A little bit

After dinner, Lan Zhuochi specially found a tree that was just the right height for him to climb up and sit down so that he could see Yunqi Que's yard.

Her courtyard was very quiet and there were no attendants. The outer courtyard was only illuminated by a few lanterns along the garden paths. The windows of the rooms under the flowers and trees in the inner courtyard were open and brightly lit, and her thin figure could be seen from afar.

Lan Zhuochi was still silently reciting the words he was going to say to her later when he suddenly noticed the dandelion flower fairy she had sent approaching, holding the small note she had given him and handing it to him.

When it was unfolded, it said: If you don’t come soon, I will go to sleep.

Looking up at her window again, she was propping up her head, looking straight at the tree where he was. Lan Zhuochi suddenly became nervous for no reason and quickly practiced the words he had just thought of, stuttering a little with nervousness.

The words I had practiced countless times were all used in my light Kung Fu to fly to her window. When I saw her eyes, which were gentle and affectionate illuminated by the lush and dim candlelight, they suddenly felt completely inappropriate.

She stared at him intently. Lan Zhuochi, still unsure of what to say, nervously and awkwardly smiled and tried to find something to say: "The moonlight is so beautiful tonight, hehe... hehe. How did the master know I was in that tree?"

"Maybe, in my eyes, your figure is always particularly obvious."

Just these words, spoken in a gentle and sincere tone, and the bright and beautiful eyes that looked at him when she spoke to him were enough to make his heart beat violently and lose his mind.

"Lan Zhuochi, I'm full and well rested, so what exactly do you want to tell me? As a curious person like me, I won't be able to sleep tonight if you don't tell me clearly."

"I'm not good at speaking, and I can't say anything particularly sweet to express my feelings. Anyway, what I want to tell you is that I will be responsible for you. As long as you are willing, I can send you the marriage certificate and betrothal gifts at any time."

"Responsible? We didn't do anything, what do you have to be responsible for?"

Lan Zhuochi pointed to his lips and said, "Yesterday...Qi Que, have you forgotten?"

"Yeah, I remember it, but it was just a kiss, that's all, and then what?"

She said it so casually, as if she was describing something as ordinary as eating and drinking.

The insecure Lan Zhuochi was furious, his face full of heartbreak. "It was just a kiss? Did he only do that to me? Or did the master treat him like this too?"

Yun Qique spoke frankly, "I tried to kiss him, but my brother refused. He said that I can't kiss anyone other than my future husband, not even my brother, A-Lu."

The little flower fairy who was eavesdropping in the flowers heard the key points of the words. He was so jealous that he was about to lose his mind, and his ears were precisely locked on the first sentence: I once tried to kiss him.

"Besides, the reason I kissed you wasn't because you almost fell asleep several times last night and needed some stimulation. It was because you looked at my lips and hinted at me to kiss you that I kissed you."

After explaining, Yun Qique deliberately added, in order to test whether Lan Zhuochi had any memories of Ah Ci's appearance, "Besides, it was just a touch of the lips, and nothing more intimate followed, right?"

How could he do such an offense as to take advantage of her kindness and ask for a kiss under the circumstances?

He did not explain his true intention at the time. Girls are thin-skinned. If he directly said that she had misunderstood, she would definitely hide from him. Then he might as well take the blame and acquiesce.

"Isn't intimacy just a touch of lips not intimacy?"

Lan Zhuochi looked like an eggplant hit by frost. It seemed that he really had no memory of what happened after A Ci appeared.

"I was being overly sentimental. I thought you kissed me because you might have a little crush on me... Don't take what I said tonight to heart. I was the one who offended you. Don't worry, I won't mention it again. By the way, Master, don't tell anyone else about your attempt to kiss Yun Jinglu. Rumors are scary. You can't stop them. Even if it's nothing, it will be spread outrageously."

"I didn't tell anyone else. I only told you, Ah Chi. Brother taught me why people's words are scary, what is valued in the eyes of the outside world for a woman's honor, and what the difference is between men and women."

Seeing him feeling lost and sad, Yunqi Que also felt depressed.

Although she didn't intend to express her feelings right now, she could give some hints that this slow-witted guy might not understand. Whether he could understand it or not depended on him.

So, she deliberately tilted her head to look him in the eye, and said slowly and seriously, "I understand all these principles, Ah Chi. I understand them all. I remember my brother's instructions very clearly."

The implication is: I understand the reason clearly, but I still kissed you because I feel about you.

"That's good. He's really considerate."

"Idiot! You're supposed to like Yun Jinglu. When it comes to me, you always prioritize focusing on words related to him."

"That's because I like you, so I care about every man you mentioned except me, especially Yun Jinglu. I was jealous when I heard you say that you tried to kiss him, what he said to you, and everything he taught you."

"What's there to be jealous about? The past between my brother and I exists. Even if he wants to kill me, I will always remember how good and gentle he was to me. I will never believe that his affection and warmth for me were fake. However, that doesn't mean there won't be new memories or new people in the future after I leave my brother. I'm not someone who will indulge in the irreversible past. Just like now, I have you, and I will remember your kindness and the things you taught me that my brother didn't, such as the skills of a demon catcher and the love between men and women. You can't replace my brother's place in my heart, and my brother can't replace yours."

Lan Zhuochi was obviously much happier.

He was always so easy to coax.

"Then what position do I hold in your heart?"

"secret."

"All right."

"So, Achi, don't let your imagination run wild. No matter what my purpose is in kissing you, I don't need you to take responsibility and marry me. I don't need you to take responsibility because I don't want my marriage to be based on the cause and effect of responsibility. I only hope that out of my love for you, I have carefully considered the point where I want to grow old with you, and then I sincerely make the marriage contract."

"Okay, I'll take note. It's getting late, go to bed early. I'm leaving."

"Don't try to climb over the wall. You'll inevitably be discovered if you keep climbing over and over. Let's go through the secret passage." As he said that, Yun Qique opened the door for him.

"The secret passage..."

"Okay, no need to explain. I know that no malicious peeping Tom would set up a secret passage in the corner farthest from my bed and specifically place a cabinet to block the view of the cabinet facing my bed."

After Lan Zhuochi entered the secret passage, he was about to activate the mechanism to close the entrance to the secret passage when Yun Qique called him.

"Lan Zhuochi!"

"Yes, a little bit. Yes, a little bit."

After she finished speaking quickly, she closed the entrance to the secret passage first. After that, she sat on the ground beside the secret passage, her heart pounding rapidly.

She didn't have time to see his reaction, and she didn't know why the idiot didn't react to her almost explicit words.

The next morning, he came to pester her as usual, and they both tacitly agreed not to mention her last words. This kind of ambiguity full of unknowns is the most likely to make people indulge in worry.

Yunqi Que asked Lan Zhuochi to fully recover from his injuries on the mountain before they went down to Lynx Town together. On the morning of their departure, Lan Zhuochi was waiting at the gate of her courtyard two hours earlier than she had agreed to meet him.

The mornings in early autumn were still a little chilly. When Yunqi Que pulled him up, he felt that his coat was cold.

Yunqi Que asked him.

He said: I dreamed last night that you left me, set off early, and ran away quietly.

The carriage was driven by Lan's old servant, who had steady driving skills and the horses ran fast and steady. Apart from that, they did not bring any other servants with them.

Along the way, Yunqi Que kept the window open, and everything outside the window was extremely new to her.

"Isn't it cold in the wind?"

Lan Zhuochi took out the fox fur cloak he had prepared in advance from his bag and put it on her.

While tying her belt, the driver suddenly said, "There are some bumps on the road ahead, young master, young lady, hold on tight."

Hearing this, Lan Zhuochi understood what he meant. He pulled up the wide hat on her cloak and put it on her. Following the force, he pulled the brim of the hat to make her turn her head to look at her with her back to the window.

He deliberately didn't know how to tie it. "I've never tied it for anyone else before. I changed the direction and suddenly I can't do it. How about you tie it yourself and teach me?"

"And when I teach you? Hehe, then I will teach you reluctantly, just watch."

"good."

Her eyes were so focused on teaching that she failed to see a carriage going towards Canghua Mountain on the road outside the window.

Naturally, he didn't notice that the person driving the carriage was a foreigner from the Western Regions.

After tying it, Yunqi Que faced him and waited a moment longer before asking in a low voice, "Can I turn around?"

"Well, that's fine. You know I did it on purpose?"

"It's obvious, okay? You should put on your cloak too. I want to continue looking at the scenery with the window open. The mountain breeze is cool, I don't want you to get cold too."

"Nothing can be hidden from you."

Lan Zhuochi put on a cloak that looked the same as hers, sat beside her, and patiently answered every one of her curious questions.

"A Que, from now on, we must conceal our true identities. You and I are both inner disciples of the Lan Clan ten years ago. My name is Lan Jinghuai, and you are my junior sister, Lan Lingyin."

"Are we going to brazenly enter Yangmei Village in Lynx Town as monster hunters?"

"Yes. Three days ago, the Yangmei Village chief went to the Lan family to report a demon-hunting incident. They claimed a demon was haunting the village, killing and flaying numerous people. They also dug up the skeletons of victims from the Chen Yuefeng murder case and stuffed them into sewn-up human skin cases, stuffing the skin with paper money. They also reconstructed the murder scene, recreating the scene of the Chen Yuefeng murders centuries ago. They then repositioned the skeletons, wrapped in human skin, and discovered that the victims were all descendants of the victims from the Chen Yuefeng murders. This killing spree nearly wiped out the descendants of the victims. An eyewitness reported seeing a bloody monster with eight arms sitting in a bayberry forest sewing. Terrified, they fled without a second's attention. The ability to kill so many people so quickly and without a trace, using such elaborate and brutal methods, combined with witness testimony, has led the villagers to unanimously believe a demon is responsible."