The stream finally wound down, and the comment feed exploded into a thousand frantic replies.
“She’s finished this time, right? Who tries to kill someone on camera?”
“You guys don’t get it—this isn’t some random streamer. She’s dangerous. Who’d even dare to touch her?”
“Help, I can’t get over how cocky Ning Yitao looks. That arrogant little smile is everything.”
“Of course beautiful people hang out with other beautiful people. Eve and Ning Yitao are totally going to be besties.”
“Ning Yitao is running the show. I’m living for Ji Wangqiu protecting her—imagine the scene: tall, perfect face, the CEO-type shielding his little wife.”
“His eyes never leave her. I’m starting the 'Gaze' ship flag right here.” …
They were relentless.
The truth was longer and more complicated than the chatroom gossip. Ning Yitao and Ji Wangqiu had known each other for years—rivals at first, then something messier. Ning Yitao was the head of the Tianxuan Sect; Ji Wangqiu the son and heir of the Fengze Sect. They were close in age and both gifted in their own terrifying ways.
When Ji Wangqiu was young and reckless, he’d heard of Ning Yitao and publicly challenged her—loud, dramatic, the kind of overblown duel a hot-headed teenager would demand. He wanted to prove, for all the world to see, who was the top dog in the martial world.
Ning Yitao didn’t care for titles. She didn’t want to pick a fight with the young master of Fengze. A battle would only make her life harder, so she bowed out.
He wouldn’t let it go.
Raised as Fengze’s sole heir, coddled like a prince, Ji Wangqiu was used to getting his way. He had stars and favors handed to him; no one had ever said no. So when the public tussle was called, he gathered a crowd, turned the street into an arena and tried to force her into a duel. Ning Yitao, who’d mistaken his theatrics for an attempt at violence, fought back harder than he expected.
The end of it was messy. In front of everyone, Ji Wangqiu got beaten so badly he couldn’t get up. In one humiliating moment the only thing he’d cared about—the hot air name—was gone.
Ning Yitao clapped once and left the chaos behind. She thought that would be the end and braced herself for whatever revenge a proud young man could cook up.
Instead, Ji Wangqiu became a ghost in her world—everywhere yet nowhere. He kept showing up, insisting on apprenticing under her. Ning Yitao, who’d always been wary of leaning on others, grew furious and hit him. He didn’t go away. He followed. He stayed.
Reluctance turned into company, then into a strange, steady presence. Ji Wangqiu began to shadow her life. He even stopped going back to Fengze, taking up residence at Tianxuan like a permanent, gilded guest.
With him around, Ning Yitao’s days smoothed out. The small cruelties of the world couldn’t touch her as easily; anyone with dirty intent thought twice. Fengze was a major sect—Tianxuan had no interest in making enemies—so they treated Ji Wangqiu with every courtesy. He stuck to Ning Yitao like glue, and the people who would have turned on her recoiled.
Ning Yitao’s start was brutal. She’d been left as an infant outside Tianxuan and taken in by a laundress in the sect. But it wasn’t kindness that drove the woman—she raised Ning with an ugly plan: when the girl grew up, she would hand her over to the steward, a man with a taste for children, to curry favor.
Cold words, blows and cruelty were Ning Yitao’s childhood. She saw the laundress’s intentions and felt the steward’s leering eyes. She understood one simple truth early on: only by becoming strong could she stop being someone other people could use.
So she volunteered for the hardest, thankless tasks in the teaching halls. She became the practice target for students drilling their forms—coming away bloodied, but learning. It was brutal work, but when she found she could master techniques faster than the pupils meant to study them, she knew she’d been given a chance.
In a world where strength decided everything, fists spoke the language of worth. But she was also a dependent: shining in her guardian’s house was taboo. Young Ning Yitao didn’t know the unwritten rules; she only knew that skill was her path.
When the master finally recognized her and took her into Tianxuan proper, the other students—led by the sect leader’s children—iced her out. They’d been brought up on privilege and could not stomach this uninvited talent. They bullied and schemed at every turn.
Ning Yitao endured. She couldn’t stand alone then; she didn’t want to be cast out either. The girls ostracized her because she outshone them—so she planned to shatter their fragile pride one step at a time, until she could seize the position they coveted most: the master’s place.
At first she assumed Ji Wangqiu was just like the rest—charming, fake, friends in public and treacherous behind her back. But he proved her wrong. He taught her, in the small, steady ways that matter, what friendship and trust could be. He didn’t give up on her. He filled the corners of her life, slowly becoming part of its pattern.
Then, when she was ready to trust him completely, he vanished without a word.
He went back to Fengze and resumed his life as a wealthy heir. Worse, he spread rumors: that Ning Yitao practiced illicit arts. He taught her the sharpest lesson—what betrayal looks like.
She never saw him again. He never came looking.
Now, in the car, the two of them sat in an awkward silence, an unspoken agreement to avoid the wound that had once opened between them.
“Yitao, go back to the Long Kingdom,” Ji Wangqiu finally said. “Once I settle things here, I’ll come to find you.”
Ning Yitao lifted a hand to stop him. “Don’t speak for me. You decide your own life. Honestly, if you don’t come, that’s better.”
For a moment his face clouded with something like loss. He lowered his eyes to hide it, then, as if assembling a mask, set a bright smile in place. “You’re going to be disappointed, then. I will come.”
The car pulled into the airport. Ning Yitao was about to step out when she saw his door swing open and several men in black suits line up outside. They formed a courteous guard and bowed in unison, voices formal as they invited him out.
“Master Ji, your car is ready outside. Please, this way.”
He leaned back in to repeat himself, perhaps from habit or guilt. “I’ll come as soon as this is done.”
Before she could answer, he left—as if fleeing—lithe and sure, swallowed by a cluster of attendants. The car door shut on the disarray he left behind: Ning Yitao and Zhaocai, sitting in the quiet.
She wasn’t one for material things, but the difference between them struck her then like a physical thing: how could two people who began under the same sky end up on such different paths?