22. Fourteen steps

We had as much fun as possible. We fought five times a day to break the boredom.

But as soon as I got too excited, Grant immediately suppressed all my impulses and laughed at me for a long time afterwards, enjoying my quiet rage.

He was able to drown out the heat of my rage beneath the crust of ice that shrouded every one of my emotions in a frosty haze.

In the mornings, after breakfast, we'd go to the library and Circul would bury himself in books on graphology, which turned out to be his secret passion. He even wrote a year-long research paper on handwriting.

Although there was a field exercise at his academy in the spring, he said that for some reason he couldn't go, so he came home to the capital, where he met me at his birthday party.

In addition to his work on handwriting, he read many books on psychology and magic.

I kept up with him sometimes too, but I didn't write paragraphs in my notebook, I quoted the lines I liked out loud. Although my repertoire was mostly the flat humour of cheap women's fiction – yes, yes, I had persuaded Midi to sponsor me with romantic ‘booze’.

My enthusiastic readings of the most ridiculous passages only annoyed Grant, and I loved to drive him mad with my comments on almost every action of the heroine, while berating the behaviour of the male protagonist.

I ran my fingers over the smooth cover and opened the weighty volume with its beautiful backgrounds in the margins and behind the text with a sense of awe.

This story always gave me goose bumps, a crazy smile on my face and tears in almost every chapter. No matter how many times I read it, I couldn't get enough. It was as if each time I tasted the ever-sweet ambrosia, but after a moment, when I closed the book, I forgot the taste and longed to feel the sweetness of bitterness on my tongue again.

I sobbed with laughter and buried my nose in the sofa cushion.

“What are you laughing at?” Circul tore his eyes from the endlessly boring book.

There was a flame in his black eyes, in which the thought ‘whether I should kill you right now or listen to what nonsense you will pour into my long-suffering ears’ was so clearly readable.

I laughed enough and then sat up straight. I cleared my throat and began to read aloud with a serious look on my face. “So... ‘but even more unfortunately, he happened to be Lan WangJi!’ … here. ‘This was one of the people who had fought with him before, so he should retreat quickly. He was in a hurry to find a mount, as he passed a courtyard and saw a big millstone inside. A donkey was tied to the handle, chewing on its mouth. When it saw him run over rashly, it seemed like it was surprised, and eyed him sideways as if it was a real person. Wei WuXian made eye contact with him for one second, and was immediately touched by the minuscule amount of contempt in its eyes…”

I dropped the book, shaking with another fit of laughter, and imagined in colour the donkey who would be named Little Apple and travel with the main characters. Grant smiled faintly.

“Little Apple had a difficult life after meeting Wei WuXian, but I think he found a true friend despite all the trials. Fairy, even though she was a spiritual dog, I believe she bonded with him. And the rabbits in Gusu also brightened up his existence…”

“What?” I felt numb as I realised. “Have you also read this novel?”

I was given an arrogant ‘donkey’ look of utter contempt.

“D-did you r-really r-read it?” I stumbled over every word. I was so moved.

“Why are you so surprised?”

“I'm overwhelmed. My cacti and needles are all mixed up in my head, I can't imagine you reading this.”

Circul Jr. hummed. I put my fists to my lips and let out a squeaky breath, “Wheeeeee!”

I had butterflies in my stomach. I met someone who was reading my favourite book – isn't that something to be happy about?

“What do you think?” I leaned forward to decipher every emotion on his face. “Did you like it? Whose death saddened you the most? Favourite moment? Did you immediately understand how Lan Zhan recognised Yiling Patriarch?”

Grant grinned, looked at me squeamishly and commented on my wild reaction: “Pathetic.”

I squealed with delight when I heard one of WangJi's favourite words. I felt sick in a good way. Hugged the sofa cushion.

“Say anything else?”

“Extremely pathetic.”

That was it. I was ready to be carried out. With my feet first. And no cultivator could rest my elated spirit.

“You made my day, you know?”

“Mnn.”

I almost cried. It felt good to meet someone I could talk to about a part of my world. Fireworks hissed in my head.

After Virtul, fantasy books came second for me. There were rarely moments in my life when I enjoyed a miserable existence in reality, more often I escaped into fictional universes, be it Virtul or foreign novels.

This time Grant didn't rush to suppress my emotions; he let me vent my feelings and only then looked away to turn the page of his book.

“What's your reading?”

To my surprise, the guy responded eagerly, “How to Kill the Urge to Kill. Volume Two. How to love the people around you.”

“And the book? Interesting?”

He shrugged and turned the page again. “Did you know that there are fourteen steps from hatred to love?”

“I've heard it said that it's only a step from hate to love.”

Grant grinned, threw the book back on the coffee table and relaxed on the couch, staring at the ceiling. “The author writes that he carried out a study in which he identified the approximate stages that people go through in a relationship. The steps can vary, some are skipped, some are repeated several times, but in general there are seven steps from hatred to affection and the same number of steps from affection to love.”

“Hmm, I don't want to seem sceptical, but that sounds like nonsense.”

“Wei WuXian with Lan WangJi had gone through most of these stages.”

“And what are they?”

“Hate, contrived indifference, bystander observation, rejection, regret, cruelty, resentment, pity, desire, reflection on mistakes, devotion, care, recognition and acceptance.”

I replayed his words in my head a few times. Almost everything matched, though not in the exact order.

“But they're just fictional characters. It's not like that in real life.”

Circul looked at me earnestly, an unshakable belief in his own words shining in his eyes. “My parents went through all of these stages.”

“Did Wemily Circul hate your father? And why am I not surprised?”

Grant turned away, hiding his expression, and spoke quietly, “No. It was the opposite.”

“But how? Is it possible to have negative feelings towards ‘the Lady with a Blazing Heart’? She's like a saint.”

“Anyway, the book is right. There are such steps in life,” Grant said wistfully and stretched. The guy got up from the sofa, indicating that the conversation was over.

“Well, in our case there's no danger of that,” I put the book down, too. The aromatic spices wafted from the kitchen, making my tongue drool. Midi was a divine cook, so when it was time to eat, my feet were eager to get to the food.

“Why?”

I turned to him and said with the most honest grin I could muster, “I don't hate you, Grant, I hate your father. I'm politely indifferent to you.”

The corners of his lips lifted slightly, but the dimple in his chin from the smile didn't show.

“I'm glad to hear that. If I had the chance to fall in love with you, I wouldn't hesitate to move ten metres away from you,” he nodded at my collar.”

“It's nice to know that our thoughts are the same on this.”

He stepped closer and, staring into my eyes, whispered seductively, “Yes. So don't you dare ever fall in love with me.”

I chuckled in his face. “Grant, there's something you don't know. The day they put this bomb on me, I was going to die. I'm not afraid of death, I've been ready for it for a long time. But don't worry, I'll never love you. I don't have the heart for it.”

“What?” he frowned. “So you put that collar on voluntarily? You wanted to be a suicide bomber?”

“No,” I couldn't hide the sour face. “I should be dead, but I'm here. It's a crazy bullshit story, and I don't want to talk about it now. But your father knows I didn't do it. Otherwise he wouldn't have let me stay with you without supervision.”

“Why did you want to die?” he asked sympathetically.

But I chose not to answer, picked up the chain from the floor and dragged the guy towards the dining room.

I didn't want Grant to know why. To know how miserable my life was without Virtul. To pity me, if he had room in his heart for that feeling.

I didn't need him to feel sorry for me at all.