"Joke or not, we'll know once we're there." Wang Yanqiu gave no ground either. Her one fear was that Yang Ce would back out, so she kept needling him with words.

How could Yang Ce fail to see Wang Yanqiu's aim? Yet he was not annoyed, and traded jibes and jokes with her all the way, which made the journey a little less dull.

"Say, little Yanyan, you and I are about to be joined in matrimony—we ought to get to know each other, don't you think?" Yang Ce, having nothing else to do, began fishing for information.

"What little Yanyan? That's disgusting." Wang Yanqiu flushed. She had never had a boy call her that in all her life. Amid her irritation, though, there was a strange stirring in her heart.

"Disgusting? How so? Don't tell me you find your own name disgusting?" Yang Ce put on a look of great astonishment. "A name is bestowed by one's parents—you have no right to choose it."

"Get lost!" Wang Yanqiu was furious. She had meant that Yang Ce calling her "little Yanyan" was disgusting, not that her own name was—but there was no explaining it. She knew full well Yang Ce was talking nonsense, yet she had no way to deal with him.

"Heh heh, come on, let's talk. West Star Mountain's still a long way off—at least half an hour's drive," Yang Ce went on.

"Talk about what?" Wang Yanqiu had no wish to bother with Yang Juehuan, but she feared that if she provoked him he would refuse the contest. With no other choice, she answered perfunctorily.

"How is it I've never seen your parents? You live alone in Songjiang?" Yang Minlan was intensely curious about Wang Yanqiu's background, so he ventured a question.

Yang Ce's perfectly ordinary remark drew a sigh from Wang Yanqiu. After quite a while she said, "I don't have a mother. She left me when I was very small."

Originally Wang Yanqiu had not wanted to tell Yan these things, but neither did she want to make casual jokes at her mother's expense, so she simply told the truth. By the time she got there, she sounded rather sorrowful.

"Ah—sorry." Seeing that Wang Yanqiu's expression did not look like she was lying, Yang Puqi was taken aback and hastened to apologize. He had never expected Wang Yanqiu to carry such a pitiful burden.

"It's nothing. I'm used to it." Wang Yanqiu shook her head, and the normal look returned to her face.

"And your father?" Yang Shuyu asked. Wang Yanqiu's heart was fragile now, and secrets were easiest to probe at such a moment.

"My father?" At this Wang Yanqiu's face showed a trace of desolation, and she shook her head with a bitter smile. "I don't want to talk about him."

Thinking of how she might become a sacrifice to the family's interests, how could Wang Yanqiu be happy? To be married off to a stranger—this was something Wang Yanqiu found utterly unacceptable.

Hearing Wang Yanqiu's words, Yang Xutang also smiled bitterly. It amounted to saying nothing—not a scrap of useful information. And from Wang Yanqiu's expression, she clearly did not want to say much about her family.

Yang Ce had no choice but to change the subject. "By the way, what do you do in Songjiang? Are you a student too?"

"Mm, a student," Wang Yanqiu answered vaguely.

"What school?" Yang Ce pressed, thinking to himself, could this be a cover for her identity too?

"Songjiang Engineering University. Same as you," Wang Yanqiu replied.

"Then how come I've never seen you?" Yang Mo was rather curious—so Wang Yanqiu was actually his schoolmate.

"Probably not the same campus," Wang Yanqiu said indifferently.

"Oh, I see." Songjiang Engineering University had several campuses—Yang Shuoxuan knew that. Still, Li Yixun seemed to have mentioned before that Wang Yanqiu was a student there; Yang Ce just hadn't paid her any attention then, so he hadn't remembered it.

"Don't tell me you didn't do that research before you started pursuing me?" Wang Yanqiu plainly did not believe Yang Minlan knew nothing, and mocked him with some contempt. She took Yang Ce for someone merely making conversation.

To be continued

947. What You Said Has No Rules

"Huh?" Yang Ce's eyes went wide with astonishment. "Me, pursuing you?"

Yang Lanxu said, "When have I ever courted you? Are you out of your mind?"

"What, afraid to admit it?" Wang Yanqiu said with open contempt. "I can't stand men with no sense of responsibility."

"What do you mean, afraid to admit it? But when have I ever courted you?" Yang Jiyan was thoroughly baffled.

Seeing that infuriating look on Yang Ce's face, Wang Yanqiu flared up. "If you weren't courting me, why did you send me flowers? And spout all that disgusting nonsense?"

"I sent flowers?" Yang Puqi was stunned, then in a flash he grasped the crux of the matter. My god, Li Yixun, you've really done me in this time. Thinking back to what he had said when he sent those flowers, no wonder Wang Yanqiu had misunderstood.

And then he thought of the sarcasm in Wang Yanqiu's tone whenever she saw him. Yang Ce was now certain: so this little girl had been holding a grudge against him over this all along. That Li Yixun had truly done him no small harm.

Still, Yang Ce could not be bothered to explain at the moment. The girl was in a fury right now; she probably would not believe him even if he did, and it would only be a waste of breath. Besides, there was no need to explain anything to Yang Shuoxuan. A good scolding later would teach her not to go around thinking she was the biggest thing under heaven.

As for taking Wang Yanqiu as a lover, Yang Ce had not even considered it. As for whether she was untouched or not, that had just been a bluff to scare her.

"So you've remembered now?" Wang Yanqiu sneered. "Your memory really is something to behold."

"Heh, is that so?" Yang Shuoxuan did not answer, only threw the question back at her.

"You know full well whether it is or not." The more Wang Yanqiu looked at Yang Ce, the more she felt he deserved a beating—he was hardly a man at all. Timid and cowardly as he was, not even daring to admit he had courted a girl, what great things could he ever accomplish?

Still, Wang Yanqiu felt reassured. From the look of it, with that kind of nerve, he could not possibly pull any tricks.

Yang Ce parked the car at the foot of West Star Mountain. There was a vast stretch of open ground here awaiting development, so almost no one ever passed through—especially not at night, when even passing vehicles were few.

"This will do," Yang Ce said after glancing around, then turned to Wang Yanqiu.

Wang Yanqiu was clearly satisfied with the spot as well—open, stretching endlessly, with no fear that Yang Ce might set some kind of ambush.

"Fine, here will do." Wang Yanqiu nodded and pushed open the car door.

"Want me to leave the headlights on for light?" Yang Ce asked after pulling the handbrake. There were no streetlamps here; if the headlights went off, it would be pitch black.

"No need." Wang Yanqiu glanced outside and refused outright. It was dark out, but by the moonlight one could still vaguely make out a figure.

Wang Yanqiu had undergone darkness training since childhood. In the dark, her perception of things was far keener than an ordinary person's, so the darker it was, the more it favored her.

What Wang Yanqiu could never have imagined was that the darkness favored Yang Ce even more. To this fellow, darkness was no different from broad daylight. Some time later, when Wang Yanqiu looked back on this episode, she could only smile bitterly—how foolish she had been back then.

Yang Shuoxuan said nothing more. He turned off the headlights as asked, cut the engine, and jumped out of the car.

"So how do we do this—freestyle fighting, or something else?" Yang Yanchuan asked.

"Yes, freestyle fighting, until one side can't get up off the ground or concedes," Wang Yanqiu laid out the rules.