Jin Ming heard a tearing sound and saw the erotic painting she had fearfully purchased after a long journey being torn apart by Yun Si. She hurriedly reached out to catch it, heart aching, trying to piece the two halves back together.
Jin Ming was also unmarried and knew nothing of relations between men and women. Accidentally glimpsing the erotic painting, she immediately let out a startled cry and covered her eyes.
“Miss! How can you look at such things?”
After seeing firsthand what the painting she had bought for her mistress depicted, Jin Ming was nearly frightened to tears.
Yun Si, seeing an erotic painting for the first time and just learning about such matters, was already unsettled. Jin Ming’s startled cry made Yun Si’s heart pound wildly.
As an unmarried young lady secretly viewing an erotic painting, she was already deeply ashamed.
The fact that her personal maid had also seen the painting she was secretly viewing multiplied her shame several times over.
Yun Si truly wished she could turn into a tiny ant and crawl into a crack in the ground.
Blushing with embarrassment, she snatched the torn painting and ripped it several more times. The shredded pieces fell like snowflakes. Yun Si turned her head away, refusing to look again, and instructed Jin Ming, “Go quietly and burn it.”
Jin Ming gathered the torn pieces, hid them in her sleeve, and secretly went to the small tea room. She lit the stove and burned them.
She carefully checked to make sure everything had turned to ashes before running back to her mistress’s chamber.
Seeing Jin Ming return, Yun Si quickly asked, “Did you burn it all?”
At Jin Ming’s nod, Yun Si let out a long sigh of relief and finally relaxed. “Let’s sleep now.”
Jin Ming blew out the lamp, but both mistress and maid lay awake in the darkness for a long time.
Tossing and turning in bed countless times, Yun Si whispered, “Jin Ming, are you asleep?”
Jin Ming quickly responded, “Is something the matter, Miss?”
Yun Si: “It’s nothing, I just can’t sleep and wanted to talk to you.”
After hesitating for a long while, Yun Si spoke in an extremely soft voice, unable to hold back her question: “Jin Ming, what was drawn in that painting… don’t you think it’s frightening?”
Jin Ming’s voice was equally soft: “It is a bit scary…”
Yun Si murmured in a barely audible tone: “How can men be like that?”
She thought to herself, Jin Ming was so frightened just by seeing a painting, but what she had seen in her dream was a living, breathing man.
A vivid, real man—his scorching breath spraying by her ear, his warmth continuously radiating onto her, holding her tightly in his embrace so she couldn’t escape.
That man was also different from what was depicted in the erotic painting. Besides having a slimmer waist and longer legs, there was one other part that…
Yun Si couldn’t help but wonder: Are most men like those in the erotic painting? Or are most like the man in her dream?
Well, since such a slim waist and long legs are uncommon, perhaps every part of the man in her dream was unusual…
Realizing what she was thinking, Yun Si abruptly covered her face with the brocade quilt, wrapping herself tightly. Only when she grew breathless from the stifling heat did she lift a corner and gasp for air.
Jin Ming had already fallen asleep. Although she had also been quite frightened today, she had far fewer worries on her mind than Yun Si.
Yun Si listened to Jin Ming’s steady breathing, her eyelids growing heavier and heavier. She hadn’t rested well for several days in a row, but every time she was about to fall asleep, it felt as if a string in her mind was plucked sharply, jolting her awake again.
Yun Si dared not sleep.
She was terrified of having that dream again after falling asleep.
Yun Si forced herself to stay awake all night, dozing off only to immediately wake herself up. This method proved effective—she didn’t dream at all until dawn when she rose from bed.
However, having barely rested all night, Yun Si looked utterly haggard, startling her maidservants.
Yun Si instructed her maidservants, “Apply some light makeup for me.”
But the light makeup couldn’t conceal Yun Si’s exhaustion. When she went to pay her morning respects to her mother, her mother looked at her with concern, “Did you not sleep well again?”
“Have you been taking the medicine prescribed by Doctor Xu on time?”
Under her mother’s loving gaze, Yun Si felt a lump in her throat, nearly on the verge of tears.
From childhood to now, she had always been sheltered under her mother’s wing, protected and cared for. Yun Si grew up carefree, never keeping any secrets from her mother.
Now, she had secrets even from her mother, and the guilt and torment overwhelmed her… For a moment, Yun Si even felt the urge to confess everything to her mother.
She thought, if she told her mother, her mother, who was so capable, would surely find a way!
Yet, in the end, Yun Si kept the secret firmly locked in her heart… The matter of the dreams was something she couldn’t bring herself to speak of, even to her dearest mother.
Yun Si pretended as if nothing was wrong. For the first time, she realized how well she had learned the lesson her aunt taught her—to keep her emotions hidden.
She smiled softly and cooed to her mother, “The medicine Doctor Xu prescribed is completely useless, and it’s so bitter! I don’t want to drink it anymore!”
“You… you’re already engaged, yet you still act like a child? Afraid of the bitterness of medicine.” Madam Zheng thought Yun Si was still refusing to take the medicine because of its bitterness, just as she had before.
“Fine, you’re still young and shouldn’t drink too much medicine anyway. I’ll inquire about some dietary remedies for sleep.”
“What kind of incense are you using now? First, replace the incense in your room with calming incense.”
“If you still can’t sleep, have Jin Ming or the others read a few pages to you before bed,” Madam Zheng instructed. “Don’t read by yourself at night—it’s bad for your eyes.”
The Chancellor’s Mansion was well-established, and Yun Si’s four personal maidservants—Jin Ming, Yinzhen, Bai Hao, and Lu Ya—were all around her age. They had grown up with her and had studied some books alongside her.
While not particularly scholarly, all four maidservants were literate and could read to Yun Si without issue.
Hearing her mother’s thoughtful instructions, Yun Si felt another lump in her throat, nearly shedding tears.
She nestled sweetly into her mother’s embrace, “I’ve made Mother worry about me… I’m fine, really.”
Yun Si couldn’t sleep well at night and had no appetite during the day, quickly growing thinner.
She had always been slender, but now she lost even more weight. Her chin grew sharper, her eyes larger, and her waist so slim it seemed one could encircle it with both hands, like a willow branch swaying in the spring breeze.
Her narrow shoulders and frail figure made anyone who saw her heart ache.
Yun Si’s clothes grew looser, and the summer dresses tailored just a while ago now hung loosely on her.
Seeing her daughter grow thinner day by day, Madam Zheng grew increasingly anxious, fearing Yun Si might have contracted some serious illness. “Call Doctor Xu to examine your pulse.”
Yun Si said petulantly, “I don’t want Doctor Xu to examine my pulse. The medicine he prescribed last time was both bitter and useless!”
Yun Si knew she was venting her anger unfairly. Her dreams had come on strangely, and it was not unusual for calming medicine to be ineffective.
But when Yun Si recalled how she had taken the calming medicine last time, expecting a dreamless night, only to be trapped in a dream from which she couldn’t wake up—lasting several times longer than the previous two dreams and experiencing far more within it…
Yun Si exclaimed angrily, “I’ll never take Doctor Xu’s medicine again!”
“Alright, alright,” Madam Zheng said, doting on her. Since Yun Si refused to see Doctor Xu, Madam Zheng requested a court physician to come examine her after his shift.
The court physician, separated by a curtain, asked Yun Si about her symptoms.
Yun Si told him she couldn’t sleep peacefully, had frequent dreams every night, and after taking calming medicine last time, she was trapped in nightmares and couldn’t wake up… She wanted the physician to prescribe a medicine that would prevent her from dreaming.
As the physician listened to Yun Si’s words, he grew increasingly astonished.
Just two days earlier, he had examined the Emperor, and the Emperor’s complaints were almost identical to Yun Si’s!
What a coincidence! How could the legitimate daughter of the Chancellor’s Mansion have the exact same symptoms as the Emperor?
The physician examined Yun Si’s pulse through a handkerchief and found her pulse remarkably similar to the Emperor’s as well.
How strange… Insomnia and frequent dreams weren’t contagious illnesses.
Besides, the Emperor and the legitimate daughter of the Chancellor’s Mansion had never met, so even if it were contagious, it couldn’t have passed between these two.
The physician thought to himself that this could only be a coincidence.
Naturally, he dared not breathe a word about the Emperor’s condition to anyone.
Without saying anything, he picked up his brush and swiftly wrote out a prescription identical to the one he had given the Emperor.