Chapter 293: [Unswerving Devotion] Anyone Can Romance
Xu Taotao touched the dragonfly with careful precision.
The stall vendor was a mask-wearing individual; every single stall vendor here wore a mask.
“If you like it, little girl, you may take it directly. Any lovers who step inside may take the items here as they please.”
Hearing these words, Xu Taotao retracted her hand.
“Forget it then. I’ll just have a look.”
Setting aside whether the two of them counted as lovers to begin with, even if they were, free items couldn’t be taken so casually, right?
The vendor stated, “You need not hold any reservations. Those capable of stepping inside and arriving at this marketplace are bounds to be true lovers. These items were all prepared for your sakes—whichever catches your eye, simply pick as you please.”
Bai Cha asked, “So can all these items be brought back as well?”
“Naturally!”
Bai Cha nodded, pointing at Xu Taotao and herself.
“Then do you think the two of us look like lovers?”
The vendor hesitated.
He inspected the two of them with serious precision.
“Um… the two of you look identical. It must take an extraordinarily special twist of fate to become lovers, wouldn’t you say?”
Bai Cha burst into laughter on the spot.
Sure enough, in the eyes of outsiders, the two of them looked identical.
“Is that so? Could it not be that the two of us are twin sisters who happened to foster mutual affection for each other?” She offered a radiant smile.
The vendor grew all the more hesitant.
“Uhh… this… generally speaking, love that is not accepted by worldly conventions often proves far more precious. So long as you can overcome the hardships, true lovers will surely end up together!”
Bai Cha cast a deeply meaningful glance at him instantly.
“By your logic, what if my grandmother and I harbor mutual affection for each other?”
The vendor: “…”
The vendor phrased it tactfully: “Then the obstacles you encounter would simply prove slightly greater—so long as you can overcome them, that is all that matters.”
Xu Taotao: “…”
So regardless of who the people are or what their identities are, so long as they pair up, you people here won’t object, right?
At any rate, as long as they could overcome the obstacles, it counted as true lovers ending up together.
Bai Cha pondered aloud, “Then I understand now. Thank you—my younger sister and I have been unsure all along whether to make our relationship public.”
The vendor: “…”
Reaching up, he pressed against his mask to ease the embarrassment of having nothing to say.
“Then… do you two ladies wish to get anything?”
“No thanks,” Bai Cha let out a faint, haunting sigh.
“My mood is deeply complex right now, so I’m in no mood for shopping. What about you, Sister?”
With uncanny tacit agreement, Xu Taotao let out a sigh as well.
“When I ponder the grueling hardships we are bound to encounter, I’m in no mood for shopping either.”
Hand in hand, the two of them departed thereupon.
Although they held zero intention of taking any items, the surroundings remained bustling and lively nonetheless.
Simply taking in the sights was sufficient to bring joy to Xu Taotao.
She had never witnessed so many interesting trinkets in her entire life.
Furthermore, the architecture of Biyi Tower at present differed completely from when Bai Cha had visited previously; the top floor was open-air.
By rights, heavy snow drifted outside at this hour under gloomy skies, yet raising one’s head to look up revealed a bright moon hanging overhead.
And a full moon at that.
Looking at it felt utterly absurd; today was the twenty-ninth—where on earth did a full moon come from?
Yet it was indeed exceptionally round and bright.
The upper several floors all encircled this central open-air design, forming a circular layout.
The staircase stood in the middle.
Climbing up the stairs, the upper and lower floors were identical—every single spot sold items.
These goods could be said to hold zero duplicates, and quite a few were strange and exotic to boot.
Such as tiger claws—no telling who had trimmed a tiger’s claws.
Xu Taotao browsed with a touch of excitement, yet her body soon experienced a wave of fatigue. Though her spirits ran high, her physical body remained honest.
They simply halted directly on the second floor.
“How about we head back?”
Bai Cha wished to rest as well; bringing Xu Taotao out had been merely to probe for more information, after all.
Yet just as they set about descending the stairs, a man dressed in red stood at the staircase entrance. Looking closely, one would discover that the red garment was actually a wedding robe.
The person standing atop the building earlier ought to be this exact individual.
He wore a mask across his face as well, painted with the likeness of Biyi birds.
Upon catching sight of him, the originally bustling, noisy marketplace turned silent in a single split second.
In truth, the bustling noise had been thoroughly abnormal to begin with; apart from the two of them, everyone else here was a stall vendor—where did all that bustling noise originate from?
It was merely that Bai Cha hadn’t voiced it aloud.
Realizing the issue in hindsight, the accelerated heartbeat brought on by a touch of fear left Xu Taotao nervous yet simultaneously excited.
“Is that the City Lord?” Xu Taotao whispered in a low voice. “I heard the City Lord always wears red robes and a mask.”
Bai Cha narrowed her eyes slightly; she felt merely a sense of danger radiating from him.
“Since you two have stepped into this building, you are destined to be together. Are you prepared?”
The red-robed man spoke, a creepy, uncanny tone lacing his voice.
Accompanying his words, the moonlight overhead turned a blood-red hue, and the lamps inside the building extinguished one by one, from top to bottom.
Instinctively, Xu Taotao looked to her side.
The marketplace had vanished as well, yet the stall vendors remained right where they were. Wearing uniform masks and clad in identical attire, they stood there fixating their gazes upon the two of them.
“Is the City Lord’s wife doing well?” Bai Cha acted as though she had noticed nothing, exchanging pleasantries with complete natural ease.
The red-robed City Lord fixated his gaze on her.
“You have met her?”
His voice didn’t sound in the least like that of a man who loved his wife.
Rather, a pervasive aura of bloodlust radiated from his entire being instead.
“It seems you are trapped here as well,” Bai Cha offered a subtle smile. “It seems your wife loves you very deeply indeed.”
Even as the other party hovered on the brink of violent fury, Bai Cha added, “Do you wish to see her?”
“You don’t truly believe you can use a condition like this to make me spare you two, do you?” The red-robed City Lord let out a cold sneer.
“No, I simply feel we can collaborate. After all, you hold zero means to defy the rules either—refraining from taking action is impossible.”
Bai Cha’s words caused the look in his eyes to turn all the darker and gloomier.
“Collaborate?”
“If I can devise a way to make her materialize right here, you help me kill her.”
“Hahaha!” As if catching the most hilarious joke, he remarked, “Rest assured—even without your prompting, I will kill that wretched woman!”
Shrugging her shoulders, Bai Cha pointed toward the top floor.
“She is up there.”
[System Prompt: Lie has taken effect. Duration: 30 seconds.]
The moment those words left her mouth, Bai Cha took Xu Taotao by the hand and sprinted.
Raising his head, the red-robed City Lord caught sight of that picture-perfect woman standing over there.
Hatred erupted from the depths of his eyes. Refraining from blocking the two running past his side, he sped upward instead, his figure moving so fast he resembled a gust of blood-red wind.
Yet a duration of thirty seconds was far too brief.
The two had merely sprinted downstairs, still over ten meters away from the exit, when the phantom image birthed from the lie dissipated into thin air.
The red-robed City Lord’s hand had just made contact with her neck when that phantom image dissolved away.
Naturally, he recognized in that exact same instant that this was merely a trick pulled by that little girl downstairs.
He let out a furious, rasping roar that sounded somewhat like a bird’s screech, and his entire body set about undergoing a grotesque mutation as well.
The mask across his face sloughed off, revealing a face resembling a bird’s.
His eyes were round and short, spaced extremely far apart, while his nose and mouth elongated and sharpened at rapid speed, a layer of feathers setting about clinging to his body.
Yet inspecting it closely revealed that those feathers held zero difference from human skin texture, sprouting one by one like fleshy buds.
Undergoing mutations alongside him were the stall vendors below as well.
Xu Taotao stared at this scene in sheer shock.
