Chapter 2: I've Liked You for a Long Time

Her favorability had dropped back to zero.

Yun Zhao was livid.

What was with these people, all yammering on and on as if only they had a mouth?

When Song Zhiyuan sent men to seize Qi Yan, Yun Zhao shifted in front of him.

“Senior Brother Song, what do you think you are doing to my man?”

Song Zhiyuan froze. “Your man?”

Qi Yan also froze; the cold, forbidding aura around him vanished in an instant.

“Yes,” Yun Zhao blurted without missing a beat. “I rescued him from the dungeon. Of course he belongs to me.”

“Senior Brother Song, I saved him from the wild mountains behind Azure Cloud Peak. A life saved is a debt repaid with one’s body, so now he’s mine.”

In order to keep Qi Yan hidden from discovery, Song Zhiyuan had built the dungeon in the rear mountains of Azure Cloud Peak.

The back mountains were infested with demonic beasts, which could mask the demonic aura on Qi Yan’s body.

Taking advantage of Song Zhiyuan’s moment of shock, Yun Zhao grabbed Qi Yan and ran toward the courtyard. There was a protective formation there; once activated, it would prevent Qi Yan from being forcibly taken away.

“Junior Sister, what are you doing?”

The defensive array separated them. Song Zhiyuan’s face was anxious. “Stop messing around. If Qi Yan is not in the dungeon, the elders will soon detect the demonic aura on him.”

Yun Zhao looked startled. “Demonic aura? Senior Brother Song, are you mistaken?”

She pointed at Qi Yan and lied with her eyes wide open. “He is clearly a human. What demonic aura are you talking about?”

“Senior Brother Song, you must have the wrong person. Go find the one you actually came for.”

She slammed the door shut with a bang. Song Zhiyuan was wary of overreaching; he wanted to drag Qi Yan away by force, but he did not dare attack the courtyard’s defensive formation.

Favorability +2. Current favorability: 2.

Yun Zhao’s eyes lit up. At last, it was no longer zero!

She helped Qi Yan inside and had a junior disciple brew medicine to bring over. She fed him herself and personally bound his wounds.

Favorability -1. Current favorability: 1.

Yun Zhao froze mid-feed, questioning her entire existence.

She had been so good to Qi Yan. Why had his favorability dropped again?

Qi Yan, now wrapped like a mummy, said, “What exactly did I do to offend you? A single pill could have treated this injury, and yet you insist on tormenting me slowly, cutting flesh with a dull knife.”

Could it be that she had been acting just now, too? Was she planning some new trick to toy with him?

Qi Yan instantly grew wary.

Was Yun Zhao brewing up something big, planning to make him trust her and fall in love with her, only to cast him aside cruelly in the end?

He remembered seeing a story like that in his previous life.

Yun Zhao hurriedly removed the bandages and gave him another healing pill. The favorability score nearly dropped again...

Favorability had dropped back to zero.

Yun Zhao: “...”

Why?!

She felt she needed to go calm herself down.

“Rest first. I’ll be outside for a bit.”

Qi Yan watched her leave. After sniffing the pill in his hand to confirm there was nothing wrong with it, he finally swallowed it.

Perhaps the room’s arrangement was too warm and comfortable; Qi Yan felt drowsy. He guessed Yun Zhao was indeed planning something big and would not try to kill him immediately, so he simply pulled up the quilt and decided to sleep before anything else.

In Yun Zhao’s room, she sighed in exhaustion. “System, at this rate, when will I ever get the villain’s favorability to max out?”

The system comforted her. “Host, hang in there. Anyway, no matter how long you stay here, only one hour will pass in your world. Take it slow.”

“Think about the rewards you’ll get for completing the mission. Doesn’t that give you motivation?”

Yun Zhao only felt a tiny bit discouraged. With the system’s reassurance, she quickly adjusted her mindset and rubbed her hands together, ready for the next stage of her strategy.

“I’ll just treat this as a trip,” she muttered to herself. “I hope Mimi won’t yell at me when I get back after not feeding her for an hour.”

Night fell. Yun Zhao took a junior disciple to deliver food to Qi Yan. She knocked on the door, but no one answered.

The junior disciple pouted. “Senior Sister Zhao Zhao, this man is so arrogant. We knocked so loudly, and he still pretends not to hear us.”

Yun Zhao comforted her. “Look on the bright side. Maybe he’s dead.”

The junior disciple: “...”

Yun Zhao pushed the door open and saw Qi Yan lying on the bed with the quilt pulled over him. Her heart lurched.

Had she actually guessed right?

When had her bad luck turned into a crow’s mouth?

Yun Zhao hurriedly pulled the blanket off Qi Yan’s head. “Phew. Good, he’s still breathing.”

She had not paid close attention to Qi Yan’s appearance before. Now that he lay quietly on the bed, his features were strikingly handsome, though his face was pale from injury and all the more pitiable for it.

His eyes were shut, his thin lips pressed tight. Perhaps he was dreaming, for his eyelashes trembled faintly.

Yun Zhao reached out and touched his lashes, comparing them with her own. Hmm, about the same.

If his breathing had not been growing weaker, she would have wanted to admire him a little longer.

“Qi Yan? Qi Yan, wake up.”

Hearing Yun Zhao’s shout beside his ear, Qi Yan jolted awake. Their foreheads collided with a rather unpleasant thud.

“Hiss—”

Tears sprang to Yun Zhao’s eyes from the pain. “Is your forehead made of black iron?”

So hard.

Qi Yan said nothing. His eyes were hollow and unfocused, as though he were still trapped in a nightmare.

“What’s wrong with you?” Yun Zhao nudged him and asked, “Your breath was growing weaker just now. If I hadn’t woken you in time, you’d have gone off to meet the heavens already.”

Qi Yan came to himself, and the corner of his mouth twitched. “Is that any way to curse someone?”

Just now...

He lowered his gaze. “It’s nothing. I only had a nightmare.”

Yun Zhao did not ask what he had dreamed. She brought over the food and told him to eat some.

The steaming dishes were set before Qi Yan, and his favorability suddenly increased a little.

Yun Zhao’s eyes lit up, and she silently took note: feeding him raises favorability.

She sat on a stool with her chin in her hand and watched him eat. “It’s very safe here. Stay.”

Qi Yan set down his chopsticks. “I’m a half-demon.”

“So what?”

Yun Zhao seemed not to care in the slightest. Her eyes were bright as stars. “Qi Yan, there’s something I’ve wanted to tell you.”

“What is it?”

She drew a deep breath and tried to make her gaze as tender as possible. “Actually, I’ve liked you for a long time.”

“Ah?”

Yun Zhao recited the lines she had prepared in one breath. “Ever since the first day I saw you in the dungeon, I fell in love with you. That day, I really did want to take you away. I just didn’t expect to run into Song Zhiyuan.”

“In order not to let him lock you up somewhere else, I had to say those things.”

After her long confession of affection, Qi Yan’s expression did not change. “So what you mean is, if you like me, you beat me with a hundred lashes?”

Yun Zhao felt guilty. “I didn’t want Song Zhiyuan to suspect anything.”

“Besides, blows are affection and scolding is love...”

Qi Yan gave a cold laugh. “And when love runs deep, you throw a stone at my head?”

He did have another wound on his head, and it had been caused by Yun Zhao.

Yun Zhao could not keep going.

In any case, Qi Yan’s cultivation was still lower than hers right now, so he could not beat her. She simply said, “Anyway, I like you. I’m sorry about what happened before, all right? Forget it and stay here. Otherwise, I’ll—”

She trailed off.

Qi Yan smiled faintly, not quite a smile. “Otherwise, you’ll what?”