Chapter 1120 — Valentine's Day Special: Xiao Ning's Story, Part 5
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
"Shall we talk a little?" Xiao Ning hesitated a moment, then at last ventured the question.
"About what?" Wei Zhao opened his eyes.
To tell the truth, Xiao Ning was genuinely the sort of girl to make one's heart stir. In all these years, apart from Xiao Qi, she was the first woman Wei Zhao had ever been alone with. Yet he and Xiao Qi had both been far too young back then, so much so that the memory had grown hazy and faded almost entirely from his mind.
Still, Wei Zhao was a man of iron principle. Xiao Ning was his employer, and Wei Zhao would not let their relationship overstep so much as half a step beyond its proper bounds - that was not in keeping with the way he had always conducted himself.
"You must have had all sorts of interesting adventures. Would you tell me some?" Wei Zhao's sharp vigilance and decisive way of handling matters had filled Xiao Ning with a deep curiosity. She thought: he must be a man with a story behind him. Though he looked to be about her own age, his life was surely anything but ordinary.
"No." Wei Zhao declined her question in a perfectly flat voice.
Xiao Ning was somewhat vexed. How could a man be so blind to a gentle hint? Watching Wei Zhao close his eyes once more, she rose to her feet in exasperation. She would go out for a stroll on her own; staring at that poker face of Wei Zhao's was altogether too dreary!
"Don't go far." Wei Zhao did not open his eyes, yet he spoke to Xiao Ning all the same.
"Hmph!" Xiao Ning gave a hmph by way of answer, and ran out of the cave.
Wei Zhao did not stop her either. There was no danger nearby, and the militants were unlikely to have found their way here, so he simply let her go. With Xiao Ning gone, Wei Zhao actually breathed a sigh of relief!
With a beauty at his side, it was impossible for a raw novice like Wei Zhao not to be flustered. Though he did his utmost to compose himself, the effect was slight. A fair and graceful maiden is the gentleman's true delight - and at this moment Wei Zhao's state of mind had not yet grown as steady as it would be two years hence. In the end, he too was an ordinary man.
Wei Zhao sat with his eyes shut in cultivation also to keep himself from too much contact with Xiao Ning. In the wilderness, a lone man and a lone woman - this was the very situation most likely to strike sparks. Though Wei Zhao longed for something to happen, his reason held him fast.
Besides, Wei Zhao had thought it through very clearly: she was the one calling the shots in these negotiations, a little princess of a great clan, while he was no more than an attendant bodyguard. Could anything really happen between a bodyguard and a princess? Was that realistic?
Xiao Ning ran out of the cave, but did not go far. She did not want to make trouble for Wei Zhao, and simply busied herself building a snowman near the cave mouth!
The Yu family was a mysterious clan. The secret of its unbroken prosperity and its position as leader of the hidden great families lay in certain matters no outsider ever knew. Xiao Ning was the family's inheritor - the one who had received the transmission of its strength after the Yu family's patriarch passed away.
This was also the reason she could not cultivate: her bloodline had been born for the sake of inheritance!
According to the patriarch's dying instructions, Xiao Ning had to begin the trial of her life once she was past the age of sixteen; only by passing the trial could she receive the inheritance. And no skilled family protectors could be assigned to her side during the trial, or it would defeat the purpose entirely!
Of course, all of this was top secret within the Yu family, and Xiao Ning knew nothing of it. All she knew was that her bloodline was unsuited to cultivation, and that the family had sent her out in order to temper her, to make her into someone who would amount to something!