Liu Erlong Slaps Yu Xiaogang Across the Face?

"Why did you abandon me and run away alone back then?"

Liu Erlong's voice rang through the stone-paved alley. It did not sound like an accusation, but rather like a lock that had been sealed away in her heart for twenty years, suddenly smashed open.

She walked toward Yu Xiaogang step by step, each one landing on his violently trembling heartbeat.

Her eyes were red, but there were no tears—

Her tears had dried up twenty years ago. All that remained now was the resentment and confusion that time had boiled into a thick sludge.

"Why didn't you face it with me?"

She stepped closer again, and Yu Xiaogang took another step back.

His back struck the cold stone wall. There was nowhere left to retreat,

and he looked like a rat cornered against a wall,

his shoulders hunched, his gaze darting away, his lips trembling without producing a single word.

"Why? Speak!"

Liu Erlong's voice finally exploded, carrying twenty years of grievance and fury as it echoed through the narrow alley.

She stared fixedly at Yu Xiaogang's eyes, which did not dare meet hers, and suddenly realized something that chilled her to the bone—

His silence, his retreat, his posture of someone cornered with nowhere to run,

were exactly like the figure who had turned and fled from the church twenty years ago without leaving even a single explanation.

He had run away twenty years ago, and twenty years later, he still wanted to run.

Liu Erlong did not stop him.

She simply stood where she was, her hands hanging at her sides, her flame-burning eyes quietly watching Yu Xiaogang.

She wanted to see—

whether he would run again this time.

Yu Xiaogang scrambled toward the other end of the alley.

His black clothes were rubbed filthy with dust against the paving stones. One of his shoes had fallen off, but he did not even stop to retrieve it. One bare foot stepped on the cold bluestone, and he looked utterly devoid of a Grandmaster's bearing.

As he ran, he kept looking back, terrified that Liu Erlong would chase after him. His mouth kept shouting:

"I... I didn't! I just couldn't beat her. If I didn't run, was I supposed to wait here to die? Erlong, I still love you!"

If he could bluff his way through it, he would bluff. If he could fob her off, he would fob her off.

As long as he escaped this alley, escaped this hell that made it hard for him even to breathe, he could pretend that everything that had happened today had never happened.

After all, his reputation was what mattered most—

As for women, he told himself that once Tang San became famous throughout the world, he, as the Grandmaster, would naturally have everything.

Status, respect, wealth, women—he would lack none of them.

What he lost now, he would earn back tenfold in the future.

He had not run more than a few steps when a crimson blaze swept in from the side,

exploding before him into a scorching wall of fire that sealed off every path of escape.

The tongues of flame licked the air beside his face, burning several loose strands of hair to ash.

Yu Xiaogang abruptly stopped, nearly plunging headfirst into the fire wall.

He slowly turned around and saw Liu Erlong standing not far behind him, flames coiling around her body, her Crimson Flame Dragon Eyes filled with icy disappointment.

"You still haven't answered my question."

Yu Xiaogang looked at the wall of fire before him, then at the cold eyes behind him. He knew he would not escape today.

Every retreat had been blocked, every excuse exposed,

and he was like a snail stripped of its shell, nakedly laid bare before everyone's eyes.

He remained silent for a long time, so long that the phantom fire dragon behind Liu Erlong had begun to roar impatiently.

Then he suddenly raised his head. The cowardice and evasiveness vanished from his face, replaced by a twisted smile that was almost reckless resignation.

"Yes! I regretted it back then! I didn't want to marry you anymore! So I called your father over! Is that enough? Are you happy now?"

He practically roared it out, every word trembling with hysteria,

as if pouring out the truth he had buried for twenty years and never dared tell anyone.

Liu Erlong froze where she stood.

Her hand slowly rose, her fingers spread, aimed at Yu Xiaogang's face, twisted by his shouting.

She remembered the humiliation and helplessness she had felt when Yu Luomian publicly declared in the church twenty years ago that they were uncle and niece,

remembered every sleepless night of tossing and turning over the past twenty years,

remembered guarding that shabby wooden house day after day, waiting for someone who would never return.

Her palm trembled slightly—not from anger, but because at this moment, she discovered that she still could not bring herself to strike him.

The hatred accumulated over twenty years collided with the love accumulated over twenty years,

and the two forces crashed violently within her chest. In the end, neither could overcome the other.

That hand hung in midair, refusing to fall for a long while.

"Because he thought that if he failed to make anything of himself in the future, he might still be able to rekindle things with you."

Fang Fan's voice came calmly from behind Liu Erlong, neither hurried nor slow, neither cold nor warm,

as though he were reciting a formula that had already been derived countless times.

Liu Erlong abruptly turned to look at Fang Fan, then quickly locked her gaze back onto Yu Xiaogang—

She wanted to see for herself whether what this young man said was true.

Then she saw it.

Yu Xiaogang's body was trembling violently, even harder than when he had been cornered before. His entire face was bloodlessly pale, and cold sweat rolled down his forehead like rain.

Those eyes that had avoided others for half his life were now filled with the terror of being completely seen through.

Fang Fan's words had struck directly at his innermost thoughts. That was the calculation he had buried deepest in his heart, never mentioning it to anyone—

As long as he did not make things absolute, as long as he left a little room and hope,

then if he could not survive out there in the future, if his theories could never be proven, if Tang San did not become famous throughout the world as he expected, he would still have Liu Erlong as a way out.

This woman had waited for him for twenty years. What was a few more years? By then, he could use a line like "I've always been quietly watching over you" or "I had my reasons for leaving back then" to knock on her door again.

He had planned everything out—

He just had not expected an unfamiliar young man to expose him in public.

Liu Erlong saw his trembling, saw his terror, saw the guilt that had finally surfaced on that face filled with calculation. She understood everything.

The hand suspended in midair finally came down—

"Slap!" An incomparably crisp sound exploded through the stone-paved alley,

startling several sparrows perched on the wall into flapping away.

Yu Xiaogang was sent spinning half a turn by the slap,

and five bright red finger marks quickly rose on his face. He staggered several steps before barely managing to steady himself.

"Yu Xiaogang, you have disappointed me too much."

Liu Erlong's voice was hoarse yet calm, so calm that it chilled the heart.

She withdrew her hand without looking at him again, then turned and strode toward the end of the alley.

Her blue cloth skirt swayed gently in the lingering gust from the explosion. The last flicker of flame in her Crimson Flame Dragon Eyes went out as well, leaving only deathly silence.

Yu Xiaogang clutched his face and collapsed onto the ground, his legs curled up, his back against the cold stone wall,

then suddenly began crying loudly like a child.

Ning Rongrong and Zhu Zhuqing stood not far away, having witnessed everything.