He Zhuoming was deeply moved. With tear-filled eyes, she took the roasted wild bird, looked at Lin Qingyun, and said, “Qingyun… you’re really such a good person…”
Lin Qingyun smiled and reminded her, “The roasted bird isn’t hot anymore. You can eat it directly.”
He Zhuoming touched it and was greatly amazed, “Really! Why is that?”
Lin Qingyun asked, “Why? I have no idea—”
As he spoke, he smiled, tilting his face toward He Zhuoming and watching her happily tear off a wing to eat, the grease making her lips shine.
Naturally, roasted meat wouldn’t reach a temperature suitable for eating right after being grilled, but Lin Qingyun could make it reach a temperature suitable for eating.
He observed He Zhuoming’s reactions: whether she was getting burned and biting her fingers or tearing apart the roasted meat, it was all quite interesting.
He Zhuoming: “Why aren’t you roasting anymore?”
Lin Qingyun countered, “Are you still going to eat?”
He Zhuoming: “Aren’t you going to eat?”
Lin Qingyun replied, “I’ve practiced *bigu* [abstention from grain]; I won’t get hungry.”
Hearing this, He Zhuoming slowed down her pace of breaking the bones, her heart-on-her-sleeve face revealing an expression that was clearly deep in thought.
When she temporarily stopped talking, Lin Qingyun wasn’t in a hurry either. He poked the bonfire with a wooden stick, stoking the flames higher.
The surrounding new graves were extremely quiet, intimidated by his presence; not even a trace of chilling yin energy dared to leak out.
After breaking bones for a while, He Zhuoming made up her mind and asked, “Qingyun, does your sect still accept new disciples?”
Lin Qingyun: “You know which sect I’m from?”
He Zhuoming: “I saw your sect waist token.”
Lin Qingyun pondered for a moment, then dawned on him—he untied that wooden plaque from his waist and cradled it in his palm. The fire’s light and shadows flickered across the surface of the plaque, making the begonia flower patterns on it look all the more mesmerizing.
With a flip of his palm, Lin Qingyun turned the plaque toward He Zhuoming, “Xiao He, but there’s no sect name written on it, oh—”
He Zhuoming: “…”
A miscalculation.
Even a horse stumbles, and a person makes mistakes; the male protagonist is a good person, so it’s not a big deal.
Feeling guilty, He Zhuoming avoided meeting his gaze and said, “Actually, I recognized you from your name…”
Before she could finish her sentence, Lin Qingyun reached out and pressed down on the top of her head, turning her face toward his.
For a moment, eye contact was completely unavoidable. He Zhuoming met his smiling face. She couldn’t help lowering her gaze, not daring to look straight into his eyes, and instead looked at Lin Qingyun’s neck—the shadow of his jaw lay obliquely across his neck, the shape of his veins was faint, and his Adam’s apple was quite obvious.
Lin Qingyun’s voice remained his usual soft and brisk tone, reminding He Zhuoming, “I told you, when you talk to me, you have to look at me!”
He Zhuoming pried away the hand he had pressed on her head: “I know, I know—next time you can just remind me with words; don’t always go turning my head around. It’s so weird, ugh!”
Lin Qingyun agreed readily: “All right then.”
He liked adding modal particles when he spoke, and his tone was soft. Chatting for a few sentences made it sound like he was acting spoiled, but that tone of speech didn’t feel out of place with his appearance at all.
Having chatted with him for the past two days and grown accustomed to his modal particles, He Zhuoming didn’t think anything of it—even because the tone of Lin Qingyun’s speech was so much like acting spoiled, she often felt that the other person was an easygoing person, failing to realize that Lin Qingyun’s habit of directly turning people’s heads to force eye contact was essentially a reckless discourtesy born of never having been disobeyed by anyone.
“However, am I really that famous? Xiao He recognized me just by seeing the plaque engraved with my name, oh?”
He Zhuoming’s heartbeat sped up upon being asked this. She tried hard to recall whether the male protagonist’s fame in the original novel was actually that big—she couldn’t be certain; it seemed he gained some small renown after clearing a few dungeons, but which time period did the current male protagonist belong to?
Out of guilt, her gaze drifted downward again, settling solely on Lin Qingyun’s lapel as she whispered, “J-just, I heard passersby discussing it… saying you’re the proud disciple of a righteous sect—or something like that.”
She remembered that the male protagonist in the original novel had indeed studied under a righteous deity, she just couldn’t remember which one.
The firelight made He Zhuoming’s face feel hot. She was truly terrible at lying, and as her final syllable faded weakly between her lips and teeth, she unconsciously turned her face away again.
Lin Qingyun saw the earlobes amidst her messy dark hair that were so red they looked ready to bleed, and her lips trembling slightly from anxiety.
All of a sudden, he lost interest in continuing to interrogate her.
Bullying Xiao He wasn’t that interesting; if he asked a few more questions, she might start crying again.
Lin Qingyun stood up and said, “It’s getting late. Let’s go back and rest—if you want to cultivate, you don’t need to join a sect; I can teach you directly starting tomorrow.”
He Zhuoming was both startled and overjoyed: “Can you?”
Lin Qingyun lowered his eyes to look at her flushed face and smiled softly, “Of course you can. That’s just a minor matter.”
A minor matter was all it took to make Xiao He happy—
Lin Qingyun extinguished the bonfire, and the two of them walked one after the other through the paddy fields.
On a clear night, the moonlight was as bright as mirror lip gloss, smeared across the ridges of the fields. The air carried a heat filled with warm water, and the chirping of cicadas and insects sent ripples spreading through that layer of warm water.
Because He Zhuoming was not used to walking on dirt roads—especially now at night—she walked very slowly and somewhat stumblingly. Fortunately, Lin Qingyun wasn’t walking fast either, and every time He Zhuoming raised her head, she could always see him walking about three paces ahead of her.
A few fireflies flew out from the paddy fields, darting through the three-pace gap between He Zhuoming and Lin Qingyun.
The earring dangling from his left ear swayed and flashed, constantly luring He Zhuoming’s line of sight—like a cat captivated by a laser pointer.
As they were walking along properly, a piercing, beastly howl suddenly erupted from the dark mountain forest in the distance.
He Zhuoming was so frightened she pressed herself against Lin Qingyun’s back, grabbing his arm: “What was that sound?!”
Lin Qingyun reached out to guard her in front of him, turned to look toward the mountain forest, and said, “A beast, probably.”
He Zhuoming’s eyes widened, “A beast? What kind of beast?”
Lin Qingyun: “Snakes or earthworms or something like that.”
He spoke very nonsensically, which conversely made He Zhuoming much less scared.
She hit Lin Qingyun’s forearm: “Nonsense, snakes and earthworms don’t make sounds at all—”
Unprovoked, Lin Qingyun touched the back of He Zhuoming’s neck with his finger, deliberately making a snake-like *hissing* sound. Sure enough, He Zhuoming immediately jumped in fright, almost leaping into the adjacent paddy field.
Lin Qingyun burst out laughing. Amidst his laughter, he grabbed He Zhuoming’s arm and pulled her in front of him: “Don’t be scared, don’t be scared—I was just teasing you. Snakes do hiss, after all.”
He Zhuoming was so scared she was teary-eyed, and she angrily slapped the back of Lin Qingyun’s hand.
Even after being hit, Lin Qingyun didn’t let go of her arm. He smiled amiably and shook her arm: “Don’t be mad. I just wanted to help you relax and not be so tense.”
He Zhuoming wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, keeping a gloomy face and refusing to pay attention to him.
He still held He Zhuoming’s arm, half-bending down to bring his face close, with symmetrical dimples floating at the corners of his smiling lips.
“How about this, um—I’ll help you fulfill a wish, how’s that?”
He Zhuoming looked at his face for a moment, pouted, deliberately turned her head away again, and said, “I’m not mad anymore.”
Hearing this, Lin Qingyun immediately let go of her arm and let out an obvious sigh of relief: “Whew—that’s good then.”
He Zhuoming: “But the wish still counts, right?”
Lin Qingyun nodded: “It counts, it counts. Go ahead and make your wish.”
He Zhuoming thought for a moment and said, “I haven’t thought of it yet. I’ll tell you when I do.”
Lin Qingyun eagerly offered a suggestion: “Don’t you want to go home to find your mom and dad? You can wish for me to send you home.”
He Zhuoming waved her hand: “That’s too hard; you can’t do it!”
Lin Qingyun was unsatisfied: “You haven’t even tried, how do you know I can’t do it? I’m actually pretty awesome, you know!”
He Zhuoming: “No need to try at all, I just know.”
After all, this was an upgrade-style web novel. The male protagonist wouldn’t become the strongest until he defeated the ultimate vicious villain, Tang Shuyu, at the very end of the story.
Since the current male protagonist wasn’t even the strongest yet, how could he possibly have a way to send her back home?
The two of them talked as they walked, gradually leaving the mountain peak that had just emitted the beastly howl behind them. He Zhuoming was busy dealing with Lin Qingyun and kept forgetting to look back—if she had looked back at that moment, she would have seen a cyan-white dragon swinging its tail across the night sky above the mountain peak.
Returning to the farmhouse, He Zhuoming smelled the scent of mixed mud and blood on her body and resolved to take another bath.
The firewood room was still piled with the dirty clothes she had changed out of yesterday—while drawing water, He Zhuoming asked Lin Qingyun for advice on whether there was any spell that could make dirty clothes instantly clean.
Lin Qingyun answered as a matter of course: “You just throw clothes away after wearing them; why would you need to make them clean?”