Yun Si woke from her dream to find her soft pillow damp with tears, her entire body burning with fever…
She pushed aside the embroidered quilt, taking a long time to calm down. Her slender fingers brushed the corner of her eye, wiping away the last teardrop.
In the dream just now, in the end, the man had stopped on his own…
Though Yun Si couldn’t clearly see the man’s eyes, she somehow understood the arrogance in his gaze.
A man with such eyes would disdain forcing anyone.
In the moment the man finally stopped, Yun Si felt his gaze break through layers of restraint and finally land on her face.
Could it be that these dreams weren’t the man’s doing?
Could it be… that the man in the dream was like her?
After this thought took root, Yun Si paid extra attention during her subsequent dreams. She gradually became certain that the man in the dream was also bound by some force.
The words she spoke with all her strength in the dream, the questions she asked—the man intimately entwined with her couldn’t hear them at all.
Sometimes, Yun Si lay against the man’s chest, feeling the vibrations within.
She reached out and pressed her hand against his neck, confirming from the vibrations in his throat that he was speaking… yet Yun Si couldn’t hear anything either.
Just as he couldn’t hear many of her earlier questions.
But their voices weren’t always inaudible to each other. The man’s words on the bed, the ones that made her blush and her heart race… Yun Si heard every single one clearly…
What words couldn’t be heard? What words could?
Yun Si tested this again and again in her dreams.
Yun Si: “I want to eat.”
The man showed no reaction.
—This sentence couldn’t be heard.
Yun Si: “Feed me some soup.”
The man’s chest trembled, as if startled by her words.
—This sentence could be heard.
“Alright, I’ll feed you soup.” The man’s voice held a hint of laughter, as though Yun Si had said something amusing.
A moment later, a maid entered carrying a soup bowl.
Yun Si nearly cried out in excitement!
For the first time! This was the first time she had seen another person in her dream!
The maid quietly brought over a bowl of dark plum soup, then gracefully withdrew. From start to finish, Yun Si didn’t see the maid’s face, but she clearly observed her attire, posture, and demeanor.
Indeed, her earlier guess that the man came from a prominent family was accurate—only such families could raise such exceptional maids.
Yun Si committed the maid she had seen to memory, her emotions surging. Though the clues were few, she was on the right track!
Even if she couldn’t leave this bedroom, she refused to be confined to the bed. She needed to do more, see more people, to uncover more clues.
Having seen the maid who delivered the soup, Yun Si had already achieved her goal. Unexpectedly, the man actually picked up the soup bowl and began feeding her spoonful by spoonful!
The man’s movements were quite clumsy.
The first spoonful knocked against Yun Si’s teeth, sending a sharp ache through her.
The second spoonful tilted, and a trickle of dark plum soup dripped from the corner of Yun Si’s lips.
Yun Si hurriedly reached to wipe it, but the man moved faster. A searing heat pressed against her lips—not his hand, but his mouth.
The sweet and sour dark plum soup flowed between their lips and teeth, and eventually, a trickle still escaped. The deep red liquid trailed slowly down her jade-white skin, seeping into the collar of her robe.
The man followed the deep red trail downward until his gaze was blocked by Yun Si’s collar.
In the next instant, the man grabbed Yun Si’s lapel, his gaze so fiery it seemed capable of melting her…
Yun Si woke from the dream, gasping for breath.
Her mouth was parched… the sensation of thirst from the dream persisted even after waking.
She lifted the bed curtain and saw the bright daylight outside, suddenly remembering she had only taken a brief nap in the afternoon.
The vexing dreams were becoming more frequent, not even sparing her during a short afternoon rest.
With a dry, raspy voice, Yun Si called for her maid: “Water…”
Lu Ya entered carrying a white porcelain pot with a round belly and slender neck. The pot had been chilled in ice, and cold droplets of condensation formed on its surface, looking refreshingly cool.
Lu Ya poured a cup and brought it to Yun Si’s lips.
“Miss, the kitchen just sent over some chilled plum soup. It will soothe your throat.”
In the sweltering summer heat, the chilled, tangy plum soup was most effective at quenching thirst and dispelling dryness.
Yun Si loved chilled plum soup best during summer. Lu Ya thought her mistress would be overjoyed to receive this cup of plum soup just when she was thirsty.
Unexpectedly, Yun Si’s expression changed immediately upon seeing the plum soup, and she pushed it away with her hand. “Take it away!”
“Huh?” Lu Ya was momentarily stunned.
Yun Si lowered her long, curved eyelashes, biting her lower lip, refusing to look at the cup of chilled plum soup.
The plum soup Lu Ya happened to bring reminded Yun Si, who had just emerged from the dream, once again of that vivid, sensual scene. The dark plum soup flowed down her fair neck, and the man extended his tongue…
Seeing Yun Si’s face flush crimson, Lu Ya hastily removed the plum soup.
Her mistress was so angry her face turned red!
“Mi… Miss, there’s no cold tea, only hot tea,” Lu Ya said cautiously.
Yun Si gave a soft hum. “Then hot tea it is.”
Lu Ya presented a cup of steaming hot tea, and Yun Si waited for it to cool slowly.
Lu Ya stole glances at her mistress, thinking how strange she was today. Waking from a nap on a sweltering summer day with a parched throat, yet not drinking chilled plum soup, instead waiting for hot tea…
Her mistress was truly unfathomable!
.
After repeated attempts in the dreams, Yun Si discovered a pattern. She learned what kind of words the other person in the dream could hear and what kind he could not.
Any words related to their identities were completely inaudible to him.
Other casual remarks might not be heard either; only one type of speech was guaranteed to be heard.
That was the intimate words between them, the kind that could bring them closer once spoken.
For example, if Yun Si said she wanted to eat, the man couldn’t hear her, but if she asked him to feed her soup, he could.
After discovering this pattern, Yun Si forced herself to say many similar things despite her embarrassment.
The dream moved according to her will; whatever she said would inevitably come true. For instance, if she said she wanted the man to feed her soup, then in the dream, he would surely feed her soup next.
To gather more clues from this, Yun Si tried various approaches. Even though she and the man had already done such intimate things, for some reason, small acts like feeding soup felt more intimate to Yun Si than what happened behind the bed curtains…
Suppressing her discomfort, Yun Si comforted herself by thinking she was seeking a way to end all this.
Once everything was over, life would return to normal.
She remained the dignified and graceful legitimate daughter of the prime minister’s household, meticulously nurtured by her parents. After marrying her cousin, she devoted herself to serving her husband, raising their children, and maintaining a harmonious relationship.
The man in the dream was evidently clever as well. As soon as Yun Si began her attempts, he grasped her intentions and cooperated with her.
In the subsequent dreams, the man’s words were sometimes audible and sometimes not, clearly indicating that he too was exploring the same matter.
Yun Si pressed her palm against the man’s chest, feeling the vibrations within his ribcage.
She couldn’t make out what he was saying—sentence after sentence, all of it inaudible to her…
Though Yun Si couldn’t hear his words, she could sense his growing agitation. The aura he emitted filled her with fear, as if he were suppressing a desire to destroy everything.
In the man’s embrace, Yun Si trembled like prey caught in the gaze of a natural predator.
Sensing her trembling, the man let out a soft, ambiguous chuckle. Rubbing his temple, his patience finally ran out.
“Let’s bathe together.”
Yun Si finally heard the man’s voice and looked up in astonishment.
Didn’t he know the rules of the dream?
Once such words were spoken, there was no turning back. The dreams that followed spiraled rapidly beyond anyone’s control, veering in a direction Yun Si could not accept…
She was going to bathe with the man…
Yun Si closed her eyes, unable to face what was to come.
But the dream clearly wouldn’t stop just because she shut her eyes. The man bent down and effortlessly lifted Yun Si into his arms.
With a gasp, Yun Si wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, afraid she might fall. As she moved, the light, soft sleeves of her gauzy robe slipped down to her shoulders, exposing her jade-like arms to the cool air.
When the man carried her out of the bedchamber, Yun Si gasped in surprise.
After dreaming for so long, this was the first time she had stepped outside the bedchamber!
She could actually leave the bedchamber now!
Forgetting her shyness, Yun Si opened her eyes wide, eager to see what lay beyond the bedchamber. But the next moment, disappointment washed over her—outside the bedchamber, everything was shrouded in thick white mist, and Yun Si could see nothing clearly.
“Where… where are you taking me?” Yun Si couldn’t help but ask. Weren’t they supposed to bathe together? Why had he carried her out of the bedchamber?
A moment later, Yun Si suddenly understood—the man was carrying her into a hot spring bath!
So the man didn’t use a bathtub for bathing; instead, he had built a bathhouse within his residence, channeling hot spring water into it.
Upon seeing the hot spring bath, Yun Si’s heart first leaped in shock, then sank heavily.
Based on the clues she had gathered earlier, Yun Si had already suspected a few households. But now, she ruled them all out—none of them had the financial means to construct such a hot spring bath.
Barefoot, the man ascended the white jade steps and placed Yun Si at the edge of the bath.
He reached toward Yun Si’s waist.
Yun Si looked down. The clothes she wore in the dream were the set she had worn most frequently lately.
Perhaps there was some truth to the saying that thoughts by day become dreams by night. Yun Si had brought her commonly worn clothes into the dream, along with the white jade belt buckle she had been wearing daily on her waist recently.
A slender belt woven with gold thread passed through the white jade belt buckle, accentuating Yun Si’s slender and supple waist.
This white jade belt buckle was a prize her cousin had won at a banquet a few days earlier. He had kept one for himself and gifted the other to her.
The pair of white jade belt buckles she shared with her cousin…
The man reached out, grasped them, effortlessly unfastened them, and tossed them aside.