She didn’t know why but, after hearing what he’d just said, Jinxia’s eyes immediately filled with tears, even the image of Lu Yi was becoming blurry, “I didn’t startle Miss Chun on purpose, are you blaming me because of this matter?” She lowered her head and bit her lip, “I also didn’t know she would faint at the sight of blood…”
Before she could finish her sentence, all of a sudden she was pulled into his arms. Lu Yi used one hand to pull her waist closer, holding it tight, and the other to hold her head, placing it on his shoulder.
“Next time when you’re sad, I can lend you my shoulder.” He said it in her ear, along with several sighs.
They were in an intimate position, but she only realized it a moment later. She was bewildered by his actions.
There was a single teardrop hanging from the corner of her eye, but she forgot why she was sad the moment he’d pulled her in, continuing to think about the words he’d said. After a long while, she raised her head, and used both her hands to break away from Lu Yi’s embrace.
“You, you, you… Even if I am just a small official, you can’t tease me like this!” She said nervously.
Lu Yi stepped forward, and approached her while tightening his eyebrows, “You were the one who flirted with me first, yet you’re blaming me before admitting your wrongs?”
“Me?” Jinxia panicked and worried, “When did I flirt with you?!”
“At Mrs. Shen’s house, you confessed it to me yourself.” He used this opportunity to lift his finger to rub her lips. Using the light of the moon, he tilted his head and looked at them carefully. “The bite marks on your lips have faded…Very fast…”
“That… It’s because I had to feed you the medicine, it wasn’t flirting.”
As he was coming closer, Jinxia couldn’t help but step back. Right now, she was nervous and confused; her feet kept walking backward and she suddenly hit a rock, her body wavered and she almost fell. Fortunately Lu Yi’s eyes and hands were fast, so fast that he grabbed her hand in time and took her back into his arms.
When she tried to push him away, he whispered, “Don’t move.”
Thinking something had happened, she obediently stayed still.
A moment later, Lu Yi cocked his head and gently kissed her lips.
Her lips felt a little warm. He first started off from the corner of her lips and continued to kiss her on that very spot with passion. Her body stiffened, she was feeling shivers all over her body. Before she had a chance to react, he slowly moved to the middle of her soft lips, continuously teasing and sucking them. The intensity of his kiss was increasing over time…
That unusual situation was making Jinxia panicked. She could no longer stand up straight and didn’t know where to place her hands.
Noticing her dumbfounded face, Lu Yi reluctantly let go of her, but continued to look at her face.
Jinxia’s mind was all over the place. For a moment, she even forgot how to breathe, and all the stars had suddenly turned into a group of meteors flying chaotically in the sky, with no order or structure at all.
“You…” She wanted to say something but didn’t know what to say.
Lu Yi continued her words, facing her and laughing, “I used to think about the future, about the woman who would accompany me for the rest of my life, giving birth to my children… What would she look like? I would have never imagined it would be you.”
The meaning of his words was very clear.
Jinxia felt that the current situation was like a dream. In disbelief, she asked, “You… Is it true that you want to marry me?
Lu Yi nodded his head, “That’s what I want.”
“…..”
Jinxia pinched her own cheeks, it was very painful.
“Are you serious? You’re not taking advantage of me?” She frowned, “My mother said a man who only wants to take advantage of a woman but refuses to marry her is a womanizer, a pervert and a criminal.”
Lu Yi nodded again, “Your mother is indeed correct.”
Upon hearing his words, Jinxia continued to feel doubtful. Suddenly, she threw away all the stones in her hand, stepped forward, and pinched and twisted his face…
“What are you doing?” Lu Yi’s face was being twisted by Jinxia, and he didn’t know what she was thinking while doing that.
“Lu Daren isn’t like this, you must be someone in disguise, replacing him to deceive me.”
Jinxia said it with great confidence, then her hands continued to twist and turn his face for a while, but there was no change.
Lu Yi’s face was never touched or pinched by anyone. He raised his hands in surrender.
“Weird… You… You’re really Lu Daren?” Jinxia clumsily took her hands off his face.
“You believe it now?”
Jinxia shook her head, “Still, something isn’t right. You can’t be… There must be something wrong, I will investigate this carefully.”
Lu Yi, who could no longer be angry with her, could only ask, “How will you investigate this?”
“Tonight, have you eaten something strange?” Jinxia wondered, “Maybe someone with high medical skills is hiding in the inn. Have you ever heard of Master Jiang and Miao Gu? They are very evil…. No, everything is just weird, I have to go check it out.”
As soon as she finished talking, she turned to talk away at a fast pace.
Lu Yi was left alone by the river, shaking his head while letting out long sighs.
***
Tonight, Jinxia tore through the entire inn from top to bottom, only to find that the bookkeeper of the inn and the widow selling tofu from across the street had a suspicious relationship, and the cook had a half hidden pork outside. Other than that, nothing else was suspect.
If that moment was real…
Impossible!
Maybe, who knew, maybe it was real!
No way, no way.
…….
She buried her head, remembering the expression on Lu Yi’s face when they were by the river. In her heart, she vaguely felt that Lu Yi was being sincere, so did that mean he wanted to marry her?
That question really did not require a lot of thinking because all of a sudden a voice came in her head; his answer to her questions: ‘That’s what I want’. After realizing her stream of thoughts, she was astonished. Since when had she started having thoughts about Lu Daren?
The past events one by one appeared in her mind, a lot of them. Lu Yi’s attitude toward her had changed little by little. Jinxia calculated that, more or less from ten days onward, she had become closer to and more dependent on him than anyone else. She didn’t know what that feeling was but it made her not want to leave him.
If that had been all real, it would have been great.
She fell asleep.
***
The next day, she woke up early, and wandered around the inn twice. She found Da Yang, who was busy in the kitchen.
YangYue was kneading the dough in silence. On the stove, there were steamed buns, dumplings, pork feet and other dishes that made the eyes feast on them. The chef in the kitchen was so happy to be able to relax that, after finishing to make the porridge, he went for a walk.
“Da Yang, you’re busy…” Jinxia said in a cheerful voice and approached him. She warmly said then to him, “Here, I will help you knead the dough.”
YangYue used his elbows to block her, “No need, your hands are as dirty as a monkey’s.”
Upon hearing his voice, which was no longer agitated and emotional, Jinxia felt relieved and quickly said, “Who said that? I just took a shower, I’m very clean.”
“Just go heat up the stove, once the water is boiling, you can put the pot on it.”
“Alright.”
Jinxia jumped happily to heat the stove, fanning the charcoal while stealing glances at YangYue’s face.
“Da Yang, yesterday you were hit, how do you feel now?” She asked.
“I’m fine.” YangYue replied, “Yesterday the blows hit my qi and heart, but luckily it wasn’t hard and it helped with blood circulation, which was a good thing.”
“That’s good.”
YangYue paused for a moment, then asked in a low voice, “Where did you see her?”
For a moment, she was stunned but was quick to understand what he meant. She replied, “In a hole, at the edge of the Taohualin Forest. There were two or three more corpses next to her.”
YangYue nodded his head and remained silent, then said, “He said I was the one who killed her, if I hadn’t insisted on sending her to Gusu, she would’ve never died.”
“How can he blame you for this!” Jinxia didn’t expect A’Rui to say that. She angrily said, “It was obvious that he did it… Da Yang, he clearly wants to make you angry, don’t fall for it.”
Using a clean wooden cutter to press out the pattern of flowers on the lotus leaves, and neatly arranging them one by one on the top of the pot, he said in a calm tone: “I know the real murderer is the person behind him, if you fight him, he will hunt you down.”
“If you understand, then that’s good.” Jinixa let out a sigh of relief but still looked at him, anxious, “The person behind him is not an ordinary person, you shouldn’t act carelessly.”
“I understand. Yesterday, Lu Daren gave orders.”
Upon hearing Lu Yi’s name being mentioned, Jinxia’s cheeks immediately flushed red. Fortunately because she was close to the fire, the heat from the fire could have simply made her face red, so the changes weren’t too obvious.
After all the dishes had finished steaming, Jinxia took some and put them on a plate, also taking out the porridge and bringing it to the inn’s dining hall to have breakfast with YangYue.
At this moment, the other people were coming down, one by one.
The firsts to come down were Cen Fu and Cen Shou, both of them still dressed as servants. It seemed like they would continue to dress like this throughout the journey.
Cen Fu was the first to approach them. He laughed and said politely to YangYue, “How is your injury? Do you still feel uncomfortable?”
YangYue stood up and replied nicely, “Not a problem anymore… Let’s sit down, I made a lot of dishes, if you don’t mind, let’s eat together.”
Cen Fu didn’t hesitate, pulled out a chair and sat down, then called Cen Shou to sit down too.
Since his brother had called, he didn’t dare to argue and obediently sat down. Next to him was Jinxia. Yesterday those two just quarrelled and he was yelled at by Jinxia. Meeting her again today, he pretended not to see her.
Cen Fu noticed the tension and tried to break the ice, “Cen Shou, yesterday’s incident is already over, you should make amends with Constable Yang.”
Cen Shou raised his hand and said, “If I offended you, please, forgive me.”
“Not a problem, not a problem.” YangYue replied.
Cen Fu continued to give orders: “There’s more, yesterday I heard you were being disrespectful to Constable Yuan and made her run out. She is not familiar with the area and indeed is still a girl. If something were to happen, what would you have done?”
“I was rude to her? Brother, you didn’t hear the words she said at that time, she was scolding me.” Cen Shou refused to bend.
Jinxia glanced at him and ignored him. She said, “Brother Cen, I understand your intention. The incident of yesterday, I’ve already forgotten about it, no need to raise it again.”
“Miss Yuan’s temperament is really good.” Cen Fu looked again at Cen Shou, “Look at your attitude, not as good as the others.”
Being criticized by his brother, it seemed like Cen Shou was used to it, hence he didn’t make a sound at all, and just stretched out his hand for the porridge.
Jinxia took a lotus leaf bun: as usual, she put in the vegetables, filling them fully in it like a sandwich, then put down the chopsticks. She was about to eat it, when a hand reached it from the side and took her bun away.
“Hey…” Jinxia was immediately furious.
Out of all the three things she hated the most, taking away her food was the first one, the other two, she still hadn’t thought of them yet, but she was keeping their spot empty for the future.
She turned and saw who’d stolen her food, all the anger she had just now suddenly dissipating into thin air.
Lu Yi casually took a bite of her bun, chewed it briefly, then said to YangYue, “Is there any smoked meat here? Cut a few slices and bring them here.”
YangYue responded to his request, got up and went back to the kitchen. Lu Yi stopped Cen Fu and Cen Shou, who were about to stand up, and sat where YangYue was sitting earlier, right next to Jinxia. After that he casually chatted with Cen Fu and Cen Shou about the route of their trip and where to rest.
Meanwhile, on the side, Jinxia was sitting next to him… Not knowing why, as soon as he sat down beside her, her body stiffened. Thinking about what had happened the night before, her face gradually got redder. She could see them talking but no words were coming into her ears.
“Did you sleep well last night?” Lu Yi asked, turning to face Jinxia.
It took Jinxia a long time to realize he was talking to her.
“Huh?”
“I asked, did you sleep well last night?” Lu Yi patiently repeated his question.
“I did.” Jinxia looked at his expression; he was acting as if nothing had happened last night. She started to doubt herself, “What about you? I mean, did Daren sleep well last night?”
“Not so well.” Lu Yi said, “My head felt heavy and dizzy, maybe from the rain.”
‘Is it because he’s sick?’ Jinxia attentively asked, “Dizzy? Then, do you not remember what happened last night?”
“What happened?” Lu Yi looked at her with an innocent face, “Is it important?”
“No… No, no, no, it’s not important, I was just asking.”
Jinxia gritted her teeth unnoticed, picked up a dumpling, took a bite and then ran away.
She didn’t know why but, after hearing what he’d just said, Jinxia’s eyes immediately filled with tears, even the image of Lu Yi was becoming blurry, “I didn’t startle Miss Chun on purpose, are you blaming me because of this matter?” She lowered her head and bit her lip, “I also didn’t know she would faint at the sight of blood…”
Before she could finish her sentence, all of a sudden she was pulled into his arms. Lu Yi used one hand to pull her waist closer, holding it tight, and the other to hold her head, placing it on his shoulder.
“Next time when you’re sad, I can lend you my shoulder.” He said it in her ear, along with several sighs.
They were in an intimate position, but she only realized it a moment later. She was bewildered by his actions.
There was a single teardrop hanging from the corner of her eye, but she forgot why she was sad the moment he’d pulled her in, continuing to think about the words he’d said. After a long while, she raised her head, and used both her hands to break away from Lu Yi’s embrace.
“You, you, you… Even if I am just a small official, you can’t tease me like this!” She said nervously.
Lu Yi stepped forward, and approached her while tightening his eyebrows, “You were the one who flirted with me first, yet you’re blaming me before admitting your wrongs?”
“Me?” Jinxia panicked and worried, “When did I flirt with you?!”
“At Mrs. Shen’s house, you confessed it to me yourself.” He used this opportunity to lift his finger to rub her lips. Using the light of the moon, he tilted his head and looked at them carefully. “The bite marks on your lips have faded…Very fast…”
“That… It’s because I had to feed you the medicine, it wasn’t flirting.”
As he was coming closer, Jinxia couldn’t help but step back. Right now, she was nervous and confused; her feet kept walking backward and she suddenly hit a rock, her body wavered and she almost fell. Fortunately Lu Yi’s eyes and hands were fast, so fast that he grabbed her hand in time and took her back into his arms.
When she tried to push him away, he whispered, “Don’t move.”
Thinking something had happened, she obediently stayed still.
A moment later, Lu Yi cocked his head and gently kissed her lips.
Her lips felt a little warm. He first started off from the corner of her lips and continued to kiss her on that very spot with passion. Her body stiffened, she was feeling shivers all over her body. Before she had a chance to react, he slowly moved to the middle of her soft lips, continuously teasing and sucking them. The intensity of his kiss was increasing over time…
That unusual situation was making Jinxia panicked. She could no longer stand up straight and didn’t know where to place her hands.
Noticing her dumbfounded face, Lu Yi reluctantly let go of her, but continued to look at her face.
Jinxia’s mind was all over the place. For a moment, she even forgot how to breathe, and all the stars had suddenly turned into a group of meteors flying chaotically in the sky, with no order or structure at all.
“You…” She wanted to say something but didn’t know what to say.
Lu Yi continued her words, facing her and laughing, “I used to think about the future, about the woman who would accompany me for the rest of my life, giving birth to my children… What would she look like? I would have never imagined it would be you.”
The meaning of his words was very clear.
Jinxia felt that the current situation was like a dream. In disbelief, she asked, “You… Is it true that you want to marry me?
Lu Yi nodded his head, “That’s what I want.”
“…..”
Jinxia pinched her own cheeks, it was very painful.
“Are you serious? You’re not taking advantage of me?” She frowned, “My mother said a man who only wants to take advantage of a woman but refuses to marry her is a womanizer, a pervert and a criminal.”
Lu Yi nodded again, “Your mother is indeed correct.”
Upon hearing his words, Jinxia continued to feel doubtful. Suddenly, she threw away all the stones in her hand, stepped forward, and pinched and twisted his face…
“What are you doing?” Lu Yi’s face was being twisted by Jinxia, and he didn’t know what she was thinking while doing that.
“Lu Daren isn’t like this, you must be someone in disguise, replacing him to deceive me.”
Jinxia said it with great confidence, then her hands continued to twist and turn his face for a while, but there was no change.
Lu Yi’s face was never touched or pinched by anyone. He raised his hands in surrender.
“Weird… You… You’re really Lu Daren?” Jinxia clumsily took her hands off his face.
“You believe it now?”
Jinxia shook her head, “Still, something isn’t right. You can’t be… There must be something wrong, I will investigate this carefully.”
Lu Yi, who could no longer be angry with her, could only ask, “How will you investigate this?”
“Tonight, have you eaten something strange?” Jinxia wondered, “Maybe someone with high medical skills is hiding in the inn. Have you ever heard of Master Jiang and Miao Gu? They are very evil…. No, everything is just weird, I have to go check it out.”
As soon as she finished talking, she turned to talk away at a fast pace.
Lu Yi was left alone by the river, shaking his head while letting out long sighs.
***
Tonight, Jinxia tore through the entire inn from top to bottom, only to find that the bookkeeper of the inn and the widow selling tofu from across the street had a suspicious relationship, and the cook had a half hidden pork outside. Other than that, nothing else was suspect.
If that moment was real…
Impossible!
Maybe, who knew, maybe it was real!
No way, no way.
…….
She buried her head, remembering the expression on Lu Yi’s face when they were by the river. In her heart, she vaguely felt that Lu Yi was being sincere, so did that mean he wanted to marry her?
That question really did not require a lot of thinking because all of a sudden a voice came in her head; his answer to her questions: ‘That’s what I want’. After realizing her stream of thoughts, she was astonished. Since when had she started having thoughts about Lu Daren?
The past events one by one appeared in her mind, a lot of them. Lu Yi’s attitude toward her had changed little by little. Jinxia calculated that, more or less from ten days onward, she had become closer to and more dependent on him than anyone else. She didn’t know what that feeling was but it made her not want to leave him.
If that had been all real, it would have been great.
She fell asleep.
***
The next day, she woke up early, and wandered around the inn twice. She found Da Yang, who was busy in the kitchen.
YangYue was kneading the dough in silence. On the stove, there were steamed buns, dumplings, pork feet and other dishes that made the eyes feast on them. The chef in the kitchen was so happy to be able to relax that, after finishing to make the porridge, he went for a walk.
“Da Yang, you’re busy…” Jinxia said in a cheerful voice and approached him. She warmly said then to him, “Here, I will help you knead the dough.”
YangYue used his elbows to block her, “No need, your hands are as dirty as a monkey’s.”
Upon hearing his voice, which was no longer agitated and emotional, Jinxia felt relieved and quickly said, “Who said that? I just took a shower, I’m very clean.”
“Just go heat up the stove, once the water is boiling, you can put the pot on it.”
“Alright.”
Jinxia jumped happily to heat the stove, fanning the charcoal while stealing glances at YangYue’s face.
“Da Yang, yesterday you were hit, how do you feel now?” She asked.
“I’m fine.” YangYue replied, “Yesterday the blows hit my qi and heart, but luckily it wasn’t hard and it helped with blood circulation, which was a good thing.”
“That’s good.”
YangYue paused for a moment, then asked in a low voice, “Where did you see her?”
For a moment, she was stunned but was quick to understand what he meant. She replied, “In a hole, at the edge of the Taohualin Forest. There were two or three more corpses next to her.”
YangYue nodded his head and remained silent, then said, “He said I was the one who killed her, if I hadn’t insisted on sending her to Gusu, she would’ve never died.”
“How can he blame you for this!” Jinxia didn’t expect A’Rui to say that. She angrily said, “It was obvious that he did it… Da Yang, he clearly wants to make you angry, don’t fall for it.”
Using a clean wooden cutter to press out the pattern of flowers on the lotus leaves, and neatly arranging them one by one on the top of the pot, he said in a calm tone: “I know the real murderer is the person behind him, if you fight him, he will hunt you down.”
“If you understand, then that’s good.” Jinixa let out a sigh of relief but still looked at him, anxious, “The person behind him is not an ordinary person, you shouldn’t act carelessly.”
“I understand. Yesterday, Lu Daren gave orders.”
Upon hearing Lu Yi’s name being mentioned, Jinxia’s cheeks immediately flushed red. Fortunately because she was close to the fire, the heat from the fire could have simply made her face red, so the changes weren’t too obvious.
After all the dishes had finished steaming, Jinxia took some and put them on a plate, also taking out the porridge and bringing it to the inn’s dining hall to have breakfast with YangYue.
At this moment, the other people were coming down, one by one.
The firsts to come down were Cen Fu and Cen Shou, both of them still dressed as servants. It seemed like they would continue to dress like this throughout the journey.
Cen Fu was the first to approach them. He laughed and said politely to YangYue, “How is your injury? Do you still feel uncomfortable?”
YangYue stood up and replied nicely, “Not a problem anymore… Let’s sit down, I made a lot of dishes, if you don’t mind, let’s eat together.”
Cen Fu didn’t hesitate, pulled out a chair and sat down, then called Cen Shou to sit down too.
Since his brother had called, he didn’t dare to argue and obediently sat down. Next to him was Jinxia. Yesterday those two just quarrelled and he was yelled at by Jinxia. Meeting her again today, he pretended not to see her.
Cen Fu noticed the tension and tried to break the ice, “Cen Shou, yesterday’s incident is already over, you should make amends with Constable Yang.”
Cen Shou raised his hand and said, “If I offended you, please, forgive me.”
“Not a problem, not a problem.” YangYue replied.
Cen Fu continued to give orders: “There’s more, yesterday I heard you were being disrespectful to Constable Yuan and made her run out. She is not familiar with the area and indeed is still a girl. If something were to happen, what would you have done?”
“I was rude to her? Brother, you didn’t hear the words she said at that time, she was scolding me.” Cen Shou refused to bend.
Jinxia glanced at him and ignored him. She said, “Brother Cen, I understand your intention. The incident of yesterday, I’ve already forgotten about it, no need to raise it again.”
“Miss Yuan’s temperament is really good.” Cen Fu looked again at Cen Shou, “Look at your attitude, not as good as the others.”
Being criticized by his brother, it seemed like Cen Shou was used to it, hence he didn’t make a sound at all, and just stretched out his hand for the porridge.
Jinxia took a lotus leaf bun: as usual, she put in the vegetables, filling them fully in it like a sandwich, then put down the chopsticks. She was about to eat it, when a hand reached it from the side and took her bun away.
“Hey…” Jinxia was immediately furious.
Out of all the three things she hated the most, taking away her food was the first one, the other two, she still hadn’t thought of them yet, but she was keeping their spot empty for the future.
She turned and saw who’d stolen her food, all the anger she had just now suddenly dissipating into thin air.
Lu Yi casually took a bite of her bun, chewed it briefly, then said to YangYue, “Is there any smoked meat here? Cut a few slices and bring them here.”
YangYue responded to his request, got up and went back to the kitchen. Lu Yi stopped Cen Fu and Cen Shou, who were about to stand up, and sat where YangYue was sitting earlier, right next to Jinxia. After that he casually chatted with Cen Fu and Cen Shou about the route of their trip and where to rest.
Meanwhile, on the side, Jinxia was sitting next to him… Not knowing why, as soon as he sat down beside her, her body stiffened. Thinking about what had happened the night before, her face gradually got redder. She could see them talking but no words were coming into her ears.
“Did you sleep well last night?” Lu Yi asked, turning to face Jinxia.
It took Jinxia a long time to realize he was talking to her.
“Huh?”
“I asked, did you sleep well last night?” Lu Yi patiently repeated his question.
“I did.” Jinxia looked at his expression; he was acting as if nothing had happened last night. She started to doubt herself, “What about you? I mean, did Daren sleep well last night?”
“Not so well.” Lu Yi said, “My head felt heavy and dizzy, maybe from the rain.”
‘Is it because he’s sick?’ Jinxia attentively asked, “Dizzy? Then, do you not remember what happened last night?”
“What happened?” Lu Yi looked at her with an innocent face, “Is it important?”
“No… No, no, no, it’s not important, I was just asking.”
Jinxia gritted her teeth unnoticed, picked up a dumpling, took a bite and then ran away.
