Xu Nuannuan had always been a self - aware person.
Back then, she had stood out among thousands of students, received a high - value scholarship, and transferred to the best private school. This alone was proof that she was a very smart girl.
However, she had always put her intelligence to the wrong use.
"What goal? Was it to get close to and harm my eldest brother?"
As soon as Niannian heard Xu Nuannuan mention the word "goal", she immediately perked up.
The third senior brother had said that Xu Nuannuan was very likely sent by the Holy Church to deliberately get close to and harm her eldest brother.
She waited with full expectation for Xu Nuannuan's next answer.
But in the end, she was disappointed. Xu Nuannuan's answer was very different from what she had imagined.
"I didn't even talk to Yu Qiu more than fifty times in the whole semester. Why would I specifically want to harm him? I just wanted to cross the class divide. I was really tired of living in poverty. I wanted to be rich, to be like you guys, not having to worry about money all day long."
When Yu Shanhe heard this, he frowned instantly.
It was okay for a person to have an upward - looking heart, but what was the deal with taking the wrong path?
He had also climbed up from the bottom. All his great family business was built up bit by bit through his own hard work.
So he couldn't understand Xu Nuannuan's thoughts at all.
"I remember you had very good academic performance back then. With your grades, you could have easily been admitted to the top university and still gotten a high - paying job after graduation. Why did you have to think of these devious ways to harm others?"
Hearing Yu Shanhe's question, Xu Nuannuan let out a sneering laugh, her smile full of mockery.
"Heh, how could you people who were born with a silver spoon in your mouth understand how difficult it is for those of us with a poor background to live? Right after I transferred to school, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. My father was an alcoholic and a gambler, and the family was in debt of hundreds of thousands. My mother's hospitalization cost tens of thousands of yuan every month, and the whole family relied on my scholarship to survive! The money that was like a life - saving straw to me was just a piece of clothing or a meal to you guys!"
"And my most pride - worthy academic performance and hard work seemed like a joke when compared with the high - quality educational resources that you could easily obtain.
I studied desperately every day, burning the midnight oil, while you only needed to spend a large sum of money to hire a few famous tutors to make up for this gap. As long as I slacked off a little, I would immediately fall behind."
Xu Nuannuan didn't think she was wrong at all. She reached out and touched the tattoo on her waist, and the ambition surging in her eyes was about to burst out.
"My little bit of effort was worthless in the face of capital. When there was a quicker and more convenient way for me to get out of poverty, why couldn't I choose it?
With this tattoo, I could easily gain others' favor. Whether it was Yu Qiu, Liu Ru, or even Luo Wuyou now, none of them had ever looked at me directly before I got the tattoo. But after that, they were all like dog - skin plasters, impossible to shake off.
Did they look at me when I was working hard? Did anyone look up to me when I was working hard? So the facts prove that my choice was right!
I just wanted to live a better life for myself."
Xu Nuannuan seemed to be in a "broken - jar - broken - fall" posture. She stopped pretending and exposed all her inner thoughts.
At this moment, she actually seemed more charming than when she deliberately pretended to be weak.
"Who was the person who gave you the tattoo?"
Niannian didn't care at all about how many words Xu Nuannuan had said. She just continued to recite the lines written for her in a mechanical way.
Xu Nuannuan stared blankly at the little girl for a while. She was amazed to see that Niannian's emotions showed no fluctuations at all.
Then she looked back at Yu Shanhe.
Well, his expression showed that his emotions were fluctuating greatly.
It wasn't that the tattoo had lost its effect. It was just that this little girl was really strong.
"I don't know. I once went to look for him, but when I got there, the place was already empty.
But you're right. Approaching Yu Qiu was indeed his order, and it was also my own will. He was such an excellent person that it was hard not to like him. I also had a crush on him at that time. So when the tattoo artist told me to attract Yu Qiu, I agreed without hesitation. Now I don't want to see him anymore, just because he has no more use value in my eyes. But I never had the intention to deliberately harm Yu Sheng. I can swear on this."
Niannian stared intently at Xu Nuannuan for a while.
She carefully calculated through Xu Nuannuan's facial features whether there were any signs of her lying.
After a while, the little girl was sure that Xu Nuannuan wasn't lying.
It seemed that there was nothing more to ask.
She didn't get a real answer, nor did she find the person behind the tattoo.
Niannian let out a soft sigh, a little disappointed.
But the task entrusted by the third senior brother still had to be continued.
Niannian raised her long sword again and stabbed it towards the center of Xu Nuannuan's eyebrows.
The sword qi broke through the air with a crushing force. The cold light carried a sharp killing intent, which made Yu Shanhe's heart tremble.
"Don't!"
Yu Shanhe really thought that the little girl was going to kill Xu Nuannuan with one strike.
He shouted to stop her.
But the next second, he saw three illusory shadows appear on Xu Nuannuan's body.
One seemed to be a fox.
The other two were Taotie and Qiongqi respectively.
The tip of the sword finally stopped one centimeter in front of Xu Nuannuan's eyebrows.
She was already scared out of cold sweat, and the sweat just dripped down to the ground.
The air was terrifyingly silent. A golden light flashed in Niannian's eyes. After making sure that there was no more strange qi on Xu Nuannuan's body, she retracted her long sword resolutely.
"Dad, what did you just say?"
Niannian really didn't hear clearly what her father had shouted just now.
She had to concentrate fully to cut off all the demonic qi on Xu Nuannuan's body to avoid accidentally harming Xu Nuannuan's life.
So at that moment, she could hardly hear any outside sounds.
Looking at his little daughter's innocent and confused eyes, Yu Shanhe wiped the cold sweat off his forehead and forced out a couple of awkward laughs. "Haha, it's okay."
Just now, he was almost scared to death.
"Okay."
Niannian didn't press for details. She clapped her hands and withdrew the three yellow talismans that had been circling around Xu Nuannuan.
Actually, the curse on Xu Nuannuan wasn't difficult to break, but the materials for breaking the curse were very hard to find.
The reason why the tattoo could be so effective was actually due to the fox blood and the demonic qi.
As long as the demonic qi was cut off, the two tattoos on Xu Nuannuan would be useless.
It was just that the things that could restrain the demonic qi were relatively hard to find.
They had to find a stronger demon than the one on Xu Nuannuan, take its blood to temper the sword, and use poison to fight poison.
The third senior brother had spent a great deal of effort to get just a little bit of such blood. That was why even though they knew the solution, they couldn't solve this problem from the very beginning.