CURSED AND LOVE

THE FIRST KISS

With just two pieces of wood, he was able to start a fire!

He had never seen anyone use such a strange method before. He knew that to start a fire, people usually used either a stick of glowing embers or flint stones. In the worst-case scenario, he had heard that people would even strike two weapons together to induce sparks, but through a method like what the little beggar just did, that was a first in his entire life.

But that also told him that the little beggar had not been oblivious to the surrounding dangers. He had the mind to extinguish the fire after he roasted and ate the skillfully skinned snake before clambering quickly up a tall tree to find a place to rest for the night. The little beggar had been callously inconsiderate, as Leonardo could hear him snoring loudly all the way here.

If Leonardo Boras knew what Jocefie Abad was thinking in his mind at that moment, he might not have had the same thoughts.

Initially, Jocefie had not noticed that someone was watching him, as she had not sensed any malicious intent in the air surrounding her. But, just as she was up in the tree and had just closed her eyes to go to sleep, she suddenly felt that a pair of eyes were trained on her, probing and assessing her. And because of that, she let out loud snores, pretending to be deeply asleep.

In reality, she was wondering when those eyes had started watching her and how she had failed to notice that she was being watched.

But since the other party had not chosen to show himself and had not caused her to feel threatened in any way, she decided not to expose the person hidden in the darkness but to silently raise her guard. After all, the people in this world cultivated immortality, and she could not afford to carelessly see them as average humans, or she would put herself at a big disadvantage right from the start.

At dawn the next morning, Jocefie Abad awoke to the chirping of the birds. She reached one hand out groggily before giving out a huge yawn, and she stretched her back fully in a graceful arc. But that full stretch caused her to lose her balance, and she suddenly fell from the tree.

"Boogg!"

"ARGGH!" She screamed out and fell to the ground with a loud bang, lying among the tall grass on the ground.

"Ouch! This hurts like hell!" She stood up and rubbed her hips and twisted her body before heaving a sigh of relief. She still lucky because nothing had broken.

A distance away, the dense canopy of leaves half covered the figure of Leonardo Boras as his penetrating eyes glanced briefly at the figure a way off from his position before quickly looking away.

From the moment the little beggar had awoken, his eyes had been open. He had seen the little beggar still groggy with sleep as he stretched high above the trees and falling off it. He knew the ground below the tree was filled with weeds growing on soft soil and a fall like that would not cause much problems, hence he had just glanced over unsympathetically and had not bothered to go help the little beggar up.

He saw the little beggar rub at his hips and then proceed to find two sizeable pieces of rocks before sitting down to pull out the herbs he had previously gathered from his clothes. He then mashed them up and put it into his small rattan bag. Leonardo could not help himself but made his brows tilt up in a deep frown as he stared at the little beggar and thought to himself.

Even if that is the case, you can't put herbs into your mouth in such a manner, for he knows that eating herbs indiscriminately like this might cause you big problems. He was just thinking that when he saw the little beggar suddenly gagged, and he vomited out a dark mouthful of blood before collapsing onto the ground.

When his eyes saw the scene, his straight brows furrowed into a frown as he stared and thought deeply about it. Half a heartbeat later, he still saw no sign of the little beggar awakening before he summoned his powers and leapt off the tree to walk in that direction.

"Pika booo!?"

He stuck out a foot and nudged the unmoving figure a bit. When he saw that there was no reaction, he squatted down and wanted to check to see if the little beggar was still breathing. Who knew that at the very moment he had just lowered himself, the motionless little figure suddenly leapt up and pounced on him? In his state of unpreparedness, he was caught completely off guard and pushed onto the ground.

"Uncle! Hahaha...."

Jocefie Abad was laughing hysterically when she suddenly stopped, and the expression on her face froze. She stared at the startled uncle lying on the ground and then turned her eyes to look at the dirty claws clasped upon her chest. Her entire being froze, and she was dumbfounded at that moment.

The feeling of soft flesh under his hands made Leonardo's mind turn completely blank. Utter shock filled his eyes, and stuttering for the first time in his life, he said:

"You're a flirty girl?" And he quickly retracted his hands as he spoke.

But with the sudden release of his hands, the blanked-out Jocefie Abad still had not recovered, causing her body to suddenly lose its support. Jocefie fell forward, and in the worst way it could happen, her mouth smacked straight right onto a pair of bushy, bearded lips.

"hmmp!"

The two of them groaned under their locked lips as the pain from the impact shot through their mouths. This time, Leonardo was the one to freeze; his eyes flared wide open, filled with utter incredulity. And as if he were terrifyingly shocked by something, his eyes rolled back, and he fell into a dead faint.

When she saw that the uncle had fainted, Jocefie's expression turned dark. She got up and massaged her face, which was hurting from being pricked by the bushy and bristling beard, and spat out repeatedly, going:

"Pui! Pui! Pui!" she yelled as she wiped her mouth in disgust.

"I have not even complained about an old cow like you feeling up a pure and innocent young girl, and you have the cheek to faint before me!" She rubbed at her dirt streaked face and stared at the really unconscious uncle and suddenly felt speechless.

She prepared the antidote's ingredients, mashed them together, and then attempted to consume them. However, the consequences were too severe, causing her body to hurl up blood. Then she had made the hasty decision to use that chance to entice the person hiding in the shadows to discover who it was! She wanted to pull a prank on her uncle because she hadn't anticipated to hear his voice. Who could have predicted that she would ultimately be taken advantage of and even made to watch as the man was shocked into a dead swoon after having taken liberties with her body?

She used the opportunity to watch the man before he woke up and sat down at the side with her legs crossed. She discovered that the uncle was actually rather attractive. Even though the beard covered half of his face, his arrow-straight brows, his sharply pointed nose, his powerfully sculpted jawline, and those luscious lips concealed beneath the beard all emanated a certain manliness.

Jocefie nodded in agreement as her eyes filled with awe and her gaze slowly descended to that strong, fit figure and those long, lean legs. She was thinking to herself: Felisa Adonis told Jocefie with her wild thinking,

"Hmm, this physique would be the type when they put on clothes, they look stylish and when they take off clothes, they look manly. Without even needing to check, he would undoubtedly possess the full set of abdominal muscles."

Jocefie's hand was just involuntarily reaching out to feel the abdominal muscles when, at that moment, a cold and hard voice rang in her ears.

"What are you doing!"

When Leonardo thought back to the softness his hands had previously grasped and the contact when their lips had touched, he glanced at the grinning girl in front of him who was looking back at him with sparkling vitality in her eyes. His face briefly became darker, but it was hidden by his enormous, bushy beard and could not be seen.

Jocefie was briefly astonished when she saw the man turn and go without saying anything. She pondered it for a bit before extending her stride and pursuing.

"Uncle, don't you think we are fated to meet? See? We've even managed to meet once again in here. Since that is the case, shouldn't we just travel together?"

She was unconcerned in the least by the man's persistent striding while utterly disregarding her. She reasoned that it could be a little risky for her to be here alone, using her small strength, and wandering aimlessly. However, she would feel much safer if she were with a man like him.

As a result, she followed him wherever he went and followed him when he stopped. But in contrast to her absolutely uncaring lack of concern, Leonardo's presence was sending out an increasingly strong chill. Finally, when he could take it no longer, he turned his icy stare to her and spoke these words with a grimace on his face:

"Why do you have to keep following me?" He knew himself to be a person who wasn't exactly all that approachable. All this while, which human didn't stay beyond a three-step boundary away from him. Even the most tactless of people, when chased off by him repeatedly, would not be so shameless as to continue following him. But this girl was just like a thick plaster, one that he could not shake off no matter what he did.

"Because you are the only person I know here!" She looked at him like it should be obvious to see, her eyes trying to hide that mischievous glint. But her face betrayed not a thing and was serious as she said:

"From the moment you gave me that nugget of silver, I was certain of it. You must be a really kind person!"

Green veins bulged alarmingly on Leonardo's forehead and a corner of his brow started to twitch. His thin lips stretched into a straight line, and his flinty gaze was cast upon her a brief moment and he continued walking forward without another word.

He wouldn't have thrown out that piece of silver, no matter how much trouble it would bring him, if he had known earlier that his carelessly discarded little nugget of silver would end up giving him such a tenacious piece of thick hide plaster. It just so happened that he had that one tiny piece of loose silver in his belt and he had occurred to spy a little beggar in front, so he had carelessly thrown it out. The gods understood that it wasn't out of charity that he had handed out that tiny piece of silver. Who knows?

Following behind Leonardo Boras, Jocefie Abad noticed that he was moving in deeper into the woods and her eyes flashed momentarily as she looked at the figure in black and asked: "Uncle, I heard that there are ferocious beasts in the deeper reaches, is that true?"

She had not expected to hear any reply, but his cold voice sounded out with careless indifference to reach her ears. "Since you know that, hurry up and leave."

"Uncle, I'll just stay beside you and pick some herbs and I promise not to give you any trouble." She had just checked her pulse and a large part the poison in her body had been purged with the blood she had vomited out earlier. She would only need to take another dose of the antidote tonight and she should be just about fine.

She had initially intended to leave the Fifth Entrapment Woods, but who knew that she would meet the uncle once again? So she had changed her mind and decided to follow beside him to pick more herbs. Although she had managed to come into the inner reaches of the woods, it was nevertheless still just the inner reaches of the outer edge. Now that she was going to follow him deep into the real inner reaches, she could not help but feel a little excited and her heart was filled with anticipation.

"Wonder what kind of wondrous herbs will they have in there?" Josefie asked. Then a voice of a woman whispered to her

"It is said that the more dangerous the place, the more highly possible it is to be able to pick magical herbs. It would be just fantastic if you really manage to find some magical herbs" That voice is coming from Felisa Adonis, as even if she were not able to find a use for it, that would most definitely at least fetch her a hefty sum!

Moreover, her looks had been destroyed to such a sorry state by Rowena Sagi, and Jocefie could visualize the horrifying face of Felisa Adonis in a moment. She would naturally need to find a way to treat that wound on her face, if not, Felisa will be forced to die with a face like that, that would just be an insult to her devilish reputation.

The two of them walked, one behind the other. Because of Leonardo's warning, despite Jocefie still following, she maintained a distance of three steps from him. And she knew as well that the uncle was not used to being in close proximity to women, or he wouldn't have fallen into a dead faint after being accidentally kissed by her.

Although she didn't feel that comfortable about that as well, since the other party was after all already an old uncle, it would be better if she did not bring up the incident anymore to avoid making it awkward for both parties.

But something was making her mood improve. The deeper they went into the inner reaches, following behind him, she managed to pick quite a bit of magical herbs along the way. Those magical herbs were infused with spirit auras, and although they were magical herbs of the more common variety, it was nevertheless enough for her mood to gradually lighten.