Fresh blood dripped down the wooden hairpin onto Cang Shu's sleeve, blooming like tiny, scattered flowers. Yet she did not let go. Her eyes curved as she beamed at him, radiant as spring.
"Since you aren't going to kill me, Young Master, I'll just have to kill you."
She pushed the blade a fraction forward, ignoring his look of surprise, and continued, "You sliced across my neck, so I'll run a sword through your chest."
"A fair exchange."
She suddenly lifted her gaze to meet his calm yet crazed eyes, gave a faint sigh, and said with a provocative smile, "Not a bad trade."
Yue Jian'an frowned, likely taken aback that the woman before him could be so ruthless. He stood up and retreated a few steps, yanking the hairpin straight out of his flesh with his bare hand. Then he raised his eyes to look at her, watching her expression suddenly twist into a scowl.
"Give it back." Catching sight of the hairpin in Yue Jian'an's hand, Cang Shu didn't even mind that it was stained; she figured a rinse with water would make it usable again.
Yue Jian'an glanced at the wooden hairpin in his hand, then suddenly closed his fingers around it. "No."
Cang Shu: "……?"
You've got to be kidding me. He was actually going to covet her hairpin?!
Several question marks practically popped up over Cang Shu's head.
Judging purely by his attire, she could tell this fellow should be exceptionally wealthy, yet... a man like this was actually going to rob her of a wooden hairpin...?
—Utterly absurd.
Cang Shu's attitude turned a bit more forceful. "The thing in your hand belongs to me."
"So what?"
Yue Jian'an flipped the weapon into his spatial storage and rested the tip of his blade against the floor, looking every bit the rogue. "You stabbed it into my body, so it belongs to me now."
Cang Shu felt the pinch; Cang Shu felt the pain; Cang Shu began to plot.
She immediately thrust out five fingers, her face contorted in agony: "Five hundred spirit stones."
Yue Jian'an raised an eyebrow, reached into his spatial storage, and tossed a jade pendant at Cang Shu.
Cang Shu was easy to talk to, but equally puzzled: "What use do I have for your crappy jade pendant?"
Yue Jian'an clutched his wound and laughed. "The crappy jade pendant you speak of is worth five thousand spirit stones. If you don't want it, give it back."
Five thousand spirit stones?
Cang Shu's eyes lit up. "I want it! Who said I don't want it!"
She hurriedly lowered her head to hang the pendant from her belt, flicked it into place, and stepped back. Seeing that Yue Jian'an was still staring at her, she took a cautious step backward, clutched her valuables, and declared, "Since you gave it to me, it's my property now."
Yue Jian'an made no comment.
Clutching his wound, he prepared to leap out the window. A moment later, Cang Shu stepped forward and poked her head out, asking with an ingratiating smile, "Need any help?"
Otherwise, keeping this jade pendant weighed rather heavily on her conscience.
A pretty face with disheveled hair suddenly dropped down right in front of him, and her snow-white skin made her look all the more ghastly. Yue Jian'an drew a sharp breath, feeling his wound flare with even greater pain.
Still, he asked, "If I do need your help, how will you help me?"
Wrap her arms around his waist and jump down with him? Looking at her slight frame, that felt rather unrealistic.
Cang Shu talked nonsense without missing a beat, patting her chest in assurance: "If you want to jump, of course I'll give you a boost from behind."
The corners of her mouth split wide open in a grin, completely forgetting that the wound had been inflicted by her, as she wore a look of pure malice. "Trust my strength; I promise I won't pull on your wound during the process."
Yue Jian'an hesitated for a moment, then finally nodded.
He had no expectations; he just wanted to see what tricks Cang Shu had up her sleeve.
Yue Jian'an smiled as he stood by the window, just about to turn his head and signal to Cang Shu that he was ready, when someone delivered a fierce kick to his backside, sending him hurtling straight down from the high floor.
Yue Jian'an: "……?"
The wind pulled at his wound. Yue Jian'an adjusted his posture mid-air and landed on one knee.
Fresh blood trickled between his fingers, his hair hung in strands by his face, and his whole appearance looked rather disheveled.
No one else stood outside the window; the culprit had long since fled.
Yue Jian'an let out a dry laugh.
"Junior Brother……"
Meng Lindong stepped forward to look at Yue Jian'an's gloomy expression and asked hesitantly, "You're done already?"
Yue Jian'an: "……"
"She played me."
Meng Lindong couldn't help but look at him with pity.
His Junior Brother had always been dashing and unbridled, a favored son of heaven within the sect, yet now he had been played by someone in a brothel.
Meng Lindong knew that right at this moment, he ought to offer some comfort.
So he stepped forward, patted Yue Jian'an's shoulder with one hand while stroking his head with the other, and heaved a heavy sigh. "Junior Brother, I know you must feel humiliated today, but you have a magnanimous heart; you shouldn't let her cause you needless worry."
"I did no such thing."
Yue Jian'an stood up, raised his head, and suddenly produced a hairpin from his spatial storage, holding it up right in front of Meng Lindong. "She gave me this."
Meng Lindong rolled his eyes hard.
Yet a mere second later, he resumed his previous expression of grief. "Junior Brother, why did you snatch a young woman's hairpin? You can't just do that simply because a girl is unwilling to submit to you. Do you still remember what you said when you first entered the sect?"
Meng Lindong shook his head in distress, walking in a circle around him with his hands behind his back. "If the Great Dao is not achieved, you shall never fall into the Path of Emotion."
Yue Jian'an glanced at him, his lips curling in a flippant smirk. "Senior Brother, I don't like her. Not now, and not ever."
That spine was far too stubborn; he couldn't break it, nor did he care to try.
She could only ever be an exceptional opponent.
At this thought, he straightened up, his fingers brushing over the tip of the wooden hairpin, and drawled, "I didn't snatch this thing either. A fair exchange: she gifted me a gold-inlaid blade, and I traded a jasper pendant for it."
"And another thing, Senior Brother."
He sneered, tossing the wooden hairpin back into his spatial storage. "My heart is not magnanimous at all. I am petty."
Meng Lindong: "……"
Fine. Both of these people were out of their minds.