A Gentleman Uses His Mouth, Not His Hands? Teeth Count as a Mouth Too!

Nan Feng sighed. "She asked me whether her father had done something unforgivable. I said I didn't know, but I warned her not to dig into it, not to ask."

"Because the grudges between adults are simply not something a child like her can interfere with. A third party stepping into that kind of mess will only get burned. Not only will she fail to solve anything, she'll make things even more impossible to clean up."

"I told her plainly that the grudge between you two was a matter from your generation and had nothing to do with her. She shouldn't interfere, and it would be best if she didn't."

"Because the moment she tries to solve the problem, she'll inevitably take one side. Right and wrong have nothing to do with it—it would be pure favoritism! No matter who she sides with, she'll deeply hurt the other. There's no happy ending for everyone. She can only wait for you to resolve it yourselves."

Nan Feng met Bibi Dong's complicated gaze and said gravely, "I don't know how much of it she took in, but I'm doing everything I can to slowly wear away her feelings for Qian Xunji. My goal is to make it so that, even when she faces Qian Xunji's death someday, she won't feel much sadness—or even feel nothing for him at all!"

Bibi Dong let out a cold laugh. "He's her biological father! Qian Xunji may be a beast, but he's genuinely treated her well. Do you really think your absurd idea can work?"

"Anything is possible." Nan Feng lifted his chin confidently. "As long as I have time, I can do it."

"And who says you have to kill Qian Xunji?"

Bibi Dong's gaze instantly turned icy, even carrying a trace of killing intent. "What? Are you telling me to forgive him? To give up my revenge?"

"Come on, big sis, what are you even imagining?" Nan Feng rolled his eyes in exasperation. "I don't understand. In your mind, is death really the greatest revenge against Qian Xunji?"

"If death were truly that terrifying, then why would there be a phrase like 'worse than death'?"

"I have countless ways to make Qian Xunji suffer a fate worse than death!"

"If he dies so easily, what will he be? He'll still be the great Pope of Spirit Hall, the good father forever frozen in Qian Renxue's mind as a shining and righteous figure! If you kill him, you'll only be fulfilling him—deifying him!"

"But as long as he's alive, I can make his image collapse completely! I can make him struggle in the mud and suffer the scorn of the world!"

Nan Feng looked at Bibi Dong, patiently guiding her. "Don't you want to see Qian Xunji alive, yet living more miserably than if he were dead?"

"You don't need to kill him yourself. That would only dirty your hands. After all, he bears the title of your teacher, and outsiders see him as someone who taught you. Of course you can take revenge on him, but your method should be more flexible—more sophisticated!"

"He destroyed your dignity. Can't you strip away his dignity and trample it beneath your feet too?"

"There was a time when you despaired, believing he had destroyed your life and taken everything from you... So why not repay him in kind? Why not destroy the life he takes pride in and take away everything he cares about most?"

"Little Dongdong, killing someone is easy. White blade in, red blade out—death is only a momentary thing."

"But... making him live on in misery worse than death, watching himself lose everything while being powerless to stop it—that is the most extreme, most perfect torture in the world."

Bibi Dong fell into a long silence.

After a long while, she finally asked in a slightly cold voice:

"Are you sure you're not saying all this for Qian Renxue's sake? So she can still keep a father in name?"

"Damn it!"

Hearing that, Nan Feng sat bolt upright from under the covers, roaring irritably:

"If I were really thinking of her, and if Qian Xunji's death could truly make you happy, I would've slapped that scum to death long ago!"

"But if you killed him, would you be happy? Would you be freed?!"

Nan Feng stared into Bibi Dong's eyes. "You wouldn't!"

"That's why I never acted! I neither killed Qian Xunji nor touched that useless Yu Xiaogang!"

"Because once they really died, the mess they left behind in your life would be sealed for good!"

"The dead can no longer be held accountable!"

"By then, not only would your hatred not diminish in the slightest because of their deaths, it would grow more and more deranged inside you after losing its target for release, until it turned you completely into a monster!"

Bibi Dong looked at him with a complicated expression. "How do you know?"

"How do I know?!"

Nan Feng laughed bitterly. "Take a guess at what I went through during those decades in Bi Yang's Trial of the God of Evil?!"

"I went through torment you can't even imagine! I can see through all of your thoughts before you not because I'm so clever, but because that God of Evil Bi Yang made me personally experience your messed-up affairs hundreds and thousands of times in the illusionary realm of the Godly Trial!"

"Compared to the Trial of the God of Evil's pure malice that seeped into the bones and toyed with human nature, Rakshasa Evil Thought seemed gentle and adorable!"

"The Rakshasa God's evil thoughts were merely straightforward malice—simple and brutal, recklessly magnifying and exposing the darkest thoughts in a person's heart."

"But the God of Evil's malice was a silent, soft knife stabbing into you! What he loved most was giving you hope first, then crushing it bit by bit right before your eyes! He cut again and again at the places where you were most vulnerable!"

The next morning.

Sunlight pierced through the thin mist and spilled across the back garden of the Saintess Palace.

Nan Feng lay in the garden hammock, sunbathing with a deadened expression.

Last night, Bibi Dong had ultimately kicked him out of her bedchamber.

There was no helping it. No matter what Nan Feng's original intentions were, no matter how many emotional and compelling arguments he had spun, it was an ironclad fact that he had joined forces with Qian Renxue to deceive her and exploited her subconscious weakness to break her defenses.

Even if he had a valid reason, those were all just excuses.

After all, he had just taught Bibi Dong a lesson—

[Anyone who makes you feel bad is bad to you. Anyone who claims "I'm doing this for your own good" while doing things that make you sad and miserable is essentially emotionally manipulating you!]

Nan Feng had personally taught Bibi Dong this whole anti-manipulation theory.

So last night, Bibi Dong had put that theory to perfect use and righteously kicked him out of the bedchamber.

What could Nan Feng do? He was in despair too.

This time, he had wrapped himself in a cocoon, and the boomerang had struck him squarely in the forehead.

He had nothing to say. Who told him to teach her that stuff with his loose mouth?

Just as Nan Feng lay in the hammock reflecting on life, a familiar little figure sneaked into the garden.

Qian Renxue looked around, spotted Nan Feng asleep in the hammock, and hurried over to ask softly, "A-Are you okay?"

As she spoke, her gaze fell on Nan Feng's left hand resting over his stomach. His once fair, tender wrist was now tightly wrapped in thick white gauze, with faint traces of blood seeping through it.

"What happened to your hand?" Qian Renxue cried out, instinctively reaching toward it.

Nan Feng swiftly pulled his hand back, sucking in a breath of pain. "Hiss—don't touch it! It hurts!"

Qian Renxue's eyes widened, her face full of worry and guilt. "How did that happen? Did Mother... hit you?"

"Hit me? Haven't you heard that a gentleman uses his mouth, not his hands?" Nan Feng rolled his eyes.

"She didn't hit me. She bit me."

Qian Renxue's eye twitched. "Is that how that saying is supposed to be used?!"

"Why not?" Nan Feng said righteously. "Did you think using your mouth only meant moving your lips to reason with someone? Teeth count as a mouth too!"

Qian Renxue was left speechless. But seeing the tightly bandaged wound, she felt even more guilty and upset.

"Does... does it hurt?"

She knew very well that Nan Feng had suffered all this to help her.

"What kind of question is that?" Nan Feng glared at her irritably. "She nearly bit through the tendons in my hand!"

"And your dad seriously has something wrong with him! Why wasn't he asleep in the middle of the night? What was he doing coming here to check on you? Were you going to die from staying here or something? Did he have to come over and stick his nose in?"

"Fine, now it's over. After all this fuss, your secret pillow operation has officially gone bankrupt. Don't even think about being a pillow from now on. Even I, the one who set it all up, got kicked out!"

At those words, Qian Renxue's eyes immediately reddened. Aggrievement and self-blame intertwined as tears began to fall. "I'm sorry..."

Seeing her like that, Nan Feng was even more speechless. "Why the hell are you crying?"

"I'm the one who got bitten! I'm the one who got kicked out to freeze in the cold wind! Even I, the victim, haven't cried, so what are you feeling wronged about?"

"Hold it back!"