“There is a red mole hidden within the young master’s brow.” The owner of that jade-like finger teased Zhao Si’s dense eyebrows through the gauze, gently touching the slightly raised red speck hidden just beneath her brow.
Zhao Si raised her lips and replied without hesitation, “Perhaps it was dotted by Milady in a past life.”
“Why dot it?” Amusement laced the owner’s voice.
Zhao Si answered half-jokingly and half-seriously, “Perhaps to make it easier for Milady to find someone.”
“Find what kind of person?” The owner’s voice grew clear and bright—so clear that, even through the gauze curtain, Zhao Si could guess that her mood was quite pleasant.
“A destined lover.” Zhao Si stepped back half a step, slightly widening the distance between herself and that jade finger, and bowed. “The immortal’s voice is wondrous, and Zhao Si dares not be presumptuous. Please, immortal, go ahead!”
“You are actually telling me to leave?” The person on the palanquin was surprised by Zhao Si’s behavior.
Yet Zhao Si replied gently, “I must. Zhao Si is unworthy of Milady.”
“Why? Does this world allow people to talk marriage simply by exchanging a few words? Besides, you do not even know my name, which is why you falsely claim unworthiness. What if you were to learn otherwise? Hm.” After a crisp laugh escaped the palanquin, a teasing yet slightly reproachful instruction drifted out: “Remember this: this handmaiden’s name is Yun Qing.”
Detecting the faint hint of resentment in Yun Qing’s words, Zhao Si seized the moment to ask, “Yun Qing? Qing as in lightness?”
“Yun Qing! Qing as in falling!” Yun Qing answered with triumphant pride.
Zhao Si said casually, “Is that so? Milady’s name is rather ostentatious.”
“Is that so? Then why not step up onto the palanquin and converse?”
As if to show Zhao Si just how ostentatious the person on the palanquin truly was so ostentatious that even the flowing clouds seemed to tumble down a soft, fair hand decisively grabbed Zhao Si’s collar and dragged her onto the palanquin.
Zhao Si was stunned. She had never seen such a bold and unrestrained woman, nor had she ever imagined that one day she would be forcibly dragged onto a palanquin by a woman. Even less could she have imagined that this woman dragging her would be so breathtakingly beautiful that she would momentarily forget how to breathe.
“Indeed, it is as if the clouds and rain are tumbling down.” Zhao Si could not help but voice her inner thoughts.
That pair of bright, shifting eyes of Yun Qing fell straight into her gaze.
“It seems the young master is thinking of becoming Yun Qing’s skirt-bound subject.” Yun Qing pointed out the frivolity in Zhao Si’s words.
“I”
Zhao Si flushed a deep red, but the sedan palanquin, which had been stationary, suddenly lurched into motion.
“Return to the pavilion first.”
Yun Qing gave instructions to those outside the palanquin. Her tone was as tender as water, yet the words themselves leaked an absolute, unquestionable authority.
“No!” Still remembering her pressing business of welcoming a bride, Zhao Si grabbed Yun Qing’s sleeve. “I still have a wife to go marry!”
“Oh, the young master is still dwelling on finding a wife?” Yun Qing teased, glaring at Zhao Si with a charming smile. Her shoulder abruptly dropped, allowing the silk robes gathered at her front to collapse rapidly down from her neck like a snow-capped mountain of jade giving way.
And so, after witnessing Yun Qing’s slender, graceful neck, Zhao Si inadvertently caught sight of an entirely different kind of scenery.
Exquisite collarbones, snow-white shoulders, paired with the gentle rise and fall concealed beneath a bright red stomacher.
Zhao Si panicked.
Although desire stirred from the heart, in the blink of an eye, a wave of heat surged from her chest straight to the roots of her neck. Caught in a delirious daze, Zhao Si instinctively and hastily released her grip, her burning eyes not knowing where to cast themselves.
Until Yun Qing pulled her hand over, pressed it against her own body, and murmured seductively, “They all say the land of tenderness is a hero’s grave. Yun Qing has a fine treasure she wishes for the young master to appreciate; I wonder if the young master would be willing…”
“Ah, I no!” Feeling as though she had touched a live wire, Zhao Si tried once more to withdraw her hand.
Yun Qing, as if having discovered a most amusing game, refused to let her escape.
“Just now you were still thinking of welcoming a wife? How is it that, in the blink of an eye, you don’t even dare look at a woman? Could it be—”
Giggling, Yun Qing slid her hand toward Zhao Si’s lap.
Zhao Si was alarmed. Reaching out to protect her vital area, she rolled over, intending to leap out of the carriage. Zhao Si’s mind was racing with the thought that a beauty’s favor was simply too heavy to bear.
Unexpectedly, right as Zhao Si reached out, four wooden panels emerged from the sedan palanquin, trapping her and Yun Qing alone within the carriage.
“You” Zhao Si broke out in a cold sweat of anxiety.
Yun Qing’s ten fingers had already climbed up onto her shoulders.
As Yun Qing’s body heat pressed flush against her chest, carrying waves of faint fragrance, Zhao Si closed her eyes.
At the same time, Zhao Si tasted the scent of rouge between her lips.
It was a faint, elusive fragrance of peach blossoms.
And… the chill carried by the earlier rainwater began to register upon Zhao Si’s shoulders.
“Husband!” Yun Qing murmured at the opportune moment.
“Mmph!” Zhao Si let out a muffled groan, losing all sense of time and place.
Until she was pinned beneath Yun Qing.
“Was the husband’s chest injured previously?”
“I don’t remember.”
“It must have been. Let Yun Qing take a look for the husband.”
“What?”
“Rip”
The sound of tearing silk suddenly rang out, and Zhao Si was just about to praise Yun Qing for her formidable strength.
When another sound of tearing fabric echoed from her own body.
“Young master, you”
Yun Qing’s voice was filled with shock.
Zhao Si hurriedly opened her eyes, only to see that both above and below, the reality was entirely different from what she had previously imagined.
To be precise, she was no eunuch.
She was a woman.
Good heavens!
Remaining in the lower position, Zhao Si locked eyes in mutual astonishment with Yun Qing, whose stomacher was half-unfastened. After staring blankly for a long moment, she was startled to hear Yun Qing curse with a vulgar oath:
“Scoundrel. Hunting birds all day only to be pecked by a bird. I, Yun Qing, actually took a liking to a counterfeit fake.”
“There’s no need to complain.” Zhao Si grasped Yun Qing’s five fingers, preparing to bid her farewell. After all, she oh no, she still had a wife in Taohuawu waiting to be welcomed.
As for that wife?
While pondering how she ought to make things clear with the betrothed bride arranged by her mother so as not to ruin her future, Zhao Si quietly waited for Yun Qing who had just caught a fake man to throw her out of the carriage.
Thinking thus, Zhao Si’s expression eased slightly.
Unexpectedly, Yun Qing suddenly reached out to interlace her fingers with Zhao Si’s, pulling the distance between them even closer.
“You actually managed to think of such things.” Yun Qing asked with smoldering passion, making Zhao Si’s already blushing face flush several shades redder.
“I” Zhao Si’s throat was slightly hoarse, thinking to herself that she hadn’t been thinking of anything at all.
Yun Qing had already pulled her fingertips back again, guiding them toward the fastening cord behind her own neck.
“Enough, enough! It must be that Yun Qing owed you in a past life. Little young master, you truly are Yun Qing’s little nemesis. In this life, Yun Qing is going to stick with you. No matter what happens, Yun Qing will never be separated from you again.”
“This… this isn’t appropriate, is it?” Zhao Si blankly met Yun Qing’s gaze, completely at a loss as to how their relationship could transition to such intimacy within a few breaths.
Yun Qing leaned down to share an intimacy with Zhao Si, and then, as smoothly as flowing water, guided Zhao Si so that the two of them became completely bare to one another.
“Rip, rip”
A continuous sound of tearing silk accompanied by a rushing wave of fragrance left Zhao Si, cornered within the palanquin, with nowhere to hide and no way to escape.
In the end, Zhao Si chose to close her eyes and accept her fate, only to hear Yun Qing breathing softly by her no, by her ear, teasing with a chuckle:
“Why does the young master not dare look at me? Could it be you think my appearance is not as pleasing as your own? Or perhaps…”
Yun Qing drew out her tone, her voice laced with a grievance-tinted care.
“Or perhaps the little young master is still thinking of that little bride waiting for you to go welcome her?”