At the peak of the mountain, Bai Yunfei and Liu Meng were sitting side by side on the grass, gazing at the large expanse of grass and trees down below. Both of them were silent.
A clear wind blew past them, causing several strands of her hair to fly into his face, tickling it. When Liu Meng noticed this, she smiled at Bai Yunfei and used her hands to tuck those flowing strands of hair behind her ears.
“Thank you, Yunfei…” Liu Meng was the one who broke the silence, saying softly while gazing at a passing bird.
“Oh? Why did you say this again? Didn’t I already tell you, yesterday…”
“Not only yesterday, but also today.” Before Bai Yunfei could finish what he was saying, he was interrupted by Liu Meng. She shook her head gently and continued: “Thank you for going out to relieve boredom with me. The only person who normally goes with me is Xiao Ning. Though she’s my servant girl, she’s like a sister to me… But aside from her, I’ve almost never made friends with anyone. Previously, my body was too weak for me to do that, but later, because the people who approached me had bad intentions, I was unwilling to make friends.
“You know what? Though I’m a soul cultivator, I can’t live my life the way I want to…” Fiddling with the blades of grass in front of her using her hands, Liu Meng said slowly: “To shake off the illnesses in my body, I’ve been spending most of my time on cultivation. I occasionally went out for a stroll, but I only did this to loosen up myself when I reached a plateau.
“My father… He’s a merchant. He can use any means to expand his business, even including making use of my marriage…
“The Glacial School in the northeast part of Qingyun Province has an elder with the last name Liu… My father somehow managed to dig up a groundless trace of kinship with him and wanted to be backed by the Glacial School in business.
“Afterwards, he fawned on another elder of the Glacial School called Zhang Zhenshan and began to do business with the Zhang family in Luoshi City. This made him especially excited. To increase the closeness between the two families, he betrothed me to the young master of that Zhang family, Zhang Yang.
“I was only fourteen at the time so I simply couldn’t object to this. My father wouldn’t allow me to object to this either, so I had no choice but to hope that I can reach the Soul Sprite stage early. At that time, I’ll have the power to refuse…
“After that, Zhang Yang often tried to approach me. I could tell that he did this only because of his filthy self-interest.
“But the relationship between my father and the Zhang family became closer and closer. That family is powerful and can’t be offended. In the end, I even had to go to Luoshi City frequently to visit my ‘future’ parents-in-law…”
When saying these words, Liu Meng’s voice contained a lot of frustration and grief. However, at this point she changed the topic, continuing:
“But a few days ago, my father received information that… Zhang Yang had unexpectedly been killed the day before!”