as turning over your hand, while I would barely be able to resist.”

Xu Yuan spread his hands and looked toward the snow outside the cave entrance.

“Heh. I was sitting in a broken-down hut, chatting with some passerby I had just met and eating a late-night meal, when suddenly someone appeared and started following me all the way. I couldn’t beat her, couldn’t run from her, and even my whispered conversations could be heard by her. And that person only gave me two choices. One, join them. Two, die.”

Xu Yuan turned his head and stared straight into Tian Yan’s beautiful golden eyes.

“Come on. Tian Yan, tell me. If our cultivation levels were swapped right now, would you dare appear before me?”

His voice was calm, yet every word pierced straight into her heart.

Tian Yan fell silent.

A faint breeze swept through the cave.

Ran Qingmo’s eyes showed a hint of thought, but she still could not figure out what the two of them were talking about.

Meat fat dripped into the campfire. Time ticked by, second by second.

Suddenly, Tian Yan raised her hand and pointed at the quiet, obedient iceberg of a woman beside him.

Ran Qingmo blinked, then tightened her grip around her sword.

Tian Yan stared at Xu Yuan and enunciated each word. “What about her? You keep talking about positions, but aren’t your position and hers worlds apart too?”

Ran Qingmo blinked again, looked at Tian Yan, then looked at Xu Yuan. A half-understanding expression appeared on her clear, breathtakingly beautiful face.

Xu Yuan, however, abruptly fell silent.

Seeing this, Tian Yan let out a cold laugh. “What? Speak. Why have you stopped talking now?”

Xu Yuan raised a hand to cut her off, his eyes helpless. “Tian Yan, stop being unreasonable.”

Tian Yan raised one slender finger and pointed at herself. She was so furious she laughed. “You’re saying I’m being unreasonable?”

Xu Yuan glanced at her, his eyes carrying both helplessness and calm. “Do you really want me to spell it out that clearly?”

TIan Yan’s expression froze.

After a brief pause, Xu Yuan spoke, one word at a time. “You should know better than anyone how big the difference between you and Ran Qingmo is.”

Tian Yan’s breath caught. Her little canine tooth bit into the corner of her lip, and she slowly lowered her eyes. She knew exactly what Xu Yuan meant. From personality, to background, to experience, to their sense of belonging toward their sects, and every other factor in between, she and Ran Qingmo simply could not be compared.

Xu Yuan slowly stood up and patted her on the shoulder. “I can put myself in your shoes and understand how you feel. Can you try thinking from my side too?”

Tian Yan looked at the man before her. The heat gathering around her eyes could no longer be contained. She lowered her beautiful eyes, closed them, and sniffed. The anger in her heart had not faded, but she could no longer let it out. She wanted to vent by flattening this entire hill. But she also knew that even if she did, it would not help in the slightest.

Xu Yuan took a deep breath. “Ran Qingmo, you should leave first.”

Hearing this, Ran Qingmo’s dark, bright eyes flickered for a moment. She looked at Xu Yuan, then at Tian Yan, and spoke with slight hesitation. “Mhm... really?”

Xu Yuan smiled faintly. “It’s fine.”

Ran Qingmo blinked.

Xu Yuan blinked.

Tian Yan kept her eyes closed. Her sharp fingertips dug into her palm, and she almost spoke through clenched teeth. “If you’re leaving, then hurry up and leave.”

Ran Qingmo hesitated slightly, then asked again. “Then I’m really going out?”

“Mhm.” Xu Yuan nodded.

Ran Qingmo slowly rose to her feet. After a brief moment of hesitation, she finished the roasted porcupine meat on her bamboo skewer in two bites, asked Xu Yuan for a handkerchief, then carried her sword and slowly walked out of the cave.

That graceful figure in black walked out of the cave as Xu Yuan watched her retreating figure.

“Still looking?” Tian Yan opened her eyes. They were a little red. She glanced at Xu Yuan and sneered. “Is she that pretty?”

Xu Yuan turned back. After thinking about it, he nodded and smiled very frankly. “Of course Ran Qingmo is pretty.”

“Shameless.”

“Thank you for the compliment.” As soon as he finished speaking, Xu Yuan keenly sensed a wave of source qi spreading through the air.

The source, naturally, was the washboard Saintess beside him. It looked like she was about to lose control and hit someone again.

Xu Yuan looked at her calmly. “If you want to hit me to vent your anger, you can keep going. But if you intend to keep following me, then I’ll have to refuse.”

Tian Yan’s small nose twitched. She dispersed the source qi and squeezed out, “Not happening.”