Chapter 452 - 13: Our Shared Secret
Thank you for the peace charm from M Sky-Blue and Pale Blue~
**
"Xiao Xian, haven’t gone to bed yet? Are you not used to the bed here?" Zeng Xuerou, clad in pajamas, stepped onto the balcony. Zhang Yiyi was watching Princess Returning Pearl with Mrs. Zeng and Grandma Zeng. The three of them would burst into tears one moment and laugh in the next, getting along as if they were one family, which made Zeng Xuerou wonder whether she was accidentally swapped at the hospital.
Once she snapped back to reality, Zeng Xuerou realized that Xiao Xian had disappeared and went looking for her.
"I’m used to it. I’m tough enough to sleep even in a woodshed, let alone on your family’s soft mattress bed," Xiao Xian said with a smile, touching the two bracelets on her hand.
There has to be a lot of questions Zeng Xuerou wanted to ask her after everything that happened, holding it in until now must have been hard.
"Woodshed?" Zeng Xuerou was confused. Who still has a woodshed these days?
"Don’t change the subject. I know you have a lot of questions to ask me. Go ahead, I’ll tell you everything I can clarify," Xiao Xian still smiled, but the Little White Jiao clinging to her wrist sensed her accelerated heartbeat. Little White Jiao quietly cheered her on, saying, "Little master, you can do it."
Humans are social animals, and what they fear most is being marginalized, being seen as an anomaly. In the sixteen years that belonged to Zhou Xiaoxian, she had always been the weakling of the Yunteng Sect, treated like trash, without anyone glancing at her, no one understood better than she did the feeling of being considered an anomaly.
"How should I say it? When did you realize you had... special abilities?" Zeng Xuerou was always cautious about her wording, and at this moment she chose her words even more carefully, trying not to make Xiao Xian uncomfortable.
Feeling her friend’s caution and care, Xiao Xian leaped up and surprisingly landed on the Zeng Family’s balcony, shocking Zeng Xuerou to the point of almost screaming.
Xiao Xian tiptoed along the balcony railing about five centimeters wide, her hair, which was loosely draped over her shoulders after her bath, was lifted by the wind, like black silk woven from the night.
"Probably at the age of six when I woke up in a field," remembered Xiao Xian, recalling that night when lightning had brought her from the Yunteng Sect to Ge Village. It was also a summer night; the village’s sky was like spilt ink, the stars plentiful, surrounded by the symphony of frogs and insects.
"Were you scared when you first discovered that power?" Zeng Xuerou asked, then bit her tongue. What kind of question was that.
"No, I was a cripple back then, living in Ge Village with my grandfather, who had been demoted because of corruption charges. Ge Village is in the mountainous region of Southwest Guizhou. With these abilities, Zhu Xiaoxian went from being a cripple to a normal person, from a naive and willful city child to a sensible little granddaughter. I tried hard to live a life without regrets, to take care of my relatives and cherish everything around me. I’ve never regretted it." Zeng Xuerou had never heard Xiao Xian speak with such a tone before. The girl standing on the balcony against the wind, light as a night butterfly, spoke with a voice full of age and emotion, telling her unknown past.
After a moment of silence, Xiao Xian did not wait for Zeng Xuerou to continue questioning. She must have had plenty of questions, like about her Spiritual Rhinoceros Scissors, about her...
Zeng Xuerou didn’t continue to ask. She kicked off her slippers and, imitating Xiao Xian, climbed onto the balcony.
This rich and well-behaved girl naturally loved thrills, evident from her passion for racing.
The five-centimeter-wide balcony railing could lead to a fall with a careless move, making Zeng Xuerou tremble, but she bravely sat down and, like Xiao Xian, dangled her legs over the edge, swinging them.
"Is this enough?" Xiao Xian was surprised by Zeng Xuerou’s reaction. Mei Nian was right, Zeng Xuerou’s reaction was excessively calm.
"It’s enough. Friends should have some secrets. Just like I’ve never told anyone else that my father also has a special ability. He told me he can predict if there are vehicles within a kilometer, what angle the wheels should be at to accelerate, turn most efficiently. Xiao Xian, that’s all innate for you, I think both you and my father are special." Zeng Xuerou relaxed her shoulders and gave Xiao Xian a look that said "I’ll keep your secret."
"What!" A scream echoed from the Zeng Family’s balcony.
In the living room, the young, the old, and the adults were debating whether Xiao Yanzi’s eyes were bigger or Ziwei’s, none paying attention to the two people swaying on the balcony.