Ning Ning tried very hard to convince herself that Pei Ji wasn’t in a pitiable state; he was just performing his ventriloquism act.

Pei Ji’s head seemed to have hit something hard, and there was a muffled sound.

His usually strong voice was soft now, with a hint of a sob. “Don’t go, I…”

The rest of the sentence was too mumbled for Ning Ning to hear clearly.

Well, this was the second person to tell her not to go.

The first was her physical education teacher during the 800-meter run test, who yelled seriously at her from the back of the line, “Don’t go, start running!”

Ning Ning’s mind wandered, trying not to pay attention to him. But…

Darn it! Why was he acting so pitiful?

In any case, Pei Ji was unconscious, and he had no idea what he was saying to her. Even though she didn’t know if this would be effective, Ning Ning gritted her teeth and went forward to roughly touch his head.

In her hand, there was a strange sensation—soft and cold. She intentionally lowered her voice and said harshly, “I’m not being nice to you. I just find your crying annoying… You know? You’re already a grownup; do you need to lose your face like this? If you make a sound again, I’ll hit you!”

Pei Ji, of course, didn’t respond. As if to seek the unexpected warmth above him, he nuzzled his head in her palm.

Then he made a very low, very soft sound, still with a tone of sadness and pain, as if he were trying hard to hold back his distress.

Ning Ning:…

Ning Ning couldn’t possibly really hit him. Her voice softened a bit as she mumbled to herself, “You probably can’t hear me, right? You…male leads are so troublesome that even when you’re asleep, you expect someone to play along with the script. Thankfully, I don’t have that kind of role. But actually, when someone is asleep, they can’t hear what others are saying, right? Those so-called ‘I’ll be with you’ lines are just solo performances, aren’t they?”

Pei Ji was indifferent to this gibberish. His brows furrowed more and more, and he bit his lip until it bled slightly, dripping a crimson drop.

Ning Ning was startled by his rapid breathing and suddenly remembered Sister Su’s request before leaving. She tried to make amends for her previous harsh words and casually touched his head again, saying, “Don’t, don’t be sad! Look, I’m actually quite nice to you. Do you know how hard I worked to get the Silver Silk herb? I almost lost my life. You have to hold on for the Sky Heart herb that your little senior sister gave away——”

She was interrupted before she finished speaking; her expression and voice froze..

She was purely terrified.

Pei Ji was suddenly awakened by her rambling, opening his eyes without any warning.

His eyes still had traces of the lingering darkness and were veined with a complex pattern of bloodshot lines. His gaze was far from friendly; it felt like he was raining sharp knives down on the sky, creating a cacophonous sound as if blades were slashing.

Ning Ning’s first reaction was to withdraw her hand from his head, her face expressionless. She gave a dry laugh and said, “You had a bug on your head. I just shooed it away, haha.”

The two ‘hahas’ sounded particularly lonely and bitter. Pei Ji had yet to speak, but he heard Cheng Ying shout in his mind, “Pei Ji, for you, she wagered all her Sky Heart herb!”

After a pause, he earnestly added, “There were no bugs on your head. You were trapped by nightmares, and Ning Ning touched your head to comfort you.”

Though he had lost consciousness, Cheng Ying had a clear view of the situation.

In order to maintain the villainess role, Ning Ning continued to spew nonsense: “When you had a nightmare, even He Zhizhou comforted you by touching your head a few times.”

Cheng Ying: “Tsk, tsk.”

“And, by a stroke of luck, when I went to Changyue Peak, I happened to find Silver Silk herb that could cure you and bring them back.”

Cheng Ying: “Tsk, tsk.”

Ning Ning, feeling guilty, touched her own nose. “So, are you feeling better now?”

Pei Ji, despite his splitting headache, responded calmly, “Yes, thanks, Senior Sister.”

He had always been straightforward when speaking, without hiding anything: “For this favor, Pei Ji will certainly repay it wholeheartedly.”

Ning Ning immediately replied, “No need!”

If she became the male lead’s benefactor, the plot would veer completely off course, heading straight for a train wreck.

Cheng Ying sighed. “I knew she would say that. Ning Ning is such a foolish girl; why does she always do things without expecting anything in return? It’s truly pitiable. Only the Bodhisattva knows how much it pains me.”

Pei Ji was getting a bit annoyed by Cheng Ying’s nagging. He shifted his gaze from Ning Ning’s face and looked down, where he happened to see the hem of her skirt.

She was wearing very common sect attire, and beneath the skirt, you could faintly see her fair, delicate ankles. It was a sight that contrasted sharply with his bloodstained appearance. Suddenly, a light breeze lifted her skirt slightly, revealing a visible tear that extended down to her knee.

Pei Ji pursed his lips and looked away.

“What’s wrong?” Ning Ning noticed his unusual expression and followed his gaze down. After some hazy recollection, she remembered that this must be the tear in her skirt when she was hiding among the rocks at the cliff.

Pei Ji didn’t say anything. He picked up the bloodstained bundle from the ground and rummaged inside for a moment, pulling out…

A sewing kit?

Ning Ning was baffled. Based on what she knew about him, his bundle should have contained sword manuals, small knives, and various elixirs. The sudden appearance of a sewing kit was as strange as Ultraman fighting Teletubbies or Guan Gong marrying an alien.

(T/N: Guan Gong (‘Lord Guan’), originally named Guan Yu, is also referred to as Emperor Guan and Guan Yunchang. Guan Gong is worshipped by millions of people in China and around the world. Small shrines with statues of Guan Gong are a common sight in shops and restaurants, as the god is seen as one of East Asia’s most popular symbols of loyalty and integrity, and, as a warrior guardian, he’s thought to bring protection, wealth, and luck.)

Pei Ji noticed her astonishment and turned his face away from her. In a dry and hoarse voice, he said, “Can I?”

Ning Ning shook her head. “No.”

“Then sit down.”

The way he said these four words was so firm and commanding, laden with an intense presence that made it impossible to refuse.

But this was the same Pei Ji who had fought the ten thousand-year-old Dragon Blood Tree with a single sword not long ago. Yet here he was, his long eyelashes lowering as he seriously threaded the needle.

It was truly surreal.

Ning Ning almost suspected that this person had undergone a body switch. After all, in the original story, the male lead was always wearing a pretentious look and never said a word, but Pei Ji, on the other hand, was doing this.

She sat down as instructed and looked at the man covered in injuries, asking, “Are you alright with your wounds?”

Pei Ji smiled self-deprecatingly, his voice very cold. “Just a matter of moving my fingers, no problem.”

“Oh.” Ning Ning nodded.

She was genuinely curious. She saw Pei Ji bending down in front of her, and her vision was limited to his small, fan-like black eyelashes. “You’re so skilled at this. When did you learn it?”

“When I was young.”

Ning Ning laughed. “Since you’re good at this, can you also cook, fry, and do laundry?”

Pei Ji’s gaze was tightly focused on the tear in her skirt, and he tried his best not to look at the girl’s smooth, bare legs beneath. His long fingers moved skillfully as he threaded the needle. He answered briefly, “Yes.”

The young girl widened her eyes and spoke a bit anxiously, “So, when I and He Zhizhou were making caramelized bananas before, did you secretly mock us for being clumsy?”

Pei Ji’s actions were paused. He surprisingly let out a very soft and low laugh, with a familiar laziness and indifference in his eyes, but his voice remained hoarse: “If Sister wants to learn, I can teach you.”

Answering a different question.

Ning Ning understood and said, “So, you did mock us!”

The answer is not what was asked.

Ning Ning understood: “That’s just a joke!”

This was similar to a top student secretly lurking in a group of underachievers during an exam, claiming not to know anything afterward while secretly ridiculing the fools around them.

Damn it, Pei Ji was quite cunning.

“No, you’ve kept this a secret from us for so long; you must cook a meal for everyone when we get back.”

Ning Ning said seriously, “And don’t forget the spiritual stones you owe me. Do you know how expensive Sky Heart is? I had to—”

Wait.

Based on her previous words, she said she “casually” brought back the Silver Silk Celestial Leaf for Pei Ji.

Pei Ji still replied nonchalantly, “I know.”

Ning Ning pursed her lips and remained silent, her attention now fixed on Pei Ji’s hands.

His hands were long and fair and should have been a very beautiful sight. However, the beauty was marred by old injuries and calluses from holding a sword—indeed, this hand should have been gripping a sword amidst the mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

But at this moment, it held a needle and thread, skillfully mending a plain and ordinary skirt for her.

She found herself in a fit of laughter at this odd sight, and a light, rapid laugh escaped her throat. She didn’t expect Pei Ji to lift his eyes expressionlessly when he heard her laugh.

Ning Ning tried to keep her lips straight, her gaze innocent as she locked eyes with him. When he lowered his head again, unable to hold back her laughter, her skirt swayed, overwhelming the pale joints of the young man.

“Sister.”

Pei Ji’s voice was stern. “If you want to laugh, go ahead.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

She propped her chin up with her hand, her elbow resting on her knee. “I just feel surprised that you know so much.”

But on second thought, it made sense. He had been independent since he was young, so basic survival skills were a given.

Only now did Ning Ning seriously start to scrutinize Pei Ji.

In her mind, “Pei Ji” had always been synonymous with the male lead, someone with incredible luck, a chosen one, and the protagonist of a classic adventure story. But now, it appeared that none of these labels could adequately describe the real him.

In fact, looking at it from the current perspective, his life didn’t seem to intersect with those grandiose phrases at all.

It was truly peculiar.

Ning Ning became lost in thought, and her gaze remained on his cheek. Within the expanse of his fair complexion, she suddenly noticed a splash of red.

—It turned out to be a dried drop of blood congealed on the boy’s earlobe.

“Don’t move.”

Without much thought, she reached out, and as her fingertips touched the blood drop, she felt Pei Ji’s movements abruptly stop. “There’s a bloodstain here.”

The soft flesh of his earlobe was very tender, and as Ning Ning gently pressed on it, barely perceptible electric sensations quietly spread.

It tickled a bit.

Pei Ji had never experienced such close contact with anyone.

She wiped away the drop of blood bit by bit, but due to the bloodstain being there for too long, it had left an indelible mark that couldn’t be easily removed.

Ning Ning, determined to do good, decided to press down harder since the thick crimson hue couldn’t be easily wiped away. She kept her face stern as she increased the pressure. After a while, instead of lightening, the blood stain deepened.

Wait.

Deepened…?

Ning Ning, like Pei Ji in front of her, froze in place.

The color on his ear was still quite vivid, as if he had plucked the twilight from the sky and completely infused it into his fair skin.

So red.

It turned out this wasn’t a bloodstain.

… but that his entire ear had turned red.

=====

After everyone finished eating, it was time for Xu Ye and Su Qinghan to bid farewell to the three of them.

“I’ve heard that many disciples of the Wanjian Sect are staying together, and my senior sister and I also want to go and join the fun.”

Xu Ye said somewhat reluctantly, “The secret realm is ending soon, and we might meet again.”

After thinking for a while, he finally used a very tactful tone to say the words that had been buried in his heart for a long time: “Promise me that you won’t use the alchemy furnace to burn those strange things anymore, especially what you had that night before coming to the secret realm, okay?”

He Zhizhou blinked his eyes in confusion. “The night before coming to the secret realm? Oh! You mean our caramelized bananas!”

Xu Ye: ?

Xu Ye asked, “Caramelized… bananas?”

“Even though they look ugly, the taste is absolutely top-notch!”

He Qizhou suddenly became excited: “Since Ning Ning brought the alchemy furnace and sugar, and we found several bananas earlier, how about I make some for you right now?”

So He Zhizhou actually handed him a brown, twisted object that looked like a deformed snake.

According to him, that weird appearance was the result of the caramelized sugar solidifying. Although it looked disgusting, it was sweet when eaten.

But even though he knew it was just a banana, given its horrifying appearance, Xu Ye had absolutely no appetite to try it. After thinking it over, he decided to hold it in his hand as a parting gift between friends.

He and Su Qinghan bid farewell to the other three people and followed the map, quickly arriving at the Wanjian Sect’s camp.

There were several friends he had a good relationship with on the scene. The moment they saw Xu Ye, they all showed extremely shocked expressions while staring motionless at the caramelized banana in his hand.

Sigh, these kids were still too young after all.

He used to be the same: easily influenced by hearsay, never seriously investigating the truth, and just taking a quick glance to label something as vulgar.

“It’s all a misunderstanding. This thing can actually be eaten. If you don’t believe me, just look.”

Xu Ye’s gaze was resolute as he raised the banana to his mouth. To make everyone believe that it was a genuine edible item, he decided to eat it himself.

But in the eyes of the others in the Wanjian Sect, it was a completely different story.

They had already heard from Xu Ye about the absurd events of that night at the Xuanxu Sect. Now their fellow junior, who had just escaped from the Xuanxu Sect and returned to the main group, was holding… something identical to what those people had.

He was actually claiming that this thing was edible.

Heavens and Earth, was this too horrifying!?

Had their fellow junior’s mind been devoured by the Xuanxu Sect?

Someone had already shouted, “No! Junior Brother Xu, stop! Don’t eat it!”

But Xu Ye smiled mischievously and kept pushing the oddly colored cylindrical object into his mouth, then bit down hard.

He wanted to show them through actions that it was really just a simple and ordinary food, and they shouldn’t be biased against the Xuanxu Sect.

As the banana entered his mouth, it brought a rich and refreshing sweetness, and the outer layer of caramel was sweet but not overly so, easily capturing the hearts of the diners.

The taste was unexpectedly delicious. Xu Ye’s lips curled slightly, and he revealed a thoroughly content expression, his eyes narrowing in satisfaction.

“Mmm, fragrant and sweet, soft and delicious, it’s wonderful.”

Xu Ye spoke with a smile, preparing to surprise everyone: “You would never guess that, actually, it—”

But right at that moment, his entire face suddenly froze.

W-wait a moment.

Why did… a sudden cramp hit his stomach?

Xu Ye hadn’t yet figured out what was happening when he suddenly rolled his eyes and passed out. In the last thought before losing consciousness, he could only think in six short words:

Could it be… the banana is poisonous!?

“Oh no, he didn’t have a chance to tell everyone that this was really just a banana!”

The disciples of the WanJian Sect would never forget the fear that Xu Ye had instilled in them on that day.

Junior Brother Xu held up what they considered vile, completely unaware of the situation, and dared to taste its flavor in broad daylight.

Without any hesitation, he stuffed the object into his mouth and, for an extremely brief moment, showed an expression of pure enjoyment. Then, his whole body went limp, and a stream of froth came gushing out of his mouth.

The froth sprayed several feet away, and he fell to the ground, twitching uncontrollably and writhing on the floor with both hands and feet.

The sixth senior brother of the WanJian Sect was in tears, shouting tremblingly, “Xu… Junior… Brother! Xuanxu Sect, I will never coexist with you!”

“Reap what you sow; it’s a pity that Junior Brother, despite having his mind brainwashed by the Xuanxu Sect, hasn’t lost his sense of taste.”

The fourth senior sister sighed deeply. “It was supposed to be fragrant and sweet, soft and delicious, but after swallowing it, he threw it all up. Alas, how tragic. With this incident, the dignity of our WanJian sect is in tatters.”

“We all tried to persuade him, but he just wouldn’t listen. Who could have imagined that the toxicity of that thing was so strong? Xu Ye…”

A junior disciple was filled with sorrow. “Sigh! People should, at the very least, not do that! Why on earth did Xu Ye… I just can’t understand!”

“I had just arrived and saw Senior Brother Xu lying on the ground, twitching like a sprinkler.”

A junior sister cowered in the corner, trembling, “Of course! After eating that thing, could anyone expect anything else? Why is he so thoughtless, insisting on… My eyes, sob! My eyes are dirty!”

Su Qinghan:…

What were they talking about?

“Oh dear.”

On the other side of the secret realm, a bored Ning Ning flipped through the map of the XiaoChongshan, and her finger landed on a small line of text: 〔Morning Bane, slightly bitter and slightly toxic, causes limb convulsions and frothing at the mouth when consumed.〕

Beside her, He Zhizhou’s expression changed suddenly. “Could it be that the’morning bane’ we used for making the caramelized banana… isn’t this thing?”