Without thinking, Jiang Yin grabbed Chu Nanci’s hand and plunged into the center of the crowd, saying anxiously, “Didn’t I tell you to wait for me at the inn? Why did you come here!”
If Xiao Lingchuan saw them, it would be all over!
She ran while dodging, and Xue Zhuang’er also found his way over. The three of them weaved through the crowd like thieves sneaking around. Only after they safely returned to the inn did Jiang Yin finally let out a breath of relief.
“Good thing we ran fast. We probably weren’t noticed.” Her back was soaked with cold sweat, her clothes clinging uncomfortably to her skin. After thinking for a moment, she said, “Let’s head back to the room first. I want to take a bath. Brother Huaian, how many rooms did you book?”
“Two rooms.” Chu Nanci’s tone was calm, as if the earlier incident had not affected him at all.
“Two rooms…” Jiang Yin hesitated briefly before saying, “Then Xiao Zhuang gets one, and we share one.”
She had no money at the moment, so it was awkward to ask the young man to book an extra room.
And letting him stay together with Xiao Zhuang was even more out of the question.
Anyway, this was not the first time she had stayed with Xie Huaian. Besides, staying together would actually be more beneficial for her strategy mission.
She took the key from the young man and handed it to Xiao Zhuang, instructing him to keep the Moon Shadow Branch safe and to come find her immediately if he encountered any danger.
“And we’re staying in?” she looked at the young man.
“Sixth floor. The Tender Affection Room.”
“Alright, Xiao Zhuang, we’re staying on the sixth floor, the Tender Affec…” Jiang Yin suddenly jolted, “The Tender Affection Room!?”
Chu Nanci lowered his gaze to look at the hand she had flung away in her panic. “Mm. Is there a problem?”
Of course there was! A huge problem!
Jiang Yin was so startled her voice nearly cracked. “No, no! Change the room!”
Chu Nanci’s gaze deepened. “Why not?”
“Because…” Jiang Yin racked her brain for an excuse. “That room name doesn’t sound nice. I want to change to another one. Is that okay?”
Normally, whatever she said, Chu Nanci would go along with it. But today, he insisted on getting to the bottom of it. “Is that so? But the innkeeper said the Tender Affection Room is for lovers to stay in together. With such a meaning, how could it be unpleasant?”
Jiang Yin’s face flushed red, completely at a loss for words.
She could not possibly say, in front of so many people, especially with a child like Xue Zhuang’er present, that the reason she resisted was because this Tender Affection Room was… a themed lovers’ room!
Her silence clearly made the young man misunderstand something. His slightly cool voice fell from above her head. “Ah Yin thinks it is unpleasant. Could it be because, in your heart, you and I are no longer considered lovers?”
The smile at his lips disappeared, the low pressure around him no longer concealed. He did not even have the patience to wait for Jiang Yin’s answer.
“Then who does Ah Yin consider her lover? That useless man who could not even withstand a single strike from me just now? Is that why you were so eager to send me away, afraid I would continue to harm him?” The young man stepped closer, step by step, his peach blossom eyes half-narrowed as he sneered. “You call him Young Master Xie. He also bears the surname Xie? What a coincidence. The ones Ah Yin holds in her heart are all these incompetent men surnamed Xie.”
‘He is so angry he is even scolding himself along with it?’
Jiang Yin quickly told Xue Zhuang’er to return to his room first.
Ever since Xie Huaian had confirmed her identity, he had always shown her a gentle and affectionate side. Now, seeing this aggressive and pressing manner of his instead, it reminded her of their first meeting in the cave, when he had told her to get lost at the slightest disagreement.
She was not afraid. Instead, she felt an inexplicable hint of excitement.
She could not help but curl her lips into a smile. Although the curve was very slight, the two small dimples at the corners of her mouth could not be hidden as they sank in.
Chu Nanci saw it, and the darkness in his eyes deepened further. “You are very happy? Because he said he would come to your home to propose marriage? Ah Yin, do not forget, I am your fiancé.”
He was too enraged. The moment he thought about how he had endured Huaying’s probing gaze and waited for her the entire afternoon, only to see her chatting and laughing with another man in the end, a violent surge rose straight to his head.
Even his suppression of the fox tail weakened along with it. The long tail extended out, and together with his hand, it clasped Jiang Yin’s wrist. The tip of the tail and his fingers rubbed against her palm with force, as if trying to wipe away some detestable trace.
Jiang Yin felt both ticklish and slightly pained. After the ointment was rubbed away, the wound on her palm began to seep with blood again. Ignoring the pain, she curved her eyes and let out a soft laugh.
“Brother Huaian, are you jealous?”
Chu Nanci suddenly froze. Even the fox tail that had been gently covering the wound on the girl’s palm stiffened for a few breaths.
Jealous?
Why would he be jealous? That was something only lovers would do. Although he kept claiming to be Jiang Yin’s fiancé, that identity was false to begin with. He stayed by her side only because she could bring him pleasure, help his spiritual power recover, and allow his injuries to heal sooner.
Yet the current situation was the complete opposite. Not only had he not recovered, he had instead inexplicably entered a rut because of her strangeness. In order to suppress his uncontrollable tail, he had even suffered backlash, making his injuries worse. Not to mention that at this moment, he did not feel the slightest bit of pleasure, only a heart full of violent intent to kill.
The near extinction of the nine-tailed fox was engraved within the inheritance of his bloodline. Everything that made him unhappy, whether object or person, should be destroyed.
The fox tail slowly moved toward the girl’s fragile neck, at times brushing against it with lingering attachment, at times wanting to tighten around it.
Both impulses came from Chu Nanci’s own heart, clashing and contending with each other. The injured tail was drenched in blood, which in his view stained the clothes at Jiang Yin’s chest red.
The scene those men in front of the brothel had prayed to see when she fell into the water now appeared entirely before his eyes. A certain heat in his lower abdomen became difficult to suppress. The fox tail slid downward, nearly burrowing into the front of her clothing, before he struck it away with a slap.
Jiang Yin could not see the hidden fox tail. She only felt a gust of wind sweep past her ear, and the young man’s hand pressed firmly against the pillar beside her face.
Oh… a wall slam!
Her small face flushed slightly, and she explained in a soft voice, “The rules of the Huameng Tower competition were changed today. Only two people will be eliminated, and the participants were ranked by strength. I came in last, so the others wanted to surround me. Lin Yueying… the female physician from the medical hall before, she said she has a way to win. I only spoke a few words with Xie Yunlin to buy her time. I absolutely did not give him any kind of hint.”
“And I wasn’t in a hurry to leave because I was afraid you would hurt him. Among the participants this time, there is someone extremely sensitive to demonic aura. You carry a demonic curse. I was afraid he would mistake you for a demon and attack you. I was worried you might get hurt.”
“Brother Huaian, I’ve said it before. In my heart, there is only you. Everyone else, whether it’s Young Master Xie, Second Young Master Xie, or Hero Xie, in my eyes, none of them can compare to Xie Huaian. To me, they are no different from the countless people in this world. But Xie Huaian is different. To me, Xie Huaian is the best man in all the world, the one I want to spend my life with.”
She had no experience in love, but she had not read all those novels for nothing. Whether it was men or women, jealousy came down to a lack of security. At times like this, she had to firmly tell him that he was the only one.
The love confession spoken in the girl’s soft and gentle voice should have been pleasant to hear, yet as Chu Nanci listened to her saying “Xie Huaian” over and over again, the gloom in his heart did not lessen but instead deepened.
He did not want to hear her call another man’s name.
With such a voice, why could she not call him like that?
He swallowed the surge of blood in his throat and suddenly lifted a smile. “Alright then. Come back to the room with me.”
“I…” Seeing that the young man was determined to stay in that room, Jiang Yin bit her lip and steeled herself. “Fine. Let’s go back to the room!”
What was the big deal? So what if it was a themed lovers’ room? As long as she avoided those mechanisms, she could just sleep and rest normally!
She could not keep refusing the target of her strategy over such a trivial matter and end up affecting her favorability.
Jiang Yin followed the young man into the famous Tender Affection Room from the original text, her heart filled with unease.
Along the way, her mind was full of the scenes described in the book about this room.
After the main story ended, the author had written extra chapters. In them, it was said that after the male and female leads got married, they came to Lin’an City, where they first consummated their relationship, for their honeymoon, and stayed in a room named Tender Affection.
It was called a single room, but it occupied the entire sixth floor. Just the beds alone included a waterbed, tiered couches, and a massive bed that was three meters wide. Aside from the main bedroom, it also came with a kitchen, a rooftop, a terrace, a hot spring pool, a swing, and other facilities. The lakeside window was fitted with an entire wall of glazed mirror, like a modern floor-to-ceiling window.
It was the kind that was one-sided. From inside the room, one could see outside, but from outside, nothing inside could be seen.
Not to mention the endless variety of small mechanisms throughout the room, clearly designed for men and women to do that kind of thing.
No wonder the main story of this book was only four hundred thousand words, yet the extra chapters alone were nearly one hundred thousand words. By the end, the male and female leads had not even left this room.
One could imagine just how powerful this room was.
Although the room looked fairly proper on the surface, Jiang Yin could not help but let her imagination run wild. She had not even been inside for half a minute before her cheeks turned as red as if they had been steamed by heat.
Everything she looked at made her flustered, so she could only turn her head to look for the young man who was closing the door.
The young man was hanging a lock on the door. The iron surface of the lock was engraved with runes, clearly not ordinary.
If she remembered correctly, that kind of rune shaped like a horn symbol was a soundproofing spell, right? Then this lock should be the soundproof lock mentioned in the book. Once hung inside, it could isolate all sound between the inside and outside of the room.
When did he buy that?
Jiang Yin froze for a moment, then suddenly reacted.
Something was not right. Why did he buy that?
“Brother Huaian, there’s only our room on the sixth floor. There’s no need to hang a soundproof lock, right?”
Chu Nanci’s gaze did not change. His slender fingers neatly fastened the lock. “There is a need. I do not want to be disturbed.”
Jiang Yin tugged at the ribbon of her ru skirt at her chest. “Alright, as you wish. I’ll go take a bath first.”
For some reason, ever since downstairs, she had felt as if there was a faint smell of blood on her body. Her chest also felt sticky and uncomfortable, as if it had been smeared with blood.
Fortunately, this room was large enough, and there were several places to bathe. Aside from the large bath pool in the center, there was another small corner with a bathtub, surrounded by rose-red gauze curtains that could barely serve as a cover.
She had left her bundle at the Xue family’s small courtyard in Sanshan Village. After arriving in Lin’an City, she had been busy participating in the competition and had not bought any spare clothes, so she could only pick out a set with the most fabric from the clothes prepared in the room.
Jiang Yin was just about to take the clothes and go bathe, but when she turned around, she walked straight into the young man’s chest. He had no idea how long he had been standing behind her.
The scent of blood at the tip of her nose seemed even stronger now. Combined with the heat unique to a man’s body, it made her eyelashes tremble slightly. “What’s wrong?”
Chu Nanci lowered his eyes to look at her trembling lashes. He bent down, lowering his head, his voice growing deeper as he drew closer to her. “Ah Yin, don’t you want to know what it is that I do not want to be disturbed?”
Jiang Yin shook her head. “What is it…”
Chu Nanci’s hand suddenly gripped her chin, stopping its movement. His well-defined fingers then cupped her face, his broad palm almost covering half of it as he effortlessly lifted her head.
He did not answer.
He only lowered his head and precisely captured those rosy lips that had caused the restless heat within him. With a force that allowed no refusal, he held them between his lips and teeth, grinding harshly against them.
Jiang Yin’s pupils contracted sharply in shock, her breathing halted in fright.
‘Wait…’
‘This is way too sudden!!!’