Evan Chu ordered two baskets of soup dumplings and two bowls of soy milk, splitting them evenly with Selena. He ate slowly, but his eyes kept scanning the street, watching every movement of the passing crowd.
Selena, though, wasn’t interested in the food at all—after reaching the Divine Martial Realm, she could go a month without eating or drinking and be perfectly fine. Right now, all her attention was fixed on Evan.
Evan caught Selena staring at him out of the corner of his eye and felt oddly uncomfortable. Who would've thought there'd come a day when getting stared at by a beautiful woman could make him uneasy? If other guys found out about this, they'd probably go nuts with jealousy.
“Selena, is that your real name?” Evan asked, picking a random topic to break the tension.
“You could say yes, or no. ‘Selena’ is my nickname. My formal name is Zoe Chen, but almost nobody uses it—most people just call me ‘Young Miss.’ But you, Evan, you can call me Xuan’er.” Selena replied, her eyes full of gentle warmth.
Evan was instantly thrown off. Clearly, Selena was serious about him—so what was he supposed to do now? Having a gorgeous woman constantly flirting at his side, no matter how much self-control he had, sooner or later he'd fall headfirst into trouble.
As the street got busier, Evan said, “Let’s go. We’ll stroll around for a bit, then head out of the city—should be enough to lure out those three big fish.”
So the two of them wandered slowly down the street, stopping now and then at little vendor stalls. Evan checked the time and, seeing it was about right, headed for the city gate.
There was a new batch of guards at the gate today, so of course none of them recognized Evan. Not that it mattered—he just handed over a high-grade Starstone, and all their problems vanished.
But as soon as Evan and Selena walked through, one of the guards bolted back inside the gate, looking panicked.