Would an Alpha really deliberately search for that tiny, subtle curve on her Wife-Lord’s abdomen, a contour Pei Yu herself hadn’t even noticed?
Pei Yu remained slightly dazed while handling state affairs, the aching, sour sensation in her chest remarkably difficult to endure.
Instead of letting Jiang Wu continue massaging her waist, she placed a cushion behind it, desperately trying to ignore the little puppy sitting on the rug against the daybed, and nodded slightly to Cheng Jin to signal her to continue.
Before long, the person sitting on the floor stood up and wandered around the sleeping quarters, completely oblivious to the fact that both women’s gazes were fixed entirely upon her.
One gaze carried a thick mixture of lingering tenderness and complexity, while the other purely deemed her as someone with a death wish.
Her Majesty’s bedchamber, and she was in the middle of discussing state affairs with Her Majesty, yet that rebellious wretch suddenly stood up and started roaming around at random, what on earth was she trying to accomplish? Was she trying to earn a fast-track ticket to clan-wide execution right here and on the spot?
Meeting a bewilderingly glared look, Jiang Wu tilted her head in confusion, feeling a distinct sense of intimidation as she locked eyes with Cheng Jin.
She flashed Cheng Jin a reassuring look, then, amidst the latter’s crumbling gaze, walked straight toward the main hall where Pei Yu slept.
Cheng Jin lifted her gaze, looking somewhat unspeakably toward the pale amber eyes looking down at her from atop the three-tiered dais.
The expression within those eyes was exceptionally faint, making it impossible to tell whether she cared or not.
“Let us continue, Prime Minister.”
The woman’s voice was gentle and unhurried. Cheng Jin steadied her breathing, suppressing her wildly hammering heart before speaking again in a somewhat weak tone.
She didn’t dare raise her head, and thus missed the subtle, fleeting smile playing at the corners of the woman’s lips.
It was she who had told Jiang Wu to scram.
The moment anyone sat beside her, even if those hands remained completely well-behaved, the puppy’s mint-scented pheromones would wrap around her waist as if completely devoid of self-control.
At first it wasn’t too bad, just cautiously and lightly wrapping around, but eventually, it tightened inch by inch until it practically seeped into her bones.
What was even more aggravating was that this foolish hound, paying no heed to the occasion, kept trying to leave her flavor within the gap of Pei Yu’s lips, a light, slightly bitter trace that lingered on the tip of the tongue for ages.
At such an age where everything was considered far too early, developing a taste for it and losing control was completely normal, and thus forgivable. Therefore, Pei Yu had simply taken advantage of the Prime Minister bowing her head to quietly dismiss Jiang Wu with two pieces of pastry.
She was an exceptionally easy puppy to coax, and unusually obedient.
Jiang Wu had barely slept a wink the previous night. Walking into the inner sleeping quarters, she found that Pei Yu’s bed had already been tidied away behind lowered curtains, while a box of miscellaneous items had been placed on her tiny makeshift sleeping cot by an unknown person.
Fine then.
When one’s status was humble, even the bed had to suffer grievances alongside her.
She walked forward, industriously lifting the box of items and moving it to the side.
A scrap of paper fluttered out from the box. She reached down to pick up the paper slip, noticing some crooked handwriting scrawled across it.
Since she couldn’t read the script and couldn’t make sense of it, she simply placed it back on top of the box.
She curled herself into a ball on the restrictive little cot and fell into a deep, heavy slumber.
By the time the Southern Kingdom was passed down to Pei Yu, she was already the seventeenth Empress. The various bureaucratic offices and institutions below were fully established, meaning the matters that actually landed on her desk were exclusively of the utmost importance.
They were difficult to handle, but fortunately not overwhelming.
With the midsummer heat pressing down heavily in recent days, fresh blocks of ice had been brought out to replace the old ones in the outer hall. As the sun dipped below the western hills, Pei Yu paused slightly with her brush, only then remembering that no one had been instructed to set up ice blocks in the inner sleeping quarters.
Where was Jiang Wu?
If she stayed in there for that long without coming out, would she bake herself into heatstroke?
The woman stood up, hastily resting her brush in the inkstone, and pushed open the door to the inner chamber. A dense, heavily ripened fragrance of iris flower rushed forward to meet her.
The Alpha was curled up entirely within the confines of the tiny bed, sleeping soundly and deeply, all warm and flushed, the tip of her nose steamed a bright red.
Right beside her sat a box of medicine, with a note pasted on top reading: For Lord Jiang.
Pei Yu crouched down, her gaze landing on the small box with a slight frown.
Was there anything that could bypass her and be delivered directly to Jiang Wu?
She picked up a bottle of medicine, on which the usage and descriptions were carved with a small blade: Arousal, Lubrication.
The medicine in her hand was squeezed tighter. Pei Yu directed an indescribable gaze toward the harmless-looking, foolish hound before picking up a few more bottles.
Topical wound ointment for private areas, gland repair serum, finger maintenance liquid.
At the very bottom corner, there were even a few thin rubber finger cots.
In truth, Jiang Wu already tested her endurance to the limit. When a young Alpha experiencing her first taste of romance pressed down upon her shoulders, aside from the heavy weight, there was also an incoming wave of scorching heat.
She already had to endure treatment that wasn’t exactly gentle while batting away the puppy’s head as it nuzzled blindly against her chest. If any more aids were added to the mix, she simply wouldn’t be able to bear it.
She was the one who had brought Jiang Wu home as her wife; even setting aside the ruler-subject dynamic, she was still Jiang Wu’s Wife-Lord.
Therefore, she felt absolutely no burden in confiscating this box of items that would make her life difficult, casually tossing them away into a corner.
She remembered telling Chunya to bring medicine, but Chunya had been dispatched to the Bureau of Official Vestments to collect new robes and probably hadn’t found the time yet.
Fortunately, there was still some medicine left from the other day.
Clutching the remaining half-bottle of ointment, Pei Yu walked over and crouched down gently, her fingers hooking into the waistband of the Alpha’s outer robe to slowly loosen it.
A layer of bandages was bound beneath the inner clothing. Jiang Wu must have changed them herself; they were wrapped haphazardly, yet tied tightly from top to bottom.
Inside was the lowest-grade, most basic wound ointment available in the palace for servants.
When she was a child and got injured, her mother used to apply this exact kind of medicine to her; its effectiveness could only be described as better than nothing, but its primary virtue was being cheap.
So, was Jiang Wu genuinely that short on money?
The monthly stipends for palace concubines were low, but she had always turned a blind eye whenever these people’s maternal families smuggled things into the palace behind her back. Could the Prime Minister really bear to let her own flesh and blood scrape by in the deep palace relying on those few meager coins of loose silver?
Inhaling the familiar subtle bitterness from her memories, Pei Yu narrowed her gaze slightly, using a handkerchief to wipe away the old medicinal residue around the wound while releasing a trace of her own pheromones to soothe the frowning, sleeping puppy.
Expensive medication was scooped onto her fingertip and evenly smoothed across the area. The knife wound was still flushed red, but at least it wasn’t bleeding, and the overall maintenance was passable.
After tying the bandages into a rather neat butterfly knot, she had just drawn Jiang Wu’s garments back together when a slightly husky, low voice dropped right beside her ear.
“Pei Yu?”
The newly awakened person’s voice was hazy and dream-steeped, as though rolled across fine gravel, before crashing straight into Pei Yu’s chest accompanied by a pair of mist-veiled obsidian pupils.
The woman’s fingers twitched involuntarily, and the warm, sleepy figure sprang up, pressing straight against her abdomen with the fully ripened, intermingled scents of iris and mint radiating from her entire body.
Through layers of fabric, Jiang Wu gave a light nip.
Dissatisfied yet restrained.
“Is it really not allowed to bite?” the puppy muttered softly, her moon-white skirt creased into a chaotic, decadent mess that morphed entirely into a vulnerable supplication at the bottom of the Alpha’s tear-bright eyes.
Jiang Wu seemed to be begging her.
As if she genuinely adored her, utterly infatuated with her body on a physiological level, to the extent that the very first thing she did upon being shaken awake was press against her abdomen and beg for permission to take a single bite.
So, what harm was there in letting a puppy that looked at her with such lowliness, such deep reliance, and such adoration take a bite?
Pei Yu hooked her fingers into the silk ribbon tied around her waist, only to hear the Alpha murmur softly once more.
“You know, I’ve never had a mommy I was allowed to bite.”
The hand unlacing her sash abruptly dropped, and a cold sneer curled up the corners of her lips.
Well, what a coincidence. She had just finished discussing state affairs with her mommy moments ago.
She had almost let herself act on impulse.
A purely pretense-laden green tea puppy.