A Strange and Mysterious Person

A Strange and Mysterious Person

Ji Hongxue was so angry she laughed.

No matter what, she was a renowned beauty of the Azure Kingdom, a goddess in the eyes of its people, beautiful enough to topple a city and a state.

And now An Bulang had actually said she was only worth three points—and that was out of a hundred!

If An Bulang had not been her savior, she would have struck him long ago.

"Hehe, blame me for being too ugly. I forgot to cover my face with a veil and burned your eyes," Ji Hongxue said with a smile that did not reach her eyes.

"Not ugly, not ugly. You look quite pleasing to the eye." Realizing that he had accidentally provoked the noble princess again, An Bulang hurriedly tried to patch things up.

Ji Hongxue twitched her lips. He seemed to be comforting her with the phrase "pleasing to the eye"?

Actually, An Bulang had not meant to put her down. He had merely accidentally told the truth.

He had always been surrounded by fairies of terrifying beauty, and without realizing it, they had raised the ceiling of his aesthetic standards to an absurd height. Take Han Yueling, who had come to break off their engagement earlier. She had been born with an Immortal Cold Dao Body, skin like ice and jade, divine radiance naturally gathering around her, Dao charm blooming like a lotus. She also possessed the Saint-grade Cold Spiritual Root, something seen only once in a hundred thousand years. Ranked ninth on the Goddess Ranking, she was one of the foremost divine maidens among the Ten Great Holy Domains. If she developed well in the future, competing for first place would be no problem at all.

Yet at the time, she had only scored around eighty points in An Bulang's heart.

So Ji Hongxue receiving only three points was understandable.

"I still have urgent matters to attend to. Fellow Daoist An Bulang, how about you leave me a way to contact you? I will properly repay you later," Ji Hongxue said.

"I don't have any contact information..." An Bulang said helplessly.

"Then where is your sect? I will certainly come to your door someday to offer my thanks," Ji Hongxue said again.

"Well..." An Bulang hesitated for a moment.

His home was the Immortal Emperor Palace in the Immortal Realm, the highest and holiest place on the entire continent. If Ji Hongxue wanted to come and offer thanks, she would first have to Undergo Tribulation to Ascend. That might be asking a little too much of her...

"To be honest, I'm actually someone with nowhere to go."

"I have no faction to rely on, no possessions at all. The only thing I have left is the clothes on my body..." An Bulang shook his head and sighed.

Ji Hongxue froze.

Looking at the refined young man's bitter expression, she instantly imagined his tragic past: he had committed some grave mistake, been abandoned by a great cultivation sect, become a Sect Outcast, and ultimately lost everything...

This guess also neatly explained why the youth was clearly so powerful, yet had suddenly fallen from the sky in such a bedraggled state, and why he was so fixated on worldly possessions.

So that was it. An Bulang was a Sect Outcast from some great cultivation sect!

A pitiful person with nothing left!

"It's all right. It's in the past now."

Ji Hongxue stretched out her slender, fair hand and patted An Bulang's shoulder. "From now on, the Azure Royal Family will be your support. Even if you want to join another cultivation sect in the kingdom, I can recommend you."

An Bulang was moved by Ji Hongxue's sincerity. He grasped her smooth jade hand in return and nodded. "Thank you!"

It was Ji Hongxue's first time having both hands tightly held by an unfamiliar man. Her pretty face flushed, and she quickly pulled back her hand. "Since you have nowhere to go, why don't you travel with me for now? Once I have given you your reward, you can decide whether to leave or stay."

An Bulang grabbed Ji Hongxue's smooth, fair hand again as she withdrew it, saying emotionally, "All right!"

Ji Hongxue: "...I'm only a three-point woman. Is it really worth taking advantage of me like this?"

An Bulang had truly been wronged.

Was that taking advantage of her?

He simply liked expressing thanks this way.

Besides, there was a little rich girl willing to let him mooch food and drink off her. Why not?

Ji Hongxue personally buried all the dead soldiers. She also stabbed Tyrant Tiger's corpse several times with her dagger, leaving him to rot in the wilderness.

She looked delicate and charming, but beneath that appearance was a woman of fierce resolve.

After finishing all this, she and An Bulang began their journey together.

Ji Hongxue was still quite happy along the way. She could tell that An Bulang was powerful and not bad-hearted. With someone capable of instantly killing a Heaven-grade assassin traveling alongside her, her safety had risen to the maximum level. She felt completely secure.

"Ah... I never expected that I, a princess of a kingdom, would find a sense of security in a young man..." Ji Hongxue said with deep emotion.

"Stop acting so old and worldly. You're only three years older than me," An Bulang said, glancing at the woman beside him and shaking his head.

Ji Hongxue raised her brows and said sweetly, "When a woman is three years older, she is worth a brick of gold. Being three years older than you makes me far more valuable."

An Bulang smiled. "Good thing you aren't thirty years older than me."

"And what if I were thirty years older?" Ji Hongxue asked, raising her brows.

"When a woman is thirty years older, she gives you a kingdom," An Bulang said.

Ji Hongxue: "..."

"When a woman is three hundred years older, she gives you a Golden Core."

"When a woman is three thousand years older, she takes her place among the immortals."

An Bulang was completely talking nonsense now, rambling on by himself.

Ji Hongxue was somewhat dumbfounded. How could this young man, who seemed to have quite the background, speak like this? Did he have no scruples at all?

Yet it was precisely because An Bulang had no reservations that the two chatted one line at a time, and the atmosphere somehow became rather harmonious. Together, they crossed mountains and ridges, heading toward Autumn Moon City, the Azure Kingdom's third-largest city.

Ji Hongxue was not the sort of pampered princess who could not endure hardship. On the contrary, she took especially good care of An Bulang along the way, while also tolerating his eccentric behavior the entire time.

"Sister Hongxue, look at that huge forest ahead!"

"What about the forest?"

"All these trees are so short! Hahaha!"

"..."

"Sister Hongxue, what kind of grass is this?"

"It's called Monkey Peach Grass."

"Sister Hongxue, what kind of flower is this?"

"This flower is quite common, isn't it? It's called Wisteria Flower."

"Sister Hongxue, what kind of cute animal is this?"

"Heavens! You've never even seen a wild boar?"

All along the way, An Bulang acted like an endlessly curious child, asking about everything under the sun. Worse still, he asked basic questions that even children knew. Ji Hongxue seriously began to suspect that he had cultivated in seclusion until his brain went dull, to the point that he could not recognize even such ordinary living creatures.

"Bulang, this is Flying Dragon Mountain, the second-highest mountain in our Azure Kingdom!" Ji Hongxue said proudly, pointing at a towering peak that pierced the clouds ahead, as though she intended to give this country bumpkin who had never seen the world a soul-shaking experience.

"The second-highest mountain? It's so short?" An Bulang smacked his lips.

Ji Hongxue: "..."

"Sister Hongxue, I'm hungry," An Bulang said again.

"All right... I'll go hunt something for you," Ji Hongxue said helplessly.

Very soon, Ji Hongxue caught a rabbit.

"The bunny is so cute. Are we really going to eat it?" Seeing the adorable rabbit struggle nonstop, An Bulang could not bear it.

Ji Hongxue rolled her eyes and said irritably, "Only bunnies you can eat are cute. No one loves bunnies you can't eat."

A moment later, the rabbit Ji Hongxue had personally roasted was freshly done.

The two squatted beside the fire, inhaling the tempting aroma of roasted meat.

An Bulang took a bite. "Delicious!"

Ji Hongxue sighed at the sight. "I always feel like our roles have been switched. The man should be the one catching a rabbit and roasting it for me himself, while I praise his cooking to the skies and remember it fondly. So how did I become the one roasting rabbits?"

Ignoring Ji Hongxue's melancholy complaints, An Bulang took another bite of the rabbit leg. "Mmm... This kind of wild flavor has a special charm! Let's catch more cute rabbits and roast them to eat! No, you should catch more rabbits so we can roast and eat them together!"

"..." Ji Hongxue was so angry she nearly threw the roasted rabbit at him!!

He was really pushing his luck!

He was treating her, the dignified Third Princess, as a barbecue chef without the slightest guilt!!

Yet even while angry, Ji Hongxue felt a peculiar sense of ease. Being with An Bulang made it easy to forget her own identity, as though he simply did not care what status or position she held.

This feeling... was probably what friendship felt like?

Thinking this, the nineteen-year-old Third Princess felt an inexplicable spark of joy in her heart.

As An Bulang ate the roasted rabbit, he saw Ji Hongxue's expression suddenly turn furious, then suddenly relax into a smile. He was so startled that the little rabbit leg nearly fell to the ground.

Mother had been right after all. A woman's face was like June weather—it changed whenever it pleased!