Chapter 54 Chapter 54 Goosebumps crawled all the way into my bones...
She shook her head. "I'm afraid not. I've already made an agreement with Master Xuanbai."
Upon hearing this, Gu Zhi was lost in thought and remained silent for a long time. No one knew what he was thinking about. He almost looked like a statue with frosted brows and eyelashes.
His long eyelashes drooped in a cloud of black. His expression was bewildered and mournful, yet he seemed afraid of a complete collapse, so he didn't allow himself to be overly sad. He said calmly:
"Jiaojiao, I'm not discussing this with you. Li Xuanbai has a bad temper, so it's better for you to follow me."
"It's not that I have a bad temper..." She waved her fan again, "What's wrong with you today, young master? You usually talk to me nicely, but why did you come back from going down the mountain and talk to me like this?"
Gu Zhi was silent for a moment and lowered his eyes.
She pretended to be aggrieved and said, "I'm always nice to everyone. When my senior sister cried, I was busy giving her a handkerchief. When the young ladies down the mountain were willful, I just smiled and accepted it. But when it comes to me, I'm just like this, even..."
"Who received it with a smile? Who gave the handkerchief?"
"You. Even my presence here today was arranged by the Master himself, wasn't it? I treated his injuries the night before and cried my eyes out over his injuries. And yet, the next day, he inexplicably pushed me here." She snapped her fan shut.
"I've finally gotten used to living here and don't want to move. Young Master has always been gentle in his dealings with others, so why are you being so demanding of me today?"
"Force..." His tone choked for a moment.
"Why are you so merciless to me?"
Gu Zhi almost staggered and slowly closed his eyes.
After a long while, he said with difficulty, "Jiaojiao, I will only force you this time."
He extended his hand in front of her again, with a humble and strong tone, "Come back with me, okay?"
She was lying on the bed, her knees bent and hugged anxiously.
His expression became increasingly strange, his eyes were confused and almost dazed, he was cautious, yet full of hostility.
Could he actually be violent?
Those who play with people's hearts should be the most respectful of them. If she was smart, she would have agreed. He really wasn't quite right at the moment.
But she was so excited that she wanted to fight again. "No."
The restlessness that had been flowing in Gu Zhi's black eyes suddenly stopped for a moment. The next second, his expression was calm as usual. He just got on the bed, put his hand through her knees without saying a word, picked her up, and regardless of her screams, he stepped on the window lattice and jumped onto the flower tree at the bottom of the cliff. In a few seconds, he used the force to kick, and the two of them suddenly soared into the sky.
Nan Qiong Shuang was playing with a fan on the bed just now, and the next moment she was dangling several feet above a sea of astragalus flowers on a cliff. The strong mountain wind hit her face so hard that it almost hurt. "Master!"
Suddenly, she heard a rustling sound on both sides. Something in groups of three or five rushed up into the sky and surrounded the two of them. Before she could react, there was another strange rustling sound. Looking around, she found that there was a circle of 8-shaped objects surrounding her.
She blinked twice before realizing that it was a bead from the Tianshan Sect.
Li Xuanbai was furious: "Are you fucking crazy? How dare you break into my residence?!"
Gu Zhi smiled, "How does it feel?"
Li Xuanbai: "Put him down!"
With a wave of his hand, five or six beads in the air dragged olive-shaped afterimages and attacked from all directions.
Looking at his angry expression, a smile finally appeared on Gu Zhi's pale face. He held her with both hands, but the beads around his body shuttled around like stray bullets, rubbing and colliding with the attacking beads accurately. He then took a few steps in the air casually, as if stepping on the stairs of heaven, and stepped onto the ground smoothly.
Li Xuanbai unsheathed his sword, a flash of snowy light flashing out. He sneered, "Let him go. What? You wanted to marry your young wife but couldn't, and now you're thinking of something else?"
Gu Zhi lowered his head and said to her in a good-natured manner: "Jiaojiao, you don't have to listen to some people and some things." He walked away, and a few beads jingled to block the afterimage of the pursuers behind him.
Li Xuanbai laughed in anger: "Did you let me go? Do you think I can send people off and pick them up at your will? What do you think of my place?"
Gu Zhi turned around and said coldly, "Li Xuanbai, you are not immune from that matter. Don't think I don't know."
Li Xuanbai was stunned.
Almost instantly, the arrogant aura that showed he would not submit to anyone suddenly stopped, and his whole body was like a fire caught in a pot, gradually going out.
He sneered, "What are you talking about, kid?"
Gu Zhili ignored her and walked away, holding her in his arms, passing by Li Xuanbai calmly.
Nan Qiong Shuang heaved a sigh of relief when she saw the two finally stopped arguing. She looked at his tense expression and said, "Sir, I can walk. Please put me down. It would be bad if others saw me."
He laughed at himself, "See? Who on this mountain wouldn't understand?"
She stopped talking.
When they arrived at the Muxue Courtyard, the servants in the courtyard were naturally more surprised than each other to see the young master who had been away for just a day suddenly return. They looked at each other, quietly put down their work, and secretly looked over here.
Amidst everyone's astonishment, Gu Zhi calmly carried her across the yard and went straight into her original room, carefully placing her on the couch. "The young lady's things were packed away two days ago. I'm asking someone to bring them back now."
She nodded: "Okay."
He walked out the door and gave a few instructions to the servants in the corridor.
She originally thought that since she was forcibly brought back today, the matter would be over, but unexpectedly, he left and came back very soon.
Not only did he come back, but when he entered the house, he looked cold and closed all the windows.
The room wasn't spacious to begin with, and with each window closed, the clear blue sky was dimmed a little. It wasn't lamp time, so with the windows closed, the room was completely dark.
After closing the last window, Gu Zhi walked over again and closed the door with a creak.
Suddenly, only some light filtering through the window lattice remained in the room.
Nan Qiong Shuang sat on the couch, feeling uneasy for a moment. She shrank into a corner of the bed and hugged her knees against the wall.
Why did she feel that this person was not doing right today?
What does it mean to close all the doors and windows?
In broad daylight, a man and a woman were alone in a room with the doors and windows closed. Do they really not care about the rumors on the mountain?
After closing the door, Gu Zhi turned around and picked up an apple from the low cabinet with an expressionless face. He took out a dagger from his sleeve and started to cut it from the top.
He peeled it in circles, lowered his eyes, and said nothing.
He didn't say anything, and she felt a little nervous.
He looked abnormal no matter how you looked at him. She was used to playing with people's hearts and knew that people in this state needed to be extremely careful.
In this case, it would be better for her to take control and keep the situation under her control.
So he opened his mouth and said, "Young Master...what do you mean by 'that matter' that I just mentioned to Young Master Xuanbai?"
After a long moment, he said, "This matter shouldn't be told to outsiders. However, since Jiaojiao..." He closed his eyes, as if trying hard to suppress something, "It's better to tell you."
"I reminded you to stay away from him for a reason." He lowered his eyes, not looking at her. "He has killed someone."
"In full view of the public, in the trial field of the disciple competition. The trial field is only a place for training, and harming others is not allowed. However, he got angry over some trivial matters and used unconventional methods to kill his junior fellow apprentices who were much weaker than him, more than once or twice."
"I've always felt there was something fishy about this, but I had no evidence. It wasn't until last year, when another disciple died suddenly after a duel with him, that I finally discovered some clues. It seems to be a kind of Gu."
"You know, Gu is a sorcery. Besides, the only grudge these people had against him was a few words of abuse to his face, just because they saw him being overly favored. And yet he's retaliated to this degree. He's such a vindictive person, Jiaojiao. I don't understand why you spend all day with him."
After saying that, he didn't look at her, but cut the apple into small pieces.
Nan Qiong Shuang understood.
But, killing people?
This is the thing she cares least about when interacting with others.
She played with her fan—Li Xuanbai's fan, which she had accidentally brought with her. "I haven't been with him all day."
"No?" He picked up a piece with a silver fork, held it to her lips, and murmured again, "No?"
"Your knee injury hasn't healed yet, yet you insisted on going to Hualongtan with him. I went through so much trouble to rescue you, but before you could even recuperate for a few days, you went to Wuqiquan with him. You were just implicated because of the grilled fish, and now you turn around and indulge him... indulge him..."
She couldn't continue, the apple pressed against her lips, slightly cold and trembling.
She found it amusing, biting a crescent into the crisp apple and laughing, "What are you indulging him in?"
Chewing on her pink lips, a little bit of apple juice, glistening, stained her lip beads.
The sound of an apple is so crisp, with a snap when you bite it.
He looked at the half apple for a moment, expressionless, and put it in his mouth.
She was stunned.
"...I was about to go down the mountain, and I didn't see you coming to see me off. You were just smiling at that person on the tree branch." He tilted his head and turned his eyes away as if he didn't care. "What did you talk about on that tree branch? I heard it all. Are you happy that I'm leaving? Are you also happy that I'm sending you to Lingjue Pavilion? What are you happy about? Speak."
She was a little helpless, "Sir, didn't you send me there?"
"Huai Jin." He suddenly said.
"Young Master...?"
"Huai Jin."
In the dim room, the aura around him was so oppressive and ominous, his chest was rising and falling abnormally, but his face was calm. He was just absent-minded, playing with the dagger, not looking at her.
She deliberately said, "Sir."
With a flash of the knife, he suddenly cut a bloody mark on his index finger, and instantly a trickle of red blood gushed out.
He had a blank expression on his face, and he pinched his thumb and index finger together, rubbing the fingertips against each other, playing with his own blood.
Repeated, "Jiaojiao, Huaijin."
...Only then did she suddenly realize that Gu Huaijin might not be normal at heart.
She swallowed the uneasiness in her chest and said, "Huai Jin." She took his hand and said gently, "What are you doing?"
Actually, it wasn't carelessness. But he said, "I was careless." Then he added, "Don't learn from me."
She said nothing, but held his hands in front of her eyes and looked at them. He did not resist at all and just let her do what she wanted.
Suddenly he said, "Next time, don't sit in such a high place."
She didn't understand for a moment: "What high place?"
"A branch." He seemed unwilling to even look at her. "That glance scared me to death. You don't have Qinggong skills, unlike him, don't you know that? You never learned to cherish yourself, even in the underground palace that day..."
The rest of the words were suddenly choked in his throat.
She held his hand, her long eyelashes drooping, and gently and patiently, she opened her lips and blew slowly on his injured finger.
The light and airy breeze carried a hint of the floral scent from her lips onto his fingers.
Goosebumps crawled all the way to his bones, and he fell down numbly.
Nan Qiong Shuang looked up, "Young Master..." She suddenly changed her tone, "Huai Jin, what's wrong?"
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