A few days ago, in order to seduce him, Ji Shu had lounged around her room in nothing but a thin nightgown, half-hidden and half-revealed—her intentions had been plain for all to see.
Today, as they set out, she seemed like a completely different person—clad in a crimson fighting outfit, cinched tightly at the waist, making her slender waist look delicate enough to encircle in one hand. She was sharp and striking, like a short blade drawn from its sheath.
Chu Wusu’s gaze involuntarily lingered on her waist for a moment.
“Miss Ji, it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen you.” Bai Ruoyao smiled, but her eyes carried a hint of wary scrutiny. Lately, she had vaguely sensed that Wusu had grown much colder toward her, and after much thought, the reason could only be Ji Shu.
“Wusu confined you to your room for your own good,” Bai Ruoyao said unhurriedly. ”You must remember that lesson and never forget your place.”
Confined?
Ji Shu’s heart stirred slightly, and she stole a discreet glance at Chu Wusu—so that was the story he’d told Bai Ruoyao?
She gave a soft snort, so faint and brief that only someone standing close could catch that little note of displeasure.
Chu Wusu, fanning himself, casually curled his lips as if he hadn’t heard, not even lifting an eyelid.
“I’ll remember Miss Bai’s words.” Ji Shu curved her lips, her tone impeccably obedient.
Then she smoothly changed the subject: “I’m the young master’s maidservant. My duty, of course, is to serve the young master well.”
With that, she winked at Bai Ruoyao, looking the picture of a well-behaved girl who would “do exactly as you say,” so innocent that she seemed truly oblivious to the barb hidden in the words.
Bai Ruoyao was displeased. Was this Ji Shu genuinely clueless or just pretending? What she’d clearly meant was for Ji Shu to stop seducing Wusu! But all she could do was smile in return: “As long as you remember.”
Ji Shu smiled with crinkled eyes, as if she truly hadn’t caught the implication, and obediently retreated behind Chu Wusu, quiet and still, her breathing softened.
Chu Wusu found it amusing and gave her an extra glance.
The three of them traveled light, heading toward South Mountain.
As evening approached, with no inn to be found in the wilderness, they could only find a cave to shelter in.
They had planned to just eat some dry rations, but Bai Ruoyao noticed mushrooms growing nearby and picked some. “Wusu, would you like some roasted mushrooms?”
Chu Wusu glanced at the sorry-looking mushrooms and declined without much interest.
Ji Shu, however, looked them over more carefully and noticed that among these mushrooms, a few resembled ordinary edible ones but carried a mild hallucinogenic poison.
She lowered her eyes, her long, thick lashes drifting down, perfectly concealing the flash of light that passed through them.
“Miss Bai, since the young master doesn’t want any, could you share some with me?” Ji Shu asked softly, her tone gentle, as if casually offering her a way out.
Though Bai Ruoyao disliked Ji Shu, she breathed a sigh of relief—at last she wouldn’t have to face the awkwardness of being refused. “Of course.”
But Chu Wusu grew suspicious: When did this little fox become so kind-hearted?
Still, he didn’t speak up to stop them.
Before long, however, he regretted it.
After eating the mushrooms, both women’s eyes gradually grew glazed and unfocused, their steps unsteady, their bodies swaying.
The corner of Chu Wusu’s eye twitched, and he hurried forward to catch Ji Shu, who was teetering dangerously, nearly toppling into the campfire.
Ji Shu tilted her delicate little face up, head cocked, her gaze hazy and unfocused, as if trying to make out the identity of the person before her through a thin layer of mist.
Suddenly, her eyes lit up.
Chu Wusu thought, so she’s finally recognized who I am?
“Hm? I-it’s the Big Mushroom!”
……
Right. Clearly not.
Ji Shu threw her arms around him in delighted surprise, her little hands stroking up and down as if she couldn’t bear to let go, truly enamored with this “Big Mushroom.”
Chu Wusu’s temple twitched—she was pressed far too close, that soft, full place rubbing snugly against his chest.
So soft……
Bai Ruoyao, who had been swaying and spinning in circles nearby, noticed the two of them and stumbled over. Though her eyes were still glazed, her subconscious was already reaching out to tug at Ji Shu, glaring at her fiercely: “Don’t touch him! Let go, now!”
Under the pulling, Ji Shu only clung tighter to Chu Wusu, like a kitten refusing to release its claws: “No, not leaving!”
Chu Wusu was already restraining the faint restlessness her soft body had unwittingly stirred in him. Before he could push her away, Ji Shu seemed to have been yanked too hard.
Her porcelain-white arms suddenly wrapped around his neck. Rising on tiptoe, she aimed for his thin lips and pressed against them—kissing and pecking without any technique at all, murmuring incoherently between their lips: “Not leaving…… mine……”
Chu Wusu’s motion to push her away abruptly froze.
Those two soft lips ground gently against his, hazy and burning hot. Before he could come back to his senses, a warm, soft touch inadvertently brushed past—
His fingertips clenched sharply, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He held back, and held back again, until at last he gave up resisting entirely.
He seized her wildly twisting waist in one arm and pulled her hard against himself, prying open her unruly lips, plunging deeper with the air of a desire long suppressed, finally unleashed.
Her unique scent filled his senses. He plundered at will, entangling without pause, until he forced from her a muffled, broken whimper.
Bai Ruoyao panicked—even with her mind long since turned to mush, the fury burning in her chest was all too real. Throwing caution aside, she pounced forward, reaching out to strike Ji Shu.
Chu Wusu caught it in the corner of his eye, but his lips never paused. While continuing to deepen the kiss relentlessly, he lazily flicked a finger—a stream of qi shot precisely into Bai Ruoyao’s sleep acupoint.
The world finally fell silent.
Her body crumpled softly to the ground, while the person in Chu Wusu’s arms remained utterly oblivious, still clinging to him hazily, faint murmurs spilling from her lips.
The dim firelight flickered, and the cave held nothing but the ambiguous sounds of entwined lips, magnified in the silence.
By the time Ji Shu regained her senses, she was already lying in his embrace.
“Awake?”
Chu Wusu sat lazily on the ground with one leg bent, his large hand still resting at her waist, fingertips drifting over it in idle, absent strokes. The lingering passion had not yet faded from his phoenix eyes as he gazed down with a half-smile at Ji Shu nestled in his arms.
Ji Shu raised a hand to touch her slightly reddened lips, and her eyes suddenly welled with delight and shyness, as if she could hardly believe it.
“My lord, we……” Did we kiss?
Being thin-skinned after all, she swallowed the rest of the sentence as it reached the tip of her tongue—but those glistening, limpid eyes were plainly filled with the question she wanted to ask.
“Mm.”
He answered with a lazy sound, his voice low and husky, still carrying the lingering warmth of their intimacy—deep and heavy, like embers wrapped in the night wind, unbearably stirring.
“Young master…” She lifted her eyes to look at him, her every glance and brow brimming with charm, rippling out in delicate threads, transforming that once-innocent face into one bearing a beauty that belonged to a woman alone.
His gaze darkened, and a feeling of satisfaction—vague, hard to name—welled up in his heart. This was the look he had painted with his own hands.
His calloused fingertips slowly traced over her slightly reddened lips, the pads of his fingers brushing gently across them, as if tracing a mark that belonged to him.
“Be good, rest early.”