Night Talk: You Know Him So Well

He Zhuoming pulled her hands out of her jacket pockets, her eyes wide, making her look more on edge than usual. She and Tang Shuyu were only about two meters apart, and he was still smiling, gentle and harmless, like the kindest person in existence.

But from this angle, in this light, He Zhuoming couldn't help but associate him with the Corrupted Deity in the gambling den.

He Zhuoming asked, "Where's your candle?"

Tang Shuyu: "What candle?"

He Zhuoming gestured with both hands and said, "The one you're always holding, with a piece of paper like a talisman rolled inside the wick... Didn't you say it was a prison?"

Although He Zhuoming's description was vivid and specific, Tang Shuyu still had no recollection. He thought about it for a long time, and even when the black horse below sent a telepathic reminder, he still couldn't remember. But at least he now understood what she was referring to.

Tang Shuyu: "The Divine Palace is in chaos right now; I have too much on my plate. Why would I have time for a candle?"

He Zhuoming: "Does the Blessing Priest have to handle so much?"

Tang Shuyu spread his hands helplessly. "What can I do? They always manage to mess up even the simplest things, so I have to do it all myself."

In the end, it was the fault of the attendants and puppets. If they had just followed his arrangements, nothing would have gone wrong. Free will? Who allowed them to have such a thing? It was as absurd as a eunuch wanting children.

Normally, Tang Shuyu would say whatever was on his mind, but he didn't want to discuss the puppets with He Zhuoming now. If he said too much, Xiao He would definitely ask questions, and explaining would be a hassle. Anyway, Xiao He only needed to know that he was the only useful friend she had.

He Zhuoming wouldn't give up easily. "But you have nothing else to do right now... Why not take out your candle and light it?"

Tang Shuyu found it baffling. "Why would I light a candle?"

He Zhuoming: "Because if you don't, you'll look too much like that Corrupted Deity in the gambling den... You know, I almost got eaten by him! That was terrifying."

Tang Shuyu was displeased. "What do you mean I look like him? He wore my face. In this world, there's no reason a son should resemble his father."

He complained grumpily while pulling a candle out of his mustard-seed space. He lowered his head and blew on it, and the wick ignited immediately.

Of course, this wasn't the blazing prison that had trapped countless evil spirits in the blind puppet's hands—just an ordinary candle. But He Zhuoming couldn't tell the difference; to her, they were all just candles.

The soft, warm light fell on Tang Shuyu's face, and even his slightly annoyed expression seemed gentle under it.

He Zhuoming breathed a sigh of relief and walked over, then sat down and looked into the distance. The crabapple trees stretched endlessly. The view from the second floor of the tower wasn't very high; many branches reached above the eaves, so she could only see part of the main hall of the Divine Palace, not the whole view.

But as Tang Shuyu had said, sitting here let her feel the cool night breeze, carrying a faint, sweet scent of crabapple blossoms. It was another clear night, the moon hanging like a huge night lamp, its light both bright and cold.

Tang Shuyu sat down beside He Zhuoming and casually set the candle aside. Unlike the blind puppet, he had plenty of other amusements, so he didn't need to hold the candle all the time.

He Zhuoming pointed below the eaves. Through the not-too-dense crabapple branches, she could see the black horse standing there, lazily flicking its tail.

He Zhuoming: "I thought this horse would never come back... When did you find it?"

Tang Shuyu: "Qing Yang is a spiritual horse. Even if it runs away for a while, it will come back on its own eventually."

He Zhuoming: "Won't it get lost?"

Tang Shuyu's eyes curved into a smile. "That's what I mean by a spiritual horse. An ordinary horse would get lost."

He Zhuoming looked down below the eaves, her expression serious as she fell into thought.

Tang Shuyu went on, "Did you have a nightmare this afternoon?"

He Zhuoming: "Hmm... Huh?"

She was still thinking about other things, only managing a few sluggish sounds from the back of her throat. Tang Shuyu was dissatisfied and reached out to press his hand on He Zhuoming's head, turning her face toward him. "Why aren't you looking at me when you talk?"

She seemed preoccupied. With that thought, Tang Shuyu naturally listened to what she was thinking. As for personal privacy—he never believed anyone besides himself needed it.

He Zhuoming pushed his hand away and complained, "If you're going to talk, talk. Don't press on my head... I've told you several times. Why do you always do this? You never take what I say seriously!"

Tang Shuyu: "Huh?"

He Zhuoming said seriously, "Three strikes and you're out. If you do it again, I'll really be angry..."

Before she could finish, Tang Shuyu smiled and pressed her head down hard. She stumbled and nearly rolled off the eaves, but he quickly grabbed her by the collar and pulled her back to sit properly.

He Zhuoming: "..."

Tang Shuyu tilted his head, leaned close to He Zhuoming, and asked with interest, "So, are you angry? Are you angry?"

He Zhuoming felt deeply provoked. The Corrupted Deity from the gambling den and the bleeding-eyed puppet—none of them could match the anger rising in her chest!

She jumped up and pressed down on Tang Shuyu's head, pushing him flat on the eaves. He let out a couple of "hey, hey" sounds and tried to struggle, but He Zhuoming turned over, bent her knee to press his lower back, giving him a taste of the Five-Finger Mountain pressing down on Sun Wukong.

Tang Shuyu kicked his legs a bit, felt a ticklish sensation where her knee pressed his lower back, and grabbed her wrist with a laugh. "Light, light! My face is going to get scraped by the tiles!"

He Zhuoming: "Serves you right! You never listen to reason! What if I never grow taller? Will you take responsibility?"

Tang Shuyu thought for a moment and said, "Xiao He, no matter how much you grow, it'll be hard to get much taller. You're already pretty short."

He Zhuoming was furious at that. She punched him twice on the back even harder and said angrily, "I'm still growing! I'll get taller! What do you know? My mom said girls have a late growth spurt and can grow until they're twenty-two!"

Tang Shuyu laughed quietly, raising both hands in surrender. "Mm, Mom is right. You'll grow more later—but it's your fault that I press Xiao He's head! Who told you to always look so preoccupied when you talk to me? When you talk to me, you should only think about me and look at me. That's basic courtesy!"

He Zhuoming got off his back, sat down to the side, and held her cheeks in her hands, grumbling, "I didn't mean to get distracted... You don't understand what I'm thinking!"

Tang Shuyu rubbed his lower back and got up to retort, "Who says I don't understand? I'm definitely the one who knows Xiao He best in the whole world, and I definitely know what you're thinking right now!"

He said it with such confidence that He Zhuoming sneered, tilting her head to look at him. The candle on the ridge had blown out at some point, and Tang Shuyu's smiling face was bathed in moonlight. His fair skin was still tinged with blue by the cold light.

But He Zhuoming no longer thought of the Corrupted Deity's face from the gambling den. Her attention, her thoughts, her emotions—all were easily stirred and diverted by Tang Shuyu before her.

Tang Shuyu was once again the unique Tang Shuyu, the one who never merged with any puppet. He was satisfied, and when He Zhuoming pouted and said "I don't believe you," he didn't feel the slightest displeasure or offense at his authority being challenged.

Tang Shuyu moved to crouch in front of He Zhuoming. The tower's eaves slanted downward, so crouching on the outer ridge made him slightly shorter than her. He Zhuoming was pleased with this "looking down" perspective. She hugged her knees and looked down at Tang Shuyu, waiting to see how he would spin a story.

Tang Shuyu said, "I'll see what you're going to make up."

"Huh?"

"What a coincidence. He's a blind cat catching a dead mouse."

"Wait, really?"

"The original novel gave the male lead telepathy..."

As Tang Shuyu spoke sentence after sentence, He Zhuoming's expression gradually shifted from disbelief to shock. When he said the last sentence, she was so startled that her heart trembled. She lunged forward and covered Tang Shuyu's mouth. He leaned back slightly, caught off guard, and reached out an arm to embrace her.

Tang Shuyu: "Wow! Don't be so sudden. What if I couldn't hold my ground? We'd roll off together! It's not high enough to kill you, but it would hurt falling!"

He Zhuoming's mind went blank from nervousness. She stammered, "You... you really, really can read minds?"

She could dismiss the other things as coincidence, or as Tang Shuyu being clever enough to guess from her expression. But the last sentence about the original novel's male lead really shocked her. As she spoke, her hand still covered his mouth and half of his nose. He looked at her, blinking innocently.

Tang Shuyu: "Haha~ I'm kidding! How could there be telepathy in this world? Wouldn't that be chaos? I just guessed."

He Zhuoming: "...How did you guess the last sentence?!"

Tang Shuyu's eyes curved in a smile. "Because Xiao He talks in her sleep."

He Zhuoming was stunned. "I talk in my sleep?"

She had always thought she slept soundly, closing her eyes and sleeping until morning.

Tang Shuyu pulled away her hand that was covering his mouth and casually made up a lie, "Yes, every time. You say things like 'original novel male lead,' 'villain,' 'Lin Qingyun is so boring, a nice guy, boring and saintly,'..."

He Zhuoming's wrist was caught, so she headbutted him hard and said seriously, "I don't allow you to say that about yourself!"

Tang Shuyu: "...That was your dream."

He Zhuoming: "..."

She sat back on the ridge awkwardly, hugging her knees. "Did I say anything else?"

Tang Shuyu rubbed the red spot on his cheek and said gloomily, "Yes. You also said Tang Shuyu is so cute, so smart, so charismatic, and you like Tang Shuyu a lot..."

He Zhuoming: "I must have been crazy in my dream."

Tang Shuyu smiled. "Don't put yourself down. They say dreams speak the truth. Maybe that's how you really feel deep down?"

He Zhuoming denied it decisively, "Impossible! That Tang Shuyu is two-faced, moody, lying, cruel, petty, childish, and lacks empathy! I could never like someone like that!"

Tang Shuyu teased, "You know him so well. Are you secretly in love with him?"

He Zhuoming jumped up. "Oh my god! What nonsense are you talking about? Even if all the boys in the world died and only he remained, I still wouldn't like him!"

Tang Shuyu felt a bit surprised. "You hate Tang Shuyu that much?"

He Zhuoming clenched her fists and sneered, "Who would like a human trafficker? When my cultivation is complete, the first thing I'll do is take him out and shoot him!"

In fact, even by modern standards, Shu Yu's crimes wouldn't warrant the death penalty, but to a middle school student who barely knew the law, heinous criminals should be shot by the police.

Tang Shuyu couldn't stop laughing, but he covered his face to hide it for fear of making her angry. His shoulders shook with laughter.

He Zhuoming could see it clearly. She poked his shoulder, dissatisfied. "What? You don't believe me? I feel my cultivation has improved a lot lately. Achieving that goal is within sight!"

Tang Shuyu took his hand away, his eyes smiling as he looked at He Zhuoming for a moment. He realized she wasn't lying: her cultivation had indeed improved a lot, and she could now be considered a true cultivator.

He Zhuoming was still proving her progress. "Take today's eaves, for example. Before, if I had climbed over the railing to walk over, I'd definitely have fallen. But now I walk very steadily."

"And that Corrupted Deity in the gambling den, you know? I slashed his sleeve with one sword, and then stabbed him in the chest. It got stuck on his bone, but that was only because I have no experience with a sword... Ah! If I master my sword skills, when I go back to school, I can get extra points for the exam..."

As she spoke, He Zhuoming thought about exams again, then her backpack, exam papers, and wooden sword... She sat dejectedly with her legs stretched out and hung her head, saying, "But my books were ruined by the Corrupted Deity, and the wooden sword you gave me is lost, too."

Tang Shuyu propped his cheek on one hand and patted her back with the other, comforting her, "The Earth Immortal repaired the palace and sent back everything that could be fixed. Maybe your things were returned, too."

He Zhuoming replied with a muffled "Mm," thinking it was just Tang Shuyu's way of comforting her. She didn't pin her hopes on the Earth Immortal.

She had seen the Corrupted Deity tear up the paper with her own eyes. And sad as she was, when she remembered it was her math homework that got torn, she felt a little happy beneath the sadness. Luckily, she hadn't written a single word. She just didn't know how she'd explain it to the math teacher back home. Should she just say, "I transmigrated, and the Corrupted Deity tore my paper"? The math teacher would probably make her stand outside as punishment, and might even message her parents in the parent group...

As she thought about it, He Zhuoming yawned and said sleepily, "I want to sleep."

Tang Shuyu looked up at the sky; it was indeed about the time Xiao He usually slept. Originally, he had asked Qing Yang to bring her here to talk about going home, but since she was sleepy, they could talk another time—he wasn't short on time anyway.

He stood up, grabbed He Zhuoming, and jumped down. He Zhuoming was dazed and hadn't even had time to be scared before her feet hit the ground. She stood there for a moment, swaying, then looked up at Tang Shuyu.

He explained with a smile, "Jumping down is faster, and it's really not high. Aren't you sleepy? Come on, I'll take you back."

He Zhuoming followed him, thinking for a moment, then asked, "Are you going back to that white room tonight?"

Tang Shuyu replied, "No, I have other things to do."

He Zhuoming found it strange. She hopped a couple steps to get in front of him and asked, "What are you busy with?"

Tang Shuyu put his hands on her shoulders, turned her around, and pushed her forward as he answered, "Lots of things. The Divine Palace is damaged in so many places; someone has to fix it. I need to keep an eye on them."