In Yu’an, there was no wind. Any breeze that reached this place would soften, dissolving into a series of sighs that vanished within the rainy mist.
Without the wind, the clouds that squeezed out the rain could not be driven away. The drizzle and the fog gathered here, growing thicker and heavier until everything was swallowed by a void of nothingness.
Since ancient times, those who loved to tend to flowers and plants preferred to settle in Yu’an. The seeds of countless rare and exotic flora took root here; even the most delicate blossoms and the finest orchids were treated with gentleness by the local soil and water.
Upon waking, flower enthusiasts would sit in their courtyards and brew a pot of fresh tea. They would savor the fragrance while listening to the sound of mist condensing into droplets, falling from the tips of leaves.
If a courtyard lacked flowers, it surely did not belong in Yu’an.
Yet the courtyard before her was exactly like that.
There were no flowers, no trees, no rockeries, and no landscaped scenery. There were only ubiquitous pebbles and an endless sea of bamboo.
Xiao Nanhui knew why.
Fine gravel crunched underfoot and bamboo leaves rustled harshly; even the smallest movement or the slightest disturbance could not escape the ears of a top-tier archer.
Xiao Nanhui gazed at the barren, empty courtyard, utterly perplexed as to where the legendary Black Feather Secret Guards were hiding. She wondered if they were currently watching her and the Emperor with composed interest, intending to keep watch the entire night.
She stood before an ancient stone wall. The candlelight from the corridor cast her shadow onto a bead curtain patterned with mandala vines, lending the scene a sense of unreality.
She still could not accept the fact that she had actually entered this courtyard.
She only remembered the two of them standing in a stalemate at the gate. Then, he had said something high-sounding about the lateness of the hour and how every courtyard had its restrictions—making it easy to leave but difficult to return. Before she could offer a forceful rebuttal, he had taken her hand and led her inside.
These hands of hers could pull a plowing ox, two war-hardened stallions, or several armored warriors, yet they had been led away by his gentle tug as if she had no choice in the matter.
Unwilling to admit her own submissiveness, she desperately convinced herself that her leg simply hurt too much and she didn't want to climb any more walls.
But now, standing before the room where he slept, she felt she really should have gone back to climb that wall.
"How long do you intend to stand there?"
She looked up blankly, meeting his somewhat dissatisfied gaze.
Immediately after, a pull came from her hand.
With that gentle tug, she took a step forward and entered the room.
There was no one inside—neither Ding Weixiang nor Cui Xingyao.
Xiao Nanhui let out a heavy sigh of relief.
It was already late spring. On a windless night, even a thick quilt would be too warm, yet this room held a trace of chill. It was likely because the stone walls had absorbed too much inescapable dampness and cold.
The light from the mandala-patterned palace lamps was dim and ambiguous, like night-luminescent pearls from a dragon’s palace. They only illuminated the copper-wire charcoal braziers placed in the four corners, giving one the sensation that the room extended infinitely into the darkness. The heat radiating from the braziers surged in alternation with the damp chill of the surroundings, stirring a sense of restless agitation in one's heart.
After her walk outside, Xiao Nanhui’s thin-soled soft shoes were soaked through, and her clothes were half-damp from the drizzle. She hadn't felt much earlier, but now that the temperature had risen, she felt sticky and uncomfortable all over, wishing she could strip everything off immediately.
She thought so, and the master of the house thought so too.
In the time it took for her to daze out, the man had already removed his boots, unfastened his belt, shed his outer robe, and let down his long hair. With one breath, he blew out the two largest palace lamps.
Xiao Nanhui was struck with alarm.
"Your... Your Majesty..." she stammered, murmuring, "Didn't we agree... just to change a pair of boots..."
"What boots?"
He seemed to have developed sudden amnesia.
"Just... the wet boots."
"Hmm?" He let out a soft sound from his nose, drawing it out meaningfully. "I feel that it is not just a pair of boots that you have gotten wet."
Why did those words sound somewhat roguish?
Wet shoes could be replaced, but if her clothes were wet, was she supposed to change them here?
Her toes curled involuntarily, squeezing a puddle of water against the soles of her shoes. she looked up timidly at the silhouette behind the bead curtain.
In the dim light, that face—which usually appeared so indifferent it lacked any hint of desire—suddenly became vivid and alluring. He sat before the overly spacious bed, beckoning to her languidly.
"Come closer."
Xiao Nanhui did not move, but she swallowed instinctively.
She felt like a poor scholar who had stumbled into a strange tale, now facing a spirit that had taken human form, her heart enduring a battle between reason and desire.
Seeing her unmoved, the "spirit" suddenly stood up from the bed and walked toward her.
This truly made Xiao Nanhui feel as if she were facing a formidable enemy.
What kind of spirit was this, to have cultivated an aura that was half-demon and half-immortal?
Having removed his crown and loosened his hair, he looked much younger than usual. Clad in a simple, unadorned silk-linen inner robe, he walked toward her barefoot. He looked like a young herb-gatherer from the deep, cloud-shrouded mountains, usually possessing a hint of detachment and leisure from long isolation, yet his eyes revealed a burning light the moment he heard a human voice.
The black jade bead curtain was brushed aside, letting out a fine, clinking sound.
She shifted her heels, wanting to distance herself from this person who made her heart sway like a hanging banner.
But before she could leave more than a few wet footprints on the floor, he was already before her.
"So, you are unwilling to walk over yourself?"
What? Unwilling to do what?
Xiao Nanhui’s thoughts cut off at that moment. In the next instant, one of his hands hooked around her waist while the other went behind her knees. With an upward surge of strength, she fell into his embrace.
A cold fragrance, a warm body.
For a moment, she felt as if she had returned to that night in the Hall of Lost Snow.
He turned, and the shadows cast by the carved palace lamps spun and bloomed above her head, like the orchids that had blossomed in the Hall of Lost Snow that night.
She was beginning to grow familiar with this feeling.
And with familiarity came a sense of attachment.
After a few steps, he placed her on the bed.
She was still a bit lightheaded, but the moment her backside touched the bed, she snapped back to her senses. Regardless of how ungraceful she looked, she scrambled with hands and feet, trying to crawl off the bed.
Seeing her "heroic martyr" stance, the man on the bed did not stop her. He merely extended two fingers and unerringly pinched the knot loosely tied at the small of her back.
With the sound of fabric rubbing, Xiao Nanhui felt her waist loosen. Subsequently, her sodden outer garment fell uncontrollably to the floor, leaving only two precarious ribbons to hold up her final inner layer.
"Do you wish to go out like this, gambling on whether someone might be up in the middle of the night to witness such a strange sight? Or will you stay obediently on this bed and let me look at your leg?"
In terms of shameless tactics, she had never been a match for this man.
Two of her paws and one leg were already on the floor, while half a leg remained draped on the bed. She relied solely on the strength of a body honed by years of training to maintain this bizarre balance between the floor and the couch. She felt like a stone lion that had slipped off its ball—undignified and unable to move.
Finally, a hand supported her lower back, mercifully fishing her back onto the bed.
She didn't dare look up at him, her mind racing to find a way to defeat an enemy in close quarters without causing harm. But before she could devise any brilliant formation, his voice drifted over leisurely.
"If Officer Xiao moves again, I shall assume you are mimicking those little tricks of 'refusing while consenting' found in erotic manuals."
As he spoke, his hand gripped her calf.
She instinctively struggled twice. He applied a slight pressure with his fingers, and she shuddered from the pain.
Even so, she did not make a sound. Her leg remained tensed, confronting him with an air of "death before dishonor," though she herself didn't know what she was holding out for.
Ultimately, he could not bear it and loosened his grip.
"With this kind of pain, wine alone won't suffice."
As the pressure on her leg vanished, half of Xiao Nanhui’s body went limp.
The man seemed to have granted her a temporary reprieve. He reached for a purple clay hand-warmer nearby, unscrewed the porcelain jar that had been warming atop it, and used his fingertip to spread a glob of translucent white ointment.
She took the opportunity to catch her breath, finally regaining her composure, and suddenly felt a bit embarrassed.
She thought she had hidden it well along the way, fooling both enemies and allies alike. At least Zong Hao hadn't noticed, and Xiao Zhun hadn't noticed either.
"How did Your Majesty know..."
She was halfway through her sentence when she was interrupted by the sensation on her leg.
His hand had just left the warmer and carried a searing heat. As it touched the skin of her ankle with the ointment, it felt soothingly comfortable.
"Hao Bai’s medical skills are good, but he is young after all. He knows how to treat the symptoms, but not the person. His use of the Bone-Subduing Needles is superb, yet he didn't even give you a single dose of medicine to dispel the cold and strengthen your foundation."
Bone-Subduing Needles?
Xiao Nanhui was stunned. How did he know about Hao Bai treating her leg? He even knew the details better than she did.
The image of that barefoot doctor from that day—looking aggrieved as if he had a grievance he couldn't voice—flashed before her eyes. She suddenly understood.
Could it be...
"Hao Bai’s appearance in Bijiang back then... was your doing?"
"It would have been useless for me to go, so I might as well have him make the trip." His half-lowered eyes were inches away, appearing quite candid. "The Bone-Subduing Needles are cold in nature; they will more or less exacerbate bone pain. But without them, your leg would likely have been useless."
She remembered how Hao Bai had dealt with the domestic thief who stole the needles back in Huozhou. He had been willing to use such precious items on her; it must have been due to someone's overbearing influence.
Compared to being unable to walk, run, or jump, she suddenly felt this pain wasn't so unbearable.
"It only hurts on rainy days anyway. It's not so bad."
She grinned, but the expression on the man opposite her faded.
"You certainly know how to endure. When I broke your arm, did you endure it like this as well?"
Xiao Nanhui’s smile froze, and her gaze instinctively drifted away.
She didn't know why he would suddenly bring up that unpleasant past, and she further realized that in just a few short months, she had actually forgotten the pain of that incident.
She shouldn't be like this. She couldn't be like this.
"The matter of the boots was indeed just an excuse. I simply wanted you to sleep soundly."
The dull ache in her legs gradually subsided due to that warmth, and Xiao Nanhui’s heartbeat slowed accordingly, though her eyes involuntarily began to sting.
In the countless past years of injury, torment, and cold-invaded nights, she had not been without fantasies of possessing an inch of tenderness to lean upon.
But she had only ever thought about it.
*Do not crave too much*—that was her rule for happiness. Once that rule was broken, she would fall into the abyss of longing for what she could not have, never to return.
Zong Hao’s words echoed in her ears.
But she could no longer hear them. She was already in the abyss.
Not daring to let the man before her notice her emotions, she endured the stinging in her nose for a while without making a sound.
Then, she curled her body and leaned entirely into his embrace.
After an unknown amount of time, his hand gently stroked her back.
"Sleep. It won't hurt once you're asleep."
The moment she softly closed her eyes, the tears she had held back for so long finally fell.
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