Unknowingly, the vision before Xu Xiaoyan’s eyes blurred. Her tears dropped down with a splutter.
“I’ve always called you out for being arrogant, and that you consider yourself superior. In fact, am I not as arrogant in my heart as well? You’re right. I truly feel inferior because our families’ backgrounds are so different. You’re outstanding and the center of many females’ attention. I’m truly scared that you won’t love me as much in the future as time goes by.”
“During the Sea God Lake Date Festival, when you uttered those words to me domineeringly, I felt like I was treated as an item and I hated being treated as such.”
“Six months. You turned your back on me for a whole six months. Do you know that I regretted after returning from the date festival? Even though I didn’t regret rejecting you, I shouldn’t have put you in a spot in front of so many people. However, I regret it even more now. I shouldn’t have rejected you. It’s me who is not confident in you.”
“I’m sorry, Zhengyu. It’s my fault for being selfish. Please get well soon, okay? I won’t be stubborn anymore in the future.”
Xu Xiaoyan caressed Yue Zhengyu’s forehead as she was saying that.
“No! I like your stubbornness. I like you just the way you are,” a gentle voice echoed. Yue Zhengyu slowly opened his eyes.
Xu Xiaoyan was startled. She was about to pull back her hand when Yue Zhengyu grabbed her wrist.
“Don’t leave, don’t leave me. I’ve had enough for the past six months.”
Xu Xiaoyan’s charming face was blushing when he grabbed her wrist. Since… since when did you wake up?”
Yue Zhengyu smiled. “When you were confessing.”
“You…” Xu Xiaoyan’s charming face was scarlet. She immediately wanted to run away, but Yue Zhengyu held tightly on to her.
“Now, can you please listen to my confession?” Yue Zhengyu spoke softly.
Xu Xiaoyan was slightly stunned as she looked up at him.
Yue Zhengyu looked into her eyes. “I’m sorry, Xiaoyan. It’s my fault. You’re right that I’m too proud and arrogant. It’s a bad trait of mine ever since I was young. In fact, everyone from my family has this bad trait. I wasn’t considerate of your feelings. I was too anxious during the Sea God Lake Date Festival. I was only thinking of making you my girlfriend officially, so I neglected your feelings at the time. However, it’s true that I’m not doing this for charity, and I could care less about your family background.”
“I’m sorry. I’m apologizing to you sincerely, and I’ll promise you that I’ll change. I’ll change for the better. I respect you, love you, and will protect you. Please forgive me, won’t you?”
Xu Xiaoyan watched him in a daze. She muttered to herself after a long while, “Fool.”
Yue Zhengyu sat up. He was much better after he awoke, apart from feeling slightly weak.
“Yes, I’m a fool. I still couldn’t control that ludicrous arrogance of mine when I was throwing tantrums at you today. Do you know that when you were controlled by the evil soul master’s powerful soul skill, as I watched helplessly when you were about to die, I suddenly felt that I was the most foolish person in the world? If you had died just like that, I’m afraid I won’t be able to live either. It’s true, believe me when I say that I’ll risk my life to avenge your death.”
Xu Xiaoyan lowered her head. “How can I not believe you? You used Sacrifice for me. You burned your vitality for me.”
Yue Zhengyu was stunned for a moment. “You knew?”
Xu Xiaoyan nodded. “Yet you never told me that you have such an ability.”
Yue Zhengyu smiled. “Do you know where the arrogance of our clan comes from? Our elegance is not derived from our bloodline but from our spirit of self-sacrifice. We are willing to sacrifice ourselves in order to protect our companions. Thus, Holy Angel Clan members are not allowed to tell their friends that they possess such ability. We are only allowed to use this ability to protect our companions whenever the need arises.”
Xu Xiaoyan suddenly raised her head and wailed bitterly as she wrapped her arms around Yue Zhengyu. “Ten years, that’s ten years of your life! You…”
Yue Zhengyu hugged her as he smiled and spoke, “What’s ten years of my life compared to being able to protect you? As long as you’re willing to be by my side, I’ll be happy even if I live ten years less. My days without you were dark, but now, you’re back. You’re not leaving me again, are you?”
Xu Xiaoyan muttered, “From the moment you used Sacrifice for me, I’m yours. I’ll never leave again regardless of how you treat me in the future, no matter if you’re arrogant or not, no matter how inferior I feel. You sacrifice yourself for me, I’ll share my future together with you.”
The greatest benefit of being young is swift recovery. After a full night’s rest, all the Shrek Seven Monsters were full of spirit and energy by early morning, except for Yue Zhengyu who was still slightly pale.
“Big brother, so how do we get there? By the way, it feels good to see you eat like this again,” Xie Xie smiled as he said that.
Everyone was cultivating on their own when they were in inner court. They did not spend much time with each other anymore, especially Tang Wulin. He was living a closed-door cultivation lifestyle. It had been a long time since he trained with his comrades.
Tang Wulin spoke, “We don’t have any other choice except to take the soul car if we don’t take the soul express train.”
Yue Zhengyu spoke, “It’d be nice if we have mechas.”
Yuanen Yehui spoke, “Stop joking around. Mecha? You’re not allowed to fly within the Federation’s airspace even if you have a mecha unless you have the Federation’s special pass. That is utterly impossible. Every region in the Federation has its own specialized pass. Only certain departments or the military are qualified to pilot the mecha to any place.”
Xu Xiaoyan spoke, “Zhengyu’s just kidding anyway. Car it is then.”
The group of people shifted their gaze at once with their attention all focusing on Xu Xiaoyan.
Xu Xiaoyan spoke with slight discomfort, “Why is everyone looking at me?”
Xie Xie asked out of curiosity, “So both of you are good now?”
Yue Zhengyu glared at him. “Since when were we not good? It was only a little misunderstanding between us.”
“Exactly!” Xu Xiaoyan immediately chimed in.
Xie Xie pouted his lips. “Both of you have won then.”
Xu Xiaoyan wrapped her arms around Yue Zhengyu’s arm with happiness beaming on her face. “I heard that Tang Sect has heaven and earth treasures that prolong one’s life. Zhengyu and I will be going on such a mission when our military training ends.”
Tang Wulin smiled. “Not only the both of you but everyone should go. We’re a team.”
Ye Xinglan who had not uttered a word finally spoke, “Captain, do you have a plan? I mean for all of us here.”
Tang Wulin answered, “I’d learned a lot of useful information from the War God Hall’s senior yesterday. For starters, we know about the existence of War God Hall and some unspoken rules of the continent. The War God Hall is the Federation’s exclusive combat force where the powerhouses are gathered. Spirit Pagoda has its own similar organization, just like Tang Sect’s Battle Soul Hall and Worship Hall. The academy has inner court and Sea God Pavilion. These are all the top combat forces on the continent. As the new generation of Shrek Seven Monsters, I’m almost certain that we’ll be the academy’s representatives. In other words, we won’t be allowed to join Spirit Pagoda or War God Hall. However, we belong to Tang Sect that has a close relationship to the academy. Hence, I think that will be the extent of our scope until we have achieved a certain level of cultivation base.”
“After our military training has ended, provided we’ve completed two years of military training as mentioned by Elder Cai, our powers should be elevated to a whole new level. Some of us should already have broken through to rank-60 and become Soul Emperors. Then, in the following two years we should be completing our battle armor’s upgrade as soon as possible. We’re only considered capable of protecting ourselves after becoming two-word battle armor masters. A two-word battle armor has wings, so it won’t affect us even if we don’t have a mecha. The Federation’s radar can restrict mechas but not our wings.”
At this moment, Tang Wulin paused for a while. Then, he lowered his head ever so slightly. “I would like to apologize to everyone because I’ve been cultivating by myself ever since my return here. I rarely spend time training together with you all. As a result, I’ve become less familiar with everyone’s fighting method and fail to work well with everyone. Otherwise, yesterday’s situation wouldn’t have been that bad.”