Chapter 1915 — Motion Sickness, Part One

Though the Xuandan Sect had kept growing stronger, to the point where it was quietly overshadowing the other ancient sects, it still lacked the power to wipe any of them out—so naturally it could not afford to be too arrogant.

"Has the business at home been settled...?" Along the way the other students chattered and laughed; only Wang Xinyan and Wei Zhao sat silent, and Wei Zhao, feeling the awkwardness, had tossed out a topic at random.

"Mm... more or less settled, I suppose..." Thinking of her own origins, Wang Xinyan could not help but sigh.

"And the engagement with the Kang family... is it still on?" Wei Zhao asked.

"Mm..." Wang Xinyan nodded. For some reason her heart felt restless and raw; she had never liked the engagement, but never before had she been this resistant to it. More and more, she did not want to marry Kang Zhaolong.

"Not broken off yet?" Wei Zhao was slightly taken aback, but then reflected that the Xiao and Kang families were now in much the same straits; both had hidden clans backing them, yet both had lost several experts, so a union between them was in fact quite likely.

"No... it's all but settled... Now that I'm at university, and here in Donghai, I'm afraid Kang Zhaolong will come calling before long..." Wang Xinyan smiled bitterly.

"You don't want to marry him?" Wei Zhao asked.

"Want to or not, what difference does it make? I'm nothing but a sacrifice to the family's interests..." Wang Xinyan shook her head. She had given up hope long ago—she had grown almost numb to it.

"If you don't want to marry, then don't." Wei Zhao felt a measure of sympathy for her. If she were marrying a decent man, he could wish her well; but she was marrying into the Kang family—and by his reckoning the Kang family would sooner or later be wiped out by his own hand. Would marrying in not simply make her a widow?

"Not marry... marry you, then?" Wang Xinyan gave a bitter smile, but somehow the joke slipped out before she could stop it. The instant the words left her mouth her face burned as though on fire; she was not one for jokes, yet she had said it, and now she felt thoroughly embarrassed.

"Sure," Wei Zhao said, smiling.

"I was only joking..." Hearing his answer, Wang Xinyan's face grew even redder, yet somewhere in her heart there was a small, startled delight. So Wei Zhao did not look down on her quite as completely as he seemed to. His coldness before had made her think she held no attraction for him whatsoever.

Some men, in courting a woman, did play at being aloof to draw her eye, but Wang Xinyan knew Wei Zhao was absolutely not that sort.

His indifference was genuine and effortless, as though he saw through everything and let it all slide off him.

"I'm joking too—I can't very well just kill Kang Zhaolong, can I?" Wei Zhao said, laughing.

"You don't seem afraid of the Kang family? Of course... you're not." It suddenly struck Wang Xinyan that the man before her was truly no ordinary person. He had kicked the Xiao and Kang families straight out of the ranks of the great houses, and men like Pi Bo and Pi Yangyang had died either by his hand or by his henchmen's—yet Wei Zhao was alive and well, while the Kang and Xiao families, for all their powerful backers, had been reduced to sealing an alliance by marriage just to keep their fortunes afloat.

"You're not really hoping I'll kill Kang Zhaolong, are you?" Wei Zhao asked, lowering his voice.

"Huh?" Wang Xinyan started, then shook her head. For an instant just now she truly had wanted to say, Go and kill Kang Zhaolong—but the idea was simply too insane. Killing those guards was one thing; if Wei Zhao really did kill Kang Zhaolong, would that not bring enormous trouble down on them?

At that thought, Wang Xinyan resolutely abandoned the idea: "Kill him, and I'd still have to marry Kang Zhaoming—and that one's even worse."

"Then I'll kill them both," Wei Zhao said.

"..." Wang Xinyan was speechless. Wei Zhao looked so refined and gentle—surely he was not some violent lunatic? Kill them, just like that?

In another car sat Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu—this was the economics department's vehicle.

"Sister Yaoyao, isn't military training awfully hard without Arrow-Brand Bro to help?" Shen Yushu missed Wei Zhao a little; she probably would not see him at all during the training period.

"We can manage without him," Gu Mengyao said. "Xiaoshu, we have to learn to stand on our own. We can't lean on him too much. He... he'll leave one day, after all. How could he live in our villa forever?"

"Right now we're the ones living in his villa!" Shen Yushu said. "If we just dig in and refuse to leave, Arrow-Brand Bro won't throw us out."

"We're in university now... Someday we'll grow up, make our own lives, have families of our own—are we still going to be clinging to Wei Zhao then?" Gu Mengyao gazed rather sadly at the trees hurtling past the window and sighed.

Over the past half year or so she felt she had grown up a great deal, no longer the willful young miss who understood nothing of the world. Wei Zhao had shown her how precious friendship was, and family... and love; that difficult stretch of time above all was a memory beyond price.

"Sister Yaoyao, why don't you be Arrow-Brand Bro's first wife? Then you could be with him forever..." Shen Yushu suggested.

"Aren't you the little wife? Wouldn't it be enough for you to be with him?" Gu Mengyao laughed.

"Me..." A flicker of worry crossed Shen Yushu's eyes, gone in an instant. "All right, I'll do my best..."

"Hm?" Gu Mengyao glanced at Xiaoshu oddly. She had always felt something a little off about her today—was Xiaoshu not always brimming with confidence? Why say "do my best"?

"It's nothing. Nice weather today," Xiaoshu said.

"??" Gu Mengyao stared at her, even more baffled, with no idea what she was talking about...

Once the cars left the school grounds, they wound their way onto the national highway, and the farther they went the more remote it grew—until at last they were actually driving on a dirt road!

The cars' suspension was decent enough, but the endless jolting was more than some of the pampered students could bear. They complained without end, regretting that they had not thought to bring cushions.

Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu, by contrast, sat perfectly at ease. Half a year earlier, neither of them could have endured such hardship either, but after a trip to the Snow Valley, they had traveled roads far worse—what was a stretch like this?

The two exchanged a smile. This was a rare experience in a lifetime.

Wang Xinyan had not been raised in pampered luxury, but she had never endured hardship of this kind either—especially since she was prone to carsickness; otherwise, on the train and the plane before, she could not have put on her mp3 the moment she boarded. Music eased the dizziness.

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