18.1 - The Eighteenth Flavor Part 1

Translator: tarararawr

Xian Bei was looking down the entire time. The atmosphere of rejection and helplessness around her was getting heavier.

Chen Zhuo felt something was wrong. He knitted his eyebrows and his voice became more serious. “Xian Bei.”

The little girl whose name was called immediately shook her head to deny it. In the next second, she turned around and tried to rush back to her room.

In the end, her arm was pulled by a hand. Xian Bei’s body became stiff. She used the other hand to wipe the tears from the corners of her eyes.

Chen Zhuo sensed something. He pulled her towards him and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Xian Bei was most afraid of other people’s concerns because this kind of grievance, sadness, and powerlessness she felt would always grow exponentially.

Xian Bei’s throat felt tight again, like she was choking on a piece of lime, and her nose stung.

Xian Bei just wanted to go back to her room and didn’t want the man to see her in such an embarrassing state. She really envied those people who could turn around and slam the door without thinking or could yell hysterically to express their negative emotions.

She didn’t know how to lose her temper. She had never been angry at anyone even as a child.

When she had to draw angry portraits of people for the first time, Xian Bei searched the internet for many real life pictures and studied them for a long time…… Wow, so this is anger.

Such brave and straightforward anger was as lovely and charming as laughing while holding one’s belly or giving an eloquent speech; it shined brightly from a distance.

In her world, there always seems to be fear, worry, and unease, occupying her entire world timidly.

Xian Bei’s head was still buried. This time, she desperately shrunk her head into her shoulders, as if there were some ugly scars on her face that she was too afraid to show others.

Without thinking too much, Chen Zhuo reached out and lifted her chin to force her to look up.

Chen Zhuo was startled on the spot when their eyes met for a second.

He never expected that the little girl was crying.

Her eyes were full of fear and those tears gushing out of them made these emotions clearer and more powerful.

Her red eyes were too terrified to look at him again and she started to look away to hide them.

Chen Zhuo felt a sharp pain in his heart. It took a few seconds before he quickly let go of his hand.

The way the little girl was crying made him want to…….want to pick her up and go somewhere else to let her sit on his lap while he wiped her tears and softly coaxed her.

It was a strange and shameful idea that suddenly rose up. It was like——the second time he ran into her in the supermarket and he felt a kind of “wanting to pick her up and gently put her in the shopping cart” cuteness from a girl for the first time.

So he was afraid to touch her again.

Chen Zhuo tried to ask, “Why are you crying?”

Xian Bei shook her head fiercely.

Chen Zhuo felt hopeless as he stood in the same place. He paused for a few seconds before he asked another question in an extremely gentle tone, “Were you scared by what I just did?”

Xian Bei still used body language to deny it.

“Or am I talking too aggressively?”

She shook her head.

Chen Zhuo exhaled a long breath and looked around the place. Then, he thought of something and turned back to her: “Wait for me here.”

With that, he turned around and left.

Xian Bei sniffled for a while until the tall shadow of the man was gone.

She rubbed the corners of her eyes and quietly looked up to see where he was going. When Chen Zhuo turned the corner into her room, Xian Bei covered her face with her hands.

I’m so humiliated and useless……

Crying in front of this man…….

He is obviously so good, but my repayment to him is full of negative emotions, silence, fear, tears……

She stood for a minute feeling regretful. Then, the long shadow came back to her.

The owner of the shadow called her name again. “Xian Bei.”

Xian Bei’s two small ears were waiting for his call.

“Look up now.”

Xian Bei: ……?

“Is this all right?” His tone was compelling, yet impatient.

Xian Bei blinked for a while and then she took a deep breath. She slowly……looked up.

Ah!

Xian Bei’s heart jumped. W-hat……

The clothes from before and the person from before changed.

She didn’t know when, but the man covered himself in a dark, metal mesh mask……His head was completely covered by it and his face was almost impossible to see clearly……

Xian Bei was so shocked that couldn’t look away for a long time. She wondered what was going on with his face.

……Fencing suit?……It seems like it……

At this moment, the man spoke in a very gentle, but a little stuffy voice because of the mask blocking it, “If it’s not because I spoke too much or because I was too aggressive, then it’s because my face must have scared you. I will hide it, so let’s stop looking and stop crying, okay?”

Xian Bei whispered in her heart that this mask was even more frightening.

But……

It’s really funny for you to be like this.

Xian Bei immediately lowered her head and her tears turned into a smile with a very tiny sound of giggling.

But she was so scared that she quickly covered her mouth and tried to hide the happiness in her heart.

The man in the strange mask did not mind. He put his hand over her head and just put it there. He chuckled, “Today is a lucky day. I can see you cry and I can see you smile.”

Oh dear……. he sighed and repeated, “Really lucky.”

Xian Bei didn’t know why, but those words, those few words, mysteriously poked a nerve in her.

With a sudden surprise in her eyes, how can there be such a good person? He could comfort her by saying she was lucky because of changes in her nervous mood.

“Are you all right?” Chen Zhuo saw the little girl’s forehead droop again, so he took off his mask and asked in a more cautious tone.

Oh. Xian Bei looked like she was kowtowing.

“Go to bed early,” he said. “Good night.”

Good night. Xian Bei gently replied in her heart and slowly turned around.