Dragon Hermit

“Xia Yan, you’ve poked the hornet’s nest!” Qi Ziyu said anxiously after they departed from the vicinity of the lotus lake.

“It’s not my fault, he provoked me first,” Xia Yan shrugged it off and stated confidently, “You’re going to tell me he has a huge background now, aren’t you?”

“He indeed has one,” Qi Ziyu rolled her eyes at him as she couldn’t comprehend why Xia Yan was so calm right. [Did he not sense that Xie Zheng isn’t an ordinary person?]

“Sihe province has a few premier families that have a history of several hundred years, and the Xie family is one of them. Hence, there are very few people in Sihe province who dare to offend someone from the Xie family. Xie Zheng is the eldest grandson of the main family and also the junior of the family with the highest prospects.”

“A history of several hundred years?” This information had shocked Xia Yan as even a well-preserved, poorly made bowl from hundreds of years ago was considered a curio nowadays, let alone a premier family. It was imaginable that a family that hadn’t declined even after such a long time would have developed to a terrifying degree.

“It’s no exaggeration to say that there’s nothing the Xie family can’t achieve in the entire Sihe province,” Qi Ziyu added.

“That does sound pretty scary!” Xia Yan nodded, but then laughed and said, “Since it is only him, Xie Zheng probably wouldn’t mobilize his family’s power to deal with a mediocre student like me. Moreover, do you believe he would have the face to reveal that he got slapped?”

“He would obviously feel ashamed to tell anyone he got slapped, but you would still face a lot of danger even if he just mobilized his own power!” Qi Ziyu stated in worry, “In any case, you must act with prudence and inform me if you need help. I implicated you this time, so I certainly won’t watch something happen to you with my arms folded!”

“Don’t worry, I’m not that weak,” Xia Yan felt slightly moved. Only, no matter the case, as the sole necromancer of Earth, not just anybody could threaten him.

“Oh, yeah. So you really do know martial arts. I couldn’t even catch a glimpse of your movements back then!” Xia Yan complimented her.

“You too. I never thought you would be able to hit Xie Zheng. He… is pretty strong!” Qi Ziyu complimented him back.

“Strength is my forte, so it wasn’t that hard at all!” Xia Yan chuckled.

“As if!” Qi Ziyu rolled her eyes at him again.

“All right. Shall we have breakfast in the dining hall?” Universities typically had a lot of students that got up early, so Xia Yan suggested this to Qi Ziyu after peeking a glance at her.

“Sure, let’s go together,” Qi Ziyu agreed straightforwardly.

[Can this be called a successful date invitation?] Xia Yan rejoiced internally, [They say that the hurdle is higher for having breakfast together than having dinner together, but I never expected I’d accomplish it so quickly!]

There weren’t that many students within the dining hall, so Qi Ziyu didn’t attract that much attention. The two of them had breakfast smoothly and then prepared to go on their way. Before leaving, Qi Ziyu reminded Xia Yan once again to call her if Xie Zheng came looking for trouble.

Although Xia Yan promised her on the spot, he had other thoughts in mind. [Ask a girl for help? I’m not that weak!]

There was still military training in the morning, and during the break time, everyone chatted in a pretty lively manner. As lunchtime approached, a lot of people had suddenly arrived at the boundary of the drill ground. After they had made some inquiries, they rushed to the side where Xia Yan’s class was training and pointed towards the freshmen who were marching while discussing things.

Xia Yan faintly heard Qi Ziyu’s name and immediately had a bad feeling, so he looked towards Qi Ziyu and discovered that she was also looking in his direction. The two of them had guessed what had happened, so they smiled at each other wryly.

“Look, it’s that kid standing beside Qi Ziyu!” A person from the crowd shouted out loud.

“I also saw it. Their gazes locked with each other just now, so there’s definitely something going on!”

“Were the photos posted online real then?”

“Definitely!”

“This can’t be happening. Qi Ziyu is my goddess; there’s no way she would date someone else!”

Although the group of men and women discussed in a loud voice, the other freshmen were unable to make sense of their words as they were training here since the morning. As they didn’t have a chance to go online yet, they were simply unaware of what had transpired. However, they could glean that it was something related to Qi Ziyu and Xia Yan and that too a hot gossip. As such, the two of them became the focus of all their gazes.

Even though Xia Yan possessed a strong mental fortitude, he still felt a bit uneasy after getting stared at by so many people and becoming the target of their discussion. As a result, he almost marched the wrong way and got berated by the instructor, even getting hit once. The students who had gathered around to watch them cheered in elation as they felt gratified when he got scolded.

The arduous military training finally ended for the day. On the other hand, Xia Yan and Qi Ziyu communicated their gazes and reached a taciturn understanding. Both of them planned to leave the drill ground from different directions.

However, they had severely underestimated the power of the crowd and the fans. They got surrounded after taking just two steps. Exasperatingly, their classmates had also gathered around and inquired about the crowd’s purpose in coming here.

“What happened?”

“A rumor of a love affair between Qi Ziyu and that guy from your class has emerged!”

“That’s impossible. Qi Ziyu has never had a love affair rumor written about her. Someone’s definitely trying to defame her!”

“Impossible, you say? The pictures have been posted online already. They were holding hands together!”

[It really was the work of that damn paparazzo from the morning!]

Xia Yan cursed him internally and pushed people aside as he tried to make his way outside of the crowd, “Everyone, move aside!”

Yet no one listened to him.

On the other side, a girl showed Qi Ziyu the screen of her smartphone and asked, “Ziyu, is this real? Are you really dating Xia Yan?”

Qi Ziyu had seen a lot more of the world than Xia Yan, so still had a smile on her face as she coaxed everyone gently, “Everyone, please calm down and let me leave, okay? I haven’t had lunch yet!”

“Xia Yan, is what they are saying true?” Zhao Qiang and Qin Jian squeezed inside and reached beside Xia Yan before asking excitedly.

“True, my foot! You think it’s possible?” Xia Yan rebuked him.

“Yep, we also think it’s impossible!” The two of them shook their heads in tandem. Zhao Qiang then said, “There’s no way a mediocre loser like you could make a goddess fall for you! If anything, it would be me that could make that happen!”

After they made a fuss for a moment, Xia Yan was finally able to squeeze out of the crowd with much difficulty under the protection of the two ironclad protectors. Meanwhile, Qi Ziyu was still trapped within the crowd. Xia Yan pondered for a while and collected his and Qi Ziyu’s backpacks from the side of the drill ground and squeezed back inside the crowd. He pushed through them with force and pulled Qi Ziyu outside while shouting, “Run!”

The two of them ran out of the school hand-in-hand and succeeded in throwing off the crowd following them after taking two turns. Xia Yan stopped then and wiped the sweat off his face before saying in trepidation, “Luckily, we ran away pretty fast!”

Qi Ziyu rolled her eyes at him and chided him, “We could have explained it properly, but now that we have run away, it has become ever more impossible for us to clear this rumor!”

“Huh?” Her words had stupefied Xia Yan. He only had the thoughts of rescuing her from the crowd in his mind back then, so he hadn’t considered this bit at all. But now that he thought about it, he knew he had gone and done it. There was no doubt that the online news portals would have a new article describing the latest trends of Qi Ziyu’s love life by tomorrow morning.

Xia Yan’s phone received a notification at this moment, so he fished it out from his backpack and checked it. He had received a message from Zhao Qiang.

“Xia Yan, you traitor! How could you betray your brothers as well?! We hate you!”

This message was just the beginning. Xia Yan received another message before he could even reply to the first one after reading it, and it was from Xiaoyu this time, “Cousin, are rumors being spread online true?”

Xia Yan felt like he could even see Xiaoyu pout in anguish through the screen of the smartphone, so he scratched his head and sent a brief reply, “They’re lies!”

Soon after, Xiaoyu sent another message, “I believe you!”

“Xia Yan, you two-timer. Are you planning to let Xiaoyu down?” This message came from An Xiaoru, and as expected, she was a manly woman who took sisterhood very seriously.

“Kid, you really have some skills to be able to hook up with Qi Ziyu. However, are you not afraid of getting chased by her fans?” Anna’s tone was much nastier than An Xiaoru’s.

“Xia Yan, when are you planning to visit my house? Grandfather wants to see you,” Liu Xue’er also sent him a message. Although she hadn’t mentioned Qi Ziyu, since she had texted him at such a time, it made Xia Yan wonder if it contained a deeper meaning.

Even Zhang Shufen, who he hadn’t met that many times, had texted him. Although her text didn’t contain a single letter, it contained a total of hundred exclamation marks.

Le Wenqing, on the other hand, texted him a thumbs-up emoji.

Xia Yan didn’t feel like explaining with a reply to each of the messages, so he just sent a group text to everyone with the words ‘They’re lies!’ in it and switched off his phone firmly.

Xia Yan began pondering after putting the phone back in his backpack, [University is a really nice place. The military training hasn’t even ended, yet I’ve become acquainted with so many pretty women.]

On the other side, Qi Ziyu was on a call with someone. From her words, it sounded like she was explaining things to her manager, “Sister Hua, we really aren’t… he’s just a classmate… we didn’t… hold hands, we just clapped hands… it really isn’t like you’re thinking… all right, can you help me explain it to the media? I’m hanging up then!”

After she hung the call, she received another call, but she rejected the call after seeing the caller id. She fiddled with her phone for a few moments after that and lifted her head to explain things to Xia Yan, “It’s Xie Zheng. I added his number to the blocklist!”

“Good!” Xia Yan smiled and gave her a thumbs-up.

Her phone rang again, and this time, Qi Ziyu’s expression changed the moment she saw the caller id. She gestured for Xia Yan to stay silent and answered the call promptly, “Mom!”

[It’s Qi Ziyu’s mother? The chairwoman of Fengyu Jewelers? One of the famous and successful businesswomen of the nation?]

Xia Yan was shaken to the core and pricked up his ears to hear their conversation, [Is Qi Ziyu’s mother also planning to criticize her?]

“Mhm, I’m doing well. I’m used to it already… the classmates treat me well too… don’t worry, I’m that delicate!” Qi Ziyu replied to her mother’s questions one after the other, and a few moments later, she glanced at Xia Yan and said, “… no, there’s really nothing! He’s just a classmate of mine, and I was just clapping hands with him. We weren’t holding hands… Right! Xie Zheng came to bother me again today. Mother, can’t you deal with this trouble already… There’s no way I’m doing that!”

Qi Ziyu hung up the phone in anger. Xia Yan could make a rough guess of what the mother and daughter had talked about, so his gossipy heart was satisfied. He also felt a little happy when he heard her refer to Xie Zheng as trouble, so he immediately grabbed the chance to suggest this to her, “We cannot return to the campus temporarily, so why don’t we have lunch outside? It’s on me.”

Xia Yan felt a little nervous as he asked this as he was inviting the goddess of millions of boys to a lunch date. [What do I do if she refuses me? Although we had breakfast together in the morning, that was only because we were taking the same route. This is a bit more of a formal invitation, so…]

“All right. Let’s have some pork noodle soup!” Although Xia Yan felt nervous about it, Qi Ziyu had agreed to it candidly.

This made Xia Yan both happy and sad because her instantaneous reply meant that she didn’t believe this meal had a special meaning behind it. Moreover, they were just going to have a bowl of noodles together, that’s all. If it were a western restaurant, it would have been entirely different.

Although the soup’s broth was often called milk broth, it didn’t actually have milk in it and was instead a thick and white soup formed by slow cooking bones. Xia Yan drank the soup while eating the noodles together with the ground meat and pickled vegetables and felt quite satisfied.

Qi Ziyu took small sips of the soup and arranged the hair that dropped on her forehead to the back of her ears from time to time. She had long eyelashes and huge eyes along with a slight fuzz of hair on her temples. She always moved with grace, and even though they were inside a tiny, noisy noodle restaurant, it didn’t reduce her elegance at all. The extreme contrast between her and her surroundings actually made her stand out even more…

Xia Yan peeked at this girl sitting on the other side of his table while dining and felt like he was having the most soothing bowl of noodles in his entire life.

Qi Ziyu seemed to have sensed his gaze, so she lifted her head to look at him, and this, in turn, made him lower his head while feeling his face heat up. Qi Ziyu smiled a little when she saw him act like that and continued eating noodles without saying anything. After that, Xia Yan kept peeking at her occasionally. Although he was eating a bowl of noodles that was only worth ¥10, he felt like it really had a delicious flavor.

However, someone arrived beside the table at this time. The man tapped the table with his crazily tattooed arm and said, “Hey there, pretty woman. How about we become friends?”

And the mood got destroyed immediately.