Chapter 231: Chapter 237: Really Two Different Things?_1
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In that instant, many images from the previous days flooded Bai Qi's mind.
One day, at a restaurant around noon, a woman in a white dress and straw hat suddenly struck up a conversation with Fang Ren, and he left her to walk away with the woman in white.
She remembered that, in the past, Fang Ren had never left her to eat alone at a restaurant; even when he brought her meals back to the classroom, he would sit with her until she finished eating.
But ever since that day, the occurrences of Fang Ren leaving her alone in the restaurant had become more and more frequent; it seemed as if he was deliberately hiding something from her.
That included the present table and last night's events at the hotel; he could have just stayed in the hotel next door, and if he didn't care about what others thought of him, then it also wouldn't make sense for him to turn off his phone out of anger.
At the same time, the images flooding her mind also included when she was with Mu Huanqing yesterday, when she suddenly realized some details were not as simple as she had thought.
She assumed that Mu Huanqing was just being polite in speaking a few sentences to Fang Ren, but she had never seen Mu Huanqing so smiley or talkative...
It was strange, so many things were strange.
It was like an invisible thread was linking all the details of her life from these past days together; she felt as if she had uncovered some secret, yet that secret was very vague and seemed as if it shouldn't really exist.
...
Suddenly, Bai Qi swiftly pocketed her phone and stood up, running out of the restaurant.
She wasn't chasing after Fang Ren, nor was she calling him; right now, she just wanted to find one person - Mu Huanqing. She desperately wanted to know if the person who had just deceived her was Sister Hui Qing.
If it was Sister Hui Qing, what would the depth of their relationship turn out to be?
Because Mu Huanqing never used a mobile phone, and she was always very serious about her duties; if she could use her phone to text and chat with Fang Ren during this period of official duties, then...
After a while, Bai Qi arrived at the large square outside the final competition venue, only to see a group of female warriors in silver armor standing in neat formation, with Mu Huanqing at the very front, speaking to them with a solemn expression.
Seeing this scene, Bai Qi's heart suddenly felt greatly soothed, and she calmed down in an instant.
Standing at a distance in the square, Bai Qi suddenly felt as if her mind had gone awry, fancying so many things. Fang Ren and Sister Hui Qing, how could there be any profound relationship between them?
Once calmed down, she started to turn back since the opening ceremony was at 6 p.m., and this area was off-limits to unrelated personnel at the moment.
But after calming down, Bai Qi suddenly faced another baffling fact - why did she care so much about her feelings for Fang Ren?
The slightest commotion by his side could send her into a frenzied run, causing such tremendous swings in her emotions.
Was it the influence of the Spiritual Root? No, she was certain it wasn't.
It was all because of herself.
"Do I like him..."
This question that had troubled her mind these past days surged up again within Bai Qi's heart.
She carefully recalled the time she first met Brother Song at the Tiandao Sword Sect. There were many excellent female disciples around him, and he often helped those disciples.
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But she had never felt panicked, nor had she felt the sensation of something belonging to her being taken by someone else.
On the contrary, she thought it only natural that Brother Song should be surrounded by many girls who admired and adored him.
Thinking back to Fang Ren, he was also outstanding, even surpassing any other person of his age in cultivation and alchemy. But aside from Liu Qianqian, there seemed to be no other exceptional girls around him.
It was Liu Qianqian alone whom she really cared about, and she even had a thorough confrontation with him over Liu Qianqian to make sure he no longer liked her before she finally settled down.
Then there was the woman in the white dress; her appearance gave rise to a feeling of panic in her, as if something of hers was about to be taken away. Because of this, she lost her temper with Fang Ren countless times, completely lacking the demeanor of a princess.
She felt it was only natural for him to like her, as she was his fiancée, she was a princess, she was beautiful...
In stark contrast to how she felt about Song Mobei, she felt that Fang Ren should not have deep relationships with other women, because he was her fiancé, he should like her, he could not like another woman and betray her...
"When did I become so unreasonable and selfish?"
Bai Qi sat on a park bench, hugging her knees, looking up at the sky.
The complicated feelings in her heart had gradually become clearer as she sorted through them. If all this selfishness stemmed from her arrogance, she thought that was nonsense. She had indeed been very arrogant, but that was all in the past, she had never been arrogant in front of Fang Ren.
If so, if these selfish thoughts weren't due to her arrogance, then was it vanity? Did she hope to have a man who was head over heels in love with her?
Not that either. She could find tens of thousands of men in Tianjiang who were madly in love with her; she never lacked such vanity.
As she ruled out each layer, Bai Qi finally felt she was touching on the truth.
That truth was, she didn't know when she started to see Fang Ren, who she "must break off the engagement with," as merely "her fiancé in name," then as "her fiancé whom she couldn't break the engagement with," and finally, just "her fiancé."
When exactly did she start to treat Fang Ren as her fiancé?
Was it when she cried from hunger, and he rescued her from the bad guys? Or was it when he heard she wanted to break off their engagement, yet he still invited her out for meals and tea, giving her money to go home? Or perhaps it was the day she was so tired she passed out, and he brought her buns and soy milk?
Or was it that she couldn't do without him for every meal?
Just like this morning, making apologies could have been done with any excuse, why insist on having a meal together?
And when exactly did her sense of security stop coming from her own cultivation level, or her protective butler, and start coming from the mere fact that he was by her side?
"Like and love, really are two different things, just as grandfather said..."
After much thought, Bai Qi had become indifferent to this morning's news that the Tiandao Sword Sect would arrive in Tianjiang.
She could still vividly recall the feeling she had when she wanted to meet Song Mobei, but now she realized that feeling was nothing compared to how she now felt about Fang Ren.
All she wanted now was to find Fang Ren, to speak to him face to face and clear up some things, then to delve into the matter of her deceiving herself this morning.
She was unreasonable and selfish towards Fang Ren, that's just the way she was, she admitted it, she just couldn't change it.
Sitting in the park for over half an hour, the conclusion she had come to at the moment was that Fang Ren could only like her, other women were not acceptable, otherwise she would quarrel with Fang Ren until he liked only her.