Summer weather could change in an instant. A sudden gale swept through, knocking countless bamboo branches to the ground.
Fortunately, Qin Xiao had already taken Qinghe around and familiarized her with the surroundings. Just beyond the back wall was a mountain spring. He had carved out a small pool to collect the water.
The bottom was lined with smooth pebbles, and the walls were neatly stacked with stones. The spring water was crystal clear. A few bamboo leaves floated on the surface like tiny boats.
The rainstorm arrived without warning. After washing the Frostheart Grass, Qinghe followed behind Qin Xiao as he carried buckets of water back home. Shielding herself from the bean-sized raindrops with one hand, she soon ran ahead of him.
Her lotus-purple skirt billowed outward like flower petals in the wind. Her petite figure darted through the lush greenery, like a celestial maiden who had wandered into the mortal world.
A smile tugged at Qin Xiao’s lips.
Only he knew that what lay beneath those flowing robes was even more beautiful than the scene before him.
In the kitchen, Qin Xiao boiled water, scalded the chicken, and plucked its feathers.
Nearby, Qinghe pounded herbs with a mortar and pestle. Green medicinal juice filtered through a piece of gauze.
“Keep the giblets,” Qinghe said as she hurried to the chopping board and rescued the chicken innards he had intended to throw away. “They’re delicious stir-fried.”
It wasn’t that Qin Xiao didn’t know they were edible.
The problem was that chicken intestines were troublesome to clean, and there wasn’t much meat on them. He simply couldn’t be bothered.
Since Qinghe liked them, he let her do as she pleased.
Soon, the chicken was simmering away in a pot.
With nothing else to do for the moment, Qinghe looked at him and said, “Take off your shirt. I’ll apply the medicine for you.”
Qin Xiao’s chest was broad and solid, his abdominal muscles sharply defined, like jade painstakingly carved by a master craftsman. Every contour seemed to conceal explosive strength.
Standing there, he resembled an iron tower, steady and imposing.
The cloth soaked in Frostheart Grass juice swept across the red rash on his back, leaving streaks of green medicine behind.
Qin Xiao immediately felt relief. The skin that had burned and itched for days suddenly turned cool, and the irritation gradually faded away.
“How do you know anything about medicine?” he asked. “Weren’t you a maid?”
How did a maid know herbal remedies?
Qinghe fanned the moisture from his skin with a palm-leaf fan.
“Besides maids and old servant women, there was also an apprentice to one of the manor’s female physicians living in the same courtyard. I learned a little from her.”
“I don’t know much, but one time I accompanied my mistress on an outing. She was injured by Fire Hemp Vine, and I watched the physician gather herbs to treat it. I remembered it very clearly.”
Qin Xiao nodded.
“A few days ago, I was hunting in the mountains. I spent hours crouching in a tree, and that tree happened to be covered in the Fire Hemp Vine you mentioned. I got pricked by it, and my back has been itching ever since.”
After a pause, he asked, “By the way, did you apply medicine to your feet and back today?”
As he spoke, his Adam’s apple bobbed.
After sleeping through the night, the medicinal powder must have rubbed off already.
“Do you… want me to help?”
The wound was on her back. Applying medicine herself couldn’t be easy.
The tips of Qinghe’s ears turned red.
She softly replied, “Alright.”
Her voice was quiet, yet it carried clearly through the sound of the rain.
Unlike the previous night when she had been completely bare, Qinghe kept her dudou on as she sat on a wooden stool and let Qin Xiao apply the medicine.
She had no idea that behind her, Qin Xiao’s hand trembled so badly that medicinal powder spilled all over the floor.
When it came time to treat her injured feet, Qinghe reached for her clothes.
“I can do my feet myself.”
“No. I’ll do it.”
Qin Xiao pressed a hand to her shoulder and gently but firmly sat her back down. Squatting before her, he grasped her ankle and removed her shoes.
Qinghe bit her lower lip until it was covered with tiny teeth marks.
The hand around her ankle felt unbelievably hot.
Her toes curled unconsciously.
The man was still shirtless. From her angle, she could see the clean, sharp lines at his waist. Every movement revealed muscles in his arms as rugged as carved stone.
The veins on his neck carried a fierce strength.
Yet his touch as he applied the medicine was remarkably gentle. He didn’t hurt her at all.
When he finished, Qin Xiao looked up.
At that exact moment, her lower lip slipped free from between her teeth, and color quickly returned to it.
Moist and glistening.
Like a perfectly ripe fruit, hiding sweet, juicy flesh beneath its delicate skin.
Qin Xiao suddenly felt parched.
Why had he bought her in the first place?
Wasn’t it because he wanted to live like a prince and enjoy being served?
How had he ended up serving her instead?
If he didn’t collect a little interest, he felt he was cheating himself.
When his hot lips, accompanied by the rough tickle of his beard, brushed against hers, Qinghe’s eyes flew wide open.
Those grape-like eyes were filled with disbelief.
The touch could hardly be called a kiss.
It ended as soon as it began.
Qin Xiao stood up and scratched the back of his head.
His voice was hoarse, as if sand were scraping through his throat.
“I… I’ll go wash the giblets. Get dressed and put your shoes on.”
The tall figure practically fled through the doorway.
Qinghe swung her feet lightly and pressed her fingers to her tingling lips.
Meanwhile, upon entering the kitchen, Qin Xiao looked at the plate of chicken giblets and suddenly realized he had given himself another troublesome chore.
The rain came quickly and left just as quickly.
The sun emerged from behind the clouds once more, and the air was filled with the fresh scent of earth and greenery.
Qinghe carried clothes to the pool to wash them.
Beside the water sat an enormous bluestone slab. She had no idea how Qin Xiao had managed to haul it there.
Most farming families only ate two meals a day during the agricultural off-season.
Qin Xiao’s household had no such rule.
His tall frame couldn’t tolerate skipping meals.
His life was simple. He hunted for money and used it to buy grain and cloth.
Even when a trip into the mountains yielded no game, he never returned empty-handed.
Whenever he spotted useful plants, he gathered them.
As a result, he had accumulated quite an impressive collection of wild spices.
When Qinghe prepared to stir-fry the chicken giblets, Qin Xiao produced several cloth bags and laid them before her.
“This is star anise. This is bay leaf. Cinnamon bark, wild mountain peppers, Sichuan peppercorns. See if any of them are useful.”
If he were cooking for himself, he would never eat organ meat.
He didn’t know how to combine spices properly, and whatever he made always ended up smelling unpleasantly gamey.
Qinghe stared at the little bags spread across the table.
Her eyes sparkled.
“These are all wonderful ingredients. With these, Young Master Qin can eat anything he wants, and I can make it.”
The moment the words left her mouth, she realized she had once again referred to herself as “this servant.”
She immediately glanced nervously at Qin Xiao’s expression.
Qin Xiao hadn’t even noticed.
What he had noticed was that ever since he defended her before his mother that morning, she no longer spoke in a timid, fearful manner.
Her voice was clear and bright, carrying her genuine emotions without restraint.
It sounded wonderful.
“Then they’re yours now. I used to save them up and sell them, but drying and sorting them is a lot of work, and they don’t fetch much money anyway. If you like them, we’ll keep them for ourselves from now on.”
“Alright.”
Qinghe had already begun selecting spices.
“Young Master Qin, don’t we have a vegetable garden? If we had garlic shoots, scallions, and ginger, the dishes would be even better.”
Qin Xiao had only recently returned to the village and bought the house left behind by an old hunter.
He often spent several days in the mountains at a time.
How could he possibly tend a garden?
By the time he came back, the vegetables would probably be dead.
Whenever he wanted greens, he bought them from villagers. Sometimes his mother would give him some.
Now that Qinghe mentioned it, he suddenly felt that establishing a vegetable garden wasn’t a bad idea.
After all, there was someone at home now who could take care of it.
At some point, he had already begun thinking that this woman was meant to stay and live with him.
He had completely forgotten that he originally had no intention of marrying her so soon.
“Then I’ll start digging this afternoon,” he said. “We’ll buy seeds in a few days and plant them. The things you mentioned grow quickly.”
Garlic shoots and scallions could be harvested within a month.
It was also the perfect season to plant autumn radishes and cabbage, which would save money on vegetables during the New Year.
Qin Xiao was a man of action.
That very afternoon, after lunch, he shouldered a hoe and headed outside.
Near the house, beneath the bamboo grove, was an empty patch of land.
No bamboo grew there, nor any trees.
It was perfect for cultivation.
Qinghe didn’t stay idle either.
She picked stones out of the soil and gathered dead branches to burn into ash.
Qin Xiao watched her fair, delicate hands reach into the dirt as she lifted mud-covered rocks.
Various unidentified insects crawled out from beneath them.
Not once did she show disgust.
Wherever he dug, she followed behind collecting stones.
For three straight days, the two of them looked very much like a farming couple, the man tilling the fields while the woman worked alongside him.
Qin Xiao was immensely satisfied.
Who said beautiful women couldn’t work?
Why choose one or the other when you could have both?
On the fourth day, Qin Xiao finished preparing six vegetable beds.
After splitting bamboo stalks, he began building a fence.
Qinghe bent down and gathered a bundle of prepared bamboo strips.
Just as she straightened up, the bamboo slipped from her hands and scattered across the ground.
“Hiss…”
Qin Xiao immediately dropped his machete and hurried over.
Grabbing her hand, he found blood welling from a cut on her pink fingertip.
The bamboo must have sliced her skin.
Qin Xiao frowned.
Over the past few days, calluses had already begun forming on her palms.
Those soft pink calluses looked strangely out of place on such delicate hands.
Something clenched painfully around his heart.
“Does it hurt? Come on, let’s bandage it. Stop working. Your hands are already peeling.”
“It’s really nothing.”
Qinghe smiled.
“My hands have only become soft during the last two years. Before that, when I did rough labor, they were much rougher than this.”
She wanted very much to prove that she wasn’t as fragile as she looked.
At that moment, her cheeks were flushed pink from the heat.
Damp strands of hair clung obediently to her rosy skin.
Qin Xiao licked his lips.
Holding her injured finger, he squeezed out the dirty blood and lowered his head slightly.
Then he placed the wounded fingertip into his mouth.
The warm, wet sensation made Qinghe gasp softly.
She instinctively tried to pull her hand back.
“Mmm… Young Master Qin, my hands are dirty…”
“They’re not.”
His voice was low and hoarse.
His gaze remained fixed on her startled, deer-like eyes while his fingers continued holding hers.
Their eyes met.
At that instant, it felt as though sparks flashed between them.
A crackling sound exploded through their minds.
Qin Xiao leaned forward slightly.
One rough hand settled on her slender waist.
His gaze slowly lowered to her slightly parted lips.
Ever since that brief touch before, he had never truly kissed her.
Only heaven knew how often he thought about that softness while tossing and turning at night.
How could a woman’s lips be so soft?
Softer than a newborn rabbit.
Their breaths mingled.
The tips of their noses touched.
He was only moments away from tasting those soft lips.
“Big Brother! Big Brother!”
A voice suddenly called from the gate.
It was Qin Yue, the second son of the Qin family.
The shout shattered the intimate atmosphere beneath the bamboo grove.
The two hurriedly pulled apart.