“Your piano was beautiful.”

The blond elf seemed as though he had stepped straight out of myth.

Bathed in sunlight, he carried a large instrument case on his back and wore a simple white shirt with beige suit pants. The top buttons of the shirt had not been fastened, revealing elegant collarbones and a pale but by no means frail chest.

He possessed the beauty of the elves, their restraint, and that lofty arrogance that looked down on everything.

Yet in certain details, he also gave off a rebellious, untamed impression—such as the deliberately unbuttoned collar, and the black choker around his neck.

Two contradictory temperaments combined in him, making him seem both as elegant as a traditional gentleman and as free-spirited as an artist.

When Wen Yuzhi looked toward him, the blond elf gave a slight nod, his bearing composed and proper.

And those dim violet eyes seemed to ripple. All their emotion melted slowly like silent ice and snow, until only the young man before him was reflected in the blond elf’s pupils.

Anyone being watched so intently and sincerely—seeing that the other person’s eyes held only you, seeing his emotions drawn along by you, even the coldness in his gaze melting like water—would likely be unable to keep from losing themselves in such tender affection.

One of Wen Yuzhi’s hands still rested on the crystal piano. Within the rainbow halo formed by the drifting mist, the young man looked like a beautiful dream.

One was a beautiful, radiant young man. One was a tall, handsome elf. They stood beside the fountain and the piano, looking at each other, and the scene was almost like a painting, filled with a romantic, lovely atmosphere.

Soft gasps sounded around them, but everyone quickly realized something and hurriedly swallowed any noise. After all, no one could bear to disturb such a rare and beautiful sight.

Izeer’s footsteps paused.

He looked at the elf standing before the young man, then at the scene of the two of them looking as if they were especially well matched. His brow furrowed slightly.

And deep within Izeer’s dark pupils, some deep, cold emotion seemed to churn.

At this moment, the feeling he gave off was no longer anything like an ordinary hotel waiter.

The elf being watched by Izeer seemed to sense something. He casually turned his head. Pale-gold hair slipped down from his shoulder, and those violet eyes were extraordinarily cold.

And this was the elves’ true attitude toward other races.

Arrogant and cold, looking down from above.

To a certain extent, the Saint Clan and the elves were very similar.

They both treated outsiders with complete indifference. But if one observed carefully, one would discover that the Saint Clan and the elves were entirely different.

The Saint Clan’s attitude toward outsiders leaned more toward disregard. They did not want to bother with them, nor did they want contact with them. Their view was that aside from their own people, every other race was trash.

This had to do with the Saint Clan’s nature and their powerful strength. Just as an elephant would not run off to play with ants, the Saint Clan could not be bothered to deal with those chaotic ants outside.

Especially when those ants had so many thoughts, so many schemes.

But elves were different. On the surface, they seemed just as cold toward outsiders as the Saint Clan, but beneath that coldness hid an almost imperceptible disgust.

Under that elegant, proper mask was the gaze one used when looking at something filthy and lowly.

They considered themselves noble and pure, and were unwilling to come into contact with such foul things.

Yet with the same cold attitude, the Saint Clan, who merely disregarded others, were resisted and feared by everyone, while the elves, who despised them, were held high and praised wherever they went.

One had become the villain of the universe; the other had become synonymous with purity and elegance.

One had to say that sometimes the people of the interstellar world were just that realistic. They only looked at faces. Beauty was justice. The Saint Clan lost out because their image in the interstellar world was that of bloody, violent monsters.

Anyone who saw them would only feel afraid.

“I’ve never seen the Saint Clan, but no matter what they look like, even if they’re monsters, I still hate these fake elves more. The way they look at me makes me feel like I’m just a rotten salted fish in their eyes.”

Lottie complained lazily.

The merfolk attendant’s brow twitched. “Your Highness, mind your words!”

Neither of those races was someone they could afford to offend lightly. And also... what merfolk would compare herself to a rotten salted fish?!

Lottie shrugged, rather like someone who alone remained sober while everyone else was drunk.

In truth, the elves’ disguise was indeed very good. One only had to look at the eyes of the people around them to know.

They had not noticed the disgust the elf held toward them at all. They were still marveling over such a beautiful being.

Invisibly, this also fed the elves’ arrogance.

The blond elf was the same.

He did not place Izeer in his eyes. Perhaps, in his view, a mere human could not count as any kind of threat at all.

After glancing at him once, he withdrew his gaze. Those violet pupils once again looked toward the young man before him, as if what he was saying now was the only important thing.

If it had been anyone else here, facing an elf’s goodwill, they might already have felt overwhelmed by favor.

But Wen Yuzhi’s perception of emotions was very sharp.

From this blond elf, what Wen Yuzhi sensed was contradiction.

The gazes of the crowd, their admiration—he found all of it disgusting, and yet despite being so disgusted, his expression remained calm, carrying...

This split between inside °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° and outside instinctively made Wen Yuzhi become wary of the elf before him.

Aside from that, Wen Yuzhi also sensed another equally distinct emotion in the area.

He looked in that direction.

It was Izeer.

The other person stood not far away, looking toward him.

And his mood... what Wen Yuzhi sensed was a low, dull heaviness.

...He seemed unhappy?

Thinking this, Wen Yuzhi walked past the beautiful elf in front of him. He stepped down from the platform and walked toward Izeer without looking back.

The blond elf left behind froze. Shock crossed his face for an instant, and violent emotion finally appeared in those violet eyes.

He had thought Wen Yuzhi might not accept his goodwill so quickly.

But he had not expected that the young man would simply leave him behind and walk toward another human he disdained and looked down on...

Izeer did not know what had happened between Wen Yuzhi and that elf.

From his angle, he could only see the young man part his lips and say something to the elf before him.

Judging by the shape of his mouth, it seemed to be an apology.

The young man had most likely rejected some request from the other party, then turned and walked toward him.

Step by step.

Every step the young man took seemed to land on his heart.

Izeer could not suppress the emotions in his heart at this moment. Those intense, boiling, unfamiliar feelings surged like a tide, slowly soaking through his heart.

At this moment, even the boundary of emotion became blurred.

But the one thing Izeer could confirm was that, when Wen Yuzhi left the other person behind without hesitation and walked toward him, he was happy.

The shadow in his eyes slowly retreated. His dull, low mood was gradually replaced by a feeling he perhaps understood, yet did not dare think about too deeply.

The only one whose mood was probably the complete opposite of Izeer’s was that elf.

An elf who had always been adored by everyone had perhaps never been treated so bluntly before. What made him even more unable to accept it was that the young man had chosen another human he did not place in his eyes.

In that instant, the calm, unhurried mask on the elf’s face cracked.

He hurriedly turned around. Looking at the young man leaving without the slightest hesitation, panic finally appeared on his face.

“Do you have a partner?!”

The elf asked urgently.

His pale-gold hair arced through the air with his movement, and those violet eyes seemed to flash with a faint sheen of moisture because of anxiety and sadness.

Compared to his previous elegant and composed appearance, there was an indescribable disarray to him now.

But that disarray did not damage the elf’s beauty. Instead, it gave him a kind of broken, fragile charm.

Quite a few people around them could not help feeling pity when they saw this.

Hidden in the crowd, Lottie whistled.

“Tsk, tsk... truly pitiful.”

The merfolk attendant: “........”

That phrase did not seem to be used quite like that.

“Have you ever seen a stray dog wagging its tail like crazy, only to be refused adoption?”

“........”

“There. That’s what this is.”

The merfolk attendants said, “Your Highness...”

Their tone was already completely helpless.

Although they knew merfolk truly did not get along with elves, someone who dared compare an elf to a stray dog... in the entire interstellar world, that was probably only their princess.

Meanwhile, the elf was still speaking to the young man.

“The elf race has always been faithful. We have only one partner in our lifetime. If you do not mind...”

“I mind.”

Wen Yuzhi truly could not understand this elf’s train of thought.

They had only met for the first time. They did not even know each other’s names. How had things suddenly been dragged all the way to partners?

The Saint Clan royal guards following beside him were also like enraged lions.

They looked coldly at the elf. If little highness had not told them in advance that they could not expose their identities outside, then with that one sentence alone, the elf who dared speak offensively would already have lost his head.

All Saint Clan members had a mindset toward Wen Yuzhi similar to that of guardians.

In their eyes, their little highness was still a cub who needed to be protected, and any attempt to abduct their cub challenged their bottom line.

For a moment, the way those Saint Clan royal guards looked at the elf was already filled with killing intent.

The other party also sensed the killing intent from these Saint Clan royal guards, and his face suddenly turned somewhat pale.

Surprise flickered in the elf’s eyes.

These bodyguards...

He subconsciously reached out and gripped the strap of the instrument case on his back. When he lifted his eyes again, the elf’s expression seemed to have calmed.

Once calm, the elf returned to his earlier restrained and courteous appearance.

“My apologies. I was rude. My name is Se’an. I look forward to meeting you again next time.”

After saying this, the elf named Se’an looked deeply at Wen Yuzhi one last time, then left with his instrument case on his back.

As he left, he and Izeer brushed past each other for an instant.

It was only this brief contact, but Izeer froze for a moment. He looked toward the other person’s departing back.

Even as the loser leaving the scene, the other party did not give off any sense of dejection or embarrassment. Everyone around him was feeling sorry for him.

Yet a solemn emotion flashed through Izeer’s eyes.

This elf carried a very familiar scent of blood.

Izeer had smelled this kind of bloodiness countless times in the black market before. Those desperadoes who wandered between life and death had this same kind of sinful blood aura that could not be washed away.

At the same time, Izeer also noticed the hand the other party had used to grip the strap of the instrument case.

That hand was not beautiful and delicate like his face. On the contrary, it was covered in scars.

If he truly was an artist devoted to music, would he have so many wounds on his hands?

Besides... the calluses on his hands were not from playing piano. They were clearly marks rubbed out by long-term use of weapons.

There was definitely something wrong with this elf!

Without revealing anything, Izeer sent what he had noticed to the King of Spades.

[Look into this elf.]

“How did I play just now?”

Right after Izeer finished sending the message, Wen Yuzhi also walked up to him.

The young man did not mention that elf. Clearly, to him, the elf was merely a somewhat strange passerby.

Izeer also did not tell Wen Yuzhi about the elf’s abnormality.

Selfishly speaking, he did not actually like Wen Yuzhi’s attention being placed on that elf.

Since both sides deliberately ignored it, the other person’s appearance became nothing more than a small interlude, quickly cast to the back of their minds.

Izeer also did not know how to offer praise. He only nodded seriously and said, “You played very well.”

“Even your tone and words when praising people are the same...”

Wen Yuzhi muttered quietly.

He examined Izeer in front of him again, from his brows and eyes to all his features. No matter how he looked, the other person and Xi Heyan were completely different types.

Xi Heyan was sharp and indifferent, like an unsheathed blade, carrying the cold, stern edge of a sword.

But Izeer clearly did not have such strong aggression. He was gentle, dull, more like the kind of gardener or groom who appeared in traditional stories.

These two people were utterly different. Wen Yuzhi could not find the slightest trace of similarity between them.

But for some reason, Wen Yuzhi still felt that Izeer gave him a very familiar feeling.

The other person’s expression and way of speaking seemed to still carry traces of someone else.

The more Wen Yuzhi looked, the more suspicious he felt.

And Izeer, being stared at so directly by the young man, was not as calm inside as he appeared on the surface.

Should he say it?

His true identity...

But if the other person knew, would he feel that Izeer had been deceiving him all this time?

Izeer was undoubtedly conflicted.

He had always wanted to find an opportunity to explain his identity to Wen Yuzhi, but when it truly came time to say it, hesitation rose in his heart.

Izeer was not someone who hesitated.

The reason he had always taken first place in the combat department was because he acted with absolute decisiveness. He never looked back and forth.

No matter what it was, he ended it directly with one cut.

But when it came to Wen Yuzhi, Izeer seemed to have developed some more complicated, harder-to-explain concerns.

Only, while he hesitated, Wen Yuzhi had already moved.

The young man rose onto his toes and leaned a little closer to him.

The enticing fragrance in the air seemed to become even stronger.

Even this point, having a distinctive scent on his body, was very similar to Xi Heyan.

Only, the scent on Xi Heyan was bitter orange with a little sourness, while the scent on Izeer was mixed with caramel, cream, and the smell of freshly baked bread.

Wen Yuzhi felt like eating dessert again.

“You... do you know there’s a kind of smell on you...”

The young man looked fixedly at him.

“What kind of smell?”

Izeer thought it was the perfume he had sprayed today that had attracted Wen Yuzhi’s attention.

But unexpectedly...

Wen Yuzhi moved his nose slightly. He seemed to have smelled something, and his eyes looked at Izeer with a bit of longing.

“A very delicious smell.”

Izeer: “.......”

All his emotions straightened strangely in that instant. His mind was completely blank.

And his heart, which had just calmed, instantly became a mess again.

.......

On the other side. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

The elf named Se’an walked into a tavern.

When the people in the tavern saw him, the originally lively atmosphere instantly fell into silence.

In that dead silence, only a red-haired one-eyed man laughed without restraint.

“Yo. Why’d you come back with your tail between your legs?”

Se’an did not speak. Inside the chaotic, frenzied tavern, he was like a devout Puritan, utterly out of place with everything around him.

Hearing the one-eyed man’s words, he looked at him coldly. Those violet eyes held not a trace of emotion.

But the one-eyed man was not afraid of him.

He kept laughing boldly, like a shark that had smelled blood.

“Look what I just saw. A poor wretch whose confession got rejected. Or was it... a dog who almost knelt down?”

Se’an still did not speak.

He would not be angered so easily by a few words from the other party.

“But that little beauty really is something. A child that pretty would be top-tier rare merchandise even on the black market. No wonder even someone like you would be moved by him.”

The one-eyed man licked his lips, his tone becoming even more suggestive.