She placed the bucket on the tea table. She wanted to help Xiao Xian sit up, but fearing he would resent the intrusion, she opted for: “Sit up yourself.”
Xiao Xian hauled himself upright, leaning against the headboard. He looked down at his legs and said with deliberate provocation, “I can’t move.”
The implication was clear: he needed Li Miaomiao to remove his trousers.
Li Miaomiao followed his gaze. She had reached a point where she was essentially “a dead pig unafraid of boiling water”—shyness was no longer an option. She could help him undress, but she had to set some ground rules first. “I’ll help you take them off, but don’t you dare snap at me.”
Xiao Xian stared at her face, silent. Li Miaomiao took his silence as consent. She stepped to the bedside, lifted the quilt, and hovered her hands at his sides. After a fleeting moment of hesitation, she pulled his outer trousers down to his heels.
When she saw his white inner breeches, she shifted her gaze to his knees, bit her lip, and whispered, “I’m taking them off now.”
Xiao Xian watched the top of her head, his expression unreadable, a flicker of darkness hidden deep in his eyes. I want to see just how daring you really are.
When he didn’t reply, Li Miaomiao didn’t expect him to. This was the first time she had ever undressed a man, let alone that part of a man. Am I going to get a stye from this? she wondered.
Seeing her hands resting on his waist, lingering, Xiao Xian let out a cold, cynical laugh. Thin lips curling, he teased, “Too afraid to look?”
He actually called me out on it. Li Miaomiao’s grip tightened. Gritting her teeth, she yanked his inner breeches down. “What’s there to be afraid of? I’ll have to use them eventually, won’t I?”
She stared at that part for exactly one second before whipping her gaze away. But when she turned her eyes to his legs, she froze in place, her eyelashes trembling uncontrollably.
The man’s straight, long legs—from the roots of his thighs down to his calves—looked like a mass of centipede legs. They were covered in raised, knotted ridges of flesh. Where there weren’t ridges, the skin looked as if it had been pulverized and forced to regrow in a chaotic, mangled mess. The worst of it was at his knees; the flesh had caved in so severely that, even without looking closely, one could see the bone beneath a thin, translucent layer of skin.
She winced when she accidentally cut her finger on a kitchen knife. Seeing his legs mangled like this, she couldn’t imagine the sheer torture he endured daily. In that moment, her indignation dissolved into a heavy, suffocating pity—and a blossoming sense of confusion.
What on earth happened to him? Who could have done this to his knees?
Seeing her stunned into silence, Xiao Xian showed no surprise. He mocked her with a cold, biting tone: “If you’re scared, scram.”
Li Miaomiao’s mouth hung slightly open, but she couldn’t summon a single word to retort. She turned toward the tea table and reached for the towel soaking in the boiling water. She had always been terrified of pain, but this time, she didn’t flinch. Even as the searing water turned her hands bright red while she wrung the cloth out, she didn’t utter a sound.
Xiao Xian watched her from the side, a flicker of something profound crossing his eyes. She was clearly afraid of pain; that water was hot enough to blister her skin, yet she hadn’t let out a peep.
Li Miaomiao wrung the towel dry, shook it out, and draped it over his thigh.
The moment it touched him, Xiao Xian’s brows knitted in agony. He clutched the quilt, fighting to suppress the pain. Watching him grit his teeth in absolute silence, Li Miaomiao felt a pang of helplessness. She had never endured such suffering, and she couldn’t fathom the depths of his agony. She wondered, How can I help him ease this?
Noticing that the towel couldn’t cover his knees and that his other leg was still bare, she turned and sprinted out of the room.
The towel from the boiling water was scorching. Xiao Xian felt as if his thigh were being roasted over an open flame, the pain searing through to his very organs. He tightened his grip on the bedding and sneered toward the empty room.
“In the end, you were still afraid.”
Li Miaomiao returned, having grabbed all the remaining towels from the rack and a two-finger-wide block of wood from the kindling pile. She burst into the room. Xiao Xian looked at the towels and the wood in her hands, his eyes flashing with faint surprise.
Li Miaomiao soaked the other towels in the hot water, wrung them out, and covered his wounded legs completely. Only then did she offer the block of wood to Xiao Xian.
“If the pain becomes too much, bite on this.”
When he didn’t take it, she placed it beside him. Xiao Xian looked down at the wood, then up at her as she busily darted back and forth, changing the towels with earnest focus. A streak of mischief flickered in his eyes.
“My teeth aren’t in good shape.”
You weren’t complaining about your teeth when you were busy insulting me earlier! she thought.
Li Miaomiao only dared to think such retorts in the safety of her mind. He was already suffering enough with his mangled legs; she wouldn’t kick him while he was down.
“Then bite the quilt,” she suggested. It was the end he was lying on, after all; it wouldn’t smell like her.
As she spoke, she swapped out the cooling towels for fresh, steaming ones, carefully averting her eyes from that area. Despite the agonizing pain, Xiao Xian’s tone remained languid and leisurely. “If I bite the quilt, I’ll dirty it. I won’t have anything left to cover myself with.”
Li Miaomiao tossed the used towel into the bucket, catching the playful undertone in his words. She blinked, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Pretending to be utterly naive, she held her arm out in front of him and said softly: “The wood is too hard, and the quilt will get dirty. My arm is soft—do you want to bite that instead?”
The atmosphere had shifted, a strange kind of dark humor settling over the room, enough to distract Xiao Xian from the throbbing fire in his legs. He looked at her with a gentle, wandering gaze and said, quite casually:
“Alright.”
He reached out and seized her wrist, clearly intending to sink his teeth into her.
“In your dreams.”
Li Miaomiao yanked her hand back with force. It was only because Xiao Xian was weakened by his flare-up that she dared to play this game; had he been in peak condition, she wouldn’t have dreamed of putting her hand within his reach. Her wrist was still radiating heat from being submerged in the boiling water for so long.
Xiao Xian glanced at her arm and said, “A wife should follow her husband. My legs are in pain—shouldn’t you, as my wife, empathize?”
It was the first time since their wedding that she had heard him call her “wife,” and it was entirely because he was up to no good. Goosebumps erupted across her skin. She tucked her hands behind her back, rubbed her arms, and stared into his deep, gentle peach-blossom eyes.
With a smirk, she countered: “I’ve been soaking my hands in that boiling bucket countlessly just to change your towels. They say the husband should follow the wife’s lead—why don’t you empathize with me?”
“‘The husband follows the wife’s lead’?” Xiao Xian narrowed his eyes, repeating the phrase with a meaningful, drawn-out tone.
Li Miaomiao pursed her lips and stated with absolute confidence, “Since your legs aren’t convenient for travel, if I decide I want to take you out to see the world, you’ll have to follow me. So, what’s the problem with the wife leading?”
What a sharp tongue.
Xiao Xian suddenly laughed. “No problem at all. Thank you for your hard work, dear wife.”
He had a beautiful smile, complete with two small, dimples. Li Miaomiao had seen plenty of people, but this man was by far the most handsome; she found herself unwittingly bewitched by his grin. She waved her hand dismissively, “It’s no trouble, no trouble at all. It’s only right.”
As she spoke, the man’s voice turned cool and silky. “Since you know my legs are ‘inconvenient,’ if you ever have any… needs in the future, I’m afraid you’ll have to do it yourself.”
The smile on Li Miaomiao’s face froze instantly. Her eyelid twitched, she blinked rapidly, and then her brows furrowed in confusion. What did he just say? Do it yourself?
She knew his personality didn’t quite match his saintly appearance, but she never imagined he harbored such twisted humor. Seeing her expression crumble brought Xiao Xian an inexplicable sense of delight. He lifted a warm, pleasant smile: “Did you not hear me clearly, my dear? Shall I repeat myself?”
Li Miaomiao slapped her hand over his mouth, terrified he might spout more vulgarities. “No! I heard you. I heard you very clearly.”
The warmth of his breath against her palm felt electric, sending a tingling sensation up her arm. Xiao Xian didn’t push her hand away; instead, he parted his thin lips slightly against her skin. “Do you like it like this, wife?”
As his lips brushed her palm, Li Miaomiao felt the temperature of her hand spike—far hotter than the boiling water had ever been. She panicked. Staring at that handsome, lightly smiling face, her lips pressed together, and her ears turned a brilliant shade of red. She had no idea where to look.
Feeling toyed with and flustered, she just wanted to escape. She snatched her hand away, grabbed the wooden bucket, and bolted toward the door. Just as she reached it, she paused, turned around, and glared at him indignantly.
“I don’t like it, and I don’t have any needs!”
She turned to leave, took one step, then spun back around, biting her inner lip with a look of extreme annoyance.
“And another thing—I only don’t have needs for you.”
“Still pining for Lin Dalang?”