Chapter 279 The Twenty-Fourth Day of Entering a Xuanhuan Novel

Chapter 279 Day 24 of Falling Into a Fantasy Novel

An Yi interrupted him, asking a question: "Have you killed the innocent indiscriminately?"

Xie Xuandu paused, then shook his head extremely slowly.

He had killed, but never without reason.

Most of those who died by his hand had it coming.

An Yi continued, his gaze calm: "So who were the people you killed?"

Xie Xuandu pressed his lips together, as if recalling, then answered truthfully: "All of them were steeped in sin—either great villains or... people who got in my way."

He paused, then added in a lower voice: "There were also some... perhaps not deserving of death, but I turned a blind eye and did not save them."

He thought this would be enough to prove how cruel and unworthy he was.

However, An Yi's eyes widened slightly, revealing a look that clearly said, "That's not the right way to think."

He even let out a faint, fleeting laugh: "Watching wrongdoers pay for their own actions with cold indifference—do you have to blame yourself for that too?"

He shook his head, his tone carrying a strange, hard-to-place quality: "Then you've got way higher moral standards than me."

Xie Xuandu frowned and retorted without thinking: "It's different!"

He was flustered, trying to explain the difference: "An Yi, you're kind, you're the light—you save those people, seal those demons, you..."

An Yi held up a hand to stop him.

He looked at Xie Xuandu, his gaze serious: "Do you really think I'm a good person?"

Xie Xuandu nodded without hesitation, almost by reflex: "Of course you are."

In his eyes, everything An Yi did—that offhand kindness to strangers, that protection of the innocent—was goodness.

Moreover, An Yi wasn't even really human; he was a Spirit Beast in human form.

Naturally, he wasn't even on the same side as humans.

An Yi shook his head, his voice even but certain: "I'm not."

Xie Xuandu stared at him, stunned.

He'd never even considered that possibility.

In his heart, he'd already put An Yi firmly on the side of light.

But... so what if An Yi wasn't a good person?

The ache in his chest, the urge to get closer, to possess, and all the other overwhelming feelings that had grown from that—none of it would fade one bit.

He still felt that pull, still liked him, liked him more than anything.

Seeing Xie Xuandu standing there, stunned into silence, An Yi said no more. He reached out naturally and grabbed the sleeve of Xie Xuandu's loose robe, leading him back into the bustling crowd.

Around them, voices clamored; colorful lantern light washed over them, outlining their figures in a soft, harmonious glow.

Xie Xuandu looked down at An Yi's fair, slender hand gripping his sleeve. The warmth from those fingertips shot straight through his entire body.

His throat tightened. It took every ounce of self-control not to grab that hand and hold it tight.

He asked in a low voice, the question that had been weighing on his heart for so long: "You... don't hate me, do you?"

An Yi didn't stop walking, but he let go of Xie Xuandu's sleeve.

In that instant, Xie Xuandu's pupils suddenly contracted. Without thinking, he shot out a hand and grabbed An Yi's plain sleeve just as it was slipping away, gripping so hard his knuckles went white.

An Yi faltered slightly at the sudden movement but didn't pull away right away. He just wrinkled his nose a little, speaking with blunt honesty: "Honestly, you were really rude at first, so yeah, I disliked you a bit."

He meant back when he'd first taken human form, and Xie Xuandu had stared at him without a shred of restraint.

Xie Xuandu held onto that bit of sleeve, his gaze locked on An Yi's profile, made even more striking by the shifting light and shadow.

After a long moment, he let out a low laugh. It started out muffled, then gradually grew brighter, edged with a kind of relieved joy.

He was laughing, but his eyes were getting a little hot.

"An Yi." His voice was full of laughter, dead serious: "You're really something special."

An Yi turned to look at him, meeting those eyes—so full of tangled emotions, yet shining especially bright at this moment. He didn't say anything, just yanked his sleeve out of Xie Xuandu's grip.

Xie Xuandu's hand closed on nothing, and a flicker of panic shot through him. He immediately reached out again, stubbornly grabbing An Yi's sleeve hem once more.

An Yi was at a loss for words and shot him a look: "Are you a little kid or what? Stop tugging my sleeve! Learn to walk by yourself!"

Xie Xuandu looked at that expression—mildly annoyed but not really angry—and the unease in his chest was strangely smoothed over.

He bit into the half-eaten candied hawthorn skewer in his hand, let out a muffled laugh, and said with a shameless edge: "I'll pull it if I want to."

An Yi glanced at him, his eyes landing on the skewer in his hand—the one that had been his, now down to just two hawthorns. He said flatly: "You owe me a new one."

Hearing that, Xie Xuandu's smile broke out fully, like clouds parting to reveal the moon. His phoenix eyes gleamed, bright with the joy of getting what he wanted.

He nodded without hesitation: "Alright."

----------

The noise and glow of Luzhou City's night market slowly fell away behind them as they walked.

The further west they went, the sparser the lights became, and the voices faded into silence. Only the cold moonlight spilled down, casting a faint white glow on the bluestone road, reflecting two tall, clearly outlined shadows.

The two shadows walked side by side in perfect step, and because Xie Xuandu stubbornly held onto a corner of a sleeve, they overlapped slightly on the ground, tangled together.

Xie Xuandu was true to his word.

At the next corner, he spotted an old man getting ready to close up his stall, a few candied hawthorn skewers still stuck in the straw bundle, and stopped.

He stepped up, scanned the skewers, and carefully picked one with the biggest, reddest hawthorns and the most even, glossy sugar coating—flawless.

He took a plain handkerchief from his sleeve, wrapped it carefully around the bottom of the stick, and held it out to An Yi.

"To make it up to you." His voice was soft, his phoenix eyes holding a faint smile in the moonlight as he watched An Yi closely.

An Yi took it, said thanks, and kept walking.

He ate quietly, taking small bites of the sweet-tart hawthorns, his cheeks puffing slightly with each chew.

It was a strange contrast to his usual cool demeanor, and to Xie Xuandu, it felt like a feather brushing against his heart, tickling unbearably.

Xie Xuandu walked beside An Yi, so close their sleeves nearly brushed.

The almost self-destructive confession in the fading glow of the lanterns had not pushed the person away, but instead unexpectedly broke through a barrier, lifting a heavy burden from his shoulders.

The forbidden desires he had so forcefully suppressed now grew wildly, like prairie grass meeting the spring breeze, spreading into an unstoppable blaze.

He knew his current state was far from normal—the urge to draw closer, to touch, to possess every strand of hair and fingertip of the person before him, marking him as his own, burned so fiercely it threatened to sear his own reason.

The hand hanging at his side moved almost imperceptibly, his fingertips curling slightly inward, yearning to hook around An Yi's naturally dangling fingers and feel that imagined cool smoothness, yet just as they were about to make contact, he gritted his teeth hard, straining every fiber of his self-control to beat the urge back.

His nails dug deeply into his palm, the sharp sting barely yanking him back to a sliver of lucidity.

Wait a little longer, wait a little longer.

He cautioned himself inwardly.