After bringing Xiao Mingyue back to Prime Minister Pei’s manor, Pei Yanli actually intended to treat her wounds himself.
Xiao Mingyue was so anxious she nearly jumped up to tell him she was not dead yet. Fortunately, a servant arrived to report an urgent matter, allowing Xiao Mingyue to “escape by the skin of her teeth.”
Xiao Mingyue asked Xiao Wei: “How much longer until I regain consciousness?”
Xiao Wei replied: [Nine hours remaining.]
Xiao Mingyue sighed helplessly in her mind. Had Pei Yanli lost his mind, wanting to tend to her injuries with his own hands? Besides, she was currently in a state of death; was there any point in treating these wounds? Could it be…
The moment a bold thought surfaced, it scared Xiao Mingyue.
No way… Does Pei Yanli like her?
Xiao Mingyue had not forgotten how she used to bully him back then: throwing mud at him while he was reading, dumping salt into his food while he was eating to try to salt him to death, and always enjoying using money to humiliate him…
Thinking back on her past self, Xiao Mingyue felt as if that were a completely different person. She had been far too vicious back then. It was all Feng Buji’s fault; he was the one who had taught her all of that.
Squeak—!
The heavy dark-iron door was pushed open abruptly, releasing not a simple noise, but a sound resembling a muffled wail of agony that instantly shattered the dead silence of the underground palace.
Accompanied by the biting cold gust of wind and snow from outside, the man swept into the room, causing the flickering flames of the everlasting lamps on the walls to sway wildly.
Pei Yanli’s tall figure stood in the doorway. Lit from behind, his face was obscured in shadow, save for an extraordinarily long and oppressive shadow that lunged toward the ice bed before he even took a step, completely blanketing Xiao Mingyue.
Xiao Mingyue lay quietly on the massive cold-jade bed, her eyes gently closed, her long lashes frosted over with a thin layer of fine ice crystals.
Her face was so pale that not a single trace of color remained, which only served to highlight the shocking crimson of the wounds beneath her tattered clothes. They looked like isolated plum blossoms in the snow that had yet to be buried—a jade-carved beauty utterly devoid of life.
Time seemed to freeze at this very moment.
He stood ten paces away from the ice bed, completely motionless. The thunderous, overwhelming momentum he had when pushing open the door vanished entirely, replaced by a rigid standstill. His gaze, like two tangible icicles, locked dead onto the figure on the ice bed.
In the underground palace, only the subtle crackling of the burning lamp wicks remained, alongside an increasingly heavy, almost suffocating silence.
Xiao Mingyue’s heart began to race. The current Pei Yanli was no longer the poor scholar of the past. Having reached the pinnacle of court power, even his aura had become sharp, steady, and immensely imposing.
His Adam’s apple bobbed with difficulty, as if he wanted to say something, yet no sound could escape his throat.
He walked over and raised his hand to touch her brow and eyes. His trembling hand carefully Caressed her features, tracing her outline.
Xiao Mingyue had actually died. How could she be dead? A vibrant vitality that once felt like an unsetting sun in the sky—how could it just extinguish like this? How dared Feng Buji?
He was suddenly consumed by intense hatred—hatred for his own lack of strength, allowing that bastard Feng Buji to claim her first.
Now, all he touched was an eternal, frozen coldness.
Regret and anguish intertwined, causing his breath to turn heavy and scalding. White vapor rapidly billowed and dispersed in the air, clashing fiercely with the chill filling the room.
Those phoenix eyes—usually unfathomably deep, either sharp or languid—were now completely bloodshot, filled with a stormy sea of panic, disbelief, and a madness verging on total destruction.
“Mingyue…”
He finally spoke, his voice raspy beyond belief, like coarse sand grinding together, as those two words spilled out brokenly.
Xiao Mingyue: “…”
When did Pei Yanli grow to like her so much? She had been completely oblivious to it.
Logically speaking, he ought to hate her.
Pei Yanli lost track of how long he stayed there. Xiao Mingyue only knew that by the time her wounds had completely healed, Pei Yanli was about to change her clothes, only to witness her injuries rapidly closing up right before his eyes.
Pei Yanli: …
Xiao Mingyue: …
It was over. Would Pei Yanli think she was some kind of monster?
Pei Yanli’s pupils constricted violently as he stared at the scene in utter shock—and then, Xiao Mingyue’s eyelashes fluttered.
Immediately after, Xiao Mingyue opened her eyes and locked gazes directly with Pei Yanli.
Xiao Mingyue touched herself to confirm that she had indeed returned to life, before awkwardly sitting up.
“Hey!” Xiao Mingyue offered an awkward smile by way of greeting. Glimpsing the wet tear tracks on Pei Yanli’s face, she quietly lowered her head.
Pei Yanli was stunned at first, but then he suddenly gripped her shoulders tightly.
“Mingyue, you… you’re not dead?”
Without caring whether Xiao Mingyue was a human or a ghost, he pulled her into a fierce, tight embrace, trembling with overwhelming excitement and joy, treating her like a priceless treasure found again after being lost.
Xiao Mingyue tried to break free, but finding his embrace far too tight to pull away from, she could only resort to her ultimate trick.
With a mischievous smirk, she hugged him back, her voice laced with seductive coaxing and teasing:
“Pei Yanli, I never expected you to harbor such feelings for me. Truly, one cannot judge a book by its cover.”