“Sister…”
“Xiaoxue, rest a moment. Don’t worry — with Auntie Li and the others around, he won’t dare do anything.” Her sister gave her a reassuring smile, spoke gently, and tucked the blanket carefully around her.
The man outside was called Huang Quan. That iron security door had been installed specifically because of him.
Everyone who lived here was genuinely poor, and the rich never bothered to set foot in the place; they felt it would lower their worth and dirty their eyes. And it was precisely for that reason that the two sisters could live in peace. Otherwise, with their looks, there was no telling how many people would have set their sights on them and stopped at nothing.
But even here, her beauty had brought her trouble.
Huang Quan’s father was a businessman with a few million to his name, and his son’s confidence and vanity had swollen accordingly. One day, on a whim, he came cruising through the slum — really to show off, to let the poor here get a look at what money was, and so gratify his vanity. He came in bright clothes, driving his own sports car, looking down his nose at every person who walked past…
And here he saw her hurrying by — and in that instant he felt he’d seen a celestial descend to earth. He was so utterly transfixed that he very nearly drove into the wall in front of him. Crumbling houses and bare dirt, and a girl as beautiful as an immortal. What an enormous gulf, visually and otherwise.
So he began urgently asking after her name and her circumstances… and learned she was called Ran Chenxin, that she had a gravely ill younger sister, Ran Chenxue, and that the two of them lived in a tiny rented room and were struggling badly.
Learning all this, he was beside himself with delight, as though he could already see Ran Chenxin in his grasp… The way he saw it, a girl living in poverty this bitter, with a sister in desperate need of money for treatment, could be had simply by driving up in a sports car, extending an elegant finger from the window, and crooking it a few times…
And then the idiot actually did exactly that — and received a single indifferent glance from Ran Chenxin before she hurried back to her little room to care for her sister. So he was forced to fall back on cruder methods: attacking her at her own door.
After that, he came around every few days, from the exquisite politeness he’d feigned at first to the impatience that finally let his true nature show. And all he ever got was a growing loathing in the eyes of both sisters. But the residents here looked out for the two of them, so he didn’t dare use force — though he never stopped harassing her either. The impression Ran Chenxin had made on him was simply too overwhelming; he couldn’t let it go, and every other woman now seemed insipid by comparison, incapable of holding his interest at all.
“Huang Quan, go away this instant. Don’t disturb my sister’s rest… The further from here the better!” Ran Chenxin, exceptionally well-bred, was scarcely capable of saying anything genuinely harsh, let alone anything crude. All she could produce were angry rebukes that had no chance of any effect whatsoever.
“Chenxin, just agree to be my girlfriend and I’ll do whatever you say, all right? You wouldn’t have to live in a broken-down little shack like this. I guarantee you’d wear the finest clothes, live in a mansion, ride in a luxury car—”
“None of that interests me. Go away, right now!” A mansion? A luxury car? Anyone but a fool could guess from a girl with that appearance and that bearing that her origins were far from ordinary — because only generations of good blood and refined surroundings could produce someone so flawless she seemed heaven-born. The mansions and cars such a person had known would not bear comparison with anything Huang Quan possessed.
“…Fine. I’ll say it once more. Agree to be my girlfriend and I’ll give you a hundred thousand immediately, and send your sister to the best hospital in Jinghua for treatment. Surely a big sister wouldn’t be so selfish as to disregard her own sister’s life!”
“There’s nothing more to say. Go away! Go away!” How could Ran Chenxin not care about Chenxue’s health? She dreamed of having a large sum of money that could buy hope for her sister’s life. But she also knew her sister’s character. If she truly submitted to Huang Quan for Chenxue’s sake, then Chenxue would find a way to kill herself without a moment’s hesitation.
“Who’s making all that racket at midday and ruining a person’s nap…? Oh-ho! You again, boy? You shameless little wretch, get out of here! Come back and harass Chenxin again and I’ll beat you every time I see you. Sisters, grab something and get out here—”
Four or five middle-aged women, some stout and some thin, came charging out clutching washboards and shovels, faces murderous, and swung at Huang Quan. Huang Quan, who had experienced the ferocity of this crew before, took to his heels the instant they appeared, flinging threats over his shoulder as he ran. “Ran Chenxin, you wait… You won’t take the wine offered politely, so you’ll drink it as a forfeit. My father knows plenty of people in the underworld. Don’t force me to get serious!!”
He scrambled into his car and tore away.
Ran Chenxin finally let out a long breath, opened the door, and said gratefully, “Auntie Li, Auntie Liu… thank you. Please, come in and sit a while.”
“No need.” One of the women smiled warmly. “We won’t intrude on you girls. You take good care of Xiaoxue and don’t pay any mind to that toad hankering after swan meat. If he dares come back, I’ll drive him off again.”
“Mm… thank you.” She thanked them gratefully, then eased the door shut, that lovely faint smile returning to her face. “Xiaoxue, rest a while. I’ll make you fish soup right away.”
The first money she had ever earned in the World of Fate — earned from Ye Tianxie — had given her a better vision of the life ahead, and made the smile on her face sweeter. As she turned away, she cupped the pendant at her chest and silently thanked the World of Fate, and thanked the man called Xietian. She believed that she would go on earning money like this, and go looking for the hope of curing her sister’s illness.
…
…
By the time Ye Tianxie and Su Feifei got home it was evening.
Ye Tianxie collapsed face-first onto the sofa and lay there gasping like a dying man. Shopping was, as it turned out, man’s most fearsome natural predator. It was only walking, and yet it was more exhausting than three days and nights of fighting. Su Feifei, meanwhile, having covered exactly the same distance with far less stamina than he had, showed not a trace of fatigue — she was positively glowing, still unsated, looking very much as though she’d happily go another few hours.
Over the course of one afternoon, the things they’d bought — the things Su Feifei had bought — were so numerous they could have filled a ten-square-meter room. In the end they’d had to phone her bodyguards to handle the hauling. And it wasn’t as though she’d been buying indiscriminately; her planning and her targeting had been extremely deliberate. The fault lay entirely with how little there was in Ye Tianxie’s house that was actually usable. Among the haul were an extra-large freezer, a great pile of clothes, and, for well over half of it, groceries of every description.
There was another reason, too. Su Feifei was quietly accommodating him as much as she could. She knew he rarely went out, and never far when he did. And if he didn’t go out, then Su Feifei — who had come to depend on his protection — wouldn’t either, nor would she want to beg him to take her. So she’d solved it once and for all: buy enough in one trip.
Once the odds and ends were sorted, the Su family bodyguards, sweating from hours of work, finally departed — wretchedly, without so much as a cup of tea offered to them, while the master of the house hadn’t moved a muscle the entire time, apparently still unrecovered from total collapse.
“Tianxie, are you really that tired?” Su Feifei brought her face down close to his, grinning, and blew a small puff of warm, sweet breath across his cheek.
“Mm…” Ye Tianxie groaned feebly.
“Well then… I have some good news that might perk you up.” Her lovely face drifted a fraction closer, and she said with an air of great mystery, “Guess what — I’m nearly level 10 in Fate. A little more tonight and I’ll definitely get there. Once I’m in a city we can play together. Aren’t you pleased?”
“Nnngh…” Ye Tianxie grunted. He genuinely couldn’t see what there was to be pleased about.
“Hey! What kind of face is that… Hmph, I’m ignoring you. I’m going to make soup. Well? What soup do you want?” Su Feifei puffed up first, then pouted, watching him out of the corner of her eye.
“Seafood hibiscus soup!!” Before Ye Tianxie could answer, Guoguo popped into existence, waving frantically at Su Feifei and hollering at the top of her lungs… though she could have been ten times louder and Su Feifei still wouldn’t have heard a thing.
“Mm… seafood hibiscus soup,” Ye Tianxie mumbled.
“Hmph. All you think about is food. You’re impossibly lazy.” Su Feifei complained mildly, then laughed lightly and went off to the kitchen.
“Master, you have an obedient, adorable little loli like Guoguo and a wonderful big sister like Sister Feifei. You’re so lucky!” Guoguo’s eyes shone with envy.
Ye Tianxie: “…”
Not bothering to respond to the little pest, he raised his right hand, pressed it to the gaming device on his left wrist, and his consciousness entered the World of Fate.
The place he appeared was that super-mansion at the heart of the City of Stars — the one that had all but fallen out of the sky.
He now wore a strange headguard covering half his face, a pair of blindingly conspicuous black and white dragon gauntlets on his hands, a cloak wreathed in illusory gray light across his back, and hard armor glowing with bronze light on his body. From head to foot, he radiated an imposing, formidable air.
And for a long time to come, that one-of-a-kind headguard, along with the Holy Dragon’s Fang and the Demon Dragon’s Fang, would be the emblems of his identity — and wherever he went, no one would dare stand against his edge.
(End of Chapter 138)