Oscar lowered his head as he washed the pot, water rushing through his fingers, but his gaze still drifted involuntarily toward the dining room.
Luo Li ate slowly and gracefully.
Bite by bite, she finished that simplest of bowls of plain noodles in clear broth, even drinking most of the clear, delicious stock.
Finally, she took two clean fragments of Spirit Stones from her sleeve and gently placed them on the table, rising without making the slightest sound.
At the doorway, she suddenly paused and turned to glance toward the stove.
Their eyes met for an instant.
"The noodles were delicious. You put a lot of care into the broth." She nodded slightly, her voice still as cool and clear as spring water, yet carrying a trace of everyday warmth.
"Thank you."
With that, she lifted the curtain and left, her slender figure disappearing into the sunlight and crowds on the street.
Oscar's hand froze in midair around the loofah scrubber.
Something on the left side of his chest was pounding rapidly for no apparent reason.
He did not know what that feeling was.
Back on the Douluo Continent, he had thought what he felt for Ning Rongrong was affection, was love, was an obsession with his vow to protect her for a lifetime.
For Ning Rongrong's "Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect rules," he had desperately tried to grow stronger, to break through, to prove that a support-type Soul Master could fight too.
But after coming to the Great Thousand World and seeing its boundless expanses, he occasionally looked back on the past and felt an indescribable exhaustion.
Throughout his years in the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, he had always been looking up, always swallowing his grievances to accommodate that lofty Little Demoness.
Forcing himself to satisfy a sect's