Less Sugar

Su Li was happily munching on a tanghulu she had casually grabbed from a roadside stall, her cheeks puffing out like a squirrel hoarding food. Behind her, Du Qi scrambled to pay the vendor.

The sourness of the hawthorns mixed with the sweetness of the strawberries, all encased in a thin, crispy sugar shell. With a loud crunch, sugar crumbs fell from the corner of her mouth, landing on her lapel.

She didn't care in the slightest, only letting out a muffled grunt and continuing to chew. She walked briskly, her mouth stuffed full, humming softly as she left a trail of crumbs in her wake.

She had only eaten half the skewer before deciding it was too sour. Stopping in her tracks, she turned around and thrust it in front of Du Qi, shoving the remaining half into his hand without giving him a choice.

Du Qi looked down at the half-eaten tanghulu in his hand. The tip of the bamboo skewer was slightly damp from her bites, bearing a few faint teeth marks. He paused, sighed softly, and followed after her with the skewer in hand.

Ahead lay the core city of the entire Central Continent, as well as the headquarters of the Central Continent Alliance—Rongqi City.

As they drew closer to Rongqi City, the number of cultivators around them visibly increased. The roadside stalls also transitioned from selling ordinary goods to snacks and playthings infused with spiritual energy.

The shops lining both sides of the bluestone road became more orderly, their banners and signs fluttering in the wind. The robes of the passersby also had more of a luster to them, unlike the drab, dusty clothing worn by the people of the Northern Border.

The air was thick with the scent of spiritual energy, resembling the aroma of fresh grass after rain mixed with warm sunlight.

With half a cup of Osmanthus Brew in his left hand and the half-eaten tanghulu in his right, and his storage bag already stuffed to the brim, Du Qi looked like a fully decorated Christmas tree. He felt like he wasn't shopping, but undergoing torture...

Su Li was in high spirits ahead, looking left and right, touching this and smelling that, browsing through several stalls in a row.

Du Qi had thought he had a high tolerance for shopping—usually, he could spend a whole day without rest in Black Mountain Fort's antique street searching for stone rubbings and calligraphy. But shopping by yourself and shopping with someone else were two entirely different experiences, especially when you also had to act as a luggage cart, a display rack, and an account book...

He finally understood why people said accompanying someone shopping was a grueling physical chore.

Su Li stopped again in front of a stall selling scent-enhancing liquids. The stall was small, with several rows of slender glass bottles arranged on a wooden rack. She bent over to get closer, picking them up to smell them one by one. After some careful selection, she picked two and had the vendor wrap them up.

The proprietress, dressed in indigo cotton, wrapped them in oil paper, tied them with fine hemp rope, and handed them over with a bow. Su Li didn't even look, continuing forward without turning her head.

Su Li clapped her hands in satisfaction up ahead, her steps light as she searched for the next item of interest. She seemed completely unaware that behind her followed a person, a pile of things, and a skewer of tanghulu she had probably already forgotten about.

Du Qi looked at the proprietress holding out the scent-enhancing liquids, only to realize he had absolutely no free hands... He stared at the food in his hands and fell into deep thought.

The tanghulu Su Li bought was a combination of hawthorns and strawberries. Du Qi bit through the thin, crispy sugar shell, the strawberry juice staining his slightly pale lips red, lending a touch of bewitching charm to his otherwise scholarly face. He finished the rest, licked his lips, casually tossed the wooden skewer aside, and took the perfume from the proprietress. Watching Su Li's figure as she looked left and right ahead, he muttered to himself.

“I didn't taste any sourness after all.”

After walking for a while, Su Li realized Du Qi was still standing in the same spot. He was taking small sips of the half-finished Osmanthus Brew. The osmanthus flavor, mixed with a milky fragrance, spread across his tongue, cloyingly sweet.

Frowning, he felt this drink was just osmanthus-flavored milk, far too sweet. He didn't really like sweet things, but throwing it away felt like a waste, so he could only force it down mouthful by mouthful.

“Is it good?”

The voice suddenly sounded in front of him. Du Qi looked up to find that Su Li had doubled back at some point and was now standing right in front of him. With her hands on her hips, she tilted her head to look at him, some chili flakes from the skewers she had eaten earlier still stuck to the corner of her mouth, and two more cloth bags of unknown origin in her hands.

Du Qi froze, looking down at the half cup of Osmanthus Brew in his hand, his ears instantly flushing red. He stammered, as if trying to find an excuse for something that shouldn't need explaining: “This... there are just too many things... my hands are full, and throwing it away felt like a waste, so...”

“Oh, I didn't ask you about that,” Su Li interrupted, her tone carrying a hint of dissatisfaction. “I asked—is it good?”

Her gaze landed on Du Qi's face, her eyes bright and shining, as if waiting for an answer, or perhaps waiting for him to say more.

Du Qi's ears grew even redder. He swallowed hard, his voice dropping a bit: “...Uh, it's a bit too sweet. I'm really not used to it.”

Su Li stared at him for two seconds. “Sweet?”

She muttered. Then she reached out and snatched the cup of Osmanthus Brew from Du Qi's hand. The movement was too fast for Du Qi to react. She lowered her head, took the straw into her mouth, and took a big gulp, her cheeks puffing out again, as if holding a mouthful of sugar water she refused to swallow.

Holding the drink in her mouth, she swallowed it with a gulp, licked the corner of her mouth, and then casually stuffed the cup back into his hand.

“Where is it sweet? I knew it, I told him to put less sugar,” she wrinkled her nose, as if accusing Du Qi of lying.

Du Qi stood there like a tree shaken by the wind. The straw of the cup in his hand now bore a faint bite mark left behind when she took it into her mouth. He looked down at the Osmanthus Brew, staring at the wet mark on the rim of the cup.

He stood frozen in place.

Su Li grew up in the south, raised in the Beast Taming Sect, where people would even share a bowl of food with their own pet beasts. But for Du Qi, it was different. Aside from his mother, no woman had ever shared food or drink with him.

“Let's go, what are you standing there for?”

Su Li's voice drifted over from ahead. She had walked some distance away at some point and was now looking back at him. Her deep red eyes shimmered in the sunlight, like a dying sunset, yet also like a newborn morning sun.

Her gaze fell on his face, as if waiting for him to catch up. Du Qi seemed to have made a decision, yet at the same time, it was as if he wasn't thinking about it at all.

As if possessed, he brought the cup to his lips, took the straw into his mouth, and took a sip.

It was sweet. It was clearly very sweet...