Chapter 138

The water in the bathtub was already half cold. Feeling the warm and delicate touch from the fingertips on his back, Xie Zheng's muscles in his shoulders and back unconsciously tensed. The back of his hand, which was resting on the edge of the bathtub, had light blue meridian bulges.

His head was still swollen and painful due to the alcohol. He could hear the hoarseness in her voice and answered with all his strength, "It doesn't hurt."

Fan Changyu ran his fingertips down along the scar on his back, lowered his eyes to look at the scar that was nearly half an inch wide, and said, "Of course it doesn't hurt now, but what about when it wasn't scabbed over?"

Xie Zheng lowered his eyes slightly, the candlelight cast a layer of faint warm light on his dark eyelashes, and the lines of his facial contours seemed to soften a little.

He seemed to be lost in thought, his long eyelashes casting a shadow on his eyelids. He only said, "It doesn't hurt when there's no scab."

Fan Changyu felt as if her heart was blocked by a ball of cotton, damp and humid. She raised her head and blinked, forcing back the sadness that welled up in her eyes. She couldn't bear to look at his whip-scarred back anymore, so she turned her head away and said two words hoarsely: "Liar."

She said in a hateful voice: "You tortured yourself into this state, aren't you afraid of dying on the battlefield? Aren't you still going to seek revenge on Wei Yan? Is this how you seek revenge?"

Xie Zheng was silent for a while before he slowly said, "The pain from the wounds on my body told me that I was still alive."

Fan Changyu was slightly stunned.

His voice was low and hoarse, and he chuckled: "You chased me from Chongzhou with injuries all over your body. When I saw you crying on horseback, I thought, who cares about the grudge? I don't care anymore. Can you please stop crying? But my last name is Xie, and my father is Xie Linshan. I can't even remember his appearance clearly, but I still remember his chest and abdomen that were barely sewn together after he was disemboweled, and the shapes of the sixty-seven arrow holes on his body..."

"If I die, maybe I can be with you at ease, but as long as I am alive, I can no longer have anything to do with you."

When he heard him talk about General Xie's death again, Fan Changyu felt a pang of pain in his heart.

She choked up and said, "I don't blame you. I didn't blame you that day..."

General Xie's tragic death was such a grief that even she, an outsider, felt unbearable grief, let alone him, a son of man.

Zhu Youchang had thought that her father was a traitor, let alone Xie Zheng, who had never had any contact with her father. She had no way to prove her father's innocence to him without any evidence.

Even now, when Fan Changyu recalls what happened that day, he still feels suffocated and powerless.

Xie Zheng raised his hand to wipe away the tears that rolled down her eyes. Whether he was drunk or sober, he only murmured in a low voice: "Why are you crying again?"

He rubbed her cheek with his fingertips, and reflected her and the half candle shadow in his half-drunk dark eyes. "In those days, you always cried in my dreams. At first I thought that as long as I never saw you again for the rest of my life, I would be able to let it go."

"But even if I try not to find out anything about you, you still disturb me in my dreams."

"Sometimes, you were in Lin'an Town one moment, smiling and calling me, and the next moment you were wearing your wedding dress, getting married to someone else. That person was handsome and gentle, and seemed to be a scholar. The sound of worshipping heaven and earth in the wedding hall pierced my eardrums, and you bowed down with him with your head covered, half of your lips curled up, looking very happy..."

He was a little unable to continue. His drunken eyes suddenly turned cold and ferocious. He rubbed her cheek with more force, but his tone was fierce and a little aggrieved: "You always know how to torture me. What are the injuries I suffered? They are not as heartbreaking as the time I saw you getting married to someone else in my dream... I wanted to chop that person into pieces. When I woke up and saw the bed curtains, I was still angry, but also very happy."

"I just realized that I couldn't bear to see you marry someone else. Fortunately, everything is still in time."

Even though most of his rationality had been eaten away by alcohol, he still stopped at the last sentence.

If she marries, he will kill the whole clan of the other party to get her back! And he will chop anyone who dares to marry her into pieces and feed them to dogs!

She is his! She can only be his!

Anyone who dares to have feelings for her deserves to die!

The wickedness and distortion that came from his bones were like the last gate in his heart, and he was always on guard. He himself was already disgusted enough, so he couldn't let her know.

If she knew, she would definitely avoid him like a ferocious beast...

Fan Changyu's cheeks were rubbed painfully by Xie Zheng's rough thumbs, but she did not hide. When she heard him talk about everything that happened in Cannes after they broke up, she felt sad.

The more she understood this man, the more she realized how difficult the decision he made that day was for him.

She grasped the hand that Xie Zheng used to wipe her tears, pressed it against her cheek, and stared at him firmly with her tearful eyes shining through the candlelight. She said in a hoarse voice, "Xie Zheng, we will be together from now on, and you are not allowed to abuse your body again."

When her bright eyes stared at people without blinking, the whole world seemed to lose its color, leaving only the clear, warm light in her eyes, like the warm sunshine in a winter afternoon, which slowly melted the icicles on the eaves.

Xie Zheng looked into her eyes in astonishment for a long while before he stroked her cheek and said, "I'm not kidding."

Fan Changyu still felt sad when he thought of the crisscrossing scars on his back, and said, "Your back is like that, isn't it because of a trick?"

"According to the rules of the Xie family, anyone who commits a serious offense can be forgiven by being flogged 108 times. After I receive those 1,808 lashes, I can come to you with a legitimate reason, and I can marry you back to the Xie family in the future with three matchmakers and six betrothals."

Fan Changyu's eyelids trembled, and even though he tried his best to hold back, a tear still rolled down from his eye socket and fell into the bathtub, causing ripples.

No wonder he told me after the celebration banquet in Lucheng that he didn't care whether her last name was Fan or Meng. It turned out that he had already redeemed her in this way.

She put her hands in front of her eyes and raised her head slightly, but still couldn't hide the choked voice in her throat: "What do you want me to do with you?"

Xie Zheng didn't know if he was drunk, but his eyes were red. He said in a hoarse voice, "I want to marry Meng Changyu. Do you agree?"

The soreness in my chest became worse, but I had no way to vent it.

Fan Changyu felt the sour feeling rising to the tip of her nose. She stared at the handsome man with wet black hair and said seriously, "If you marry me, I will marry you."

Xie Zheng's dark eyes stared at her without blinking: "Don't you regret it?"

Fan Changyu met his gaze and asked, "You want to go back on your words after you just said them?"

She glared at him, her tone slightly provocative.

Xie Zheng said nothing.

A big hand was placed behind his head, and Fan Changyu was forced to lower his body, and then his breath was taken away.

Xie Zheng drank a lot of wine. When he pried open her teeth, the rich smell of wine spread between her lips and teeth. Fan Changyu felt that it was different from the feeling he had after drinking.

He kissed her fiercely, sucking her lips and tongue until they were numb and painful, and then he let her go.

Fan Changyu was half leaning on the edge of the bathtub, gasping for breath.

Her face turned red due to the difficulty in breathing, and her apricot-shaped eyes were watery.

The front of his shirt was almost completely soaked by water, and the outline of his shirt being tightened by the belt could already be seen.

Xie Zheng's breath was choked, and the darkness under his eyes became darker.

It was as if a fire was burning in the cold air, causing the blood surging in his limbs to sizzle.

He suddenly stood up, stepped out of the bathtub with his long legs, picked up the person and put him on the table beside him, then looked down at Fan Changyu's lips which were slightly swollen from her kiss, and covered them again. The darkness in his eyes seemed to swallow the person in front of him whole.

Fan Changyu's back hit the screen behind the table. He just let out a muffled groan when his breath was taken away again.

There was a look of defiance in her eyes, and she tried to turn the tables, but she was held tightly by the opponent. She felt dizzy at the end, and a chill came from the front of her. When the straps loosened, she subconsciously hugged Xie Zheng's head.

His wet long hair touched her warm skin, and the coldness brought about shivers in her heart, causing Fan Changyu to unconsciously shrink her shoulders.

He was like a hungry wolf in the wilderness during the severe winter months, who suddenly got a piece of fat meat and didn't know where to start.

The movements were not gentle at all, and were even somewhat rough.

Fan Changyu frowned slightly, took a deep breath, patted his firm shoulders, and said in a breathless and gentle voice: "You...be gentle."

The last time he left from Jizhou, her skin got swollen from the bites, and she didn't dare to wear the laces for several days.

Xie Zheng kissed her gently and finally let go. When he raised his head, his eyes were bloodshot and the veins on his neck were bulging, looking a little scary.

His breathing was hot and scalding as if he was on fire, but his voice was still steady, just very hoarse: "Aren't you afraid?"

Fan Changyu's eyes, reflecting the candlelight, were warm and gentle, with a hint of mist in the forest, as if the first rays of the morning sun were hidden in her eyes, warm and bright. She asked him, "What are you afraid of?"

Xie Zheng couldn't help but hold her chin and kiss her again. After a long time, he put his hand on her forehead and said with red eyes, "The man you decided to marry is not a good person."

Fan Changyu reached out and touched his face, saying, "I have eyes, I can tell what kind of person you are."

Xie Zheng said ruthlessly, "What if I pretended to be so in front of you?"

Fan Changyu listened to his inexplicable words, raised her bright eyes slightly, and deliberately said: "Then... let me think about it again?"

The pair of hands that were pinching her shoulders suddenly tightened, with such force that it seemed as if they were going to crush her shoulder blades. Xie Zheng said in a somewhat sinister tone, "It's too late."

There was determination and a hint of cruelty in his eyes, and beneath his calm expression was a brokenness and mockery that he himself was not aware of: "Fan Changyu, you can only be tied to a bastard like me for the rest of your life."

Fan Changyu originally just wanted to tease him, but hearing him say this about himself, he couldn't help but feel a little pain in his heart.

How could she not know what kind of person he was?

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, saying, "Then let's get tied together. They say good people don't live long. If you were a bad person, maybe I would be happier."

The author has something to say:

Short, but sweet (akimbo)