8: The kiss
“Young Master, it’s too dark tonight—I didn’t notice and accidentally drove into a mud pit,” Fenglai reported from outside the carriage but received no response from Su Zhuoguang for a while.
“Young Master?” Fenglai found it strange. He reached to lift the curtain and peek inside, but before he could get close, a burst of energy from Su Zhuoguang pushed him back.
“It’s fine,” Su Zhuoguang replied calmly.
Fenglai glanced skeptically before returning to his seat to drive. But then, a voice from inside struck him like thunder:
“Do you intend to strip me of all my clothes?”
Strip… strip clothes?
Did he hear that right? Have Young Master and Miss Qiao already reached that stage?
Fenglai was stunned. But it wasn’t his fault for eavesdropping—he truly had exceptionally sharp hearing, and with the carriage right behind him, it was hard not to overhear.
“Young Miss, did you bump into anything?” Unlike Fenglai, Qiuying didn’t have such sharp hearing. She called into the carriage with concern.
“No…”
The voice that responded was as faint as a mosquito’s hum, making Qiuying even more uneasy. She turned, wanting to go in and check. “Young Miss, should I come in and take a look?”
“I said I’m fine,” Qiao Shilian tightened her grip on the carriage curtain, her tone firm as she tried to mask her guilt.
Inside the carriage, Qiao Shilian’s face was flushed with embarrassment, and her usually fair neck was tinged with pink.
In her panic earlier, she had grabbed onto something for support, never imagining she would end up clutching Su Zhuoguang’s lapel. Since he had already removed his outer robe for her, all that remained was a thin garment and an inner robe, which she had pulled down together, revealing the collarbones that were usually concealed so well—and below…
She didn’t dare look further, repeatedly telling herself to stay calm, to not provoke him further.
Hearing no more movement outside the carriage, Qiao Shilian turned to Su Zhuoguang and forced a weak smile. She stiffly moved back to sit beside him, then, squinting slightly, mustered her courage to straighten his lapel. “It wasn’t on purpose, it really wasn’t.”
But just as her fingers brushed his clothes, the carriage began to jolt violently again. Losing her balance, she instinctively grabbed his lapel once more, refusing to let go.
As a result, his lapel opened even wider than before.
Su Zhuoguang: “…”
“Fenglai, if you don’t know how to drive a carriage, get back to the military camp.”
Su Zhuoguang’s voice had noticeably turned colder.
Fenglai was rather aggrieved. “Young Master, this time it really wasn’t a flat road…”
As Fenglai said, the mountain path was indeed full of potholes, and the bumpy journey continued for quite a while.
Qiao Shilian kept her eyes tightly shut, enduring the shaking of the carriage and praying for this part of the journey to end quickly. At this moment, she wished she could bury herself in that mud pit, and once she got home, it would be best if she never had anything to do with Su Zhuoguang again.
It was so embarrassing. How could she do something as shameful as stripping someone’s clothes? And twice?
Compared to Qiao Shilian’s embarrassment, Su Zhuoguang remained relatively composed.
Bracing himself against the roof of the carriage, he looked down at the warm, fragrant, and soft figure lying in his arms. Her subtle, delicate scent wafted toward him with the night breeze, stirring an unusual feeling in his heart. Being this close to a woman was an indescribable sensation—one that he found deeply uncomfortable.
Even through his clothes, he could feel the coldness of her fingertips and the chill that clung to her entire body from being soaked in the rain earlier.
Su Zhuoguang couldn’t help but frown.
She was this cold, yet earlier she had still thought of refusing his robe.
He could see that while she appeared restrained and proper on the surface, deep down she resisted such propriety. The shackles of etiquette bound her, occasionally suffocating her, making her yearn to break free and seek a new life, yet always weighing her down heavily.
This was the version of her he had witnessed tonight—different from the one the world had labeled.
Some time later, the carriage finally regained its stability.
Qiao Shilian scrambled out of his embrace as if fleeing, burying her head in her hands and rubbing her burning fingertips while silently rehearsing what to say. “Ahem… as you can see, I truly am a proper woman.”
Su Zhuoguang responded casually, “Mm, one who strips people’s clothes and doesn’t dare look them in the eye.”
He deliberately emphasized the “propriety” she spoke of.
“I said it wasn’t on purpose…”
Qiao Shilian felt like crying but had no tears. In her shame and indignation, she added, “Didn’t I help you put your clothes back on?”
Su Zhuoguang glanced down at his disheveled lapel, leaving the evidence of her second “crime” intact. “But then you took them off again.”
Qiao Shilian: “…”
Qiao Shilian was utterly frustrated. Lowering her gaze to the tips of her shoes, she decided to simply play dead and say nothing more.
Only the sound of the carriage wheels rolling and the subtle, methodical rustling of him adjusting his clothes filled the silence. Before long, Qiao Shilian suddenly heard that clear, cool voice speak calmly beside her:
“I think you should be bolder and not be bound by these mundane rules of propriety.”
“Hmm?”
Qiao Shilian didn’t understand what he meant. Recalling what he had said earlier—that in front of him, she could do as she pleased—it meant she didn’t need to uphold propriety around him.
And now, having accidentally stripped his clothes twice, he hadn’t gotten angry or held it against her. Instead, he was telling her to be bolder.
Bolder?
Did he mean… to go further? Was he testing her courage to break free from propriety?
If someone else had said this, she would have thought they were either joking crudely or deliberately trying to lure her into doing something improper.
But Su Zhuoguang, sitting before her, had a face as cold as frost and snow, his expression as icy and unyielding as a perpetually frozen glacier. He didn’t look like someone who would joke or engage in flirtatious behavior.
It seemed he truly was testing her, deliberately guiding her to break free from the constraints of worldly propriety.
Su Zhuoguang had no idea what Qiao Shilian was thinking. “And why are you afraid of me?”
Qiao Shilian was still pondering—what exactly did “going further” entail?
Unable to come up with an answer, she replied sullenly, “Since I need your help, I’m afraid you’ll abandon me halfway…”
Su Zhuoguang seemed thoughtful. “That makes sense.”
Little did he know that, to Qiao Shilian, these two casual words meant that if she couldn’t pass his test, he would indeed toss her out of the carriage without a second thought.
Luoxia Mountain was still some distance from her estate, and given her fear of the dark, how could she possibly make it home alone?
Her mind uncontrollably conjured up the scene—Su Zhuoguang rising slightly, his tall figure casting a heavy shadow over her, leaning close to whisper in her ear: Do you want propriety, or do you want your life?
She couldn’t help but shudder, reminded once again of Su Zhuoguang’s pointed question about which was more important: propriety or her life.
She would undoubtedly choose the latter. She had already died once—why should she care about empty formalities? In her past life, hadn’t she been cautious and proper, only to end up framed to death?
Now, was she truly upholding propriety out of fear of death?
Or was it the upbringing and rigid rules she had been immersed in for over a decade, locked within the inner chambers, that held her back, too afraid to cross that line? She hated those doctrines for killing her, and she hated her own timid, cautious self for submitting to propriety.
The scenes from her past life still felt like a bone stuck in her throat. Gritting her teeth, Qiao Shilian made up her mind.
She needed to change. And if Su Zhuoguang wanted to test her courage, she would prove to him that she wasn’t a woman too timid to break free from constraints, too bound by mundane propriety.
Thinking this, Qiao Shilian turned to the side. She rested her hands on Su Zhuoguang’s shoulders and, in an instant, pressed her lips against the corner of his mouth.
The movement was smooth, executed in one breath. Even Qiao Shilian felt it was too effortless—the man before her was extremely cooperative, sitting still and allowing her to kiss him.
It seemed this was indeed what he had meant.
She had thought it over. In those romantic novels, besides embracing, kissing was described in the most vivid detail. Every time she secretly read them by her bedside, she would blush and bury her face in her blanket.
Though she and Su Zhuoguang weren’t like the mutually infatuated characters in those stories, this bold attempt to break propriety was surely what he wanted to see.
Little did she know, the man who was “extremely cooperative” with her kiss sat rigidly in the carriage, his usually sharp mind blank, his thoughts scattered far beyond the clouds.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t considered pushing Qiao Shilian away, but her closeness had been too sudden. Even with his battlefield-honed reflexes, the unexpected soft fragrance and the unfamiliar, cool warmth of her lips against his had left him bewildered.
Even though the kiss was clumsy and inexperienced, it had truly landed on the corner of his mouth.
What is she doing? Has she gone mad?
That was Su Zhuoguang’s first thought when he regained his senses.
He felt her warm breath gently sweeping over his face—it was ticklish, like walking through a season of willow catkins, with wind-blown fluff brushing against his skin. Yet it also felt as though those tiny fibers had slipped into his throat and chest, stimulating his senses and stirring an unbearable restlessness.
Before long, as she pulled away, her lips felt as light as falling snow, melting away in an instant.
“That’s what you wanted,” Qiao Shilian turned her head away, quietly hiding her nervousness.
Su Zhuoguang: “…?”
What was she saying? Wasn’t she the one who kissed him?
Qiao Shilian waited for Su Zhuoguang’s response for a long time but received nothing. It was strange. Was this man really made of ice shards? How could he have no reaction at all?
When she turned to look at Su Zhuoguang, she happened to catch the turbulent emotions in his eyes—surprise and anger had yet to fade. Below, the veins on his neck stood out, and his Adam’s apple bobbed, all clear signs of the turmoil in his heart.
A sudden realization dawned on her, one that made her wish she could just disappear on the spot.
Could it be… that she had misunderstood everything?
He never had any intention of testing her courage at all.
Qiao Shilian’s face instantly turned deathly pale, her entire body as if plunged into an icy cellar.
It’s over. What have she done? She actually… she actually took liberties with him.
“I’m… I’m sorry…” Qiao Shilian stammered an apology to Su Zhuoguang, but before she could finish, he abruptly turned and moved toward the carriage exit.
“Young Master, why are you coming out? The road ahead is already smooth,” Fenglai asked, puzzled, noticing the cold, almost autumnal frostiness in Su Zhuoguang’s expression—he seemed angry.
Fenglai was even more confused. Wasn’t Young Master just… with Miss Qiao? How did she manage to anger him?
This was the first time he had seen his Young Master this furious. It felt as though Su Zhuoguang was angry but didn’t know where to direct it, with hints of shock and indignation mixed in…
Although outsiders all said his Young Master was cold and hard to get along with, probably with a bad temper, Fenglai knew the truth. Su Zhuoguang had simply grown accustomed to the military camp in the northwest, where his mind was solely focused on warfare. When it came to other interpersonal matters, he genuinely didn’t pay much attention.
Su Zhuoguang never showed any unnecessary emotion over things he didn’t care about. At least in all these years, Fenglai had only seen him truly angry once—when a deserter emerged from the very camp Su Zhuoguang had personally trained.
At that time, with the city walls breached, the deserter believed the situation was hopeless and abandoned his armor, nearly shaking the army’s morale.
It was Su Zhuoguang who beheaded the deserter, restored morale, turned the tide from a desperate situation, and finally drove the northern barbarians beyond the border. That battle wasn’t easy either—Su Zhuoguang fought through severe injuries until the very end, with almost no part of his body left unscathed. It took him months of recovery just to be able to stand again.
But after the incident with the deserter, Fenglai saw Su Zhuoguang spend nights revising military regulations, relaxing many of the overly harsh and inhuman restrictions. For a time, the army’s morale rallied, and there were no complaints.
The Da Sheng military laws were strict—deserters were punished with collective responsibility. Yet Su Zhuoguang suppressed the matter of that deserter and took the military punishment himself for failing to properly train his troops. Compared to those aristocratic families who disregarded human life and imposed extreme punishments at the slightest provocation, his Young Master could truly be considered kind-hearted.
But now, for Su Zhuoguang to be this angry, whatever Miss Qiao had done must be serious.
While Fenglai was still lost in thought, he saw Su Zhuoguang snatch the reins from his hands. “Get inside. I’ll take over.”
“Huh? Oh…” Fenglai turned and stared blankly at the carriage curtain.
Was Young Master dissatisfied with his driving and wanted him to go inside and assist Miss Qiao?
Full of suspicion, he reached to lift the curtain and enter the carriage. But as soon as his fingers touched the soft fabric, he felt his arm gripped firmly, unable to move.
“Just sit here,” Su Zhuoguang said, giving him a casual glance.
Fenglai: “…”
He truly couldn’t understand why his Young Master was acting so strangely tonight.
It was only afterward that Fenglai realized Su Zhuoguang had been so angry he misspoke. He had meant to tell Fenglai to sit aside, but his mind was preoccupied with Qiao Shilian inside the carriage, and he accidentally said “get inside” instead.
It seemed his Young Master was truly furious.
**