Fang Qianxue took a deep breath. “If you’re here again to persuade me to relent, Second Master, please leave!”
Lu Changqing felt a surge of irritation but still put on a gentle expression. “Qianxue, today I come to beg a favor of you. If you agree, I will spend half of each month in your chamber from now on.”
“Is my husband truly serious?” Fang Qianxue’s eyes held a hint of mockery.
Was this man selling himself for Xu Miaoyan?
How splendid. How utterly mad.
“I am serious!” Lu Changqing thought to himself, See, I knew you couldn’t wait.
“Then tell me what you want.”
“Miaoyan has suffered from a heart ailment for many years. Only your Heart’s Blood can save her,” the man lowered his head, burying his hands in his hair, his voice filled with anguish. “You are my wife. I would never make such a request unless it were absolutely necessary. I know I am not human—I have wronged you!”
“Who said my Heart’s Blood can save her?” Fang Qianxue asked bitterly.
Shortly after their marriage, the couple once sat together by the hearth. Lu Changqing added charcoal to the brazier, and sparks flew up, burning Fang Qianxue’s favorite pomegranate-red skirt.
He immediately dropped the fire tongs in a panic, took her hand, and said it was all his fault, promising to buy her an even better skirt in the future.
Back then, his face had flushed with agitation, and his peach-blossom eyes had shone with sincerity.
When he was truly remorseful, he never looked like this, with his hands buried in his hair.
“Miaoyan heard it from the Spirit Sparrow of the Medicine King Valley,” Lu Changqing replied.
“The Spirit Sparrow? Not only has no one ever heard it speak, but few have even seen it. And you believe her word alone…”
“Fang Qianxue!” Lu Changqing suddenly raised his voice. “Don’t measure the heart of a noble person with your own petty standards. Miaoyan is pure and kind-hearted. She has long known your Heart’s Blood could save her but kept it to herself out of consideration for you. Can’t you be magnanimous just once?”
“Your idea of magnanimity is to cut open my chest and let someone take my blood?” Fang Qianxue was on the verge of exploding with anger, barely restraining herself from slapping him.
“There’s no need to cut open your chest. I asked the physician. He said it only requires inserting a fine needle into your heart and drawing three drops of blood each day! It will be somewhat painful, but it won’t endanger your life.” Lu Changqing grasped her hand, his eyes filled with urgency. “Qianxue, believe me. If it truly endangered your life, how could I even bring it up?”
“You, a scholar who endured ten years of hardship to become the Third-Ranked Scholar, are surprisingly this foolish,” Fang Qianxue sneered. “If my grandfather saw you like this today, he would surely regret taking you under his wing.”
At the mention of the late Grand Tutor Fang Qingshi, Lu Changqing’s expression immediately changed, a mix of hatred and fear.
Knock, knock.
“Second Master, Madam, the hot water is ready,” came a maid’s voice from outside.
Lu Changqing, both ashamed and angry, had long lost his patience. “We’ll stop here for today. I’m leaving.”
“Farewell, husband. I won’t see you out.”
The man reached the door, then turned back. “Think carefully about what I said. If you save Miaoyan, I will be grateful to you in the future. But if you remain stubborn…”
“What then?” Fang Qianxue stared at him coldly, waiting for him to say “a letter of divorce.”
The man pressed his thin lips together, glared at her with reddened eyes for a moment, then stormed out.
In the Pine Sound Residence.
The afternoon sun was warm and gentle.
A tabby cat climbed over the wall and landed on the railing of the veranda. After a few steps, it was caught by a slender, delicate hand.
“Kitty, what’s your name?” Xu Miaoyan leaned against a vermilion pillar, sitting on the railing, her youthful figure languid and graceful. “So you’re a nameless stray cat. I really envy you.”
Lu Changqing said her heart condition hadn’t healed yet and forbade her from leaving the estate, so he had Lady Chen and Lu Wanrou keep her company more often.
But those two greedy, vulgar women—Lady Chen and Lu Wanrou—couldn’t go three sentences without mentioning the “Qilin Beast” or the “Nation-Protecting Saintess.”
They really knew how to hit a sore spot!
That day in the palace, when Xu Miaoyan discovered she couldn’t understand the Qilin’s speech, she had been so panicked she nearly died. Yet these two kept urging her to hurry back to the palace and persuade the Qilin Beast to eat.
The mere sight of Lady Chen and Lu Wanrou filled Xu Miaoyan with irritation, so she could only feign illness to avoid entering the palace.
After two stifling days of boredom, she was so desperate for distraction that she eagerly struck up a conversation with a cat she’d caught.
“Sometimes I think,” she lamented self-pityingly, “people really aren’t as fortunate as you cats—free and unburdened, unlike me… trapped by circumstances.”
The tabby meowed twice.
“You’re asking about my illness?” Xu Miaoyan glanced around, then revealed an exquisitely elegant smile. “Let me tell you a secret…”
“Killing someone to exchange lives?!” Fang Qianxue’s spoon clattered into her bowl. “So she never had a heart condition at all…”