“Don't cry. I won't make you take responsibility anymore, okay?”
Lu Yan's voice was very soft, but in this rather cramped room, it didn't sound too quiet.
Her silver-white hair slipped through his fingers, soft and smooth, carrying a touch of the morning's cool air as he brushed near her roots.
His fingers slid down her hair without any resistance. He could feel her trembling slightly. It wasn't a violent shake, and it stopped the moment his hand rested fully on her head.
Her body temperature wasn't very warm, leaning a bit on the cool side, which only highlighted the warmth radiating from his palm.
Jiang Ci's apologies seemed to catch in her throat, hanging there suspended. She blinked, her gaze refocusing as the thin mist in her eyes was slowly swept away like fog in the wind.
The warmth on her head felt like an anchor holding her to reality, firmly pulling her back and preventing her from sinking further into the panic welling up inside.
Her newly refocused gaze traveled up Lu Yan's arm, scanning upward inch by inch, past his shoulder, and finally resting on the hand gently patting her head.
Lu Yan felt a bit unnerved by her gaze and instinctively withdrew his hand. His hand, still carrying the warmth of her hair, hovered in the air for a moment as if unsure where to go before he finally let it drop to his side.
Although the atmosphere remained incredibly awkward, at least she had stopped crying. Lu Yan thought to himself as he remained squatted there, his knees starting to ache. The two of them just squatted on the floor, staring blankly at each other in silence.
In the end, it was Jiang Ci who spoke first, breaking the delicate silence. Her voice, having just cried, still carried a faint, nasal quality.
“Why?”
“What?”
“...”
Lu Yan asked back instinctively.
Heaven as his witness, he truly hadn't heard her. He had absolutely no intention of teasing her on purpose.
He was already hard of hearing to begin with, and combined with his mind wandering just now, he really hadn't caught it.
Jiang Ci fell silent for a moment, studying the expression on his face. It wasn't the playful mockery of someone pretending not to hear; there was only a trace of dazed distraction.
She paused and spoke again, her mood no longer as terrible as before.
“I asked, why?”
Lu Yan scratched his head. This was a tough one to explain. He hesitated, turning the words over in his mind a few times before choosing something that sounded a bit more pleasant, though he wasn't quite sure how it was supposed to sound good.
“From a conventional perspective, you're a girl and I'm a guy—” He paused. “Even though you were the one holding me all night, strictly speaking... I'm still the one who got the better end of the deal.”
“Huh???”
“So when I asked for compensation earlier, I was just joking. If I actually made you compensate me, it would basically be like acting like a victim after getting a freebie.”
As he spoke, even Lu Yan felt his explanation was a bit flimsy, but the words were already out. What else could he do? He could only bite the bullet and finish his speech, then rub his nose in an attempt to make his expression look more sincere.
Jiang Ci was a bit dazed. She spent half a minute trying to unpack his words to see if there was some hidden meaning, but she failed completely.
But based on what he just said... did he mean that even though she was the one who held him all night, he was the one who got the advantage?
Did this guy... have some sort of problem? Or did he have some bizarre fetish? Suppressing the chaotic thoughts in her mind, she asked blankly:
“So?”
Lu Yan let out a long breath. “So, my dear lady, please stop crying. Just treat everything I said earlier as hot air and forget all about it.”
Lu Yan felt like his left brain was having a fistfight with his right. If he had known it would turn out like this, why on earth had he tried to act like a smooth-talking villain?
Now look what happened. He was suffering the consequences of going completely out of character. He wasn't some smooth-talking player to begin with, so he really needed to learn his lesson and stop trying to pull off things he couldn't handle. In the end, he was the one who had to patch up his own mess.
He stood up, walked to the window, and pushed it open. The morning air rushed into the room, carrying the slightly damp freshness characteristic of a summer dawn.
The wind blew in, fluttering the stray hairs resting on his shoulders and rustling the ends of the white ribbon tied over his eyes.
He stood before the window for a while with his back to Jiang Ci, falling back into his thoughts.
Come to think of it, was this world also a planet? It seemed no one here had ever suggested the world was a sphere. Was it because there were countless Formless Spirits in all four directions?
If proving one's hypothesis only carried some risk, perhaps many would choose to take a gamble. But if there was a one hundred percent chance of instant death, nobody was that foolish.
He tilted his head, his gaze falling on the grayish-white light of dawn outside, and let out a self-deprecating laugh.
Besides, with the miserable state of society right now, where mortals couldn't even afford to eat and cultivators were either persecuted or captured and instantly refined, who would have the peace of mind to care whether the world was round?
He turned around and looked at Jiang Ci, who was still squatting in the corner in a daze. His gaze lingered on her.
He felt he had confirmed it countless times over the past dozen or so years: it was rotten to the core. This world was utterly ruined, its order shattered, and the rifts were still expanding.
But this time, he thought—If possible, fixing it might not be a bad idea. Even on a thoroughly rotten land, pure white snowflakes could still fall.
“Stop daydreaming, let's go get some breakfast.” He waved his hand in front of Jiang Ci to bring her back to reality. “If you keep spacing out, Sister Nine will be coming up to check the rooms soon. You wouldn't want her to catch you in my room, would you?”
His tone had returned to his usual lazy, nonchalant self, carrying a hint of teasing, though not too much.
Jiang Ci seemed startled by his words. Snapping out of her daze, her eyes dated around in panic. She hurriedly bolted out of the room, but halfway out, she realized she had forgotten to close the door, so she scrambled back to shut it.
The door slammed against the frame with a dull thud. The frame shook, and the latch clicked out and in, declaring its complete demise.
Hearing the loud bang of the door closing, Lu Yan's temple throbbed. He figured the lock was completely ruined now. Well, fortunately, there hadn't really been a lock to begin with. Standing inside, he watched the door sway slightly against the frame before finally settling.
He withdrew his gaze and headed toward the stairs. From downstairs, Hong Jiu's voice could be heard shouting for everyone to get up. She was calling people for breakfast, waking the inn up for the morning.
Lu Yan walked out of the room and headed downstairs.
Time to eat first.
Rate on N.U.
