Chapter 31
Chapter 31
The Transient Realm (3.1)
Zheng Wan felt like her feet were about to be ruined from walking.
She shouldn’t have worn the pearl shoes for the sake of looking good. The thin soles couldn’t handle anything—neither the cold and wet ground, nor the long journey.
She had thought it was going to be a short tunnel, but it turned out to be dark and long. She had no idea how long they had walked; her heels hurt as though they were being scraped by knives, and she suspected that the skin was torn. The points where her soles met the ground were also painful and sore——
Zheng Wan had never suffered this kind of pain before, but she had to grit her teeth and continue walking; she even had to try her best to walk gracefully.
She remembered the arduous exile in the book.
Compared to that, this was nothing more than a physical ordeal—nothing that couldn’t be endured.
As for Cui Wang, Zheng Wan didn’t act spoiled and coquettish to him. Compared to fussy greenhouse flowers, she believed that a woman who was delicate but strong would more likely appeal to him.
She only needed to show her wounds—which symbolised her tenacity—at the right time.
As she thought about how to fall naturally without losing delicacy, Zheng Wan suddenly felt that something was wrong.
The sleeve she was holding on to had become sticky and slick at some point, and a strong rusty smell lingered in the tip of her nose. A smell… she seemed to have encountered somewhere before.
Zheng Wan desperately tried to recall, and it suddenly came to her—when the time of the month came every month, she would have this smell on her.
Blood, there was blood!
Zheng Wan’s scalp grew numb. She glanced ahead instinctively. In the dark and endless tunnel, she could only vaguely make out part of a sleeve, and there seemed to be a rusted red stain on her fingers—
She was holding on to a bloodied cloth!
Zheng Wan wanted to scream, but she was afraid of incurring Cui Wang’s annoyance. She forced herself to swallow the fear at her throat and called out in a strangled voice, “Mister Cui?”
The figure in front of her seemed indestructible.
Mister Cui looked back.
It just so happened that there was a dim streak of light coming in from somewhere, and it was cast upon that face.
“Ahh!”
Zheng Wan’s suppressed scream finally rang out; tears sprang to her eyes from the fear. “M-Mister Cui, you– you——”
Mister Cui frowned, “I, what?”
“You– you——have fur on your face!” Zheng Wan squeezed her eyes tightly shut. “Very, very long fur!”
Thick bushy eyebrows and a bulbous red drunkard’s nose were faintly visible under the fur. There was a wide monkey mouth under that nose; it was currently spread in a smile like that of a beggar who goes around abducting children in supernatural stories.
Zheng Wan felt that if Cui Wang really looked like this, she wouldn’t be able to follow through with her plan.
Cui Wang stroked his face—it was smooth as it could be. He then looked at the little lady who, despite shaking like a fallen leaf in the autumn breeze, still held insistently on to his sleeve. He knew she must be caught in an illusion.
A mortal being of mortal flesh, it was no wonder she couldn’t understand what was happening.
“If so, why don’t you let go?”
“I-I haven’t let go since we entered the tunnel, so I guess– I guess that it must still be you!”
Zheng Wan’s eyes widened as if bravely staring in the face of death. After the initial shock, her reason had returned. Of course, this couldn’t really be Cui Wang’s face. Otherwise, where did all those celestial fairies who were so madly in love with him come from?
She knew that she must have been caught in an illusion, but Cui Wang didn’t know that she knew.
“A-anyway, Mister Cui, even if you look like this, Wan’niang– Wan’niang still likes you.”
Cui Wang looked at her; a strange emotion slipped into his eyes, and suddenly, it was gone.
“You are not afraid?”
“What’s there to be afraid of?” Zheng Ivang’s grip on his sleeve was unyielding. “Compared to this, the treacherous and inconstant human heart is much more frightening.”
Cui Wang was silent for a long time; he then raised his hand to her brow.