Chapter 67

"One more slap!"

As Que Ming spoke, his face was full of satisfaction. Yue Qingning suddenly came back to her senses. She looked at the palm of her hand, then at his red face. Her heart and eyes were full of regret, and she even missed the strange excitement on his face.

"I'm sorry! Que Ming, I didn't expect you to be here in the middle of the night."

She gently held his face and saw the pink color slowly turning on it, which made her feel even more distressed that he had been hurt again by her unconsciously.

However, Que Ming held her hand, smelling the fragrance in her hand like a madman, rubbing his nose and lips against her palm again and again, but he still couldn't control the dirty thoughts in his body.

"Miss! Punish me!" He knelt on the ground, closing his eyes tightly, fearing that once he opened his eyes, he would see her weak and helpless appearance and hear her touching love, and he would be unable to help but make mistakes.

However, his lady was never such a domineering girl. Seeing him kneeling and begging, she just held him in her arms. The soft veil covered his face, and his red cheek seemed to be touched by a cloud.

All of a sudden, those things that shouldn't have appeared in his mind, like a battle, burst out from his deepest buried memories.

He frantically tried to suppress them, but was horrified to discover that those figures, both men and women, had turned into young ladies. She lay in his palm, with her ribbons untied, and she wrapped her hands around him, hooking her tongue to lick him.

Que Ming was completely frightened, but his reaction was completely contrary to his mind. He held the young lady's hands lower and lower until they were about to touch the round and bulging arc.

His heart was beating so fast that it was about to jump out of his chest. He didn't dare to open his mouth, for fear that if he did, he would kiss the lady with his heart pounding in his chest. So, he could only purse his lips tightly.

Noticing that he had been motionless for a long time, Yue Qingning kindly pushed him away a little. She saw that his red cheeks were spreading rapidly and had already reached the back of his ears and neck.

She twisted his ear and called him. At first he couldn't respond. After a while, he raised his eyes from the brocade on his chest and looked at her with wet eyes, as if he was bullied by her and felt extremely wronged.

But what did she do?

"Que Ming, why are you here?"

He had to answer the young lady's question. Que Ming bent back, afraid that she would notice something unclean, and replied with his head lowered.

"Miss Si-Miss, I don't want to leave because I won't be able to see you for half a month!"

Seeing him crawling on the ground like a puppy, Yue Qingning couldn't help but sit on the edge of the bed, help him up and hold him beside her.

But when he stood up, he kept hunched over, as if hiding from something, and when he sat down, he put his hands together respectfully and placed them on his outer robe.

She was surprised for a moment, but didn't think much about it.

At this moment, the moonlight penetrated the window paper and shone onto the ground, forming patches of light. She stretched out her hand to catch the light spots, as if she could sense some warmth from them. She scooped a handful of moonlight and poured it into his hand, then leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder.

"After these days, we'll be husband and wife! What are you afraid of?"

She stretched out her hand again to catch the full moonlight, and Que Ming also stretched out his hand like her, filling his palm with the moonlight.

The fear in his heart could not be spoken, nor did he dare to speak, and it was not even worth speaking.

But facing the young lady today, facing the Moon Land today, he seemed to have gained some courage to tell her.

"I'm afraid of delaying the young lady and that she will be wronged by me."

Yue Qingning smiled and asked, "Will you let me suffer?"

"Won't!"

The answer came out faster than the sadness. Que Ming himself knew that he would never let her lack anything. She could always be his eldest daughter and be his eldest daughter for the rest of her life.

But what he was afraid of was... that he would not be able to accomplish anything and would not be able to rest in peace, while she would have to hold his coffin and bear his surname for the rest of her life.

As for the Ling family, having him is enough. No one else will come to the Ling family.

The man above his head, he doesn't allow anyone to have the surname Ling anymore.

What he wanted to do was to rebel against the imperial power and put the Ling family name before the people of the world, letting them know that the Ling family had not betrayed him. However, this road was so desolate and even overgrown with thorns. He was willing to go on, but he was afraid of implicating her and scraping off even a strand of her skirt.

He was afraid that she would get hurt, and seeing her frown because of him was like blaming him.

He didn't want to, nor did he dare to, bring her with him, but she didn't take the usual route and insisted on going down that thorny road, so he had no choice but to support her and protect her from getting hurt again.

The night was still, the ground covered with frost. The two shadows leaned against each other, and that moment made him feel nostalgic, wanting to live longer, long enough to stay with the young lady for a while longer.

People's greed really grows fatter and fatter. At first, he was relieved just to know that she was safe. Later, he wanted to see her, and later he even brought her to his side and asked to marry her.

He really can't live in indifference anymore, and he has never been a simple and aloof gentleman.

His heart was extremely dirty, and the sticky and damp hatred clung to him like a cancer. He looked up at the sky, but could only see limited sunlight, and there was no way he could crawl out and stand beside her openly.

Everything he saw and heard was filthy. It was not until he was protected by the Yue family over the years that he gradually forgot those dirty memories of the past.

But every time he looked at her, he could not remove her from his imagination and let her stay alone in his mind, away from the world. He always imagined her sitting or lying without any clothes on.

Even you should despise your own filthiness.

I think he is just a shameless low-class person after all, how dare he cling to Moonlight.

Yue Qingning had not thought about these things at all. All she could think about was the scene of Xiao Yan meeting him today. She despised Xiao Yan so much that she even took her anger out on Que Ming, which was really wrong.

Therefore, there was even more regret on her face, and she hugged his arms, wanting to comfort him for the sadness he had felt these days.

But the man in front of him was not a holy monk after all, and he could not remain calm. Before she even sat in his arms, his heart was already in turmoil and he only wanted one thing.

His increasingly hard arms made Yue Qingning feel something was wrong. She was about to say something when Que Ming suddenly stood up as if someone had poked him in the sore spot, and said goodbye to her with his hands and feet trembling.

"Miss, go to bed early! I should go back too."

Yue Qingning couldn't catch him, so she just tilted her head and stared at his red cheeks.

"This is the last time you call me Miss! Go back and think carefully about what to call me next time."

She teased him one last time and then let him go. Actually, after not seeing each other for so long, she wanted to hug him, but seeing how he looked like he was facing a great enemy, she couldn't bring herself to ask him to hug her.

He went back the same way he came. Que Ming was nimble when he came, but he looked clumsy even when he climbed over the window when he went back.

She stood by the window, looking down at the scene of his secret meeting with her, and couldn't help laughing, holding his hand and shaking it.

"Does it sound like a scene from a storybook where a man and a woman have a secret meeting?"

Que Ming was also happy, but after a while he suddenly stopped laughing. He looked around and saw that there was no one around. He tapped his feet, stared at her face and began to daydream.

Yue Qingning was also a knowledgeable and interesting person. Seeing that he was motionless, she bent down and gently touched his lips.

This was the first time in her two lives that she kissed a man, but it was not as difficult as she had imagined. She just lowered her head and Que Ming was waiting for her on his back. He did not move or feel embarrassed, and gently let her kiss him on the lips.

His lips were extremely soft, much softer than they looked. The fact that his thin lips could have such a tender touch made her not even have time to think about the feeling of kissing him, she only had time to marvel at it.

Que Ming was completely stunned. He tilted his head back and savored it for a long time. Finally, his heels landed on the ground, still clinging to her window sill, unable to recover.

"Let's go! It will be bad if someone sees us!"

Upon hearing this, Que Ming nodded obediently. He pursed his lips and smiled at her, then lifted his robe and left from the dense flowers in front of him.

The darkness of night enveloped his blurry pale back. Yue Qingning only saw him walk away for a while and then look back, his steps lingering as if he really couldn't bear to leave her.

But she couldn't let him cling to her like this, so she closed the window neatly. However, she could ignore the man outside her dream, but the man in her dream kept pestering her all night long.

The next day, when Qingzhu came to help her wash and dress, she saw her two black eyes and couldn't help but say.

"Miss, are you so worried? The top scholar will come to pick you up in half a month!"

Ever since Que Ming came to Beijing, Qingzhu no longer dared to call him that, and only called him the top scholar, which made Yue Qingning couldn't help shaking her head.

"That's not it."

Qingzhu asked, "Which one is that? Anyway, if you marry there, you won't have parents-in-law to take care of you. You can go home whenever you want. Are you afraid of being sad if you marry there and leave home?"

The more she spoke, the more rude she became. She took the handkerchief she was using to wipe her face and hit her in the arms, pretending to be serious.

"Don't talk nonsense about other people's parents!"

“Yes, yes…”

Qingzhu untied her hair, combed it carefully, and then braided it into a bun, sighing.

"I have to learn how to braid my hair! From now on, young ladies should tie their hair up like ladies do, and I'm not used to it yet."

Reflecting their appearance in the mirror, Yue Qingning saw that her face seemed to be melancholy, while her own face was full of longing for the future. She was also shocked by herself like this.

He took her hand and shook it, "Go find my mother for me! I have a lot to ask her."

——

Before the wedding ceremony, because Que Ming was nominally an orphan and had only a teacher, Xu, who was thousands of miles away and unable to attend the ceremony, the betrothal gifts presented were mostly symbolic gifts, plus two wild geese that Que Ming personally led people to catch.

The two geese in the basket kept pinching him, making Xu Lianzhou, who was holding the basket, miserable. He couldn't hold them or lift them. The two geese were wild and difficult to tame. They would pinch anyone they saw. Xu Tanhua was tortured by them miserably.

The gift from his side was not much, and Que Ming promised his teacher that he would make up for it in the future, but Shangshu Yue had no concerns. The dowry he prepared for his daughter, which included a farm and a shop, was enough for the couple to live happily in Beijing.

One part was the dowry he had prepared for his daughter, and the other part was the betrothal gift he, as a teacher, gave to Que Ming.

As Teacher Ling's last disciple, he lived up to everyone's expectations, raised Que Ming, and protected him until he grew up and started a family safely.

Having come this far, he has done his best as a teacher.

Que Ming also understood the big picture and knew everything his teacher had arranged for him, so he gave his teacher a big gift at the engagement banquet.

Minister Yue quickly supported the man, and the two held hands and looked at each other with tears in their eyes. However, the master's wife couldn't bear it anymore and separated them to drink separately.

When the summer gradually became hotter, on the auspicious day of June 8th, the eldest daughter of the Yue family got married, and the whole city was occupied by her handsome and stunning husband.

The groom was wearing a red flower, just like the day he won the first place in the imperial examination, but this time he walked through the gate of Yue family, which he had passed through countless times, to greet his long-awaited bride.