Translated by Serena Love (ko-fi)

Translate Checked and edited by Pure (ko-fi)

Edited by Choko (ko-fi)

Chapter 16: Touching Porcelain

Lin Xiaocha glanced at Tao Ji kneeling on the ground and instantly knew what she was planning.

Tao Ji touched the ground with her forehead, begging very pathetically.

Then, she slowly raised her head.

Her clothes were filthy and she looked embarrassed of her condition, but her beautiful face was still immaculate. Her gorgeous features were like a peony after the rain, fresh and radiant.

She had practiced this technique countless times, raising her gorgeous face with precision. The last time she employed this move, it effectively seduced Feng Ziying.

Now, she was looking at Han Yu with the same teary eyes.

Lin Xiaocha saw through her scheme at first glance, and her expression sank. Tao Ji was actually trying to take her target?

Intolerable!

Tao Ji, on the other hand, never saw Lin Xiaocha as an actual threat. And that was because even though Lin Xiaocha was pretty, the little girl seemed naive and incapable of any scheme. She didn't look like she understood men, and wasn’t interested in knowing how to fully use her advantages as a woman.

So, as long as this handsome cultivator agrees to let her join them in their journey, even if Lin Xiaocha dares to hinder her, she’d just need to get rid of her on the road.

Lin Xiaocha gazed at Tao Ji lightly. The woman did have a good-looking face, but she didn't seem to understand that if a woman knows about her beauty and is too eager to use it, it will be counterproductive.

Zhuangzi[1] once said, "A beauty is beautiful when she knows of her beauty, but when she is unaware of it, she is even more beautiful." A beautiful woman who does not know of her beauty is what a man desires.

On the contrary, someone who deliberately used their appearance to seduce others would cause their target to easily resist or become defensive.

That's why married scumbags in popular TV Shows could escape the clutches of those pretty and flirtatious sluts, who would coquettishly play with their hair, but could not control themselves in front of the seemingly innocent Green Tea B*tch.

The two were on completely different levels.

Which was why Lin Xiaocha didn't take Tao Ji seriously in the beginning. She even sympathized with her when she was chased away by Feng Ziying.

But unexpectedly, she dared try to snatch food from her mouth?

On the other hand, Tao Ji  was still looking up at Han Yu. She had noticed him before; she never saw such a handsome and cold man in her life. Everytime he appeared in front of her, he felt like an immortal being.

She couldn’t help but want to defile him.

Funnily enough, Tao Ji didn't seem to know that she was flirting with a romantically blind man.

Although he had seen her twice, Han Yu didn't even recognize her here.

And her deliberate look to please and seduce him made Han Yu's eyes avoid her even more.

Tao Ji kept staring at him. But he did not say a word to her, and merely glanced at her once with frosty feathers in his eyes. Only then did she realize that everything was going differently from what she had expected.

She started to panic.

She rubbed her knees on the ground, moved a few steps, and crawled forward.

However, the closer she got, the more she felt that this man was too aloof and out of reach, just like gods are to mortals.

She didn't even dare to touch the soles of his shoes.

Han Yu raised his head coldly and stopped paying attention to her.

Tao Ji got more anxious and shouted, "I beg the immortal to save Tao Ji and take me out of the city. Your grace would be unforgettable!! I am begging you, Tao Ji can't survive here!!"

However, she didn't expect Lin Xiaocha would be the one to come to her. She stood in front of her, stretched out her hands to help her up and asked, "Sister, what are you doing?"

Tao Ji obviously knew that Lin Xiaocha was trying to block her from approaching the man, but instead of letting anger get the better of her, she changed her plan accordingly.

She looked up at Lin Xiaocha, who probably cares about her benevolent reputation. She stayed on the ground and continued begging, "Xiaocha girl, you have the heart of the bodhisattva. Please save me and take me out of the city with you, okay? I can't live here~"

At this time, the woman Lin Xiaocha had previously saved from being sacrificed, sneered from the sidelines. She admired Tao Ji’s shamelessness. She was taking advantage of knowing that honest, and soft-hearted people were easier to bully.

She remembered how she begged Tao Ji to pity her back then, but she bit her like a poisonous snake instead.

The woman sighed and shook her head at Lin Xiaocha, signaling her not to believe Tao Ji.

At this time, the other surrounding refugees also stared at Tao Ji on the side, worried that Lin Xiaocha would be confused by her.

Lin Xiaocha looked embarrassed and didn't know who to listen to.

Tao Ji knelt and shook her skirt, "I know I was wrong, but I will definitely change in the future. Won't you give me a chance to prove that I can be a better person?"

Then she kept knocking her head on the ground, but since she was afraid of pain, her knocking was done very lightly.

Lin Xiaocha looked anxious, as if she was in a dilemma, she stammered, "I, I, I..."

As if she couldn't make up her mind.

Tao Ji, who kept knocking her head, was soon completely exhausted by Lin Xiaocha's "I, I, I..." and lost the patience to pretend to be pitiful.

After all, no matter how careful she was, if she kept knocking her head like this, her forehead would eventually get scratched by the rough ground. She also felt that her brain was shaken too many times, and was feeling dizzy.

Lin Xiaocha's indecision and her scheme of wanting to look like a good person made Tao Ji feel even angrier!

She stood up from the ground and glared at Lin Xiaocha angrily.

"On the sacrifice day, you exchanged your own life to save these two in a heartbeat. But when it would only take you a small effort to take me out of here, you are not willing? Why can you save others, but not me? Is your compassion only an act?"

"Besides, it was because of your presence that the City Lord drove me out! It wouldn’t be a reach to say that I am in this condition thanks to you! Don't you feel the slightest bit of guilt for what you caused? Don't you think you should compensate me?"

Lin Xiaocha anxiously stated, "I'm sorry, Sister Tao Ji, I'm sorry, I didn't know... Don't be angry..."

She hurriedly hugged Tao Ji.

This hug came so unexpectedly that Tao Ji, who hated Lin Xiaocha in her heart, instinctively pushed her away.

But she didn't expect the petite and slender girl in front of her to fall heavily on the ground.

Tao Ji was stunned. She didn't even use that much strength.

How come?

Little did she know, Lin Xiaocha was a professional in playing ‘touching porcelain[2]’.

She is an Oscar-level acting queen. Not to mention that everyone would be unable to clearly see what just happened due to the panic just now. Even if there were three cameras present and they played the scene back again and again in slow motion, no one would realize that Lin Xiaocha fell down intentionally. After all, Tao Ji did push her, just not strong enough for her to fall.

She flopped thoroughly, leaning back all the way down.

She was different from Tao Ji, who can't even bear the pain of knocking her head a few times on the floor. Her acting was perfect and real.

Just when she was about to hit the hard ground, she fell into a warm embrace, and was surrounded by a burst of pinewood scent.

Nobody knew when Han Yu appeared behind her and caught her.

Her heart jumped instinctively.

But calm down almost immediately.

In an instant, two lines of tears flowed down her face.

Lin Xiaocha started crying while Tao Ji just stood there completely dumbfounded, "I..."

She was about to plead her case, but couldn’t because no sound came out of her mouth. She was made silent by Han Yu’s silencing spell as soon as she opened her mouth. 

Han Yu was tired of her croaking.

"Are you okay?" Han Yu asked Lin Xiaocha.

Lin Xiaocha bit her lip and shook her head. She wiped her tears with her hand, looking very aggrieved.

After a while she asked, "Xianjun. Is it really my fault?"

"No."

"Then why did Tao Ji say that it was my fault? And why did she push me?"

Tao Ji's eyes widened, but she still couldn't make any sound.

Lin Xiaocha turned her head to look at her and asked softly, "Sister Tao Ji, is it because Xiaocha is so easy to bully that you want to put the blame on me?"

The development of the situation was completely unexpected by Tao Ji.

An altruistic person shouldn’t be acting like this...

Countless pairs of eyes stared at Tao Ji with anger, as if they were trying to pierce deadly holes into her.

Lin Xiaocha suddenly felt that the sky was spinning because Han Yu had abruptly lifted her up into a princess carry.

Tao Ji stopped in front of Han Yu to explain what truly happened, but Han Yu only glanced at her and said coldly, "Get out of the way."

Tao Ji was shocked by his menacing aura and scarily took a few steps back.

He put Lin Xiaocha back on top of the horse and then got on the horse himself.

They rode the horse and left the crowd without looking back.

Tao Ji helplessly watched her only life-saving opportunity leave. In that desperate moment, she broke the spell and suddenly shouted, "I didn't do it! I didn't push her! I really didn't!!"

Han Yu turned a blind eye to her pleas.

No one believed her.

Tao Ji was puzzled in every way until Lin Xiaocha, who was sitting behind Han Yu, turned her head and mischievously raised the corners of her mouth.

There was a charming smile on her delicate face.

Tao Ji's pupils shrank sharply.

She was pretending!!!

She...

That girl is not a good person at all!!

"She is..." Before she could finish her sentence, a big stone hit in the face.

She looked around in anger. The stone was thrown by the little girl who was almost sacrificed last time.

"Bad woman! You wanted to hurt my mother and me! Now you want to hurt Sister Xiaocha?" the kid reproached her.

Tao Ji took her hand away from her face and saw blood on it. Her face, which she was proud of the most, was scratched.

Annoyed, and angry, she was about to pounce on the girl.

However, this only further aroused the fury of the refugees that had been suppressing their rage against her for a long time.

"Vile woman!" someone shouted.

"Smash her to death!" another one screamed.

The refugees who only spat and threw mud on her were now hurling heavy stones at her.

They didn’t stop until she was breathless and completely unrecognizable.

.

.

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Footnotes:

[1] Zhuangzi (莊子) - Zhuang Zhou, commonly known as Zhuangzi (also rendered in the Wade–Giles romanization as Chuang Tzu), was an influential Chinese philosopher who lived around the 4th century BCE during the Warring States period, a period of great development in Chinese philosophy, the Hundred Schools of Thought. He is credited with writing—in part or in whole—a work known by his name, the Zhuangzi, which is one of the foundational texts of Taoism. 

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuang_Zhou 

[2] "Touching porcelain" is a term to describe a situation where someone is ready to fall at the slightest touch so that he or she can claim compensation from whoever comes close or helps. It refers to the practice in the antique industry, where the criminal/scammer would place the most fragile porcelain in the middle of the road so passerby would touch it unintentionally, and they could claim compensation.

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