Follow Me

Ning Rongrong stepped forward, her finger nearly poking Yang Xing in the nose. "Do you know how powerful my Grandpa Sword and Grandpa Bone are? Titled Douluo! Do you even understand what a Titled Douluo is? One finger is enough to crush you to death!"

Yang Xing looked at her.

Not even the slightest ripple appeared on his face.

Then—

He shook his head.

Impervious to reason.

Untouched by persuasion.

Unmoved by threats.

Ning Rongrong felt that all the anger she had accumulated in her life did not amount to what she felt at this very moment.

Since childhood, whether she acted spoiled or threw tantrums, there had never been anyone she could not handle. There were thousands of people in the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect—who among them did not do as she said?

And now she had encountered this... this...

She could not find the words to describe the foul, hard rock before her.

If being soft did not work, then she could only—

"Waaah—"

Ning Rongrong abruptly squatted down.

Her white dress spread over the ground. She covered her face with both hands, and her shoulders began to tremble.

"You're bullying me—"

Her voice squeezed through her fingers, thick with tears and aggrievement.

"I came all the way to Shrek to enroll... I left home alone and traveled so far, and I don't know anyone here..."

Her voice grew more and more miserable.

"The carriage jolted for three days on the road, and I got so carsick I nearly died... Then I arrived somewhere completely unfamiliar, and on my first day here, I got tricked by a liar like you..."

Her shoulders shook even harder.

"When I go back, people will laugh me to death... I-I'm a young lady, yet I somehow took a roadside fortune-teller as my master... How am I supposed to face anyone in the future..."

Her sobs came and went.

Tears and anguish mingled together.

Enough to break any listener's heart.

That was, if one ignored the fact that she kept secretly peeking upward while squatting there.

However, when Ning Rongrong secretly raised her eyes for the fourth time, she noticed something.

There was no sound.

Not the kind of silence where someone quietly watched her cry.

There was genuinely no sound at all.

She revealed one eye through her fingers.

Yang Xing's stall was empty.

That man, stiff as a wooden post, had somehow silently retreated several meters away. He was bent over, packing up his "All-Knowing" signboard, his footsteps as light as a rat stealing oil as he slipped toward the mouth of the alley.

Ning Rongrong froze for 0.3 seconds.

Then her eyes widened to their limit.

How could there be such a shameless person in this world?!

She was crying here!

And he was sneaking away!

"Stop right there!!"

Ning Rongrong sprang up from the ground. Her white dress swished as she rushed behind Yang Xing in two strides, both hands gripping the back of his robe tightly.

"You're not allowed to leave!"

Her voice was sharp and shrill, and her face still bore the wet traces left from her fake tears. Paired with those almond-shaped eyes filled with anger and urgency, she looked exactly like a little tyrant blocking the road to rob someone.

"Cancel the contract!"

Yang Xing's steps paused as she grabbed his clothes.

He turned back, looked at Ning Rongrong's face full of tears and fury, and sighed.

The breath left through his nose, carrying genuine helplessness.

"Miss Ning."

He turned around, his tone softening somewhat.

"Just pretend that contract doesn't exist. I'm not going to restrict your freedom. Go enroll if you want to enroll, go shopping if you want to shop. Just pretend I don't exist, and won't that settle it?"

Ning Rongrong did not loosen her grip on his clothes.

"No."

"I wrote that contract myself. It has no binding effect at all. It's just a piece of paper, it really doesn't matter—"

"No."

"As long as you don't want to acknowledge me as your master, I won't tell anyone. I won't appear before you either. I'll disappear without a trace. I really won't affect you—"

"No."

Ning Rongrong's delicate brows stood on end, her gaze fixed on Yang Xing's face. She refused to yield even a single word.

Looking at her utterly impervious expression, Yang Xing suddenly found the scene somewhat familiar.

It looked exactly like how he had shaken his head and refused her earlier.

Karma had come far too quickly.

"Are you worried I'll use this contract to take advantage of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect?"

Ning Rongrong nodded.

"I guarantee I won't. I absolutely won't go there."

Ning Rongrong nodded again.

Yet the hand clutching his clothes still did not loosen in the slightest.

"You have to tear it up."

Yang Xing looked at her stubborn little face. A few tear tracks still remained on it, her brows furrowed and her lips pressed tight, like a stubborn little donkey that would never turn back once it had chosen a direction.

His gaze shifted from Ning Rongrong's face and swept over their surroundings.

Oh no.

At some point, a thick crowd had gathered around them.

Men, women, old people, and children pointed and whispered among themselves. There were vendors who had come to watch the spectacle, carriage drivers who had set down their goods and craned their necks, and several aunties enthusiastically cracking sunflower seeds.

"Look, look, that little girl is crying—"

"Did that boy bully her?"

"I don't think so. It seems to have something to do with a master-disciple contract..."

"That poor little girl..."

The corner of Yang Xing's mouth twitched.

He lowered his head and looked at Ning Rongrong, who was still gripping his clothes, her expression so stubborn it looked as if she might grind her teeth to pieces. He lowered his voice.

"Miss Ning."

He gestured around them with his eyes.

"Look around."

Ning Rongrong finally shifted her gaze from Yang Xing's face and glanced around.

Then her face visibly changed from white to red.

Those onlookers, those curious stares, those whispered conversations...

They were all directed at her.

Just now, she had publicly squatted on the ground and cried, publicly grabbed a man's clothes to stop him from leaving, publicly shouted things like "cancel the contract" and "you're bullying me."

To outsiders, that scene...

Ning Rongrong's ears began to burn.

"Whether you want to refuse to become my disciple or want me to tell you how to turn Seven Treasure into Nine Treasure," Yang Xing said quietly, so softly only the two of them could hear, "let's go somewhere with fewer people and talk first, all right?"

He paused.

"Or do you want us to keep making fools of ourselves here?"

Ning Rongrong bit her lip hard.

Her gaze shifted repeatedly between Yang Xing and the surrounding crowd.

Those stares were like fine needles, pricking at what little dignity she had left.

She struggled for three seconds, then five.

At last, she released the clothes she had been clutching.

"...Let's go."

The word squeezed out through clenched teeth. A trace of moisture from her earlier fake crying still lingered in her bright eyes. With a gritted-teeth expression, she threw one final sentence at Yang Xing in a low voice—

"You'd better not be planning to do anything improper to me."

She stared into Yang Xing's eyes.

"Otherwise, you'll regret it."

Yang Xing looked at the little face before him—fierce yet delicate, her tears not yet dry but already radiating menace. The taut string in his heart, tense for so long, finally loosened a little.

He smiled and started walking ahead.

"Don't worry."

"I'm afraid of dying. Follow me."

Ning Rongrong snorted, turned her head, and swished her white dress as she followed behind Yang Xing like a little tail. Yet she kept a strict distance of five or six meters from him, looking exactly like a rebellious young girl sulking after quarreling with her family.