Pei Shu walked a few steps ahead on his own, but when he didn’t hear footsteps following, he furrowed his brow and turned back to look at Xie Yunzhen.
The night breeze in the countryside was gentle, and the halo of lantern light swayed, spilling at Pei Shu’s feet as if an invisible veil separated it from him—daring only to look up in covetous reverence, not daring to touch so much as the hem of his robes.
“You’ve been crying.” He looked at Xie Yunzhen, enveloped in the warm yellow glow, and stated it with certainty.
Pei Shu’s voice was somewhat cold. His brows and eyes were hidden in the shadows, making it impossible to read his expression.
Xie Yunzhen, by contrast, was fully visible in the hazy lantern light—her dazed appearance, with even clear tear tracks still visible at the corners of her eyes.
When had she cried again? Was it while looking at the moon? Xie Yunzhen herself had forgotten.
“I—I haven’t!” Panic flashed across her face, and she denied it hastily, but reflexively raised her hand to wipe at her eye corners—a perfect display of trying too hard to cover things up.
“Best if you haven’t.” Pei Shu’s expression was indifferent, but his low, pleasant voice carried a bone-chilling coldness.
“Though there is a certain flavor to forcible seizure, between you and me, this is a matter of mutual consent. Don’t make it look like coercion—that would be dreadfully dull.” A mocking smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he spoke these cruel words with an air of casual ease.
Xie Yunzhen’s hand, mid-wipe, froze. Whether it was the night breeze turning colder or his words being too blunt, a chill rose in her heart. Yet shame and embarrassment made her cheeks burn hot. The two emotions tore at her, then tangled together and lodged in her throat, making it hard to breathe.
Pei Shu silently watched her expression shift. He’d thought it would provoke another round of tears and was already bracing for annoyance, but to his surprise, the next moment Xie Yunzhen moved with light, graceful steps, lantern in hand, and caught up to him in a few paces. The dancing flame swung back and forth between them like a swing, easily blurring the boundary that separated them.
The smile she raised was genuinely beautiful enough to move one’s heart: “You’re right, my lord. When it’s a matter of mutual consent, Yunzhen would need several lifetimes of luck to encounter a dragon among men like you. I ought to seize the moment and enjoy it while I can.”
Coming from a village woman with no learning to speak of, these words genuinely surprised Pei Shu. But then he recalled that she had an adoptive mother who was said to be equally beautiful, and since both mother and daughter had fled to Ning Village as refugees, perhaps the adoptive mother had been a cultured young lady from a modest household before falling on hard times.
That would explain it, then.
Pei Shu narrowed his eyes slightly and said nothing, thinking with a mix of malice and regret: He’d rather hoped to see that delicate, about-to-weep look again—like frost-struck pear blossoms.
“Follow me.”
Pei Shu turned and walked ahead, taking advantage of the deep night to brazenly cross Xie’s small fenced yard. He paused briefly as he passed the kennel of the white watchdog Xuefu, glancing down, then turned back to look at Xie Yunzhen with a meaningful gaze.
Whether it was catching the scent of its mistress or sensing an oppressive presence, Xuefu—who on ordinary days would puff up and bark fiercely at strangers—huddled obediently in its spot without making a single sound.
Xie Yunzhen was somewhat surprised as well. Could even a dog know which people not to provoke?
She found it amusing and couldn’t help but secretly curve the corners of her lips. But just as the smile reached the corners of her eyes, a sudden jolt went through her—she belatedly realized she’d said something so audacious to the lord. She had no mind left to ponder Xuefu’s strange behavior; her own boldness was already enough to give her head a thorough spinning.
On top of that, she was afraid of running into fellow villagers on the road, so her nerves were taut with worry.
Once out of the Xie family courtyard, a few steps ahead there was a fork in the road. Xie Yunzhen raised her lantern to look—it turned out to be Wen Lu.
“Milord.” Wen Lu offered a salute, then trotted over to take the lantern from Xie Yunzhen’s hand.
“The carriage is this way.” Wen Lu was quick-witted, knowing Xie Yunzhen was thin-skinned, and deliberately chose a path that was usually deserted.
Xie Yunzhen followed behind the two of them, feeling a bit puzzled in her heart:
How did they seem to know the roads of Ning Village even better than she did?
After walking for quite a while, when they were almost at the grove of trees near the village entrance, Xie Yunzhen finally realized something was wrong.
A carriage? At this hour, could Milord have come all this way just to take her away?
How could that be? Xie Yunzhen panicked, reaching out to grab the hem of Pei Shu’s robe. But before she could even touch him, Pei Shu, as if he had eyes in the back of his head, reached back and seized her slender wrist, pulling her before him.
This sudden sequence of movements left Xie Yunzhen breathless and her heart pounding wildly. Only then did she realize how strong and scorching hot the hand Pei Shu held her with was.
“Don’t touch me.” When he spoke again, his voice was much deeper, as if he was deliberately suppressing some kind of emotion.
His medicine’s effects had already set in before he came to Ning Village, and right now was the most unbearable moment. If she acted rashly, he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t take her right here and now.
“But Milord, where are you taking me?”
Pei Shu narrowed his eyes and countered, “Back with me, of course. Where else would it be?”
Xie Yunzhen shook her head like a rattle-drum at that, hastily refusing: “No, Milord, I can’t. If I go with you now, what will I do when my mother and sister can’t find me tomorrow morning?”
“Xie Yunzhen, it’s time for the antidote.” Pei Shu sneered in reminder, a hint of displeasure stirred by her swift refusal.
He had left the city early this morning for inspection. If he hadn’t sent someone to tail this village woman and received word that she’d returned to the village, he would have gone straight back to the manor and found no one there.
He had originally instructed Wen Lu to give her three hundred taels, then, feeling the village woman had a hard life, increased it to five hundred. Having given so much, he naturally wouldn’t stint himself.
Xie Yunzhen, however, was dumbfounded. It was all because she’d been so nervous entering the manor yesterday, and after encountering such a terrifying scene, she seemed to have forgotten what Wen Lu had said. Tonight should be the second night.
Even so, Xie Yunzhen still shook her head: “No, Milord, I truly can’t go back with you.” If she went and wasn’t there by morning, there’d be no explaining it.
Pei Shu stared at her stubborn little face. Already tormented all over by the medicine’s heat, he now felt an even greater accumulation of fire that was hard to extinguish: “You brought this on yourself.”
He scooped Xie Yunzhen up horizontally in his arms, snatched the lantern from Wen Lu’s hand, cast him aside, and coldly barked: “Don’t follow!”
Rarely did he see his master in such a hurry, and Wen Lu couldn’t suppress the smile at the corner of his mouth. He rubbed his nose, obediently stood still, and even found a thicket to conceal himself.
Before long, the faint light in the distant woods went out. The carriage swayed, and above the pitch-black trees, countless birds startled into flight.
Xie Yunzhen was utterly exhausted. She didn’t know what watch of the night it was. If not for her fear that her mother might wake in the middle of the night and find her missing, she was so tired she couldn’t bear to move even a single finger.
Milord, on top of her, seemed to have inexhaustible energy.
Even though she felt so awful, why not just push through and get it done quickly? Why drag it out for so long? Yet he looked completely at ease, as if he had everything under control, coaxing Xie Yunzhen into giving in again and again. By the end, she felt utterly drained.
She had once overheard some of the village women talking, saying this sort of thing was pure bliss, like ascending to paradise. But Xie Yunzhen thought it was clearly just pain—though not like ordinary pain. It was dense and unrelenting, mixed with a feeling she desperately tried to suppress. That feeling… it was as if once released, she would become an entirely new person.
She was afraid of that unfamiliar sensation.
Xie Yunzhen shook her head, pushing those jumbled thoughts aside. She kept her head down, dressing herself while silently wallowing in her own misery.
Because her originally scheduled wedding date with Yankui was approaching, her mother had privately taught her some matters of the bedchamber. How was she supposed to know this kind of thing could happen anywhere other than a bed?
A few days ago, she never would have imagined her first time would happen on a desk, and now this time, in a carriage.
“Xie Yunzhen, you brought this on yourself.” Pei Shu sat behind her, repeating his earlier words with a mocking tone.
The village woman thought she was hiding it well, but to Pei Shu—who had grown up in the complex, aristocratic Pei family and had spent years immersed in officialdom—she was like a blank sheet of paper. Her expressions were far too easy to read.
“This medicine requires six sessions to resolve. The first three are on consecutive days, and the last three are every two days after that. Didn’t Wen Lu tell you?”
Xie Yunzhen didn’t answer. She bit her lip and quietly gathered her clothes.
He had told her, but she had forgotten—she only just remembered now.
“Is that all you wanted to tell me by asking me to stay, sir?”
“Yes and no.” Unlike her, who was rushing to dress, Pei Shu lay half-reclined on the soft blanket, his robes loose and disheveled, revealing his solid chest. He looked thoroughly satisfied, like a man who had just feasted, his eyes filled with languid, indulgent desire. “I want you to stay obediently at my residence for the coming days until the medicine is fully resolved. I’m busy. Don’t make me go looking for you all over town.”
“What about my family? What reason do I give my mother?”
Xie Yunzhen was stunned. She truly hadn’t expected this arrangement to require staying overnight. She had thought that if she needed to resolve the medicine’s effects, she could leave home early in the day, finish the matter, and make it out of the city gates before they were locked at dusk.
She turned around, looking pitiful as she pleaded, telling Pei Shu her thoughts.
“No.”
“Figure it out yourself.”
Xie Yunzhen’s hopeful gaze fell flat against Pei Shu’s indifferent eyes and words.
She deflated, her red lips parting to make another request, but seeing that his gaze was utterly unmoved by her, she chose to close her mouth.
A man of his stature—how could he be swayed by a few words from her? He naturally wouldn’t accommodate her like that.
Xie Yunzhen held back a surge of frustration, fastened her sash, and turned to get off the carriage. As she took a step, she thought of something and said, “Sir, could you not come to the village anymore in the future?” She was afraid of being seen by the villagers and becoming the subject of gossip.
Pei Shu curled his lips into a knowing smile. “What, afraid your fiancé will find out?”
Before Xie Yunzhen could react, he deliberately jabbed, “How are his injuries? Should I have a physician come take a look?”
The moment those words fell, Xie Yunzhen felt utterly humiliated.
Their relationship was one that could not see the light of day, yet he could so readily bring up Ning Yankui’s existence. Xie Yunzhen felt she was no match for him in that regard. Before she could awkwardly dismount the carriage, his voice drifted over from behind, leaving no room for refusal:
“Tomorrow, I want to see you at my residence.”
Too angry to care about propriety, Yun Zhen shot Pei Shu a fierce glare from her beautiful eyes, then, feeling a pang of guilt, fled in a panic.