Savage Wolf, Lotus Heart [Never Let You Go, Again: Book 4]

20: Emblem of Lovesickness

Sure enough, by next week, all the sects and clans had heard of the great hero. The young thirteen-year-old who wasn't even a cultivator but had claimed the head of a demonic beast. The young lad who saved the heir of the YunmengJiang sect. The Jiang disciples at Lotus Pier drowned him with attention whenever he came there.

"Haoxuan, you're so amazing!" A girl clapped.

"Haoxuan's the best!" A group of boys proudly cheered.

"How did you do it?" A disciple only one year his senior asked.

"Are you really that good at sword-fighting?"

"What was the beast like?"

"Imagine! Saving the great White Lotus! Heiress to a sect!"

"You're making it sound like I saved an ancient Emperor's only Princess daughter," Haoxuan sighed, exasperated with all the talk.

"But think, boy! It is like that!" A shijie exclaimed. "Our Jiang sect owns the widest lands. A vast region under our control. It really is almost like our Sect Leader's an Emperor. And you saved the Princess!" She chuckled.

While they praised him for saving her so valiantly, he gulped. True, Meilien was, more or less, a princess. And who was he?

He sighed and shook his head, turning back to answer their endless questions.

Suddenly, someone answered the exact question he had been pondering over. "And you are the great chivalrous hero! Hey, at this rate, you could marry the Jiang heir without any problems!" They laughed.

"A typical betrothal in a typical fairytale," a Jiang boy rolled his eyes. "Seriously?"

"But come on! It makes sense!"

Zhao Haoxuan flushed red. "I... Ahaha, what nonsense! Excuse me for a while," he slipped deftly away from them and fast-walked in the direction of the Healing Hall to see his Susu.

**********

"Hmph," Jiang Meilien, watching it all from a distance, flipped her hair.

"Hey, Meilien!" Two of her friends, fellow Jiang Shimei and Shijie, walked up to her. Each slung an arm around a shoulder and watched with her. "He's famous, isn't he?"

"Hmph."

"Ah?" The Shijie turned to her. "Jealous?"

"Hmph, why would I be jealous!" Meilien smirked and looked on.

The younger disciple grinned. "Jealous of the mighty Lianhua Meiren's fame being snatched away?"

"Of course not! He deserved it, he's just as great. As are you all," Jiang Meilien honestly answered.

"Then..." the elder martial sister laughed. "Jealous of him being surrounded by his new fangirls?"

"Nonsense!" She shouted and shoved their shoulders away, huffing and puffing like a fiery dragon as she stomped away from the scene and her martial sisters' incessant laughter. 

**********

"Jingyi? Jingyi! You in there?"

Jin Xiyi looked up from her book to the sound of knocking. Leaping with glee at the familiar voice, she rushed to the door. "Jin Ling!"

"Hello!" Jin Ling waved with his free hand.

"Oh, you brought my dear niece!" She beamed and picked Mingxia up, cradling her. "Do you mind?"