Ships and Love

Pain

Xue Yang x Reader

Angst, Horror

Emotional

Past

~*~

Funny how people stereotyped him every time they saw him. Xue Yang flopped on the wooden chair lazily. The noodle stall was only open for half an hour more or so. He hadn't eaten in ages and his tongue was missing the taste of food.

Cultivators could live without food longer than ordinary humans. Though they would like to eat once in a while, just like him. Xue Yang wasn't all that particular about what food he would like to eat, or what food he wouldn't like to eat. Either way, food was heaven for him.

He threw several copper coins. The stall owner looked at him blankly before taking the coins and started to make the noodles. Humming quietly, Xue Yang waited for his order to finish when he caught a beggar at the corner of his eye.

The beggar was dirty and ragged. Black circles decorated his eye sockets as he walked aimlessly around the area. It seemed that the beggar was not more than ten years old. The beggar was limping and had dirt all over his face. Xue Yang couldn't even determine if he was a male or a female.

He just shrugged before he continued to wait for his noodle.

After a while, the child was still in the area, looking at the noodle stall with twinkles in his eyes. The child was thin, and ironically, he was also a beggar. When he was young, he was also a beggar.

He remembered when the candy shop owner tricked him.

In his mind, the beggar was bound to die soon, so he shouldn't mind the child. He ignored the beggar as he received his bowl and started eating. The taste wasn't bad, the taste of noodles near Yi City. That city was dead, so he had to actually go so far for a bowl of noodles. It was troublesome, but worth the trouble. He didn't know if he would go crazy after not eating for so long...

Nah, he was already crazy.

After he finished half of the bowl, he saw the child fumble with his tattered pants. His hands tried to dig into the pocket full of patches as the child tried to find some money. After a while, he could only find two copper coins, not enough to buy a bowl of noodles.

"Food!" The child exclaimed, clearly illiterate. The stall owner didn't even bat an eye. He ignored the two dirty copper coins on the table and continued cleaning up. Xue Yang saw how cold the beggar was treated. It was normal, people with fortune tended to not look at people with less fortune.

He could see the child becoming disappointed quickly. The child pocketed the copper coins back into his tattered pants and walked away. But he was still there in the area.

When he was done, he walked away from the stall. He saw the little beggar looking at him with a strange glint in his eyes. Xue Yang was a bit surprised, but he wasn't that surprised. Villages such as this was low on security and money. The village head extort money and instead spent it on booze and beautiful women. It wasn't rare for him to find a street rat or two.

The the child pounced at him and aimed for his purse.

Instinctively, Xue Yang grabbed the child by his neck and brought him (child) in front of him (XY). He rubbed his chin as a grin manifested on his face. How brazen. From the corner of his eye, he could see the noodle stall owner acting as if the child deserved it. As he saw that, Xue Yang seemed to remember things.