Ning Rongrong took a step forward, her finger almost poking Yang Xing’s nose.
“Do you know how powerful my Sword Grandpa and Bone Grandpa are?
They are Titled Douluo!
Do you even understand what a Titled Douluo is?
They could crush you with a single finger!”
Yang Xing looked at her.
Not a single ripple of emotion crossed his face.
Then—
He shook his head.
Impervious to persuasion.
Impenetrable.
Unmovable.
Ning Rongrong felt that all the anger she had ever experienced in her life combined could not compare to what she felt at this moment.
Since childhood, whether she was acting spoiled or throwing a tantrum, there had never been anyone she couldn’t win over.
With thousands of people in the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, who wouldn’t do as she said with just a word?
But now she had encountered this… this…
She couldn’t find the words to describe this stubborn, hard-as-stone person in front of her.
If soft tactics didn’t work, then she could only—
“Waaah—”
Ning Rongrong suddenly squatted on the ground.
Her white dress spread out on the ground, her hands covering her face, her shoulders beginning to tremble.
“You’re bullying me—”
Her voice squeezed out from between her fingers, choked with sobs, filled with extreme grievance.
“I came here to enroll at Shrek Academy… I left home all alone, traveled such a long way, and don’t know anyone here…”
Her voice grew increasingly pitiful.
“The carriage was bumpy for seven or eight days on the road, I was so carsick I almost died… I arrived here unfamiliar with the place and people, and on the very first day, I was tricked by a fraud like you…”
Her shoulders shook even more violently.
“I’ll be laughed to death when I go back… I, a young lady from a noble family, inexplicably became the disciple of some roadside fortune-teller… How will I ever show my face again…”
Her crying came in fits and starts.
Tears streaming down her face.
Heartbreaking to hear.
If one ignored the fact that she had secretly glanced upward several times while squatting.
However, when Ning Rongrong stole her fourth glance upward, she noticed a problem.
It was silent.
Not the kind of silence where someone was “quietly watching her cry.”
It was truly silent.
She peeked out with one eye from between her fingers.
Yang Xing’s stall was empty.
That log-like person had, at some unknown time, silently retreated several meters away.
He was now bent over, packing up his “All-Knowing Fortune Teller” signboard, his footsteps as light as a mouse stealing oil, sneaking toward the mouth of the alley.
Ning Rongrong froze for a full 0.3 seconds.
How could there be such a shameless person in this world?!
She was here crying!
And he was sneaking away!
“You stop right there!!”
Ning Rongrong shot up from the ground, her white dress swishing as she rushed to Yang Xing’s back in two or three steps, her hands tightly clutching the back of his shirt.
“You are not allowed to leave!”
Her voice was sharp and shrill, her face still marked with the tear streaks from her fake crying, paired with those angry, urgent almond-shaped eyes—she looked exactly like a little tyrant blocking the road for a robbery.
“Cancel the contract!”
Yang Xing, his clothes grabbed, paused his steps.
He turned his head, looked at Ning Rongrong’s tear-streaked, furious face, and sighed.
That sigh came from his nostrils, carrying a hint of genuine helplessness.
“Miss Ning.”
He turned around fully, softening his tone a little.
“Just pretend that contract doesn’t exist.
I won’t restrict your freedom.
You can enroll in school, go shopping, do whatever you want.
Just act as if I don’t exist, isn’t that enough?”
Ning Rongrong’s grip on his clothes didn’t loosen.
“No.”
“That contract was handwritten by me, it has no binding effect at all.
It’s just a piece of paper, really, it doesn’t matter—”
“No.”
“As long as you don’t want to acknowledge me as your master, I won’t tell anyone.
I won’t appear before you either.
I’ll vanish without a trace, truly, it won’t affect you—”
“No.”
Ning Rongrong’s willow-like eyebrows were raised, her gaze fixed on Yang Xing’s face, refusing to yield even a single word.
Looking at her stubborn, unyielding expression, Yang Xing suddenly felt this scene was somewhat familiar.
It was exactly like how he had shaken his head and refused her just moments ago.
Retribution had come too quickly.
“Are you worried that I’ll use this contract to take advantage of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect?”
Ning Rongrong nodded.
“I promise I won’t.
I absolutely won’t go.”
Ning Rongrong nodded again.
But her hand, still clutching his clothes, didn’t loosen in the slightest.
“It must be torn up.”
Yang Xing looked at this stubborn little face, still marked with tear stains, brows furrowed, lips pressed tightly together, like a little mule that had set its mind on a direction and refused to turn back.
His gaze shifted from Ning Rongrong’s face, sweeping around their surroundings.
At some point, a thick crowd had gathered around them.
Men and women, young and old, were pointing and whispering.
There were vendors drawn by the commotion, cart drivers who had put down their goods and craned their necks, and several aunties enthusiastically cracking melon seeds.
“Look, look, that little girl is crying—”
“Did that guy bully her?”
“Not really, it seems to be something about a master-disciple contract…”
“That poor little girl…”
Yang Xing’s mouth twitched.
He lowered his head, looking at Ning Rongrong, who was still clutching his clothes, her expression so stubborn it seemed she might grind her teeth to dust, and lowered his voice.
“Miss Ning.”
He gestured with his eyes toward their surroundings.
“Look around.”
Ning Rongrong’s gaze finally shifted from Yang Xing’s face, sweeping a glance around.
Then her face visibly flushed from pale to red.
Those onlookers, those curious stares, those whispers…
They were all directed at her.
She had just been squatting on the ground crying in public, publicly grabbing a man’s clothes to stop him from leaving, shouting something about “terminating the contract” and “you bullied me.”
How must this scene look to outsiders…
Ning Rongrong’s ears burned.
“Whether you want to refuse being my disciple or want me to tell you the method of Seven Treasures to Nine Treasures,” Yang Xing’s voice was very low, audible only to the two of them, “let’s go somewhere less crowded to talk, okay?”
He paused for a beat.
“Or should we continue making fools of ourselves here?”
Ning Rongrong bit her lip hard.
Her gaze swept back and forth between Yang Xing and the surrounding crowd several times.
Those stares were like fine needles, pricking what little remained of her dignity.
She struggled for three seconds, five seconds.
Finally, she released her grip on Yang Xing’s clothes.
“…Let’s go.”
The word squeezed out from between her teeth, her bright eyes still holding a trace of the tears from her earlier fake crying, paired with her gritted-teeth expression, she threw a final low remark at Yang Xing—
“You’d better not be planning anything improper toward me.”
She stared into Yang Xing’s eyes.
“Otherwise, you’ll regret it.”
Yang Xing looked at the small face before him—both fierce and delicate, tear-stained yet already radiating a threatening aura—and the string that had been tightly wound in his heart finally loosened a little.
He smiled slightly and stepped forward.
“Don’t worry.”
“I’m afraid of death, follow me.”
Ning Rongrong snorted, turned her head, and with a swish of her white skirt, trailed behind Yang Xing like a little tail.
Yet she strictly maintained a distance of five or six meters, looking exactly like a rebellious teenage girl throwing a tantrum with her family.