When I Lay Flat, the Female Lead Panicked - Chapter 17
Chapter 17: Miserable
“It’s over!”
The moment she saw who was coming, her heart sank. Luo Xiaoxiao was so quiet she didn’t dare to move.
She nervously looked at the cold, beautiful figure in the center of the group, and her internal alarm bells rang.
She was surprised that her conversation had been overheard, allowing Wen Nanshu and the others to realize her identity. Her hands instantly trembled like she had Parkinson’s, and cold sweat beaded on her forehead.
Just as she was in despair, thinking she wouldn’t survive the day and would be pierced by a thousand swords, leaving no trace, Wen Nanshu’s voice came.
“Miss Luo, who are these two gentlemen…”
Her gaze slowly moved to the two vulgar-looking men, one on her left and one on her right, who were gripping Luo Xiaoxiao’s slender arms.
Wen Nanshu’s brows furrowed slightly, her eyes darkened, and she silently summoned her sword, Feixue.
“Um, they are…”
She was momentarily stuttering. Fortunately, Luo Xiaoxiao reacted quickly, anxiously breaking free from the chubby and skinny guys’ grip and quickly running over to Wen Nanshu and the others.
“Big Sister… why are you here?”
“You were gone for a while, so we came to find you. So, who are they?”
Wen Nanshu didn’t explicitly say that Luo Xiaoxiao’s acting for needing to use the restroom was so bad that it made them worry and follow her.
Her gaze was cold. Wen Nanshu subconsciously shielded Luo Xiaoxiao behind her. Her eyes were full of danger as she held her sword, not allowing the two ferocious-looking men, who were clearly not good people, to get a single step closer.
Just as Luo Xiaoxiao silently breathed a sigh of relief, glad that Wen Nanshu hadn’t heard her conversation with the chubby and skinny guys, another problem arose.
“Um, they…” Seeing that she clearly couldn’t avoid the topic, and also seeing the two fools who didn’t seem to recognize Wen Nanshu’s identity. They stood tall and proud, completely fearless in their ignorance, as if they were about to fight.
Luo Xiaoxiao’s hair stood on end, her legs were so weak she almost knelt down. She felt a wave of despair.
Aaaah…
Save me! Don’t they know their own level? They’re throwing away their lives, please don’t drag me with you!
My skin isn’t thick; if you get yourselves beaten and sent flying, you won’t just have bruises, you’ll be scattered all over…
Thinking this, and afraid that these two fools would expose her, she acted on the principle of saving herself and not others.
Like an Oscar-winning actor, Luo Xiaoxiao instantly started her performance, taking the initiative.
“They, they are… they are, are, are my brothers.”
She instinctively hid behind Wen Nanshu, lightly tugging at her clothes near her waist.
Luo Xiaoxiao’s voice was trembling with obvious fear, and she couldn’t stop shaking. Her words were so filled with terror that anyone could tell something was wrong.
“Huh? Brothers? Xiaoxiao, are you saying that these two ugly men are your brothers?”
Cangruo’s eyes widened, and she was the first to object. After all, Luo Xiaoxiao’s appearance and that of the chubby and skinny guys didn’t look like they could have been born from the same mother.
To put it more bluntly, they didn’t even look like the same species…
“It’s, it’s true…”
She pinched the soft flesh of her arm, forcing herself to tear up. Luo Xiaoxiao’s voice was filled with a sad sob.
She couldn’t help but hug Wen Nanshu’s waist tightly and cried in a weak voice.
“Waaah, Big Sister, I’m sorry… I, I lied to you. Waaah… Actually, I wasn’t lost, and I didn’t not know how to find my way home. I, waaah… I just didn’t want to go back, to go back to that home, waaah…”
Her waist tightened. Wen Nanshu felt the girl’s trembling body and her vulnerable, mournful sobs.
Her heart suddenly constricted. A look of heartache slowly appeared in Wen Nanshu’s eyes.
She’s crying again…
As if she couldn’t stand the sight of the girl’s sadness, Wen Nanshu put away her sword and slowly turned around, allowing Luo Xiaoxiao to softly fall into her embrace.
She let the wet tears soak her clothes. Wen Nanshu’s long fingers gently stroked Luo Xiaoxiao’s thin back. The gesture was clumsy but incredibly gentle.
Her cold voice also unconsciously softened. “Why don’t you want to go back? Can you… tell me?”
“Waaah, be-because…”
As if she had found the only piece of driftwood in the water after drowning, the girl’s beautiful face, wet with tears, was full of sorrow.
Luo Xiaoxiao hugged Wen Nanshu tightly. Her sobbing, hoarse voice was now in a state of extreme helplessness as she narrated her story in a choked, fragmented manner.
“I was born in a dilapidated mountain village to a poor family.
My father was an alcoholic and a gambler. Every time he drank and lost money, he would fly into a rage and hit and scold me.
My mother favored my brothers over me. She thought I was a burden and cursed and resented me every day. She never let me eat my fill and never cared if I lived or died, wishing she had never given birth to me.
As for my two beastly brothers, they were raised by my parents to have everything handed to them. They were lazy and gluttonous. Almost all the dirty, tiring, and heavy work at home was left for me alone to do.
When they were unhappy, they often used me as their punching bag, hitting and abusing me.
I thought my life would be like this, in a daze, without hope. But who knew, who knew… that my two beastly brothers, in order to gather enough money for a dowry to buy a wife, would disregard my wishes and want to sell me off. They forced me to marry the old man, Zhao Liuliu, who was over sixty years old, stole chickens and dogs for a living, had a limp and was blind in one eye, and enjoyed humiliating and domestically abusing people!
Waaah, I was so scared. So, on the night I was tied up and taken to Zhao Liuliu’s house, I escaped. I kept running and running. I thought I could escape and hide from them…
Who would have thought that on the way, I would run into some thieves who wanted to molest me and take my purity? And then… then I, I met Big Sister…”
After finishing her exaggerated story, even Luo Xiaoxiao had to admire her impromptu acting, which was worthy of a god.
A gambling, abusive, ultra-macho dad, a patriarchal, feudal mom, two lazy, good-for-nothing brothers, and a pathetic, broken her.
Hehe, all the elements of a tragic story were there. Who could be more miserable than her now?
“…” The unfinished words melted into the girl’s helpless sobs.
It was good that Luo Xiaoxiao spoke up. As she did, the air pressure in the alley suddenly dropped. The expression on everyone’s face was no longer calm, especially Wen Nanshu’s.
Her arms unconsciously wrapped around Luo Xiaoxiao tightly. She could feel the girl’s emotional breakdown. Her eyes were filled with dark, churning clouds. Wen Nanshu’s posture of protecting Luo Xiaoxiao became even more pronounced.
At the same time, Qiutong and the others also stood in front of Wen Nanshu with cold faces.
“So, Xiaoxiao, they want to take you back?”
Qiutong slowly drew the long whip from her waist and let it hang at her side.
She looked at the chubby and skinny guys with a vigilant gaze, as if she were looking at trash. Her voice was low and filled with suppressed anger.
“Hmph! I’d like to see who dares to come up here and take her!”
Cangruo, not as composed as her senior sisters, clenched her fists. She took out a bottle of poison from her sleeve and said angrily.
Even the usually gentle Ningyu’s face turned cold. She softly comforted Luo Xiaoxiao.
“Xiaoxiao, your sisters are here. Don’t be afraid. No one can take you away.”
“…?” A cold, bone-chilling gaze, like a knife, pierced them.
The chubby and skinny guys looked bewildered as they were inexplicably labeled as the wicked, conscience-lacking brothers by Luo Xiaoxiao. They watched her acting outburst in a daze.
“Young…” The chubby guy opened his mouth to say something.
But luckily, the skinny monkey noticed Luo Xiaoxiao, who was hiding in Wen Nanshu’s arms, was frantically winking at him. He understood in an instant.
“Ah!” He gave the chubby guy a hard pinch on his fleshy waist, stopping the title he was about to blurt out.
Perhaps the aura of the cultivators in front of them was too powerful for them to contend with.
The skinny monkey quietly swallowed his saliva, enduring the trembling in his legs. He bit the bullet and cooperated with Luo Xiaoxiao, pretending to be a hooligan and threatening them.
“Uh… this, this is our family business. You outsiders have no business meddling. You better hand over… over the young… uh, my sister!”
“T-that’s right. Hand over, cough, hand over my sister, or you won’t get a good ending!”
Seeing the skinny monkey act like this, the chubby one copied him. He waved his hand, showing off his fleshy biceps, and joined in the act.
But despite their acting, they were still selfishly unwilling for Luo Xiaoxiao to go on an adventure and truly go undercover in some immortal sect.
Thinking this, they looked at each other, tacitly planning to use their “brother” identity to take their young master away.
But as soon as they moved a little closer to Wen Nanshu and the others, yelling, “Give us back our sister!”
Snap! The whip cracked with a loud sound. In an instant, two more comets were added to the clear blue sky, both wailing in fear as they flew away.
“…” Qiutong expressionlessly retracted her spiritual whip, as if she had just swatted away some annoying flies.
The anger on her face slowly turned into calmness. She turned to look at Wen Nanshu, her expression surprisingly serious.
“Nanshu, we have already intervened in Xiaoxiao’s destiny, so we have to be responsible for her. The Tianyan Sect’s five-yearly disciple recruitment is coming up soon. Why don’t we let Xiaoxiao try? After all, you can’t predict things like immortal fate.”
“That’s right, Senior Sister. And if they say there’s a difference between immortals and mortals, then we’ll just break through that barrier. Let Xiaoxiao try~ Anyway, she doesn’t have any attachments in the human world.”
Seeing that Qiutong had the idea of letting Luo Xiaoxiao into the Tianyan Sect, Cangruo echoed her.
“Senior Sister. Let’s give it a try. If it doesn’t work, we can make other arrangements.”
Ningyu also suggested, although she was also not sure if Luo Xiaoxiao could truly enter the Tianyan Sect.
After all, as the number one sect in the cultivation world, the Tianyan Sect did recruit new disciples every five years.
But the path of cultivation was not something to be taken lightly. A large sect like the Tianyan Sect, although they were recruiting disciples, was actually based on the law of the jungle.
They selected people from tens of thousands of applicants, and in the end, they barely accepted a few. And most of these people only became outer disciples. Only a small portion could be specially promoted to inner disciples if their talent was exceptional, and there were no other exceptions.
Of course, there was also a legend of a person with extraordinary talent who was taken in as a core disciple by the Sect Master of the Tianyan Sect the moment they entered the cultivation world, like Wen Nanshu.
Although she and Qiutong, Cangruo, and the others also had good talent, they were also chosen from the inner disciples through layers of selection and were favored by the elders before they were confirmed as core disciples.
So, among the few of them, the only genius cultivator with truly superior and peerless talent was Wen Nanshu.
“…” Hearing her junior sisters’ words, her deep, dark eyes were filled with thought.
She looked at the girl who was timidly raising her head from her embrace and slowly pulling away, looking at her in a state of confusion.
Wen Nanshu’s lips were slightly pursed, as if she had made up her mind. She slowly extended her hand towards the girl.
Like a ray of light suddenly shining in the dim alley, Wen Nanshu’s cold face was now exceptionally gentle and tender, radiantly beautiful.
“Do you want to come with me?”
“I…”
Her pupils widened little by little. Her tear-soaked eyes and wet lashes formed tiny droplets, making the girl’s washed, round, deer-like eyes appear even brighter and more captivating.
“Okay…”
After her initial shock, the girl slowly blinked and nodded. Her appearance was so obedient and innocent, showcasing a stunning beauty.
Wen Nanshu’s heart suddenly constricted, then began to beat wildly. She was momentarily stunned.
It wasn’t until she felt a soft, smooth hand gently enter her own and hold her hand that Wen Nanshu slowly came back to her senses.
And when she did, she saw the girl smiling sweetly at her, and then she said in a soft, firm voice.
“Big Sister, I want to be with you.”