Chapter 0: 106. The Little Scholar is Willing
The garden was still the same as a fairyland.
This time, Qin Gou first saw through the gaps in the small wood. He saw the young girl holding a sharp dagger, tears streaming down her face, hesitant. Everything was Exactly the same as before.
“The world is truly full of wonders.”
Suddenly, Qin Gou deliberately shouted loudly and strode in front of the young girl, forcing a bitter smile. “At this time and place, there’s actually another person like me, who wants to end their own life!”
The young girl was startled to see someone approach, but she couldn’t help but be stunned by Qin Gou’s words. She asked hesitantly, “Big brother, what are you talking about?”
“I wanted to end it all today and find release. I didn’t expect that by barging in, I’d find a fellow soul in distress here!” Qin Gou chuckled, and a blatant trace of malice flashed in his eyes. “Since we’re destined to meet, little girl, since we’re both about to die, why don’t we enjoy ourselves a few times and have some final pleasure?”
“You… You get lost! Don’t come near me!” Hearing this, the young girl’s face turned pale. Her clear, bright eyes were filled with disgust.
“If you don’t want to, you don’t want to. You’re already going to die, and you still have such a temper?” Qin Gou grinned maliciously and shrugged.
“Why aren’t you getting lost quickly?” The young girl’s starry eyes flashed with anger, and she shouted.
“I’m waiting for you.” Qin Gou shrugged, his tone full of meaning. “When you’re truly dead, then everything I say goes!”
“Wh-what?” The young girl was stunned for a few seconds before she finally understood Qin Gou’s meaning. Tears flowed like rain, and she screamed, “Who are you? Why are you humiliating me like this? I, I’ll kill you first!”
The young girl’s expression was panicked. She rushed towards Qin Gou with the sharp knife.
Good!
“Since you still have so many reservations, why do you want to die?”
Qin Gou’s eyes flashed. He seized the opportunity to snatch the sharp blade from the girl’s hand and the Heart Piercing Talisman from her waist. He used his Spiritual power to restrain all her movements. The arrogant malice in his expression vanished, and he said in a deep voice, “A person who truly wants to die wouldn’t care even if they fell from a hundred-zhang tower, were torn to pieces in full view of everyone, or were eaten by fish in the ocean! That’s why I can see that you’re just acting on impulse right now.”
The young girl struggled desperately against the spiritual power enveloping her, her eyes teary-eyed. “What do you know? You don’t even know who I am.”
“Then why don’t you tell me today? If you can give me a good reason, I can grant your wish with a single blow. Otherwise, I’ll start shouting.”
Upon hearing this, the young girl seemed to break down and sobbed, “I… As a woman, I’m not qualified to join the Hidden Dragon Guard. My mother died early because of me, and now I’ve disappointed my father. So many people point fingers at me and advise my father to remarry! I hate myself for not being a man!”
Qin Gou frowned and asked, “You mean, just because you’re not a man, the so-called ‘Hidden Dragon Guard’ won’t allow you to join? And, this thing seems to be very important to your family?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
This was the first time the young girl had ever met someone who raised the same question she had. She choked back a sob, “It’s the ancestral law, passed down to this day. The Hidden Dragon Guard has never recruited a woman.”
“This is absurd, utterly foolish,” Qin Gou scoffed.
“You, what did you say?” The young girl looked at Qin Gou in surprise.
“I said, this is truly a foolish act!”
Qin Gou and the young girl met each other’s eyes, trying his best to rekindle her will to live. His tone was high and firm, “Don’t people here know that a person’s essence, their soul, has no gender!”
“Therefore, since others can define you as a woman, you can also become anyone you wish by your own will!”
Qin Gou spoke neither too fast nor too slow, but this unprecedented concept struck the girl’s heart, making her breath catch, and she was in turmoil for a long time.
The young girl’s voice trembled slightly, “You really are a strange person, and you say such strange things.”
“Strange?”
Qin Gou’s smile was gentle and full of warmth. “I just feel that you always have more power than anyone else to decide your own fate, rather than accepting defeat just because of some stupid rule from the Hidden Dragon Guard!
Besides, why don’t you try to break this kind of shackle and become the first female member of the Hidden Dragon Guard in history? This will be very difficult, and you will suffer a lot of hardship and pain, but what does it matter? You’re not even afraid of death, are you? Are you afraid of those stupid, rigid thinkers?”
“I… I’m not afraid.” The young girl’s shoulders trembled. She raised her head, staring intently at Qin Gou, who was taller than her. She had stopped crying and didn’t even notice that Qin Gou had already released her body from his spiritual restraint. Only her heart was churning.
“That’s good. I’ve said all I can say. I have nothing more to say. If you still want to die, then do as you please, but remember, I will wait for you to die, and then… do as I please!” Qin Gou said with another evil smile.
“You’re lying to me.”
“Huh?”
“From the beginning, you just wanted to save me, right?” The young girl looked at him intently.
Qin Gou chuckled dumbfoundedly. Just as he was about to say something, suddenly, anxious female voices sounded.
“Young lady, young lady, where are you?”
Qin Gou immediately said, “I have to go. Girl, take care of yourself.” He couldn’t be sure if this girl would try to end her life again, but he had done his best.
“Wait!”
Looking at Qin Gou’s retreating back, the young girl called out urgently, “I don’t even know Big Brother’s name!”
“I’m just a passerby.”
As soon as the words fell, the young girl’s vision blurred. Qin Gou seemed to have disappeared out of thin air. She hurried forward but could no longer find any trace of him. At that very moment, Qin Gou’s face, his specific appearance, became increasingly blurred in the girl’s mind!
“Little scholar? Who exactly are you?” The young girl stared blankly in the direction Qin Gou had disappeared, muttering to herself, “Since others can define me as a woman, I can also become anyone I wish by my own will… Then, I wonder, can I become like you? Like you, forever believing that I have the right to decide my own fate more than anyone else…”
“Miss, you are here. You, why are you crying?” A woman in a palace dress appeared beside the young girl and exclaimed.
“Ting’er, I want to buy a new outfit, a long green shirt.”
“Green shirt? Miss, you mean you want a new emerald green skirt, right?”
“No, just a plain green long shirt.”
“But that’s clearly men’s attire!”
“Little scholar, it’s good to be willing.”
…
Inside Fusheng Cave.
Qin Gou put the exquisite-gripped dagger and the Heart Piercing Talisman into his Nascent Storage Ring. Combined with the ‘Spacetime Distortion power’ that the system had previously hinted at, he understood tacitly. Everything that had just happened, that innocent and pitiful young girl, was probably not an illusion, but likely a tragic event that had happened or was happening somewhere.
But after all, they were separated by countless distances, destined not to meet. He could only hope that she would grow up healthy in the future.
