Super Allrounder

Kapitel 31

A surge of agitation welled up in Qiao Fenglang's heart, and he gritted his teeth and said fiercely, "I don't need you to interfere!" With a wave of his hand, he actually threw the defenseless Yuwen Cuiyu away.

Yuwen Cuiyu cried out in surprise. Just as her slender figure was about to fall into the pool beside her, Qiao Fenglang reached out and caught her around the waist, pulling her back to safety.

At this moment, his face was expressionless, but his dark eyes, like pools of water, became increasingly unfathomable, flashing with a faint strangeness.

"The word 'to fulfill' has never existed in my dictionary."

He gave a soft snort and released his hand from Yuwen Cuiyu's slender waist. This stunningly beautiful woman could not make him linger for even a moment.

Suddenly, he noticed a familiar, beautiful figure swiftly passing by in the distance. His expression changed, and he took off after her.

Yuwen Cuiyu slowly stood up, watched the two figures gradually disappear into the distance, and suddenly sighed.

※ ※ ※

"I just stepped in to save her from falling into the pool."

With a slap, Qiao Fenglang pulled Yin Wuxiao back from her haste, forcefully turning her body around and fixing his gaze on her beautiful eyes.

“…I saw it.” Yin Wuxiao looked at Qiao Fenglang, who was breathing rapidly, with a somewhat bewildered expression.

"Aren't you angry?" Qiao Fenglang asked anxiously.

"Uh... should I be angry?" Yin Wuxiao tilted his head and thought about it seriously for a moment, then gave up and frowned.

Qiao Fenglang breathed a sigh of relief, but seeing her lost in thought again, a hint of anger crept into his heart.

"You are my fiancée, and you will be my wife in the future. Why aren't you angry that your husband is flirting with other women?"

"This..." That seems to make some sense. Yin Wuxiao blinked. "So... you want me to be angry?"

"I..." Qiao Fenglang, choked by her words, almost wanted to reach out and slap her usually brilliant head.

After a long while, he dejectedly lowered his hand, a deep sense of disappointment enveloping him.

"Xiao'er, where do you place me in your heart?"

Yin Wuxiao looked at him quietly, then suddenly smiled bitterly: "Brother Fenglang, what kind of answer are you still expecting? I've already made it perfectly clear, we grew up together since we were little..."

"Enough!" Qiao Fenglang clenched his fist angrily, interrupting her usual refrain.

“I don’t want to hear you repeat the same things again.” His voice was unusually weary.

Yin Wuxiao opened his mouth, but ultimately remained silent.

What did he want to hear from her? He had already blocked any possibility of her telling the truth, yet he was forcing her to genuinely admit her feelings for him. Under these circumstances, even if she did tell him, would he believe her?

She didn't want to lie to him.

Seeing Yin Wuxiao's helplessness and speechlessness, Qiao Fenglang couldn't contain his immense resentment and despair, and laughed self-deprecatingly.

"If that's the case, why did you agree to marry me?" He was now questioning her like a clown.

Yin Wuxiao turned his head away in disbelief: "You... chose that time to bring it up, did you give me a chance to refuse?"

"So that means you're still doing this for Baili Qingyi?" A cruel glint appeared in his eyes.

"..."

"If I hadn't exposed you today, what were your plans? Would you have married me just like that? Or..." Qiao Fenglang gritted his teeth, "behind my back, would you have joined forces with Baili Qingyi to fight for Yu Fei?"

"It's not like you to humble yourself like this," he said with a sneer.

Yin Wuxiao took a deep breath, looked up at the face she knew all too well, and a trace of sorrow floated onto her snowy cheeks: "Brother Fenglang, I'm tired, and I don't want to force anything anymore, or fight for anything anymore. If... if this kind of marriage is what you want, I'm willing to give it to you."

Ever since she agreed to marry him, she had secretly made up her mind. However, as she blurted it out today, she still felt a slight throbbing pain in her left chest.

For a fleeting moment, she seemed to feel that warm touch on her lips again. The laughter and drinks under the candlelight on that cold night, the warm care on the treetop in the breeze, even the painful roar of that person she first saw in the rain at the bottom of the cliff that day, all surged into her heart like a tidal wave, but she quickly suppressed them.

She was ultimately afraid. Afraid that everything might have been just a dream that was too alluring and too extravagant, afraid that the intimate love would once again turn into a deep-seated poison that would devour her heart, which she could no longer bear. Perhaps, ever since that night three years ago, filled with betrayal and separation, she could no longer be the Yin Wuxiao who dared to love and hate.

"What is it about him that I can't get?!" Qiao Fenglang roared in frustration, gripping her soft neck with one hand and slamming her against the hard wall behind him without any tenderness, his hot breath consuming her.

Yin Wuxiao shrank back and closed his eyes.

She never felt guilty towards Qiao Fenglang before. She arrogantly thought that liking her was his own business, and she was just being true to her own feelings, without having to take responsibility for him. But now it's different. She understands what heartache, reluctance, hatred, and unrequited love are. And she sees all of these clearly in Qiao Fenglang's hysterical anger.

Does she really have the right to make someone she cares about so much heartbroken for her sake? If there's anything she can do, even if she can't say something against her will, at least let him get what he wants.

"Do you know how cruel you are..." Qiao Fenglang growled in a suppressed voice in her ear. He vaguely recalled that afternoon when peach blossoms were falling like rain. Since that afternoon, he had been bewitched by her, poisoned by her charm, and willingly swallowed the poison she gave him. She would never know what he had done to get her.

“Brother Fenglang…” Yin Wuxiao blinked gently, a thin mist quietly rising in her phoenix eyes. “I’m sorry.”

His handsome face, so close yet so close, filled her heart with an unfathomable sorrow.

"Do you think you're doing something noble?" Qiao Fenglang suddenly glared at her with a ferocious look, a maniacal smile playing on his lips.

"Do you think that this will make you keep that hypocrite Baili Qingyi in your heart forever? What do you think you are to him?"

Yin Wuxiao was taken aback. What was she to him? She hadn't thought about it, nor did she want to. Apart from once saying that he wanted to kiss her, she truly didn't know what she meant to Baili Qingyi. Her relationship with him was merely a chance and coincidental beginning, but it was all too long ago. As for the ending, she dared not think about it.

"Do you think he would abandon his beautiful wife and the Baili family's century-old reputation in the martial arts world for you?" Qiao Fenglang continued his cruel mockery. If Baili Qingyi dared to forcibly take her away from him, then his reputation as the Qingyi Young Master for stealing another man's wife would be confirmed. Even if he disregarded the Qiao Gang's immense power in the martial arts world and the overwhelming condemnation from those who upheld justice, the Baili family would still have to consider the clean and upright reputation they had painstakingly built up over the past century.

Would he... do that?

Thinking of those eyes, seemingly relaxed and indifferent, yet burdened with too much responsibility and fleeting fame, Yin Wuxiao felt uncertain. In that instant, fear gripped her; she was afraid to consider where, in some insignificant corner of the heart, this man who took the world and the martial world as his responsibility placed her.

"Maybe he will, maybe he won't, but it doesn't matter to me anymore." She paused, then gently touched her dark hair beside her cheek, as if seeking a sliver of comfort.

However, Qiao Fenglang refused to let her go. He had put in so much effort, yet he had never received a single focused glance from her. How could he easily let go of this opportunity to disturb her mind?

He picked up her snowy chin with one hand, forcing her to look at him: "I won't give you a chance to escape, nor will I give him a chance to leave a perfect image in your heart."

"You... what do you want?" Yin Wuxiao looked back at him, her face slightly pale.

"What do I want?" Qiao Fenglang's smile was laced with ruthlessness.

"Tomorrow, you will come back to the Qiao Gang with me to prepare for the wedding. If Baili Qingyi dares to stop you, I will no longer require you to keep your promise. If he doesn't dare, you must promise me that you will completely erase him from your heart from now on."

Silk and ink cracked, fragrant

Autumn has arrived.

Qiao Fenglang kept his word and arranged everything perfectly.

A messenger from Qiao Bang brought news that Aunt Yun, who was far away in the capital, had woken up. Upon hearing that they were going to hold a wedding, she insisted on coming to Qiao Bang's house to officiate the wedding, despite her illness.

Mu Wanfeng was still ill, and Qiao Fenglang remained indifferent to her, but he did not object to her moving to Qiaobang to recuperate once her condition improved.

The barely breathing Mu Wanfeng took her hand and, for the first time, instructed her like a true mother: "I'm entrusting Lang'er to you. Take good care of him."

Everything seemed to be falling into place.

“Divine Doctor, come to the capital another day. Aunt Nan’s twenty years are all there.” As if he had made a great decision, Yin Wuxiao said slowly to Xuan Hegu.

She wasn't mistaken. Hidden behind Xuan He's aloof nature was loneliness, remorse, and now, a touch of reluctant farewell. She knew that this aged man saw the shadow of Aunt Nan in her. And that was why she found it hard to hate him anymore.

Aunt Nan, I'll forgive him on your behalf, okay?

I wonder if, decades later, she herself will feel the same loneliness as Xuan Hegu?

Xuan was startled.

"Okay, okay," he said casually, then turned his back.

Yin Wuxiao knew he was trying to hide his reddening eyes, but he didn't expose him.

The merciless autumn wind whipped her crimson cloak, and the soft fox fur at the edge of the hood gently brushed against her slightly chilly cheeks.

That person didn't come.

Was it unexpected?

No, she knew all along that Qiao Fenglang would definitely leave without telling him.

But Baili Qingyi isn't someone who's easily fooled. Hasn't he realized it yet? Or is it that he never intended to show up at all?

The affection and longing that surged in his eyes on the tree branches in the cool breeze that night now seemed unattainable to her, even unrecognizable as real.

"Xiao Wu'er, do you really want to go back like this?" Bai Can, still unable to accept the reality, scratched his head.

He and Baili Tieyi and the others had gotten used to jokingly calling her Xiao Wu'er, and were too lazy to change it, so she just let it be. But now, it sounded like a call from her past life.

Yin Wuxiao nodded, revealing a faint smile: "You must take good care of Sister Cui. If she loses even a single hair, I will hold you responsible."

"...I understand." She didn't forget to threaten him even as she left.

"You suddenly said you want to go back to get married, which caught my older brother... um... and us all off guard... Shouldn't we reconsider?" Baili Tieyi cautiously glanced at Qiao Fenglang, who had an unfriendly expression behind her, and boldly asked.

"What difference does it make whether one is prepared or not? It all depends on one's thoughts." Yin Wuxiao pursed her red lips. The person was still nowhere to be seen.

“…Well, my older brother should be here soon. At least I should see him before I leave,” Baili Tieyi said sheepishly, muttering to himself, “Really, where did he go at this crucial moment…”

Yin Wuxiao paused for a moment.

Even Baili Tieyi could tell she was waiting for him?

Qiao Fenglang was successful; he successfully plunged her into anxiety and fear. She feared his coming, yet she also feared his not coming. Now, how could she deny it?

I long to see him, even if it's just for the last time.

“I’ll go check on him; perhaps something has delayed the young master in blue,” Yuwen Cuiyu suddenly said.

"Sister!" Yuwen Hongying glared at her sister, who was bending her elbow outwards, both shocked and angry. Yuwen Cuiyu ignored her fierce objections and walked back on her own.

Yin Wuxiao smiled bitterly.

Who doesn't know who she's waiting for right now?

No one said anything, but she felt that this situation was the most embarrassing thing she could have imagined.

Watching Yuwen Cuiyu's departing figure, her pride made her gently raise her chin.

"Brother Fenglang, let's go back." Yin Wuxiao took the initiative to place his hand in Qiao Fenglang's large palm, turned around and headed towards the carriage, his face showing no sign of reluctance.

That gentle smile, that tender touch, that cherished kiss—all of it became a burning pain in her heart at this moment. She should be grateful; Baili Qingyi had helped her so much, as selflessly and meticulously as he had helped the entire martial arts world. As for the rest, it was as unreal as a dream; she should just pretend it never happened.

Qiao Fenglang's face twitched, then turned to excitement, his eyes gleaming with a strange light.