Her breath suddenly quickened. When her gaze met those dark eyes, Yu Qingyao’s eyes were calm, even with a hint of lifelessness.
Her face was dirty, but her vigilance was still visible. Even though the young girl in front of her hadn’t fully grown yet and her thin body was covered in dust, Yu Qingyao could recognize her at a glance.
“Who are you?”
Wu Yan was the first to speak, her voice carrying a child’s tenderness, but her tone sounded stiff. She tugged at the cloth bag in her hand and walked to the door of the small hut.
“What are you doing standing in front of my house?”
Yu Qingyao suppressed the excitement in her heart, retracted her tense aura, and bent down. Her voice was soft and gentle, afraid of scaring Wu Yan.
“I’m lost. It’s too dark, and I can’t see the road. I walked all the way here and have nowhere to go.” She looked at Wu Yan tenderly. “Could I stay at your place for the night? Don’t worry, I won’t bother you for long!”
Wu Yan didn’t speak. She just looked Yu Qingyao up and down, as if judging whether she was lying.
Her gaze swept from Yu Qingyao’s clean clothes all the way down to her muddy canvas shoes. After a long silence, she opened the door of the tin shack behind her and dragged the hemp bag inside.
“Come in.” Wu Yan glanced sideways at her and said flatly, “Remember not to touch anything.”
With Wu Yan’s permission, Yu Qingyao followed her inside. As soon as she entered, she smelled a faint scent of rust, mixed with the odor of paper scraps and mold.
The tin shack was indeed very small, visible at a glance. Against the wall was a narrow wooden bed, with a cardboard box as a mattress and a set of faded thin bedding on top. Beside the bed was a wooden table with a broken corner; on the table, three steamed buns sat on a plate. In the corner of the room, flattened cardboard boxes and bundled plastic bottles were neatly stacked. To be honest, the only valuable thing in the whole room was probably Wu Yan herself, who had just entered.
Wu Yan poured the plastic bottles from the hemp bag onto the floor, then pulled a long cloth strip from under the bed. Hearing Yu Qingyao’s words, she replied coldly, “I don’t have anything for you to steal. If you want to kidnap me, go ahead.”
As she spoke, Wu Yan tied the plastic bottles together and finally piled them in the corner.
After finishing, she walked to the table. When she picked up a steamed bun, she seemed to think of something. Her hand paused for a moment, then she handed the bun to Yu Qingyao.
“You probably haven’t eaten.” The cold bun was offered to Yu Qingyao with Wu Yan’s emotionless tone. “Eat. This is all there is.”
“Thank you.” Yu Qingyao reached out and took the bun. Her fingers, much larger than Wu Yan’s, unavoidably brushed against the other’s hand. That small hand had no flesh at all, with prominent knuckles, thin calluses on the fingertips, and small, unhealed cuts.
Yu Qingyao took a bite of the bun. It was cold and hard, and after chewing, it tasted no different from sawdust.
“My name is Yu Qingyao. What’s yours?”
“Wu Yan.” The little girl answered while still eating the bun, not even lifting her head.
“Where is your family? How can they let a little kid stay home alone?”
The chewing motion on Wu Yan’s puffed cheeks suddenly paused, but soon returned to normal. She didn’t answer Yu Qingyao’s question.
Seeing this, Yu Qingyao didn’t press further and silently continued eating her bun.
The night wind grew stronger, making the tin shack rattle. The cold wind seeped through the gaps in the door, making the already cold room even more freezing.
Wu Yan threw a stack of compact cardboard boxes on the floor, then tossed Yu Qingyao a few hemp bags stuffed with cotton.
“Sleep.” With that, Wu Yan hugged her shoulders and curled up on the bed. In this weather, the thin bedding was useless against the cold. From Yu Qingyao’s perspective, she was shivering like a small animal.
“Cold?” Lying on the hard cardboard, Yu Qingyao asked Wu Yan knowingly.
It was late autumn turning into winter in this strange world. Even she, a cultivator whose physical body could match the Golden Core Stage, could feel the cold approaching—let alone Wu Yan, a scrawny little girl.
“Not cold.” Wu Yan’s voice was muffled.
Then, without any warning, Yu Qingyao got up from the cardboard and quietly lay down beside Wu Yan.
Feeling an extra source of heat on the bed, Wu Yan suddenly poked her head out, her dark eyes full of panic.
“What are you doing?”
Yu Qingyao hugged Wu Yan through the blanket, looking every bit the understanding older sister.
“I won’t do anything to you.”
At first, Wu Yan tried to resist, but she was just a child and couldn’t break free from Yu Qingyao. The main reason she gave up, however, was the unreserved goodwill radiating from Yu Qingyao. Having scraped by in the corners of the city since childhood, she was especially sensitive to this kind of perception. She could truly feel that Yu Qingyao had not even the slightest intention of harming her. Warmth passed through the blanket to Wu Yan’s body, driving away the cold.
Just as Yu Qingyao thought the night would pass like this, she felt a rough texture in her palm. Looking down, she saw Wu Yan stuffing a corner of the blanket into her hand.
“Two people sharing it is warmer.” After saying that, Wu Yan pressed her lips tight and moved a little inward on her own.
So the two of them lay in the bedding, still embracing.
After a long time, Yu Qingyao heard Wu Yan speak. Her voice was very soft, almost drowned out by the rattling noise.
“This house… was left to me by my family.” Wu Yan’s voice was as calm as if she were telling a story that had nothing to do with her, but Yu Qingyao felt a sharp pain in her heart.
Yu Qingyao looked down, gazing into Wu Yan’s eyes.
“He took me in when I was homeless. He said he would help me survive. During that time, he always took me scavenging for junk and catching fish. He said he had done wrong things when he was young and needed to atone, and every year he sent away most of the money he earned.”
“And then?”
“They didn’t want his money, nor his life. Then he left, leaving me the house and the rest of the money.”
‘Sure enough, her guess was correct. The current senior sister was not the same person as the senior sister from her previous life. She was a soul drifting from another world, yet back then she had still forcibly pinned Wu Yan’s crimes onto her, and even treated her like that…’ Yu Qingyao quietly tightened her arms, holding Wu Yan a little closer.
Yu Qingyao lowered her head, her warm breath brushing against Wu Yan’s forehead.
“Can you tell me your name again?”
“Wu… Wu Yan.”
“Wu Yan. The Wu from ‘team,’ the Yan from ‘compete.'”
Yu Qingyao repeated the name over and over, as if she had found some treasure.
“It’s a nice name.”
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