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Chapter 47 - Chapter 47: Caught Being Intimate

Chapter 47: Caught Being Intimate

My name is Zhu Zhuqing. I grew up in a "happy" family. My father was strict, but I knew he loved me. My mother was gentle, and my older sister treated me well. I should have been a joyful little princess.

When I was six, I awakened our clan's inherited martial soul, the Netherworld Spirit Cat. I also had a decent level of innate soul power. It should have been something worth celebrating.

But all it brought me was endless pain.

I was forced into an engagement with someone I had never met. My sister's personality changed drastically—she bullied me in every way possible, even tried to kill me. My father turned a blind eye. My mother wanted to help but was strictly forbidden from doing so.

At that moment, everything collapsed in my heart.

What's wrong with this world? Is it sick?

Later, my mother told me the truth, and I finally understood why my sister wanted to kill me.

Only one of us could survive.

That was the fate carried by the Zhu clan.

But I didn't want to die. I wanted to live. For that, I trained with everything I had—just to survive.

The one I was engaged to probably had the same idea. After all, we were both pitiful souls tied to the same fate, like two grasshoppers on a rope.

But he ran away—left the Xingluo Empire, chose to fall, chose a life of indulgence among women.

Alone and abandoned, I had no one. My sister's intent to kill me became completely unscrupulous—she constantly sent assassins after me.

Right before I turned ten, after grueling cultivation, I finally reached level 20 and obtained my second spirit ring. But then my sister appeared too. I thought I was doomed.

At that moment, a very handsome blue-haired boy showed up.

He saved me. He healed my wounds. He cooked delicious food for me. He told me stories.

That was the happiest time of my life.

Before we parted, I somehow blurted out, "One day, you must come save me."

I panicked.

What I didn't expect was that he agreed.

At that moment, tears blurred my eyes—tears of joy. In the two years after that, I thought of him every day, of the time we spent together in that cave.

So, I decided to find him.

After many hardships, I finally met him again.

But at first, he didn't recognize me. And he had two beautiful girls by his side. I was furious.

Later, the misunderstanding was resolved, and we confirmed our feelings for each other.

My happiness was finally coming.

But I never expected...

—The above is the narration from the protagonist's first girlfriend.

Seeing Zu Zong being physically close with another girl, Zhu Zhuqing frowned slightly. But she quickly returned to normal and said coldly, "Can I come along?"

Zhu Zhuqing's expression was calm—very, extremely, incomparably calm—like the surface of a still sea. Her deep black eyes locked firmly onto Zu Zong. She was in a foul mood. This morning, she was first "harassed" by Ning Rongrong; then during class, she was forced to eat that disgusting sausage from that uncle at Shrek Academy; and finally, when she finally had some free time and came to see Zu Zong—he was flirting with another girl.

A breeze blew, tousling everyone's hair. Affected by Zhu Zhuqing's cold aura, the street had long been deserted. Silence blanketed the area.

Cold sweat appeared on Zu Zong's forehead. Just yesterday, he had solemnly sworn while holding Zhu Zhuqing that he would protect her for life. Yet the next day, he was being hugged by another girl—even if she was a rabbit. If he didn't explain this clearly today, his future was going to be miserable.

He pried off Xiao Wu's arm and gave a sheepish smile. "Um, Zhuqing, what are you doing here? I thought you were in class! Uh, let me introduce you guys…"

"No need. You already introduced us last time," Zhu Zhuqing interrupted.

Women are sensitive creatures—even a hundred-thousand-year-old female rabbit is no exception. Instinctively sensing danger, Xiao Wu put her hands on her waist and said to Zhu Zhuqing, "Your name's Zhuqing, right? Hi, I'm Xiao Wu, as in the 'dance' in dancing. I'm Zong's…"

At this point, Xiao Wu paused and showed a contemplative expression.

To say she was his girlfriend—she couldn't bring herself to say it. That blockhead had never admitted it either.

She said she was a younger sister—but even though she had acknowledged Old Tom as a grandfather, calling herself a sister would obviously put her a step below the other party. That wouldn't do.

Heh, got it!

"I'm Zu Zong's childhood sweetheart."

Zhu Zhuqing glanced at Xiao Wu, then at Ye Lingling beside her. She could be sure that Ye Lingling was just a regular friend of Zu Zong, but this girl named Xiao Wu was clearly eyeing her man's body. How outrageous.

Zhu Zhuqing merely nodded lightly to Xiao Wu and Ye Lingling in acknowledgment.

"Zu Zong, I have something to talk to you about." As soon as she finished speaking, Zhu Zhuqing grabbed Zu Zong by the arm and started walking toward a nearby teahouse.

Zu Zong gave Xiao Wu and Ye Lingling an apologetic look before being dragged away by Zhu Zhuqing into the teahouse.

"Ugh." Xiao Wu's expression twisted, her fair face turning red with frustration. She had actually been completely ignored. Worse, Zu Zong was openly taken away—and the worst part was, that damned guy didn't resist in the slightest.

"Waaah…" Unable to hold it in, Xiao Wu dove into Ye Lingling's arms and began to cry. "Waaah… What do I do, Lingling? Zu Zong's been stolen away by a wild woman!"

Hearing that, a black line appeared on Ye Lingling's forehead. "Wild woman?" That was a rather unique phrase—though admittedly better than Yan Zi's "old hag." She gently patted Xiao Wu's back and comforted her, "Alright, stop crying. I don't know if there's anything going on between them, but I do know Zu Zong isn't someone who acts on impulse. From what I can see, maybe they've known each other for a long time."

"Known each other for a long time?" Xiao Wu stopped sobbing and started to think back.

Suddenly, her eyes lit up as she murmured, "Zhuqing? Zhujing? Could it be…"

Still speaking, Xiao Wu grabbed Ye Lingling's hand and followed after them. Ye Lingling shook her head helplessly and let herself be pulled along.

Inside the teahouse, the two ordered a pot of premium jasmine tea.

Zu Zong poured a cup for Zhu Zhuqing and smiled, "Zhuqing, try this. It's a specialty of Soto City—jasmine tea. It clears heat and soothes fire. Perfect to cool down on such a hot day."

As he spoke, Zu Zong pulled out a paper fan with his right hand and began fanning her.

Zhu Zhuqing shot him a side-eye. "Offering kindness for no reason—either a thief or a schemer. Speak. What's going on between you and that Xiao Wu?"

Zu Zong nodded. Ever since he saw Zhu Zhuqing—or rather, ever since they confirmed their relationship—he had been thinking about what Xiao Wu meant to him.

When he had first awakened his martial soul, Xiao Wu was just a hundred-thousand-year spirit ring and spirit bone in his eyes.

At their first meeting, he hadn't made a move because he couldn't absorb a hundred-thousand-year ring yet, and she was just a little girl.

But as they spent more time together, Zu Zong had long abandoned those self-serving ideas. Even so, he hadn't fully opened his heart to her. Mostly, it had just been the satisfaction of snatching her from Tang San.

Even after a year of living side by side, Zu Zong continued to remind himself, "She's a rabbit, she's a rabbit."

Until the break from Notting Academy, when they returned to Dihun Village and Xiao Wu recognized Old Tom as her grandfather—that gave Zu Zong a reason, a justification to treat Xiao Wu as family. And that was the reason he had never quite been able to articulate, even though he had already begun accepting her into his heart.

That was also why, on impulse, he had given her the Transformation Pill.

Now, six years later, to say he had no romantic feelings for Xiao Wu would be a lie.

The truth was, he had gone in the wrong direction from the very beginning. From the first moment he saw her, he subconsciously saw her as Tang San's future wife in the original story—a soul beast who passively stood by while her husband stole the divine essence of the Auspicious Beast, dooming the soul beasts to destruction.

In hindsight, he had arrogantly blamed Xiao Wu for sins she hadn't yet committed.

But unlike Tang San—who was deeply bound by feudal thought and influenced by the cruel doctrines of the Tang Sect, treating the principles in the Xuantian Record as absolute—Zu Zong wasn't like that.

Xiao Wu was different. She would never repeat the mistakes from the original story.

Because the one beside her now wasn't Tang San—it was Zu Zong.

[End of Chapter]

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