Xu Nuannuan felt a sudden tremor in her heart.
It was as if something had suddenly severed its connection with her.
The next moment, her skin began to wrinkle. Her whole body became emaciated as if all the moisture had been suddenly sucked out of her, and her hair quickly turned grey.
"Ah!!"
Xu Nuannuan looked at her wrinkled hands and let out shrill screams.
She scrambled up from the ground and ran to the reflective decorative wall that was enough to reflect her face. There she saw her current appearance.
She looked like an old woman in her eighties.
She unbelievably raised her hand to touch her cheek. After confirming that both the tactile sensation and the reflection in the mirror proved that this was not an illusion, she fell to the ground again.
At the same time, Yu Shanhe opened the door of the cubicle.
Yu Qiu and Liu Ru had already been untied. They were looking at the woman sitting on the ground with complex expressions.
There was neither hatred nor the anger of being deceived in their eyes.
Instead, there was an indescribable look in their eyes.
This was the last resort.
Xu Nuannuan had personally admitted all her deeds. If the two of them still couldn't come to their senses at this moment, then they could only respect and bless their choices.
Yu Qiu was the first to take a step. He slowly walked up to Xu Nuannuan.
He reached out his hand and tentatively grabbed Xu Nuannuan's arm, trying to help her up, but was slapped away.
"Get out of here! Don't come near me!"
By now, what else was there not to understand?
Yu Qiu was standing right in front of her alive, which was enough to prove that all the information she had received before was false.
She had been deceived. She had been set up.
Yu Qiu and the others should have heard what she had just said, so there was no need to continue acting.
Xu Nuannuan seemed very calm now. Even though her appearance had been ruined, she only had a moment of breakdown.
It was hard to tell whether she had accepted the reality since it was already a done deal.
Or whether she was gradually going crazy in the silence.
"Nuannuan, why did you..."
"What do you want to question me about? I've already made everything clear just now. Heh, I calculated everything, but I didn't expect this little kid to have such great abilities. It was my carelessness. You're more skillful than me. There's no need to ask anymore, right?"
Xu Nuannuan sneered.
She felt like a joke now. From beginning to end, she had been like a clown, being watched as a spectacle.
Yu Qiu was silent for a long time.
Yes, there was nothing else to ask.
Everything that should be heard and shouldn't be heard had been heard just now.
"Actually, even without that thing, I... should have liked you too. In fact, I liked you even before you transferred schools."
Yu Qiu's sudden confession made Xu Nuannuan feel a moment of daze and confusion.
She wanted to ask. They had never met before she transferred schools. How could he talk about liking her?
But then she thought that it was meaningless to explore these things now, so she swallowed the words back.
"What do you mean by saying these things now?"
"Nothing. It's just that there were some things I didn't dare to say when I was young. Somehow, they became regrets. Now that I've grown up, I always want to fill in those regrets. You can go. I'm sorry for what I've done to you. From now on, we'll go our separate ways. I won't cause you any trouble, and I hope you can let it go."
Yu Qiu's eyes looking at Xu Nuannuan were still gentle at this moment.
The throbbing of youth came quietly.
It had started the first time they met.
The first flutter of the heart wasn't in that sunny afternoon when the girl introduced herself with a schoolbag on her back.
Instead, it was in front of a bustling and a bit messy roadside stall. The young boy passed by and saw that girl who was working hard for life and always had a vibrant smile.
The young boy watched for a long time, trying to find a trace of bitterness in the girl's smile, but all he found was the warm tenacity and perseverance.
When they met again, the girl became his deskmate.
The young boy restrained his impulse to get closer to the girl. He carefully probed, but was always met with a cold face.
He became a trouble to the girl. After that, he could only stay away silently and pay attention to that figure from a corner.
When he heard Xu Nuannuan's question about who had looked at her more than once before she got the tattoo, Yu Qiu really wanted to rush out and tell her.
Yes, there was.
From the moment she stepped into the class, his eyes had never shifted.
Leaving his hometown for family and studies, in the dead of night, Yu Qiu could always think of Xu Nuannuan's figure in front of the roadside stall.
That was also the spiritual pillar that supported him to get through all the difficulties.
But when all the truths were clearly laid out in front of him.
He couldn't tell whether the throbbing of his youth and the later love were real or fake.
Was it being bewitched? Or was it following his heart?
When the hormones faded from his brain, Yu Qiu helplessly found that he still liked Xu Nuannuan.
But at the same time, he was constantly doubting his own feelings.
"Got it. Thank you."
Xu Nuannuan lowered her head and insisted on standing up on her own.
She didn't say any more unnecessary nonsense. She didn't hysterically question. She just silently covered her cheek and walked out of the restaurant.
Watching her back, Yu Qiu took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and asked Nian Nian in a hoarse voice, "Why... did she become like that?"
"It's a backlash. In order to maintain their cultivation, demons gradually need to absorb essence. Living demons can choose to absorb essence from humans or absorb the essence of the sun and the moon. The curse on Sister Demoness was supported by demonic energy. It hasn't weakened for so many years, so it must have absorbed some kind of energy to maintain itself.
"Sister Demoness can't practice, so she could only rely on the demonic energy in the tattoo to absorb her own essence to maintain the spell. Now that the spell has been broken and the demonic energy has been cut off, the absorbed essence can no longer return to her body, so naturally she will become like that."
Nian Nian explained seriously, really popularizing some little knowledge of metaphysics.
After listening, Yu Qiu didn't show much reaction. He just responded with a soft "um" and then turned around and knelt in front of Yu Shanhe.
Xiaotuanzi quickly dodged.
She was just standing next to her father.
Brother was also an elder. If he knelt in her direction, it would shorten her lifespan.
"Dad, I'm sorry. It was my mental state that went wrong before. I almost made a big mistake. I will never do it again in the future."
Yu Qiu still looked like a heroic man.
When he was out of the control of his emotions and recalled all the absurd things he had done before, he was well aware of his mistakes and naturally wouldn't evade them.
Yu Shanhe looked at this son, who he had always been proud of, with a complex expression. He was silent for a while and then slowly sighed.
"Forget it. Go back first. Take a few days off at home."
Yu Shanhe deeply loved his wife, so he could naturally see that his eldest son really liked Xu Nuannuan.
Maybe the desire to kill and the inflated ambition were all stimulated by that tattoo.
But the love for Xu Nuannuan was not fake.
There were passionate people in their Yu family. His eldest son had fallen this time. I'm afraid it would be very difficult for him to get out of it for a long time.
Now they could only leave him some time alone and let him figure it out on his own. Once he did, everything would be okay.