372 Story
All of this time, Dyon had been trying to ignore the facts.
Ri was someone who had spent much of her life being made fun of for her looks. Then, when she fell for someone, she found out that this same man who looked past the way she looked, had a fiancée who was a matchless beauty.
To make things worse, Dyon hadn’t met Ri with Madeleine by his side. He had met Ri after having been separated from Madeleine for more than a year. No matter how competitive or confident Ri was, how could she help but not think she was only a temporary replacement? How could someone who had to deal with people constantly disappearing from her life not worry that the first man she had ever loved leaving too?
With all of these feelings mounting and the meeting with Madeleine looming, Ri was trying her best to hide how she truly felt from Dyon, struggling to be the woman Dyon couldn’t find flaw in. And then, things instantly got worse…
Dyon had gone and disappeared, falling into a crack permeating with death qi and seemingly dying. Despite his words of promise before those events, how could Ri put stock into his survival? Yet another person, gone.
Ri wasn’t willing to believe it or think about it, so she buried those feeling, throwing herself into the battle until a ray of hope came in the form of Dyon’s spatial ring.
But then, Dyon didn’t show up for months. Ri didn’t know how he was fairing, if he was safe, or what he was doing. She was completely cut off and in a constantly troubling emotional state as she fought for endless days in a row.
In the end, Dyon came back, but even then, it was like a dream to her. She didn’t even fully realize Dyon was really back until she woke up in the hotel room.
However, even when she was finally back in Dyon’s arm, it was time for her to pretend again. Pretend as though she hadn’t been bothered by the past few months. Pretend as though these new shifts in her body weren’t confusing and scaring to her. Pretend as though she wasn’t scared about meeting Madeleine.
The truth was she didn’t know how she felt. She had known Dyon had a fiancée from the very beginning and had already promised herself to him. She had decided right from the moment she gave her virginity to Dyon, that even if she had to spend the rest of her life in a jealous state, it was worth it if she could be with this man. But, that didn’t stop her from feeling the fear that was building up.
How would she feel about having to share Dyon with someone else? How would she feel seeing Dyon worry over someone else like he did her? How would she feel when Dyon looked at Madeleine in a way that, up until now, had been reserved for her? She just didn’t know.
So, when all of these feelings mounted, and she finally wanted to take out some frustration, everything had come crashing down. She had lost. She felt useless. And worse yet? Even till now she thought she had forever lost her ability to birth Dyon’s child.
‘Why would he want me now?’ Ri didn’t know how many times she had thought this. But, it ran through her mind again and again. ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
“Ri?” Dyon say on the edge of the bed, lightly gripping Ri’s small hand. This wasn’t something he could help her with, but what he could do was be here for her.
“Mm.” Ri rolled, opening her eyes to find Dyon looking at her with a gaze filled with concern.
Dyon wanted to say that he would never leave Ri. That he loved her as much as he loved Madeleine and that he couldn’t live without either of them. But, words just weren’t enough.
Ri might have heard that her parents loved her millions of times, and yet hadn’t they left as well? To Ri, that was what people did… As long as they had enough reason to, they would leave. Even if they had no intention to now, they might still do it later.
Seeing Dyon’s concern, Ri’s eye watered as she looked down at her belly. “I’m sorry.” She whispered softly.
“Ri, stop that. I only need some time to undo it. Soon, you’ll be my health little feu glace, okay?” Dyon gently wiped the tears from Ri’s cheek, “Then, we can train together. We still have weeks until the tournament. You have all of this built up cultivation you haven’t tapped into yet. How could you not have improved after months of fighting, right?”
Ri nodded slowly. Despite her cultivation not having progressed in months, after that much time fighting, she was bound to be ready for quite a few consecutive breakthroughs. A beast could cultivate by almost solely eating a sleeping, right now, that was exactly what Ri needed. Much like muscle training where strength only grew after muscles tore and rebuilt themselves, Ri’s cultivation had been theoretically ‘torn’, but, she had yet to rebuild it.
Sliding to the top of the bed, Dyon dressed-down before helping Ri into something more comfortable.
Ri was quiet and frail. It was clear the seal was still not allowing her to gather her strength and she needed Dyon’s help to do something as simple as changing her clothes. Although Dyon was trying to help, the fact she needed it for something so easy only made Ri even more frustrated with herself.
Despite seeing Ri’s flawless naked body in front of him, Dyon couldn’t think about anything other than how he could fix this as his eyes flashed with gold to cover Ri in a comfortable set of sweats.
“Nope.” Dyon shook his head, causing Ri to struggle to give him a look of confusion. “You’re my woman. I’m not allowing this. Come here, I’m telling you a story.”
Ri’s heart warmed at Dyon’s words even as she felt like a feather in the wind being swung up to Dyon’s lap.
“This story from the human world is exactly what you need right now…” Dyon said faintly.