Chapter 11

“Su Rong, I like you so much.”

This sentence swirled in Qing Xian’s mouth, but in the end, he said, “Thank you.”

“No need,” Su Rong turned her head away, as if looking at the bustling crowd, yet as if nothing had caught her eye.

The two walked side by side through the crowd.

Qing Xian asked somewhat uncomfortably, “Why are there so many people today?”

Su Rong turned to look at him, reaching out to grab his arm and pull him to her side.

“Today is October 22nd, the market day in Wudao Town,” Su Rong replied.

“Market day?”

“Mm,” Su Rong saw his confusion and asked, “Have you never seen one before?”

“No,” Qing Xian replied frankly, without any regret in his words.

He was curious and interested in this market, but he didn’t think it was a pity that he had never experienced such a life before.

For the prince of the divine race, nothing was more important than becoming stronger.

Only by becoming stronger could he silence certain celestials.

“In that case, let’s have a good look around this time,” Su Rong said, “This road extends all the way to the town gate, with all kinds of vendors around.”

“Mm.” Qing Xian nodded, smiling gently at Su Rong.

Qing Xian saw a stall he wanted to run towards, but felt Su Rong holding onto his arm without letting go.

He paused, turned to Su Rong and said, “Su Rong, I don’t think this is very convenient.” He looked at Su Rong’s hand on his arm.

“?” Su Rong realized, but didn’t think much of it.

She had held his arm out of goodwill to prevent them from getting separated, if he was uncomfortable she would let go, at most she would just keep an eye on him.

Unexpectedly, after Su Rong let go, Qing Xian raised his arm and grasped the hand she had withdrawn.

It was autumn, and Qing Xian’s hands were always cool.

While Su Rong’s hand was warm.

Qing Xian looked at Su Rong, his smile bright: “This is much more convenient.”

Something strange seemed to pass through Su Rong’s heart, she wasn’t used to holding a man’s hand like this.

She wanted to pull away, but saw that Qing Xian had already excitedly run towards the stalls, pulling her along and forcing her to quicken her pace as they weaved through the crowd.

“Su Rong, what’s this?” Qing Xian pointed at the sugar paintings on the stall and asked.

“Sugar paintings.”

“I want one for each of us.”

“…As you wish.”

The two came out holding sugar paintings, which were two little figures. Qing Xian had asked the vendor to create them based on their appearances.

Qing Xian looked at them with a bit of regret, thinking it would have been even better if the vendor could have made a sugar painting of the two of them holding hands.

But this slight disappointment was quickly forgotten as he excitedly pulled Su Rong towards the next stall.

“Su Rong, is this a sachet?” Qing Xian asked, holding up a purple pouch.

The vendor opposite enthusiastically responded, “Young master, what kind of fragrance would you like? We have all kinds of scents here!”

Hearing the vendor call him ‘young master’, Qing Xian looked shyly at Su Rong, without refuting.

She probably didn’t hear it, Qing Xian thought, unable to help but purse his lips in a light smile.

Su Rong looked at the vendor and found him chatting animatedly with Qing Xian. She paused for a moment before averting her gaze, her expression slightly stiff.

As Qing Xian picked through the sachets, he unconsciously recalled the day he first met Su Rong.

He had smelled the faint orchid scent on her, somewhat light and cool, like an ink orchid blooming in the snow.

Qing Xian asked with a blushing face, “Vendor, do you have any sachets with an orchid scent?”

The vendor enthusiastically replied, “Yes, sir, please wait while I get it for you.”

“All our sachets are made from flowers we grow ourselves. Orchids are precious and not easy to grow, we only have a few plants at home. Wait a moment, I’ll find it for you right away.”

The vendor muttered as he searched, and Qing Xian nodded, appearing very patient.

“Sir, here it is.” The vendor took out a blue-green sachet with a frost-defying orchid embroidered on it.

Qing Xian took the sachet and sniffed it.

He put the sachet back with some disappointment.

“I’m sorry, I don’t like this scent very much,” Qing Xian said.

The vendor’s expression stiffened slightly, but he still enthusiastically asked, “Would you like to look at other scents?”

Qing Xian shook his head, “No, thank you.”

He pulled Su Rong away as he turned to leave.

“Didn’t find one you like?” Su Rong asked.

“Mm.” Those scents were all too common, unlike the one on her.

Su Rong had just asked casually and didn’t care about the answer after asking.

She stopped Qing Xian, who was about to walk forward, “Wait a moment.”

“Hm?”

“Wait for those two to come up,” Su Rong said.

“Oh.” Qing Xian’s snow-white forehead nodded lightly as he obediently stood beside her, slowing his pace to wait for the people behind to catch up.

In the end, the four of them walked and stopped intermittently, taking half a day to reach the place selling carriages.

Choosing a carriage was quick. They bypassed the crowded market and left Wudao Town through a small path.

But Qu Yi, who had been following the group, had reddened eyes.

He stared fixedly at the swaying carriage moving forward, wishing he could rush up and pull the people off the carriage to kill them immediately.

It was the first time Qu Yi had seen Su Rong be so patient with a man, she even let that man hold her hand!

Why?

He had followed her for so many years, and she had never even looked at him properly, yet she carefully nurtured another man.

Qu Yi’s gaze grew colder, his wrist flicking to cast a tracking spell of demonic energy onto the carriage.

Inside the carriage, Su Rong’s expression darkened. She discreetly pressed the demonic energy into a corner, not letting it touch the person beside her.

Qu Yi’s actions were becoming increasingly detestable.

It was time to deal with some eyesores.

After traveling for several days, the group arrived at Su Qiao Town.

Su Qiao Town was a small town that developed due to its port transportation.

The town faced the sea to the east, and Su Rong and her group were going to take a boat from here to travel by sea to Tongzhou, and then travel by land to Shuangxi Town.

When they arrived, the sky was already somewhat dark, and Si Tu Tang looked worried.

“We won’t be too late to catch a boat, will we?” Si Tu Tang said.

This town had three boats heading north and three boats heading south daily.

They needed to go south, and they didn’t know if there were any boats left.

“No hurry, if there aren’t any, we can stay here first,” Long Ling said.

Su Rong hadn’t spoken, just walking forward.

“Su Rong, why don’t we just find an inn?” Long Ling said.

“No need, there are still boats,” Su Rong said.

“How do you know?” Si Tu Tang asked.

“When we were traveling, we saw the sky was dark to the east, it must have rained quite a bit. In this situation, the boats probably haven’t set sail yet, they’ll wait for the rain to stop before leaving,” Su Rong said.

“If we move quickly, we should be able to catch the last one.”

Si Tu Tang looked at Su Rong with some surprise and said, “Indeed, one must travel ten thousand miles to truly learn. I’ve learned something today.”

The group quickened their pace, preparing to catch this last boat.

When they arrived at the dock, they found people arguing about something.

A man was dragging a woman, crying incessantly, looking like he was trying to persuade her to stay.

Su Rong had good hearing and roughly understood what was happening.

She had no interest in meddling in others’ affairs and walked to the ticket seller at the dock, ready to ask if there were any extra tickets.

The ticket seller said there weren’t any left: “Due to the weather today, one boat isn’t sailing, so everyone is crowding onto this one boat.”

Qing Xian tugged at Su Rong’s hand and asked, “What’s happening over there?” His eyes looked towards the couple who were still arguing.

Su Rong followed his gaze and replied, “That woman wants to leave, but that man doesn’t want her to. They’re arguing.”

Since it was someone else’s domestic affair, Qing Xian didn’t ask further.

He nodded and watched Su Rong negotiate with the ticket seller, his eyes docile yet with a hint of confusion.

It was his first time seeing such a transaction scene, it was interesting.

“Are there any other ticket sellers here?” Su Rong asked again.

The ticket seller was unhappy about losing business, but he had no more tickets, so he said, “Those few people standing over there are all sellers, but they probably don’t have any extra tickets either.”

After speaking, the ticket seller didn’t bother with them anymore and prepared to leave.

No more business, might as well go back.

Su Rong and her group walked towards that direction, passing by the arguing couple. They saw the woman throw the man to the ground.

Qing Xian quickly went forward to help the man up, before Su Rong could stop him.

After getting up, the man didn’t care who had helped him, he just kept crying to the woman: “You promised to take me with you back then, but now you want to leave alone. How can you face the kindness of my parents all these years?”

The man cried and shouted, and more and more onlookers gathered around.

The man seemed to want to tear off his face, saying everything.

About how the woman was raised by his parents since childhood, and how his parents had even betrothed him to her.

But after she became successful, she directly left their whole family behind.

The man’s parents had passed away earlier in the year, and he had now completely lost his support.

The woman, relying on the fact that he had lost his backing, revealed her true colors as an ungrateful woman, and today she had even secretly bought a boat ticket prepared to leave.

He cried out accusation after accusation, and the surrounding people began to look at the woman with reproachful eyes, many even starting to point and comment.

Seeing that the people around her seemed prepared to continue watching, Su Rong simply left to buy tickets herself.

Rather than hoping her companions would realize that boat tickets were more important than watching the drama, it was better for her to go buy them herself.

However, when she returned, she found that Qing Xian and the others had become the focus of the crowd.

It turned out that Qing Xian and the others couldn’t stand by and watch the woman bully a man like this, and wanted to step forward to seek an explanation.

The woman, having lost face and her rationality, began to hit anyone she saw.

Qing Xian, after all, had some foundation, so the scene Su Rong saw was:

He had the woman pinned under his foot, making her apologize to the man.

If Su Rong had known what she looked like when she stepped on ghosts, she might have found that Qing Xian’s posture of stepping on the woman was exactly the same as hers at that time.

Even his expression was somewhat similar.

Looking down from above, with a contemptuous and cold gaze at the person under his foot, he spoke expressionlessly: “Apologize to him.”

The woman trembled in fear, meekly apologizing to the man.

The man sat nearby, sobbing and whimpering, seeming not to have fully come to his senses yet.

Su Rong stepped forward and pulled Qing Xian down, ignoring Si Tu Tang’s hesitant gaze, and said to them, “Let’s go, our boat is about to leave.”

After the woman got up, she was about to start cursing, but Su Rong turned back and gave her a cold glance, and she immediately shut her mouth.

This woman gave her a feeling even more terrifying than the man who had stepped on her.

She must have offended some deity today, not only unable to leave but also getting beaten up.

The woman could only watch helplessly as the boat left, cursing as she walked away.

After boarding the boat, Qing Xian was a bit worried: “Will this woman beat her husband again in the future?”

“She won’t,” Su Rong said flatly.

“Why?”

“She won’t be able to,” Su Rong replied.

“Ah?”

Su Rong had just placed a spell of demonic energy on the woman. In the future, if this woman were to hit her husband again, she herself would have convulsions in her hands and feet until she stopped.

But these details couldn’t be explained to the person in front of her, so she didn’t say more.

Even though Qing Xian was puzzled, that natural trust in Su Rong still made him put his mind at ease.