Chapter 099: The Seal of True Color
Under the backdrop of the “Heart of Illusion,” Ella’s temperament, which was already confident, now had a hint of luxury, yet it was as cold as ice, like the feeling of the night, making one feel calm.
“Do you want me to fall in love with someone else?” Ella asked, looking into Chen Ran’s eyes, finally asking her question.
“Honestly, I don’t,” Chen Ran said, slapping his forehead, finally choosing not to run away anymore. “But I know that the path I’m choosing next is likely to be a bumpy one. To be honest with you, I’ve had two relationships that I don’t even know if they were relationships. They made me understand that I can’t hold on to what I want right now, which is why I’ve chosen to keep going.”
Chen Ran looked up, extended his hand, and smiled. His fingers gently stroked Ella’s face. “You’re a very good girl, and you make my heart flutter. But I know that this is very unfair to you. But subconsciously, I don’t want to break this feeling, so I’ve been avoiding it.”
“Actually, there’s still a long time in the future,” a sincere smile finally appeared on Ella’s face. “I only want what I want, what I think is right. I know very well what I need, and for that, I can ignore everything else.”
Ella took two steps closer, leaning against Chen Ran’s chest like a lover, and gently closed her eyes. “This shoulder is not thick, but it’s so real. Leaning on it, I can’t help but feel much more relaxed.”
The faint moonlight shone on the two on the roadside. Smelling the fragrance in his arms, Chen Ran couldn’t help but extend his hands and hug the girl. But at this moment, that care was not mixed with a trace of lust.
Ella still had her eyes closed and murmured, “Do whatever you want. I won’t restrain you. But just remember where your heart is. I don’t mind waiting. That way, I will see an even better you, even though to me, you are already very good.”
Ella left Chen Ran’s embrace, a satisfied smile on her face. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to worry about anything here. As for that little girl Dongfang, after you leave, I’ll take her and that little girl Avril to settle down in the Imperial Capital, the City of Dawn, to change to a new environment. There, they will learn more and more useful things. If you have a chance, remember to come and see me there.”
“I will.”
After this conversation, Chen Ran felt as if the sky had suddenly become much brighter, and his mood was much more relaxed. This simple, spiritual love gave him a new kind of expectation for the first time. Unlike the previous times, that kind of love that was obsessed with giving only reaped emptiness in the end.
“Just talking big won’t do. You have to at least make a promise,” at this moment, Ella immediately changed from an intelligent woman to a playful girl. Perhaps this was her true self. She extended two fingers and suggestively tapped her red lips…
In a dark corner, a huge figure stood guard, peeking from the shadows, with a serious face. Above their neck, there was another pair of peeking little eyes, looking at the couple entwined in the distance.
“I knew something I was looking forward to would happen tonight,” Dongfang said, her hands clasped, shaking the tassel-like spirit summoning staff in her hand, a smug, sly smile on her face.
“Hey, my young lady, have you seen enough? This is the boss’s private business. It’s not right to peek like this, is it?” Johnson raised his head and sighed, helpless against the little girl who insisted on riding on his head.
“What do you know?” Dongfang clapped her hands, her face full of longing. “This is a big deal concerning my big brother and big sister. I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time.”
Dongfang lightly jumped down from the more-than-two-meter-tall Johnson’s neck and clapped her hands in satisfaction. “Alright, today’s mission is complete. I can go back to sleep now. I’m sure I’ll have a good dream.” Then, she patted the head of her crystal wolf cub and shook the tassel staff in her hand. “Little wolf, let’s go.”
“Awoo!” The little wolf, wagging its tail to please, walked leisurely and briskly behind Dongfang.
The girl and the wolf disappeared into the quiet alley.
Perhaps because he was in a good mood last night, Chen Ran had a very sweet sleep. If it weren’t for the untimely scream of a girl in the morning, this sleep would have been perfect.
Early in the morning, a maid knocked on Chen Ran’s door, her face nervous.
“Master, something seems to have happened to the young lady…”
“I’m dizzy, what trouble has that little girl caused me now…” Chen Ran knew that the scream just now was from Dongfang. This little girl always liked to mess with all sorts of things. The most hateful thing was the days when she had just learned to play the piccolo. She practiced all day, and his eardrums could barely stand it. Today, he didn’t know what the hell she was doing.
Without bothering to tidy his messy hair, Chen Ran casually threw on some clothes and went out.
On the green lawn, he saw Dongfang clutching her forehead, rolling on the ground in pain. Chen Ran walked over and said helplessly, “What’s wrong with you now?”
“My head hurts so much, like it’s about to explode,” Dongfang said, clutching her forehead and knocking on her little head, her face filled with pain.
“Let me see,” Chen Ran squatted down and pulled away Dongfang’s little hand. He saw that three faint pink, lotus-like petals had appeared on her forehead, flickering in and out. The color would even change automatically, gradually turning to green, then purple… It actually made the already spiritual little girl look even more divine, and her whole body exuded the aura of a little fairy.
Seeing that it didn’t look like anything bad, Chen Ran raised his eyebrows. “What did you do today?”
“I just felt that my summoning was already very proficient, and I was about to break through to the third tier, so I wanted to try to summon a fifth-tier black-eyed creature. I don’t know why, but my vision went black, and my head started to hurt a lot.”
“Aren’t you just asking for it? A little Tier 2 fellow trying to summon a Tier 5 pandaren. I really don’t know what to say to you,” Chen Ran said with a helpless look. He took out a bottle of calming potion from his spatial ring and fed it to Dongfang. The pained little girl finally quieted down, and it didn’t hurt as much as before.
Chen Ran picked up Dongfang and carried her back to her little pink room.
He covered Dongfang with a blanket and, looking at the blooming petal mark on her head, he couldn’t help but fall into deep thought.
After witnessing Colin’s awakening of the magic runes, Chen Ran had specially studied the characteristics of the so-called innate Holy Marks of warriors and the Elemental Runes of mages. Just like the iconic Demonic Horns of high-level demons and the Holy Pupils of high-level star power users, shamans, who focused more on the cultivation of spiritual power, should also have similar high-level innate marks. But shamans were not a very well-known profession, and there were no records of it on paper for now. Chen Ran felt that the mark on Dongfang’s forehead should be a kind of shaman’s innate mark. The feeling of Dongfang’s spiritual power expanding from a stream to a river made him even more certain of this idea. And it was the kind that was awakened innately.
