DEG - Chapter 28
Chapter 28: Surveillance
So the Eldest Miss pretended to focus on her book.
As if she hadn't heard the sounds from the courtyard, nor seen this person who had wandered in.
Luo Nanqiu knew who this person was.
It was her new sister.
But she wasn't related to her father by blood and would sooner or later be taken away by her mother.
Her intelligent brain took a moment to process and came to a conclusion.
An insignificant person. She didn't even need to maintain a peaceful, superficial relationship with her.
But this person acted as if she hadn't noticed she wasn't welcome.
Jiang Xun started knocking on the window beside her.
Gently. She stopped after a few taps, then just stood there without speaking.
It seemed she wanted Luo Nanqiu to notice her, but at the same time, didn't want her actions to disturb her.
Luo Nanqiu: ...
She silently turned another page of her book.
She watched from the corner of her eye.
Jiang Xun was still standing by the window, her gray eyes watching her eagerly.
Like a little puppy waiting for her favor.
Luo Nanqiu irritably flipped another page.
Jiang Xun's presence was so faint.
After knocking on the window just once, she hadn't made another sound, but Luo Nanqiu still felt that Jiang Xun was distracting her from her reading.
The Eldest Miss closed her book and tilted her head to look outside the window.
She thought her expression must be very impatient, carrying an intimidating aura that could make her younger siblings cry.
But unexpectedly, Jiang Xun's eyes gradually brightened. Though they were a dull gray, they now held a special kind of light.
She saw Jiang Xun tap the glass with more force. "Do you want to come out and play?"
she invited sweetly.
To be honest, this was the first time Luo Nanqiu had received such treatment.
Although she pouted inwardly, thinking: I don't care for it at all.
But her body honestly walked outside.
"What's so fun here?"
Luo Nanqiu considered herself a rather precocious child; she didn't like to play at all.
Not one bit.
Besides, what good things could Jiang Xun, a child who had just arrived at the Luo residence, possibly discover?
Luo Nanqiu thought with disdain, yet she still followed behind Jiang Xun.
Jiang Xun led Luo Nanqiu for a short while before she couldn't resist taking Luo Nanqiu's hand.
"In the garden over there, there's a very beautiful butterfly."
So Luo Nanqiu watched as Jiang Xun led her to sneak into her father's garden.
Luo Nanqiu hated this place.
Because there was a gardener here who fawned on the powerful and trampled on the weak.
It seemed he had saved her father's life when he was young, which was why he was allowed to work here.
He threw his weight around every day and even looked down on her.
Fortunately, the first thing they saw was the butterfly.
Luo Nanqiu saw Jiang Xun point to the butterfly with blue, iridescent wings shimmering in the light and say to her.
"Do you like it?"
"What if I do?"
Luo Nanqiu only needed a glance to know this butterfly was a Star Beast.
The phosphorescent powder on its body had hallucinogenic effects; it would take an ability user of at least level twenty to deal with it.
The current Jiang Xun.
It wasn't that Luo Nanqiu looked down on her.
With that small frame of hers.
It seemed she was destined to faint in the garden this afternoon. The Eldest Miss, however, was hesitating over whether she should carry her back to her room.
So Luo Nanqiu, completely unconcerned, said casually, "Can you even catch it and give it to me?"
Luo Nanqiu saw Jiang Xun's eyes light up.
She saw Jiang Xun reach for the butterfly, and watched as the startled creature fluttered away, scattering its powder.
Luo Nanqiu was also startled and subconsciously pulled Jiang Xun back. But she stepped on a branch behind her, sinking into the soft leaves. Tugging on Jiang Xun's collar, the two of them fell to the ground together, sending fallen leaves scattering everywhere.
The commotion was clearly not small and had disturbed the slacking gardener.
"Who's there?" he roared, then walked over angrily.
Jiang Xun subconsciously wanted to run away with the Eldest Miss.
But Luo Nanqiu looked at the fallen leaves all over her, her annoyance unconcealable. She stood there stubbornly, waiting for the gardener to arrive.
So when the gardener arrived, he saw the two of them pulling at each other. "I was wondering who it was."
Recalling the rumors he had heard that morning, a trace of disdain flashed in the gardener's eyes.
He sneered in a low voice, "So it's the two useless ones."
Luo Nanqiu stiffened her neck and stared at him.
The seven-or-eight-year-old Luo Nanqiu had already more or less mastered the art of keeping a straight face.
"What did you say?" she asked calmly.
"I didn't hear you clearly."
Luo Nanqiu knew her father was likely in his study not far away.
She wanted to know what kind of status this gardener held in his heart.
And she also wanted to know what he, her father, truly thought of her, his eldest daughter.
Luo Nanqiu waited sternly for an answer, but unexpectedly, Jiang Xun suddenly wrapped her arms around her waist.
She hugged her, spun her around, and shielded her behind her back, looking at the gardener with a displeased face. "You're so rude."
The disgust in her voice was palpable.
"You..."
As the savior of the Luo family head, the gardener had actually been throwing his weight around the Luo residence for a long time. For a long time, everyone had been respectful to him. When someone suddenly talked back to him, his temper flared up instantly.
"You!" The word was on the tip of his tongue, his hand about to rise for a slap, when he remembered this was the daughter their new madam had brought with her.
Suppressing this impulse was easy, but it would be a bit embarrassing.
Just as the gardener was hesitating, wondering how to lower his hand naturally.
Jiang Xun saw his movement, and her eyes lit up.
Jiang Xun was the type who always liked to flip the chessboard.
So she shouted towards the house, "Mom!! This gardener is trying to bully me!"
"Mom! He called me useless!"
"Mom!! He's looking down on you! He dares to scold me right under your nose!!"
Even if her mother also thought she was useless and didn't like her, Jiang Xun could still throw her weight around by relying on her mother's authority.
The noble lady watching the situation unfold from her room: ...
She tightened her grip on the fan in her hand, her gaze dark as she looked at Father Luo, her smile chilling. "A mere gardener, with such a temper."
...
Afterwards, to maintain the partnership, Father Luo put the two children in the next room and had a servant catch the blue butterfly for them.
And Luo Nanqiu never saw that gardener in the Luo residence again.
But that was all for later.
At that moment, Jiang Xun looked at the butterfly and presented it to Luo Nanqiu as if it were a treasure.
Although she hadn't caught it, she could still give it to the Eldest Miss.
It was just that Luo Nanqiu's mood was gloomy as she looked at the butterfly.
Although she had long known she held no special place in her father's heart, truly facing this fact still made her a little sad.
Sometimes, she really didn't understand Jiang Xun.
How could she be so cheerfully foolish right after being scolded?
Her mother had just helped solve the problem, but she had given her an impatient glare, showing not affection but more of a helpless annoyance.
It was clear her family relationship wasn't good either, so why wasn't she sad at all?
Luo Nanqiu touched the butterfly cage and, as if possessed, asked, "Aren't you sad?"
"What?" Jiang Xun was a bit lost.
Luo Nanqiu's lips moved slightly. After hesitating several times, she finally said, "Being called useless by him."
"Oh." Jiang Xun's voice clearly dropped.
"I'm just still young, and my Mental Power is a little low, so I can't activate my Ability. Aunt Lan said I'm not useless," she retorted indignantly.
Jiang Xun's Ability was simply too powerful, so powerful that it required a very high level of Mental Power to activate. Therefore, ever since her Ability awakened, she had never been able to truly activate it.
So she was often called useless by those who didn't know.
Luo Nanqiu's eyes lit up slightly. "Is it because you have too little Mental Power too?"
Jiang Xun blinked, realizing something.
"It's a matter of Mental Power, how can you say the Ability is useless," Jiang Xun mumbled defensively.
She even tried hard to gather her Ability.
Luo Nanqiu watched her sweat profusely from the effort, as if she had exhausted all the Mental Power in her body. In the end, the Ability she had painstakingly gathered in her palm popped like a firework and scattered. All that Mental Power just amounted to a little pop.
Jiang Xun had a headache from overexerting her Mental Power. Her face was pale, her forehead covered in cold sweat, and her expression became aggrieved.
Even though she says she doesn't care, she actually cares a lot, doesn't she.
The Eldest Miss suddenly felt a sense of balance.
She skillfully handed Jiang Xun a potion to replenish Mental Power and watched her drink it.
As if showing great mercy, she began to explain her own Ability to Jiang Xun.
"Actually, I've been called useless too."
The last two words were mumbled.
"Because my Ability isn't very useful, and it requires constant Mental Power to maintain."
Jiang Xun looked at her eagerly, waiting for her to continue.
"My ability is actually to place a 【Label】 on anyone. As long as someone has my mark, I can sense their status and their location."
You could say she was a human surveillance system.
The Eldest Miss's shoulders slumped whenever she thought about it.
"That's amazing." But Jiang Xun's eyes were sparkling. She exclaimed with sincerity.
"Then no matter where I hide in the future, you'll be able to find me."
"If I get sick, will you find out too?"
Luo Nanqiu hesitated for a moment before nodding, watching as adoration filled Jiang Xun's eyes as she looked at her.
She was a little scared, and also a little annoyed, and actually started to argue back.
"Of course not. To know someone's current status, you have to maintain the Ability constantly, otherwise the 【Label】 will dissipate."
Maintaining the Ability constantly-with her meager amount of Mental Power, it was obviously impossible.
"You'll be able to do it sooner or later!" But Jiang Xun said with conviction.
"I gather my Ability every day. I can feel my Mental Power increasing. Sooner or later, I'll be able to form my Ability."
"The Eldest Miss is so amazing, you'll be able to maintain your Ability sooner or later too."
That eager, expectant feeling was back again.
Luo Nanqiu felt an indescribable mix of shame and annoyance, but she couldn't deny that Jiang Xun's words flowed into her heart like a warm current.
Looking back on her life, Luo Nanqiu had countless times felt that her world was a persistent haze, with a constant, drizzling rain.
But Jiang Xun was her sun.
From the moment she realized she loved Jiang Xun, no matter how magnanimous she pretended to be, there was always a thought in her heart.
She had to catch the sun.
She absolutely had to catch her sun.
So many years had passed. She had long been able to maintain her Ability day and night. With so many years of accumulation, she had long become the human with the strongest Mental Power in the world.
Her Ability crossed two worlds, summoning the Descenders and using her power to mold bodies for them.
Luo Nanqiu could monitor the location and status of every single Descender.
With such powerful Mental Power, she could control so many things. What was monitoring one small planet in comparison?
Especially when her most important person was on that planet.
She had watched with her own eyes as Qing Yue arrived, watched Jiang Xun draw another version of herself, watched that other self furiously wanting to settle scores with her, and watched Qing Yue try to take Jiang Xun away from her side.
Absolutely impossible.
Luo Nanqiu thought.
No one could take her away.
Just as Qing Yue and Jiang Xun were about to board a small starship to leave the planet.
Threads descended from the sky, wrapping around Qing Yue layer by layer.
Bound hand and foot, just like that.
Jiang Xun was embraced by another cluster of threads, as if being gently pulled into someone's arms, allowing her to easily escape Qing Yue's grasp.
Looking at Qing Yue's sorry state.
Qing Yue glared at the shuttle door just inches away, realizing more profoundly than ever that Luo Nanqiu was toying with her like prey.
She turned her head to look at Jiang Xun.
Only to see Jiang Xun sigh, her gaze somewhat world-weary. "Don't worry, I'll put in a good word for you with Nanqiu."
Qing Yue: ...
Is this a matter of putting in a good word?
Being under Luo Nanqiu's constant surveillance, don't you feel anything strange?
"But I still think confessing voluntarily is better than waiting passively for trial."
"So let's go confess in a bit!"
Why in a bit?
Because Jiang Xun estimated that Luo Twenty-Five should be finding Luo Nanqiu soon, and the two of them were about to fight!!
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