Xiao Wu Gets Jealous

By the third day, Xiao Wu had found out that Nan Feng had gone outside the city with Ye Lingling to gather herbs.

Auntie Chen, who did odd jobs in the dining hall, was the one who told her.

That morning, Nan Feng was on his way to the back mountain for his morning training when he spotted Xiao Wu standing on the lawn. Her back was to him, her arms folded across her chest and her scorpion braid hanging motionless. She stood like an iron nail driven into the earth.

Nan Feng slowed his steps.

"Xiao Wu."

Xiao Wu didn't turn around. Her voice drifted over, lower than usual.

"Tower Simpleton, where did you go the day before yesterday?"

Nan Feng stopped two paces behind her. He had gone outside the city with Ye Lingling to gather herbs the day before yesterday. He had planned to tell Xiao Wu that evening, but she had already been asleep when he returned, and early the next morning, she had gone into the city with Tang San to shop for supplies.

"Outside the city, to gather herbs."

"With who?"

"Ye Lingling."

Xiao Wu's scorpion braid twitched. She turned around, her face taut, the corners of her mouth turned down and the usual brightness gone from her large eyes. She stared at him for three breaths, then took two steps forward and tilted her head up.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You were busy shopping that day. I was planning to tell you that evening."

"That evening?" Xiao Wu's voice rose. "You spent the whole day out with her, came back without saying a damn word, and you call that planning to tell me that evening?"

Nan Feng looked at her. The tips of Xiao Wu's ears were red, and her fingers clutched the hem of her clothes, her knuckles white.

Nan Feng realized that what bothered her wasn't that he had gone outside the city, but that he hadn't invited her. She was the one who had confessed by the stream that she had taken human form after a hundred thousand years.

"Why didn't you invite me?" Xiao Wu stepped closer again. She lowered her voice, but couldn't suppress the tremble in it. "You invited me when you teamed up with Tang San to go outside the city. Why didn't you invite me when you went herb gathering with Ye Lingling? My leg techniques are faster than hers, and I can fight if we run into Soul Beasts. What can she do standing there?"

"Her Martial Soul can sense life energy," Nan Feng said. "Her perception was needed to gather the herbs."

"Then my sense of smell can sense things too! My nose is even sharper than her Martial Soul!"

Nan Feng didn't answer. Xiao Wu's sense of smell really was sharp; she could smell blood at the corner of his mouth. But her sense of smell was for warning of danger in battle, while Ye Lingling's perception was for identifying herbs and healing injuries. The two were completely different, and Xiao Wu wouldn't listen.

"You've only known her for two months." Xiao Wu's voice sank. "You've known me for almost three years."

Nan Feng looked at her. The morning light illuminated half of Xiao Wu's face, while the other half remained in shadow. She bit her lip.

"Xiao Wu." Nan Feng kept his voice even. "Ye Lingling and I went outside the city to get something done, nothing else."

"I know you were getting something done!" Xiao Wu stamped her foot. "I just..." She didn't finish. The anger flared up in her. In the three years she had known Nan Feng, she had never felt uncomfortable about him being close to anyone. This time was different. The person who had gone outside the city with him was a girl, a pretty one with a rare Martial Soul, who even trained in the same row as him.

Xiao Wu didn't know why she cared about those things. She just did.

Her anger shot from her chest to her feet. She raised a leg and kicked Nan Feng in the shin, thirty percent harder than usual.

Nan Feng hadn't expected it. He stumbled back a step, his left foot caught on a tree root, and he toppled backward into the shallow stream beside the lawn.

The stream was bitingly cold. Nan Feng sat up in the water, his hair dripping, his clothes soaked through and mud and sand smeared across half his face. He wiped his face and looked up to see Xiao Wu standing on the bank with her hands on her hips. Her expression was both fierce and guilty, and her mouth twitched as though she wanted to laugh but was forcing it back.

There was someone else on the bank. Ye Lingling had arrived at some point and was crouching there, looking at him in that state, amusement in her pale amber eyes. She had brought her herb basket, intending to make another trip to gather herbs.

"I told you she'd kick you," Ye Lingling said.

Nan Feng climbed out of the stream, water dripping from his clothes. Xiao Wu stepped back half a pace and said, jutting out her neck, "Who told you to stand steady? Aren't you always so good at fighting me?"

"You don't usually kick me in the butt, either."

"That's because I was going easy on you before!"

Xiao Wu puffed out her cheeks like a pufferfish.

Ye Lingling stood up and dusted off her skirt, her voice matter-of-fact.

"Xiao Wu, you're actually angry because he didn't invite you along, aren't you?"

The air fell silent.

Xiao Wu's fierce expression turned to one of surprise, then to an embarrassment that was hard to describe. The tips of her ears reddened in the morning light, and the color spread to her cheeks, then down to the base of her neck.

Ye Lingling didn't look at her. She lowered her head and rummaged through her herb basket, speaking as unhurriedly as usual.

"You're not angry because Nan Feng went outside the city with me. You're angry because he went with me and didn't invite you. You feel left out."

"Who's, who's angry!" Xiao Wu's voice rose half a pitch. The red at the tips of her ears had already spread to her cheeks, and even the base of her neck had turned pink. "What do I have to be angry about! What's it to me who he goes out with! He can go out with whoever he likes! Why should I care so much about him!"

Nan Feng stood on the bank, water dripping from him, and sneezed from the cold. He wiped the water from his face and glanced sideways at Ye Lingling.

Ye Lingling's words had struck so close to the mark that Xiao Wu couldn't even get a proper rebuttal out.

A thought also stirred in Nan Feng's mind. What bothered her was that he had gone outside the city without inviting her. Classmate, coworker, morning training partner, someone who shared secrets with him and kept them. He had given her all those labels, but he had never considered whether she might want something more beyond them.

And she did care.

Her feelings laid bare, Xiao Wu turned and ran toward the pine forest, her pink figure flashing in and out among the trees. Nan Feng called out, "Xiao Wu!"

She didn't stop. She ran faster, disappearing into the depths of the pine forest in the blink of an eye.

Nan Feng was soaked through, a strand of waterweed hanging from his hair.

Ye Lingling walked over to him and glanced at the waterweed, but didn't reach out to remove it for him.

"Go find her. What she needs now isn't an explanation from me."

Nan Feng plucked off the waterweed and threw it away. Ye Lingling had already settled the herb basket back on her shoulders, her expression as calm as if nothing had happened.

"Go on." She didn't look up. "There's no use standing here in wet clothes. Run after her, catch up, and talk things through."

Nan Feng hesitated no longer and set off after Xiao Wu into the pine forest.

The light was dim in the pine forest, and a thick layer of pine needles covered the ground. He ran along the path for a while and rounded an old pine. Xiao Wu was crouched at its roots, her arms around her knees and her face buried in them, her shoulders jerking.

Nan Feng walked over and crouched in front of her. He said nothing. Xiao Wu didn't look up either, and her shoulders jerked faster.

After a long time, Xiao Wu's muffled voice came from behind her arms.

"Go away."

"I'm not going."

"You're wet. You're getting me wet."

Nan Feng looked down and saw water dripping from his cuff onto Xiao Wu's shoe, soaking into dark circles. He edged half an inch to the side.

Xiao Wu slowly raised her head. Her eyes were red, and a trace of moisture glistened at the corner of one eye. She glanced at Nan Feng, then turned her head away again.

"Why did you come looking for me? Aren't you staying with Lingling?"

"She told me to come."

Xiao Wu choked for a moment and glared at him.

"She told you to come, so you came?"

"Mm. I thought she was right."

"Right about what?"

Nan Feng thought for a moment.

"She said you were angry because I didn't invite you."

He crouched beside the tree roots, his wet clothes clinging to him. The cold made him shiver, but he didn't stand up.

"When Ye Lingling came to ask me to help gather herbs that day, I didn't think to invite you because she said there was an Ironback Lizard at that place. I just thought I shouldn't drag you into something dangerous. But I never thought you might want to go."

The tips of Xiao Wu's ears turned red again. This time she didn't jump up, only buried her face a little deeper against her knees.

"Then next time you go outside the city, whether it's dangerous or not, can you ask me first?"

"Okay."

She didn't look up. Nan Feng saw her fingers loosen a little on the hem of her clothes.

"Then let me ask you: between Lingling and me, who would you rather go outside the city with?"

Nan Feng fell silent for a few breaths. His wet clothes clung to him, and the cold had even slowed his thoughts.

"I met you first. I met her later."

"That's not what I asked."

Nan Feng was silent for another moment.

"You two are different. You're the one I fight with, and she's the one I gather herbs with. It's different."

Xiao Wu raised her head and looked at him. Her eyes were still glistening, but most of the fierceness in them had faded. She stared at Nan Feng for several seconds, then suddenly reached out and pinched his soaking-wet arm hard.

"Are you really stupid, or are you pretending?"

Nan Feng sucked in a breath at the pinch.

"Can you make yourself clear before you start hitting me?"

Xiao Wu stood up and brushed the dirt off her butt, giving him a kick in the shin that was neither too hard nor too light as she did so.

"All right, go back. I won't care if you freeze to death."

She turned and took a step down the mountain, then stopped and looked back at Nan Feng, who was still crouching beneath the tree.

"Um... those things I said just now, you're not allowed to tell Tang San."

"What things?"

"All of it! You're not allowed to say a single word!"

"Oh."

Xiao Wu glared at him for three seconds, making sure he really understood, then turned and went down the mountain along the path. Her steps were much lighter than when she had come.

Nan Feng watched her pink figure pass through patches of light between the pines, flickering between light and shadow as she went farther away.

Nan Feng's knee cracked when he stood up. His body heat had warmed his wet clothes so they weren't quite as cold, but whenever the wind blew, he still felt chilled.

He walked back along the path. When he reached the edge of the lawn, Ye Lingling was still sitting on a bluestone slab, rummaging through her herb basket. Hearing his footsteps, she looked up at him.

"Catch up to her?"

"Mm."

"Made her feel better?"

Nan Feng thought for a moment. "More or less."

Ye Lingling closed the herb basket, stood up and adjusted the straps on her shoulders. Her steps paused for a moment as she passed him.

"Did you understand everything she said?"

"More or less."

Ye Lingling tilted her head and glanced at him, amusement in her pale amber eyes.

"Then you're just a tiny bit smarter than I thought."

"Was that a compliment or an insult?"

"Guess."

With that, Ye Lingling followed the path down the mountain, her plain white figure quickly melting into the shadows of the pine forest.

Nan Feng stood in the middle of the lawn, soaked through, water still dripping from his hair. He looked down at the sorry state he was in and couldn't help letting out a laugh. It was quiet, and the wind carried it away into the pine forest.

In the distance, the bell for morning classes rang three times.

Nan Feng drew a deep breath of the pine forest air, then turned and headed down the mountain.

The deep yellow glow tinged with purple beneath the Soul Ring in his palm pulsed against his skin, rising and falling in response to the blue-green light from the crack at the base of the tower. The mark Xiao Wu had pinched into his arm was still there, red and faintly aching. He looked down at it, and the corners of his mouth curved ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly in the midday sunlight.