"You..." Jin Jianglang was briefly at a loss for words, but soon thought of another suspicious detail. "Even if you didn't want the villagers to know you were a monster, you only needed to put on an act in the village. Why keep pretending in the Maple Forest?"
"I needed to get close to you, because someone wanted me to take your life," Yanyanluo answered without concealing anything.
Jin Jianglang had expected Yanyanluo to keep hiding something, but he had never imagined she would tell him the truth outright.
"Take my life?"
Yanyanluo slowly raised her head, turning her ear toward Jin Jianglang as smoke drifted from her body.
"Is the wound on your hand still there?"
Hearing her question, Jin Jianglang finally realized something and lowered his head to look at his palm.
When he had picked Yanyanluo up, something had cut his hand.
The wound had been exceptionally clean, like a knife cut.
"I'd already drawn my dagger, but I never expected that I wouldn't be able to withstand the cold February wind. You came a few days later than I'd imagined," Yanyanluo said with a bitter smile.
That single, brief remark made Jin Jianglang understand everything.
That day, Yanyanluo's voice had drawn closer and closer. She had clearly been approaching him, but before she could strike, she had collapsed.
Jin Jianglang had picked her up in the pitch-black darkness, never realizing that the dagger on the ground had cut his palm.
If that was true, then he would already have been dead if Yanyanluo hadn't fallen ill that day.
After all, he had been completely unguarded at the time.
And he had "come a few days late" because it had coincided with Shiranui Fire God's fire-bestowal ceremony. Not only had he watched the entire ceremony, but he