Lu Yan's originally cheerful mood had completely dissolved, leaving behind nothing but a chest full of frustration.
Honestly, whether from a financial perspective or an interpersonal one, what Jiang Ci had done could be considered flawless.
Three thousand spirit stones, plus the herbs, pills, room, and board, would be enough for him to live on his own in Everspring City for several years.
She had handed him a signed contract backed by her Dao Heart, with no haggling and no delay.
From any rational standpoint, he had come out ahead in this deal. He should have felt relieved and lightened of a burden. But he didn't.
What did this even mean? He asked himself this question over and over, but he couldn't find an answer.
He tried his best to control his facial expression, but clearly, that was asking too much. He couldn't stop the anxiety welling up from his heart and showing on his face.
Yet, on second thought, it wasn't exactly anxiety either. It was an indescribable, enigmatic feeling—an unfamiliar, nameless emotion stuck in his throat, refusing to go up or down.
He pulled open his door, threw himself onto his quilted bed, and buried his face in the pillow.
The scent of the fabric carried a trace of lingering warmth from the sun, along with a fragrance he had grown familiar with—cedarwood mixed with jasmine, a scent unique to a certain someone.
“Tsk.” He sat up from the bed and rubbed his face hard. Just moments ago, he had been thinking that he was no longer a kid and couldn't act on impulse like he used to.
But now, he realized he couldn't even figure out what was actually bothering him.
Was he annoyed because Jiang Ci was being polite? Who on earth gets annoyed by someone being polite to them? But was that even politeness?
He replayed the scene in his mind. The way Jiang Ci had looked at him—cold, distant, as if separated by a transparent barrier, as if there had never been any bond between them.
He was reminded of the bank tellers from his past life. Yes, that was exactly it. That cold, businesslike sense of detachment.
As if they had never shared any... “bond”? That was the only word his mind could come up with right now.
In that moment, Lu Yan felt as if a tragic, thick wall had truly risen between them.
But that wasn't the only thing bothering him. There was also the shame of having eagerly offered his kindness, only to be flatly rejected.
When he brought the chestnuts back, he hadn't expected anything in return. Yet Jiang Ci's reaction made him realize that he had still harbored too many expectations.
He had expected her to accept his goodwill, to peel a chestnut with a smile, and to say “it's sweet” or “not bad”—not to pull a folded contract out of her sleeve.
It wasn't like he wanted to fawn over her. What was there to fawn over anyway? Nothing but a pretty face, a nice figure, a good personality...
Alright, there actually seemed to be quite a lot of things worth fawning over, and all of them seemed to point toward a romantic dynamic.
To say he didn't have any feelings for Jiang Ci would be a lie. A single man pushing thirty was practically on the verge of becoming a grand archmage.
When a top-tier, emotionless beauty suddenly dropped out of the sky, her face blank but her eyes filled with pure innocence, who wouldn't want to play the part of King You of Zhou, ready to ruin a kingdom for her smile?
But he wasn't someone whose lower house ruled his upper house. Otherwise, he would have acted like a beast long ago and ended his dry spell of two lifetimes.
Yet he hadn't done that. Compared to mere hormone-driven desire, the components of his feelings seemed far more complex.
He wouldn't go out of his way to search a strange street for a roasted chestnut stall. But when he happened to pass by one, the thoughts that popped into his head were, “Would she like this?” and “Would she be happy eating them?”
Even before he bought them, the image of Jiang Ci eating chestnuts had already played out in his mind. By the time he snapped out of it, a heavy, warm bag was already in his hand.
When he was buying medicine at the apothecary, he had only intended to refine a Mind-Clearing Pill. But scenes of Jiang Ci swinging her sword in the backyard kept replaying in his head.
She swung her sword again and again, only to fall to the ground time after time. These images looped in Lu Yan's mind like a slideshow.
He could only convince himself that it wasn't expensive anyway and he might as well grab them. That was how, alongside the chestnuts, several more packages of medicine ended up in his hands.
All these signs pointed in a single direction, one that rendered all of Lu Yan's internal deflections and excuses completely useless.
His inner self stood up, grabbed its master by the collar, shook him violently, slapped him hard twice across the face, and then pressed its forehead against his, snarling, “Look at me, you bastard.”
His heart returned to age eighteen, back to the youth he thought he had long outgrown. He had to face a stark reality.
He was in love with a girl.
Jiang Ci lay on her bed, staring blankly into space while clutching the medicine bottle. The dark red pills shifted gently inside the porcelain vial, making a soft, rattling sound.
She stared at the ceiling, recalling Lu Yan's face before he left. His expression had turned incredibly sour by the end, but she had no idea what she had said to make him react that way.
She replayed their conversation in her mind, feeling like she hadn't said anything wrong. Yet with every word she spoke, his face had darkened further.
She rolled over, her white hair spreading across the pillow. Her fingers continued to idle with the medicine bottle, her fingernails lightly tapping against its side to make a faint clicking noise.
She thought, “He seemed so upset. Why? I clearly said I would pay him back. I clearly calculated everything so precisely. Why is he unhappy? He even looked a bit angry.”
Having lived for over twenty years, she had naturally learned to read people's expressions during her time in her sect. She had easily noticed the shift in Lu Yan's countenance.
Even though she felt she had done the right thing, she didn't want to see him angry. More than that, she didn't want him to drift further and further away from her.
In her previous twenty-odd years of life, she had never shared such a connection with anyone else.
After all, she was a loner. In her sect, she had always kept others at a distance, and aside from her master, she had no close acquaintances.
She didn't know what to call this bond, so she could only categorize it as “friendship.” Lu Yan was her only “friend.”
She didn't want to lose this connection. It was her sole lifesaver when she was at her most wretched. It was her saving grace, a flickering candle in her darkness.
But it was precisely because she cherished this relationship that she wanted to pay back everything she owed.
Only then could she hold her head high in front of Lu Yan and look him straight in the eye.
The education she had received since childhood had always guided her toward self-reliance.
But independence should mean having one's own thoughts and the ability to survive on one's own.
It did not mean enjoying someone else's resources and kindness, only to brandish independence as a shield against criticism—or even turn to bite the hand that fed her—when acting in bad faith.
She poured out a pill. It was dark red and carried a faint metallic scent, vibrating with abundant vital energy.
Swallowing it would allow her to break through that thin barrier and reach Qi Condensation. She could set foot on that path once more and no longer be a useless person.
She stared at it for a moment, then put the pill back and returned the bottle to her bedside.
If she took it, she would truly become nothing more than a kept woman. In that case, what would she be to Lu Yan?
What would she even be?
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