Miss Fairy, Please Hear Me Out

“My opinion?” Xu Yuan was a little surprised that Su Jinxuan would ask him that. He glanced at her, finding it rather funny. “My opinion is that you’d better not go.”

“Hm?” Su Jinxuan blinked. “Why...?”

“Because you’re too stupid.”

Su Jinxuan fell silent.

“Ah, I’m not insulting you. Just stating a fact.”

The rise and fall of Su Jinxuan’s chest grew a little quicker.

Xu Yuan glanced at it and chuckled softly. “See? You’re already angry, and you have no intention of hiding it at all. With a personality like that, how are you supposed to be a mole?”

“I’m...”

Su Jinxuan opened her mouth to argue, but Xu Yuan cut her off first.

“I’m guessing you were about to say that getting angry when someone insults you is perfectly normal, or that there’s no need to hide something like this in front of me. Right?”

Su Jinxuan closed her red lips.

Seeing this, Xu Yuan smiled and shook his head. “Looks like I was right.”

Su Jinxuan pressed her lips together lightly.

Xu Yuan met her eyes, then suddenly smiled and raised his hand to pat her fragrant shoulder.

Su Jinxuan was not used to this sudden intimacy. Ever since they had come out of that secret chamber, this was the first physical contact between them in a month.

Xu Yuan, however, was treating it as casually as if he were back in his previous life, patting a subordinate on the shoulder during a project. He continued in the same relaxed tone.

“You don’t know how to hide your emotions, and your thoughts are far too easy to guess. I know you might only be relaxed right now. But if you were to become a mole, you would never have a moment when you could relax. Your cultivation level means that even when you’re alone, you can’t be sure whether someone nearby is watching you.”

As he spoke, Xu Yuan glanced back at Zhou Chen, who was trailing more than 20 meters behind them, then suddenly asked in a low voice, “Do you know him?”

Su Jinxuan followed Xu Yuan’s gaze and hesitated slightly. “He’s the guard who follows you around every day. His name is Zhou Chen. He should be an expert.”

Xu Yuan grinned. “He’s not a mere guard. He’s a guest retainer. A third rank Grandmaster, and he follows the martial path. Do you know this? Zhou Chen can hear your heartbeat clearly from dozens of meters away. If he circulates his art, that range might stretch even farther.

“Qin Weijiu won’t be any weaker than him. As long as you mention something important during your conversation, and your heartbeat speeds up even a little, he’ll hear it loud and clear. Su Jinxuan, do you understand what that means?”

It was not exactly mind reading, but when certain topics came up, a sudden quickening of the heartbeat could easily arouse suspicion.

Su Jinxuan clenched her fists, and her heartbeat gradually calmed. “I... I should be able to overcome that.”

Xu Yuan withdrew his hand and nodded slightly.

“Fine. For now, let’s assume you can overcome it. Then let’s keep going. Once you become a mole, every single thing you do, even every word you say, has to go through your head first. You have to carefully think through the possible consequences.

“Some information might seem unimportant to you, something you can mention casually, but that’s only because you don’t have the full picture. One offhand remark from you, once someone hears it, might be enough to expose you. The speaker may mean nothing by it, but the listener may hear everything in it.”

As he spoke, Xu Yuan gave Su Jinxuan a deep look.

“Just like earlier in the carriage, when you told me about your relationship with Qin Weijiu. If you hadn’t told me that, I wouldn’t have known anything about the connection between you two, and I certainly wouldn’t have sent the Blackscale Guards to investigate it. To you, it was something perfectly natural. But to someone else, it might be information worth suspecting.”

When he finished, silence fell between them.

It was already the coldest days of winter. A few scattered flowers of ice had formed across the lake inside the estate.

“So your opinion is... you don’t want me to go?”

There was the faintest hint of testing in her voice.

“It’s not that I don’t want you to.” Xu Yuan corrected her at once, without even thinking. “It’s that I don’t believe your current abilities are enough for you to do a good job as a mole. When the time comes, not only will my investment be gone, you might even end up being used against me.”

A strange trace of disappointment flickered through Su Jinxuan lowered eyes.

After they had walked a little farther, Xu Yuan saw that she was still hanging her head and saying nothing. He hesitated for a moment, let out a long breath, then suddenly said, “Jinxuan, Ying’er came to see you before, didn’t she?”

Su Jinxuan’s pupils shrank slightly, and she immediately looked up at him. She realized he was talking about Ying’er coming to ask her to become a mole. Since he already knew what choice she had made in this matter, why was he asking her again?

The disappointment hidden in her eyes vanished. In its place, a faint suspicion gradually appeared. Had this bastard been leading me on just now?

“Don’t look at me like that.” Xu Yuan sighed and rubbed between his brows. “I assume Ying’er already told you the specifics of the situation. Right now, I can give you two choices again.”

Su Jinxuan looked somewhat stunned.

“This is your only chance to change your mind.” Xu Yuan stared closely into those alluring peach-blossom eyes of hers, and under his gaze, he raised one finger.

“First, you can continue staying by my side like this. Depending on the situation, I’ll provide you with a cultivation art suited to your constitution. Pay attention. I said a cultivation art, not a secret art. With that cultivation art and your Bewitching Soul Devil Body, your cultivation speed might not be any slower than mine.

“Of course, you should understand for yourself what you’ll have to pay to obtain that cultivation art. But at the very least, you’ll be safe this way. And once your cultivation rises, you’ll have plenty of chances in the future to personally cut down your enemies.”

Su Jinxuan fell silent for two seconds, then said softly, “And the second choice?”

Xu Yuan lowered his hand and chuckled.

“Everything stays the same. You follow the Blackscale Guards’ arrangements. But with your current state, if you go undercover, you’ll most likely be exposed. Even after training from the Blackscale Guards, I don’t think your chances of surviving will be high.”

At this point, he lifted his head and looked up at the endless blue sky.

“I’ve already told you the reasons. I trust you can judge for yourself. Same thing as before. You can lie to me about this, but whatever you do, don’t lie to yourself.”

It felt like an instant. It felt like eternity. Two choices. Two paths. The first was to become his subordinate. The second still counted as cooperation. The quiet estate seemed to hold nothing but the soft, fragmented sound of their footsteps.

Su Jinxuan took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. She looked at the distant courtyard, clenched the corner of her qipao, and said in a very soft voice, “I... I still choose the second one.”

The sky was a pure, bright blue, and sunlight poured down like a waterfall.

Looking at her flawless profile, Xu Yuan gently shook his head and said nothing more. The difference between the two choices was obvious at a glance. He had thought she would choose the first. But she had still chosen the second. It was a little unexpected, but understandable.

The reasoning behind this decision was pride. To him, this was just a casual gift and investment. But to her, it was a great debt of kindness she might never be able to repay in her entire life.

Xu Yuan silently sighed in his heart. Looks like another heroine is probably done for.

Just like he had said earlier, he really did not think Su Jinxuan could become an excellent spy. He really did hate these high-risk investments after all.

No more words were exchanged.

The two of them quietly made their way into Xu Yuan’s pavilion. But for some reason, during today’s cultivation session, Su Jinxuan worked especially hard. They kept going all the way until late at night before it finally, barely, came to an end.