The next day, Dai Mubai met Li Hanqiu.
The girl eyed Li Hanqiu askance, her expression as hostile as ever.
From a distance, she folded her arms and planted herself outside the training grounds.
Her high blond ponytail swished with the movement. Only when Li Hanqiu approached did she cast him a sidelong glance.
"You've tricked another innocent young girl. Impressive tactics, Teacher Li."
Li Hanqiu stopped.
"Tricked a young girl? Who?"
"Hmph, who else? Zhu Zhuqing." Dai Mubai lifted her chin. "How many days has she even been at Shrek Academy?
"We classmates haven't even gotten to know one another, and you've already tricked her into becoming your disciple.
"What else could it be but honeyed words?"
"Then why don't you ask her whether she volunteered or was tricked?"
Dai Mubai sneered. "You think I wouldn't dare?"
"Then you can go ask her right now." Li Hanqiu spread his hands helplessly.
Dai Mubai choked on her words.
She stared at Li Hanqiu. His expression was calm, with no sign of pretense.
Now she had no graceful way to back down. After a long pause, she finally snorted.
"I don't need to ask. Your honeyed words and your tricks run deep. I have no interest in playing along with you two."
With that, she turned to leave.
Li Hanqiu did not stop her. He merely said behind her:
"Mubai, the wound on your neck hasn't fully healed yet, has it?"
Dai Mubai's steps faltered.
She instinctively raised a hand to the back of her neck.
That wound had come from Tang San's Blue Silver Spider Silk. With her constitution, it should have scabbed over long before now.
Yet she kept touching it out of habit, pressing hard against the wound with her fingers, as though trying to burn something deep into her memory.
Because of that, the wound on her neck still seeped blood and had yet to heal completely.
"I wasn't there that day with Tang San. If he'd really gone for the kill, I honestly don't know what I would have done."
Li Hanqiu spoke apologetically, taking a small white porcelain bottle from his Soul Tool.
"This is Pear Blossom Ointment, the best ointment in the Heaven Dou Empire. Apply it once in the morning and once at night, or it'll leave a scar."
As he spoke, he held out the bottle, his expression sincere.
"I know you're unhappy with me and don't like having me as your teacher, but... I still hope you'll accept this, all right?"
Dai Mubai looked momentarily startled, but her expression swiftly turned icy again.
"Since when have I, Dai Mubai, needed charity from you, Li Hanqiu?"
"If my actions feel like charity to you, then all I can say is 'sorry.'"
Li Hanqiu continued, "I meant no offense. All I want to say to you here is that I'm sorry."
As he spoke, he extended the medicine bottle a little farther.
Dai Mubai glanced down at it.
The sunlight had warmed the bottle, as though it had just been taken from Li Hanqiu's embrace and still carried the gentle warmth of his body.
For a moment, she had no words. A trace of hesitation crossed her face, and her small hand tentatively rose.
Li Hanqiu did not wait any longer. He pressed the bottle into her hand, turned, and left.
"Mubai, I'm sorry."
Dai Mubai stood where she was, clutching the bottle.
It still held a little body warmth.
She watched Li Hanqiu's retreating back, her thin lips stirring slightly.
She seemed to want to say something to make him stay, but in the end, she fell silent.
That evening.
Li Hanqiu ran into Dai Mubai beside the stream.
She was crouched on a rock, having just washed her hands.
The medicine bottle rested on the grass beside her, its mouth open, with a small patch of brown medicinal liquid seeping out.
Clearly, Dai Mubai had already used it.
"Right on schedule." Li Hanqiu stopped a few steps away.
Dai Mubai did not turn around. She simply screwed the cap on and tucked the bottle into her waistband.
"Did you come specifically to check whether I'd applied the medicine?"
"Yes," Li Hanqiu admitted without hiding it. "A girl as pretty as you getting a scar on her neck would really trouble me."
Dai Mubai snorted at that. "Such a slick tongue. No wonder those girls flock to you like ducks."
Despite her words, her tone had softened a little, no longer bristling with sharp edges.
The stream flowed slowly, a few leaves drifting past in little spirals.
"That girl Zhu Zhuqing keeps telling me something," Li Hanqiu suddenly said.
Dai Mubai did not answer. She lowered her head and tended to her wound using her reflection in the stream.
"Zhu Zhuqing said that, from her earliest childhood memories, there was someone who always protected her."
Li Hanqiu's voice was unhurried. "Whenever someone tried to bully her, that person would stand in front of her.
"They would fight and argue with anyone who bullied her, shielding her behind them.
"But later, that person vanished, and she couldn't remember who had once protected her."
The water murmured steadily.
Dai Mubai's hands suddenly stopped wiping.
Li Hanqiu's words reached her ears, and scenes from the past surged up all at once.
Dai Mubai stood there in a daze, her unfocused gaze falling emptily into the distance.
She sank completely into her memories, barely able to make out the sounds around her.
"Zhu Zhuqing remembers that person always standing in front of her to protect her.
"But one day, that person disappeared, and something went wrong with her memory too."
Li Hanqiu continued, "She said she's becoming stronger now so that one day, she can find that person."
"And protect and cherish them, just as they once protected her."
"..." Dai Mubai's throat bobbed.
"Li... Li Hanqiu." She suddenly spoke, her voice low and muffled. "Why are you telling me this?"
"No particular reason." Li Hanqiu glanced at her. "I just suddenly remembered something Zhu Zhuqing mentioned.
"Everyone at the academy looks unfamiliar to her, but whenever she sees you, she feels as though she's seen you somewhere before."
Dai Mubai's shoulders visibly tensed for an instant.
"What does that have to do with me?"
She abruptly stood, her back to Li Hanqiu, as though someone had stepped on her tail.
"I don't know anyone, and that includes her!"
With that, Dai Mubai strode away.
After a few steps, she stopped again and tossed out another remark:
"Don't come fishing around me for things that have no basis."
"Li Hanqiu, don't forget that you're only a teacher, not my friend, much less my family!"
Watching Dai Mubai's somewhat agitated figure retreat, his lips slowly curved upward.
That night, Dai Mubai tossed and turned, unable to sleep.
Insects chirped outside the window, and her thoughts tangled into a mess along with their calls, leaving her unbearably irritated.
"Fuck!"
She stared at the dark ceiling, unable to close her eyes no matter how she tried.
All that surfaced in her mind were childhood memories she did not want to revisit.
She had been born into the imperial family of the Star Luo Empire, the reigning king's third daughter, known to everyone as the Third Princess.
The imperial family's rules were cruel. Princes had to compete to the death, and the throne belonged only to the final victor.
Princesses, however, were not merely ineligible to inherit the throne. They could not even choose their own fates.
All that awaited her was a political marriage, or obedience to whichever of her princely brothers ascended the throne.
But Dai Mubai refused to accept it. Why should being a woman bar her from inheriting the throne?
In talent and ability, not one of the princes could compare to her.
Yet simply because she was a woman, she did not even have the right to choose her own fate.
Motherfucking bastards, why?!
Her family did not treat her as a person.
The imperial clan also said she was too wild to amount to anything.
Then, one day, a little tagalong appeared at her side.
The girl was half a head shorter than her, with short black hair. She was also terribly shy around strangers, hiding behind Dai Mubai whenever she saw anyone.
She heard that the girl was an illegitimate daughter of some noble family. To curry favor with the Star Luo Imperial Family, that noble had
sent her there to be raised from childhood, so she could become some prince's concubine when she grew up.
"Concubine" was the flattering term. To put it bluntly, she was a private plaything.
From that moment, something called a "sense of responsibility" welled up in Dai Mubai's heart.
Perhaps they were fellow sufferers who pitied one another. Neither could choose her own fate.
From that day onward, she took it upon herself to protect the girl.
Whenever someone tried to hit the girl, she lunged at them, scratching and biting like a little tiger with no regard for its own life.
Then, later...
Firelight, screams, utter chaos.
By the time she woke, she was already outside the city. The girl was gone too.
Everyone said she was dead.
"She's gone. Stop thinking about her. The eldest prince only scolded you a little, and that little beast acted like she'd become someone else. She actually dared to bite him!"
"Dai Mubai, you'd better behave. Don't be like that girl. Don't follow in her footsteps!"
At Shrek Academy, Dai Mubai pulled the blanket over her head and rolled over.
She no longer wanted to remember those sickening experiences.
But the little black-haired face in her memories kept slowly overlapping with Zhu Zhuqing's.
Both wore the same icy expression and always liked standing behind someone.
And that ruthless, reckless intensity when training...
Dai Mubai, you've lost your mind. Little Qing died long ago. Li Hanqiu must have picked up this information somewhere and used it to trick me!
She cursed herself in a muffled voice and forced her eyes shut.
I won't fall for it, Li Hanqiu!
The next day.
Before dawn, Li Hanqiu took Zhu Zhuqing out of the academy.
Tang San and Xiao Wu followed behind.
"Today, I'm taking the three of you to the Great Soul Arena."
Li Hanqiu walked ahead. "Theory is still only theory. For a true Soul Master, real combat drenched in blood and tears is unavoidable."
Zhu Zhuqing answered, her eyes shining.
Xiao Wu pouted, sighing again and again.
Tang San followed at the rear, smiling as he nodded, though his gaze kept straying toward Zhu Zhuqing.
The three had only just passed through the academy gates.
A golden figure darted out from behind the wall.
Dai Mubai had been waiting there for who knew how long.
Hearing that Li Hanqiu was taking Zhu Zhuqing and the other two to the Great Soul Arena,
she pressed her lips together, lifted her chin slightly, and hurried after them.
I... I'm just going to look. What if that pervert Li Hanqiu takes Zhu Zhuqing and the others somewhere bad?
Dai Mubai found an excuse for herself and stayed hidden behind Li Hanqiu's group of four.
Her gaze remained fixed on Zhu Zhuqing, the doubt in her mismatched golden eyes steadily deepening.
At the very front, Li Hanqiu's ears twitched slightly, as though he had noticed something.
He did not look back. The curve of his lips merely deepened a little.
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