Little Alpaca – Chapter 58

Volume 1: Little Alpaca

A Well-intentioned Lie.

——No matter what happens, please believe her.

The moment she said this, Yi Qiu clearly felt a thread of confusion and panic flash through the bottom of Luo Mingyuan’s eyes.

Perhaps it was these baffling words that made him perceive that the situation was not good.

But he did not ask anything more, only moving forward in silence, dragging that injured and disabled body, continuously moving forward.

“You… have you taken my words to heart?” Yi Qiu followed firmly behind Luo Mingyuan, nagging like a matter mom¹.

Luo Mingyuan was silent for a long time before he took a deep breath and replied in a deep voice, “Thank you, who is good to me, I… know it in my heart².”

This kind of reply left Yi Qiu with nothing more to say.

She thought, in the original work, the male lead did not know about the female lead’s feelings for him, and was even so self-abased that he didn’t dare to even think about it, so after everything happened, the trust between them was as thin as a cicada’s wing³.

But this time was different. From the day Luo Mingyuan was injured, Jiang Yuyao had always taken care of him in every possible way. Let alone a person, even a piece of wood should have been able to feel it.

No matter what, it won’t head towards the same result as the original work again, right?

Yi Qiu followed Luo Mingyuan, running the whole way, her heart a tangled mess like hemp⁴. She wanted to say something in advance, but the words reached the edge of her lips, yet she hesitated to speak.

She couldn’t possibly spoil the plot now. After all, even if she really said what was going to happen next, no one would believe it.

As the distance grew closer and closer, Yi Qiu also saw the demonic energy in the distance.

It was like a burst of black fog sufficient to swallow everything, carrying a heavy sense of oppression, slowly gathering in the night sky that should have been filled with a bright moon and sparse stars, and growing increasingly intense.

Luo Mingyuan quickened his pace, as if hating that he could not run forward.

This speed, compared to a healthy ordinary person, could already be considered very fast. Yi Qiu, chasing from behind, felt somewhat strained.

She saw the clothes on Luo Mingyuan’s body were dyed red with fresh blood.

It was the intense running while leaning on a crutch that caused the unhealed wounds on his shoulder and abdomen to split open.

He was clearly so heavily injured, yet he ran so fast, so urgently, as if afraid that being slow by a single second would become the regret of a lifetime.

In the original text, the male lead was pulled over by the demonic energy together with Bai Jianyou.

This reason was so a matter of course, ah, that so many readers read it and didn’t discover the awkwardness within it.

Thinking about it now, it was truly too laughable.

Luo Mingyuan cared so much for his adoptive father and adoptive mother, so since he had the ability to sense the location of the demonic energy, how could he have followed Bai Jianyou in the opposite direction?

The world of the novel deserved to collapse.

Whether the protagonist or the villain, the author created their bone and blood⁵, but also failed their souls.

She thought, after tonight, she should be able to put down her original prejudice and no longer dislike the boy before her eyes.

After tonight, she would think of ways and means⁶ to stop all tragedies from occurring.

Just treat it as… a small compensation for the selfishness in her heart today.

Moshui City East.

Demonic energy heartlessly enshrouded the surroundings.

Humans who had suffered the erosion of the demonic seed lay on the ground, no longer in human form.

Jiang Yuyao grasped a longsword and pierced its heart. Dark green blood flowed out from the wound, seeping into the soil along the tip of the sword, foul-smelling and thick.

A middle-aged couple, their bodies trembling lightly, tightly embraced each other.

They looked at the two women before them who had saved them, but there was no gratitude in the bottom of their eyes, only fear.

“This demonic seed is extremely insidious and poisonous. Once planted into the heart-meridian, there is no medicine that can save them. It will grow along the life soul⁷ and demonize a mortal’s three hun and seven po⁸. If they are not beheaded before complete demonization, the demonized person will break away from the six daos⁹ and will be unable to enter reincarnation again.”

You Yan spoke faintly, and although her tone of voice was undisturbed like still water, her gaze towards the humans before her faintly carried a bit of complexity.

“Jiang-guniang…” The wife looked at Jiang Yuyao’s sword-gripping hand, her gaze a little dazed. After the daze passed, her eyes could not help but turn red. “Me and my husband¹⁰… we’re beyond saving, is that right?”

Jiang Yuyao did not dare to answer, but the hand gripping the sword unconsciously began to tremble lightly.

The silence at this moment was undoubtedly a certain answer.

The wife glanced at the man tightly protecting her, sniffed, reached out to wipe away her tears, and asked, “Can you give us a little more time? It doesn’t need to be too much, just a little while.”

As she spoke, she exchanged a glance with her man, and they supported each other as they stood up from the ground. They hurriedly walked back into the house, and while she ground the ink, she urged the man to quickly find a new sheet of paper.

You Yan stood at the doorway, and Jiang Yuyao followed her in.

Seeing them, the wife became anxious, afraid there wasn’t enough time, and said repeatedly, “Quickly, very quickly. I’ll leave a letter for Mingyuan. Jiang-guniang, you help us take it to him. Just say… just say you came to see us, discovered we had moved away, and only this letter was left behind.”

“Mingyuan, this child, has been smart since he was little. If he asks anything else, just say you don’t know, that you don’t know anything, ah… otherwise, he will definitely become suspicious.”

As the wife spoke, she turned and took the paper handed over by her husband. With a hand that was trembling more and more, she picked up a brush that, at a glance, had not been used for a long time.

That pair of hands had already begun to turn dark-purple; this was a precursor to demonization.

But the wife still strived to control such a hand, and wrote a few simple sentences on the paper.

In the letter, she told Luo Mingyuan that her mother’s family’s¹¹ business had gotten big, and she also wanted to live a good life, so she had instigated his dad to go over with her. Once their lives settled down, they would send another letter back.

Where her mother’s family was, she did not say. How long “later” would be, she also did not say.

Jiang Yuyao looked at the farewell letter that contained only a few sparse words and could not help but silently lower her eyes. The struggle suppressed at the bottom of her heart made her unconsciously bite her lip until it broke.

The wife put down the brush in her hand, and a thread of relief flashed in the bottom of her eyes.

She said that this was enough. Let the child think they had abandoned him; after a long time, he naturally wouldn’t care anymore.

When the sound of her voice fell, she threw herself into the man’s embrace and suddenly began to weep, unable to form sounds.

In the room that could not be considered empty, there was only the suppressed, painful crying of two mortals before they went to their deaths.

But when they left each other’s embrace, they discovered a youth covered in blood standing quietly at the doorway.

By the round table in the inn’s upper room¹², Yi Qiu was sprawled sitting beside You Yan. She squinted her eyes at the window, raising her head to look up at the piercing, brilliant sun in the sky.

The demonic energy in Moshui City had dispersed. Three people had died in the east of the city, but because they were unimportant and it was related to demons, all news was suppressed in order to avoid panic.

These were actually all matters from three days ago. For the entirety of Moshui City, nothing at all had happened on that night three days ago.

The deceased departed without a sound or a breath, unable to even become a topic of conversation for idle people after tea and meals¹³.

This left Yi Qiu completely at a loss for how to describe the feeling in her heart.

Speaking of which, the System had already prompted that she had successfully passed the unavoidable key node, but the method of passing it had left her unable to return to her senses¹⁴ even now.

She had originally thought that Luo Mingyuan would, as written in the novel, witness with his own eyes Jiang Yuyao killing his adoptive parents who had not yet begun to demonize.

But when she had actually chased Luo Mingyuan all the way to that small, not-so-large home, the bodies of that middle-aged couple, who were embracing and weeping, had already begun to demonize.

They accepted the fact of their unavoidable death and left a lie for the child they had regarded as their own bone and blood¹⁵ for these past ten-plus years——a lie that was broken before it could even be sent.

In silence, they and the child looked at each other for a long time, as if they had lost the ability to speak.

In the end, the youth took the sword from his shijie’s hand and personally sent them on their way¹⁶. He himself also fainted from the excessive grief.

Actually, whether it was You Yan or Jiang Yuyao, either could have been the one to wield the sword for him.

But in the end, he still chose to bear it himself.

After that night, the wounds that had split open on his body became infected, triggering a high fever, and he remains unconscious to this day.

All the misunderstandings no longer existed.

Yi Qiu, however, couldn’t quite understand: was this kind of result, for Luo Mingyuan, ultimately good or bad?

“Still thinking about that night’s events?”

“Mm…” the little alpaca nodded.

“That was a demonic seed I refined,” You Yan said, lowering her brows to look at Yi Qiu. “Did you ever suspect me?”

The little alpaca shook its head. “You were always by my side. You said that it takes time for the demonic seed to activate… From the time you left me to the time the demonic seed activated in their bodies, the time in between was too short.”

You Yan asked again, “If there had been sufficient time, would you have suspected me?”

Yi Qiu turned her head to look at You Yan, gazing seriously for a moment before asking, “Would you lie to me?”

You Yan was silent for several seconds, then closed her eyes and replied, “Too lazy…”

“Then that settles it,” Yi Qiu said, lowering her head and adding softly, “I believe you.”

After hearing this, You Yan lightly made a 「mm」 sound.

【You Yan Favorability +10】

Hearing the System’s prompt, Yi Qiu subconsciously twisted her head to look.

She only saw You Yan take a deep breath and then slowly exhale it. After a brief silence, she did not open her eyes, only saying in a soft voice, “That shadow, I didn’t catch up to it.”

“Then… did you see clearly what it was?” Yi Qiu asked.

“Couldn’t see clearly…” You Yan said faintly. “But with that kind of speed, it should be a Yi Bird.”

Yi Qiu couldn’t help but flatten her mouth¹⁷. After a good while, she asked again, “Then, then what are your plans next?”

“The Divine Woman of Snake Mountain, Yu Su of the Yi Birds, dares to use my things and commit an offense right under my eyelids¹⁸.”

You Yan suddenly let out a cold laugh and opened her eyes, saying, “I’d like to see just what tricks she wants to play.”

“You mean, this matter with the little pig trotter… you’re going to manage it to the end?” Yi Qiu asked, tilting her head.

“Whether that kid is dead or alive has nothing to do with me.” You Yan snorted lightly with a disdainful gaze and said coldly, “I only clean up the arrogant beam-jumping clowns¹⁹ under my eyelids.”

After hearing this, Yi Qiu couldn’t help but expose her²⁰, saying, “But that night, I saw anger in your eyes.”

“What nonsense are you talking about?”

“You were angry, You Yan!” Yi Qiu looked at You Yan’s eyes and shouted loudly, “You can also get angry because of others!”

“You saw wrong,” You Yan wrinkled her brows.

But Yi Qiu was relentless, saying, “I absolutely did not see wrong! Don’t deny it, you were just angry!”

You Yan: “…”

Yi Qiu hurriedly changed her posture, turning to face You Yan directly, and said seriously, “You Yan, don’t always pretend to have an appearance of someone who has nothing to do with anything. There are many things you care about, so why must you hide them in your heart? If you don’t know who to tell, you can tell me. I can go mm-hmm, mm-hmm-mm-hmm-hmm…”

You Yan: “Noisy…”

Yi Qiu: “Hm??”

One word of disagreement and I get forbidden from speaking?

Yi Qiu’s furry face fell. Seeing You Yan reach out a hand to stroke her as if nothing had happened, she couldn’t help but let out a fierce whimper, get up, twist her head, and quickly walk to the corner of the bed to lie down, sullenly closing herself off²¹.

【You Yan Favorability +10】

The little alpaca struggled to stretch its long neck and twisted its head to glare at You Yan.

“Hmph!” You should act like a person?!

Are you really building your happiness on my suppressed grievance?

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