He could clearly have finished her off with ease every time.
Yet each time, he acted as though he were merely sparring with her. Once he won, he would mock her a little, then encourage her to try again.
Why?
They were enemies, after all.
He had put her firmly in her place the very first time they met.
He had opposed her at every turn.
So why wouldn't he simply be decisive?
Either finish her off cleanly.
Or...
For a long time, she had no idea what kind of feelings she really held for him.
She admired his talent. It was a pity she couldn't put him to use.
She also hated him for repeatedly disrupting her plans and causing her to fail, hated him until her teeth itched.
She seemed to have some feeling toward him that she could neither explain nor put into words.
Especially after their reunion at the Moonlight Pavilion.
When she recognized him, she admitted that she had felt a breathtaking sense of wonder unlike anything she had experienced before.
It was like catching a fleeting glimpse of a startled swan, except she had looked earnestly, carefully.
For the first time, her heart had pounded so fiercely, letting her experience a feeling she had never known before.
She had barely had a childhood.
When she was very young, she had taken Xue Qinghe's place to carry out Spirit Hall's grand plan.
Since childhood, she had been learning how to hide herself better, until she had become utterly practiced at it.
Yet that practiced concealment had nearly made her lose herself.
Every day, her mind was occupied with how to conceal herself better, how to keep others from discovering her true identity, and her plans to overthrow the Heaven Dou Empire... These things had always