Chong'er.
The meaning of it effortlessly floated across her mind as he spoke it. It was an endearment. The English equivalent of calling someone dear or pet. However, this way of addressing her caused her to recall the other, similar, term she often wondered the meaning of. The one the vast majority of people she met in this world, referred to her as.
Chongwu.
It wasn't an endearment at all. Referring to a house pet as it were, and it was quite insulting. As soon as the meaning of it registered, Nastasia felt her spine stiffening in both humiliation and anger. Her expression twisting as she tried to keep that feeling from showing up on her face.
The concern he had for her reflecting in his dual-colored eyes went unnoticed. Or rather, she chose not to see it due to her anger.
Letting it all out in a strained breath, she tried to convince herself that perhaps she was misunderstanding something, somewhere. After all, she didn't particularly feel as if she had been treated as a pet. A child due to her ignorance of their world, perhaps, but it didn't feel as if he was treating her as...
Suddenly all the moments Li Yu Rong pet her hair, drew his fingers down her cheeks, and grabbed her to sit in his lap came to mind. Nastasia had never really given those actions any other thought then it being his way to communicate with her as they had no common language at the time. Those actions had then become habit, thus they carried on despite her slowly learning Chinese words.
Now that she was looking back on them, she couldn't help but wonder if he had other intentions in mind. Giving him a measuring look as he opened his mouth to say something, Nastasia quickly interrupted with, "am I a dog?"
Her question was met with perplexed eyes. She didn't give him a chance to make sense of it as she immediately fired off next, "or perhaps you felt I was a cat? All this time I thought you were helping me out as one caring human being to another, but for you, it was just taking in a house pet, wasn't it?"
Li Yu Rong's mouth worked silently, incredulous of Asya's sudden mastery of this world's language whereas before she struggled to form her sentences. Although he should be concerned over the content of what she spoke, he couldn't help putting those thoughts and how to respond aside as he asked.
"The structure, the pronunciation... how are you able to suddenly speak so well?"
Boisterous cackling interrupted the tense atmosphere between the couple as Elder Liao Xing, hiding behind Paoxiao, cut in. "You see! I told you I was only trying to help the young lady out. This old man is as pure as the day he was born, you understand, I'd never take advantage of a defenseless girl."
Paoxiao couldn't help but scoff at that boastful claim. This old man that didn't look a day over thirty, in his earliest memories, has always been attracted to beautiful curves. So, what pure as the day he was born?
Paoxiao clearly remembered walking into many of his Elder Liao Xing's fetish sessions with pleasure-servants. While, as far as he could recall, the elder didn't have random sexual relations or force anything, he did greatly admire certain parts of a woman. Specifically delicate looking faces, the part of the neck that meets the shoulder, and dainty feet.
These truths were no secret and everyone at Youyun Village knew of it. Though it was something they used to tease the elder and he responded in kind, though his fetish was out in the open and didn't give off a bad feeling, one could never associate the word pure to Elder Liao Xing.
"Since when could you do something like that?" Paoxiao inquired, skeptical. Knowing the old man as he did, he couldn't help but wonder whether the kiss had been a little something extra due to lack of control.
"Hmph," the old, yet youthful looking, man snorted before scoffing in disdain. "Despite being a student of mine, of course you don't know all of my tricks. What, with you running off to challenge the gate every chance you got. Disappearing for days on end, it was a wonder you learned anything from me."
Feeling displeased by the scornful bashing, Paoxiao jumped right into angrily defend himself. "You know damn well that I was-"
"Shut up! This isn't what we're discussing right now." Nastasia yelled, still quite incensed. Pointing a finger toward Li Yu Rong, sky blue eyes narrowed, she raged. "Don't go changing the subject! I want to know right now, all this while, have I been nothing more than a pet to you?"
"Chongwu, Chongwu..." the old man muttered underneath his breath in the silence of Li Yu Rong considering how to explain himself without inciting Asya's anger. Then, at a louder decibel, he asked, with his words mostly directed toward Paxiao. "Isn't that the word those of the Mortal Realm use for the women they snatch from us after making them pleasure-slaves?"
The atmosphere that dropped around them, after Elder Liao Xing threw out that revelation, was tragically stifling. A horrid smile, a mix of self-deprecation and anger, wound its way across Nastasia's face before she turned on her heel and marched off.