But his smile back then was just like it was now.
It was cheerful, confident, optimistic, and enthusiastic… and very infectious.
He was like a savior, rescuing her when she was at a loss.
From the very beginning, he and she were like two people from completely different worlds. If Xiao Nanchu hadn’t taken the initiative to reach out to her, she might have shrunk back. ‘I might have just stayed,’ she thought. To her at the time, the dull and repetitive life in a factory wasn’t so bad.
Coming here was merely her way of fulfilling the deathbed wish of the Orphanage Grandma.
Xiao Nanchu’s appearance was an accident. After finishing the college entrance exams, simply standing there felt like she had done right by the Orphanage Grandma.
As for finishing her studies… she was sorry, but even with subsidies, life was simply too exhausting.
While factory life was dull, for her back then, it was unprecedentedly easy, both mentally and physically.
Xiao Nanchu had led her through the entire registration process. Aside from the Orphanage Grandma, he was the first kind person she had ever met.
During her first part-time job, an agency had cheated her out of half her wages. Once, when renting a room, her entire security deposit was withheld because of a water heater that was already broken. She had been complained about while delivering food, and she had been scolded by the line manager for being too slow on the assembly line…
These were all small things. She didn’t mind them; she had long since grown used to it.
At night, she would even actively make excuses for those people. She would wonder if she really was doing a poor job, thinking that they must have their reasons for acting that way.
In short, she didn’t like to trouble others. Rather than doing useless things, she preferred to work hard and do her job well, striving to make sure those people couldn’t find any faults in her.
She had always worked hard, and she had succeeded. She treated the stolen wages and the lost deposit as a paid lesson. If she was complained about, she worked hard to ride her electric scooter faster. If she was slow on the assembly line, she worked hard to move faster!
She never told anyone about her situation because she didn’t want their pity. She only needed to do her best.
She could live perfectly fine on her own.
However, the kindness and friendship that Xiao Nanchu proactively offered truly captivated her.
This was her first friend—no, her second.
Her first friend was a kind nurse from the orphanage whose face she could no longer remember. Although, that person probably didn’t even know they were friends.
Anyway, because of Xiao Nanchu, she stayed at the school. Even though she lived a life of working while studying, she enjoyed it because of Xiao Nanchu’s friendship.
Compared to physical exhaustion, she found it harder to accept returning to a solitary room to feel the cold bite of loneliness. This was especially true after she had experienced the warmth of the dormitory.
Later, she discovered that rather than her being overly cautious, Xiao Nanchu preferred someone who could communicate on equal terms.
So, she changed. She was afraid that Xiao Nanchu would distance himself from her, so she worked hard to cater to him.
The result was good; she had succeeded. Over the course of four years in university, she successfully became very close friends with Xiao Nanchu.
They graduated smoothly, and she even received a very lucrative job offer. She would finally be able to repay Xiao Nanchu for every bit of help he had given her!
But on that one night, she woke up to find that her surroundings had completely changed.
He had also become a she.
She didn’t want to look back on the rest of the story. In short, after going through a great deal, she finally returned.
She descended from the sky, looking at the familiar skyscrapers and the concrete jungle.
Everything before her eyes was so familiar. She excitedly rushed toward her old rented room, only to see someone else living there.
She walked aimlessly down the street. From the landlord’s mouth, she learned that three months had passed since she disappeared.
During that time, the only people who had come to ask about her were Xiao Nanchu and her current self.
Looking at her reflection in the glass of a shop window, she no longer looked anything like her old self.
She had become out of place in this world once again. At least the old her had a friend like Xiao Nanchu.
At that moment, Luo Taozhi’s eyes stung, and a sudden impulse flared in her heart.
The Divine Sense of a Nascent Soul Cultivator spread out, covering a range of over 10,000 kilometers—nearly the entire Dragon Country Federation!
She had to find Xiao Nanchu again!
Soon, she locked onto Xiao Nanchu’s location, but the moment she found him, she hesitated again.
‘Given who I am now, can Xiao Nanchu really recognize me?’
After thinking for an entire night in a deserted park, Luo Taozhi finally gritted her teeth and flew toward Xiao Nanchu’s location.
If Xiao Nanchu couldn’t accept her, then she… she would probably just travel around. Either way, she wouldn’t return to the Dragon Country Federation.
Although she hadn’t decided what she would do after that, fortunately, the end result was a good one.
Leading up to now.
“Maybe?” Luo Taozhi smiled. “You’re right. Maybe there really are peace-loving Cultivators.”
That was impossible. Even for her, the reason she followed morals and laws was partly due to her upbringing.
Another reason was that if she didn’t follow the law and morality in the Dragon Country Federation, it would make things very difficult for Xiao Nanchu.
But if she went outside the Federation… Luo Taozhi couldn’t guarantee she would be a good person, let alone other Cultivators who hadn’t grown up with the education that everyone was equal.
However, Luo Taozhi was willing to indulge in this fantasy with Xiao Nanchu.
“Alright, regardless of whether there are other Cultivators like me, you have to be strong yourself. You’d better hurry up and level up. I’m already Level 10!”
Luo Taozhi stood up from her chair with satisfaction. She brushed Xiao Nanchu’s hand off her head and showed off to him with a face full of pride.
“Level 10? For real? You must be cheating! Great master, when you get out, you have to carry me!”
Xiao Nanchu’s tone was affected and exaggerated, clearly intended to tease Luo Taozhi.
“Hmph! Once I leave the Novice Village, you’ll believe it!”
Luo Taozhi snorted dismissively. She turned and left the dining room, heading back to her own room.
Xiao Nanchu was left alone, staring at the messy and empty dining table. He finally realized something was wrong.
‘Wait, where’s my portion?’
This was bad. Just now, he had gotten so used to feeding Luo Taozhi that he had fed her the entire portion he had set aside for himself!
He knew Luo Taozhi might eat a lot, so he had specifically bought enough for three people!
‘How did this girl manage to eat it all?’
‘She won’t get sick, will she… Well, she is a Cultivator, after all.’
He quickly cleaned up the “battlefield remains” Luo Taozhi had left behind. Then, he cooked himself a pack of Kangshuaifu sour and spicy instant noodles that he had kept from his days in the rented room.
Boiling the water and steeping the noodles was done in one smooth motion!
He liked steeped noodles, not boiled ones. He felt that boiled instant noodles lost some of their soul.
Most importantly, he liked to use the waiting time to think about things.