Chapter 65 Two hearts united, two loves enduring; may you take care.
After the burning sensation in her body subsided, Le Jin felt completely weak, but her mind was incredibly clear. She could even hear the conversations of passersby on the long street outside the car.
The sounds were like a pot of lukewarm, bubbling white porridge, churning and bubbling chaotically, yet strikingly white.
Le Jin closed her eyes and frowned. It turned out that at times like this, it would be better to just fall asleep and be done with it.
Her heart was pounding, she was exhausted and irritable, when suddenly a force came down on her, rubbing hard against her. Le Jin's brow twitched, and she subconsciously opened her eyes a little to check on her body.
Meng Shutai was wiping her chin with the clothes covering her chest...
He gently rubbed his hands against her chest, his eyes slightly lowered, his long eyelashes obediently still, looking extremely well-behaved. But Le Jin's cheeks burned, and she quickly turned her head away.
How could she use her mouth, her tongue? Le Jin still couldn't understand, and a wave of terror washed over her. The strange sense of wonder was completely different from that of fingers. The soft, nimble teasing, occasionally punctuated by the nibbling of pearly teeth, was like a small animal with teeth practicing devouring its prey…
Recalling this, the lingering tremor between her legs seemed to haunt her, compelling her to rub them together again. Meng Shutai saw this small movement clearly, chuckled, and slapped Le Jin's bare thigh with the back of his hand.
It wasn't too light or too heavy, but just enough to startle her and make her open her eyes, looking at him with teary eyes.
"This has happened so many times already. Do you even care about your health if you keep going like this?" Meng Shutai's voice was hoarse, and his admonition to Le Jin had an added layer of low, pleasant tremor. His eyes held an unprecedented brilliance, shining like stars in their depths.
He pinched the spot on the back of his hand hard, the pressure shifting between relieving the pain and venting his anger and blame.
"What did you eat? Who fed you? Where did you eat it? Somewhere else or at the Prince of Zhennan's residence?"
This whole incident has been so unseemly; she's definitely going to get questioned. Le Jin sighed inwardly, trying her best to smooth things over.
"I don't know... It must have been an accident, something I ate by mistake."
Having finally managed to stand on Xie Xianheng's side, if Meng Shutai were to cause trouble at this moment, her chance for revenge would be nipped in the bud.
"Who would leave this stuff lying around in broad daylight? And you just happened to eat it?"
Meng Shutai's eyes darkened, and the hand that was slowly massaging his leg gradually moved downwards...
"Did I eat it on purpose?"
It was an accidental ingestion! She'd been tricked for no reason, and felt wronged, but she couldn't say anything. She could only suffer in silence, and retorted angrily to Meng Shutai. However, as soon as she finished speaking, she felt a solid pinch on the sole of her leg.
"ah!"
Le Jin screamed, her legs trembling again, "What are you doing!" Knowing full well that the effects of the drug in her body hadn't completely worn off, he was definitely doing this on purpose.
Meng Shutai leaned down, getting incredibly close to Le Jin's face, and said softly, "Ah Jin is lying to me again... If you don't tell the truth, don't blame Shutai for pinching you..."
Le Jin groaned in pain, tilting her head back, and desperately hugged Meng Shutai's shoulders and neck, pressing herself close to his body. "No, no, no!"
Suddenly remembering what he had said outside the Yu Yang Nunnery, she hurriedly replied, "There are countless sordid affairs in the inner quarters of a grand mansion; how could we possibly gather them all up? Today, my mother and I only met with Princess Zhaode. Perhaps some servant or maid in the Prince's mansion, overcome with lust but clumsy, accidentally served that thing. Who knows? Are you going to talk to the unmarried Princess Zhaode, or are you going to find out who in the Prince's mansion poisoned her?"
Le Jin rattled off a string of words, leaving Meng Shutai raising an eyebrow in surprise. She could be so articulate?
But now, embraced and held by Le Jin, he suddenly felt as if his throat was sealed with honey, and he couldn't say a word.
Hmm, I must have swallowed too much just now.
The person in his arms nestled against his neck, murmuring softly, "Mother is still at the Prince's mansion and doesn't know what's going on... What should I do? She'll be angry with me..."
To outsiders, she must be insane to undress and run wildly in someone else's house. Whether intentional or not, she's becoming more and more like the female supporting character in the book.
Le Jin sighed softly, feeling depressed and helpless. But to Meng Shutai, this sorrow sounded somewhat comical.
He ran off and provoked people, not only falling into their trap but also trying to deceive them with a thousand lies. He gently stroked Le Jin's back, his fingers lightly tapping her spine.
How many times has this happened? Why won't it listen? It's better to break its bones. I guess this greedy little thing will only settle down when it's curled up in a ball, unable to crawl.
This dark idea was originally just a way to vent, but as Meng Shutai tried to banish it from his mind, he suddenly realized that he could smell the scent of his own resentment and silently swam back.
His heart felt heavy and blocked, but he still spoke as the understanding and gentle young man he always was.
"Don't worry about Mother, I'll explain. This was an accident, but we must be careful in the future."
Meng Shutai patted Le Jin gently, chatting casually like an ordinary husband and wife.
"From now on, I will accompany you whenever you go out."
"You are not allowed to touch any food from outside anymore."
"If I'm not here, stay home. We'll talk about where you want to go when I get home."
Le Jin was already sleepy, and as he gently patted and coaxed her, her eyelids practically glued together. She vaguely heard his words and felt something was wrong, but she didn't have the strength to argue with him, so she could only stubbornly shake her head against him.
Meng Shutai scoffed at her resistance and continued, "On the third day of the first lunar month, I will be going south to welcome the Buddha's relics, as arranged by the imperial court. I'm afraid I won't be able to return until spring."
He held her tighter in his arms, resting his chin on the top of her head, as if afraid someone would snatch her away.
"Wait for me without worry, okay?"
The only sound inside the car was the sound of long, even breathing. Le Jin was asleep quietly and did not answer him.
Meng Shutai looked down at her for a while, and suddenly noticed that there were light yellow marks on her hands.
He held her hand to his nose and smelled it; it was medicine. He licked it with his tongue; it was bitter with a tingling, numbing sensation—a medicine to soothe wounds from swords and knives.
——
Xie Lianhui spent almost half a day comforting the pale-faced Madam Meng, making up many excuses for Le Jin's unusual behavior to barely save the lady's face, and then personally saw her off to the carriage back to the mansion with a smile.
After everyone had gone far away, she turned around and went back to the mansion, heading straight to Xie Xianheng's courtyard.
"You didn't make a move?"
Xie Lianhui grew up amidst mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and was by nature not an ordinary soft-hearted or kind woman. To her, drugging others to achieve her goals was no big deal. Her brother was the same.
However, she didn't expect that Xie Xianheng would "take pity" and let her go when the meat was practically in his mouth.
Xie Xianheng sat behind a sand table, arms crossed, staring at the simulated battle before him.
Yes, why did he let her go? The situation was already irreversible; he even took some of the aphrodisiac himself to make the act real. And then… he came back and took a cold shower.
Summoned back to Luoyang by the Emperor, he realized that the Xie family was already in decline. But watching two generations of fighting go to waste, becoming stepping stones for the dynasty, Xie Xianheng was unwilling, as were the soldiers who died on the battlefield.
The thought of those corpses, their limbs severed, made him capable of anything.
However, as the lady wept and cried out in panic about her fears after marriage, a different thought began to stir in Xie Xianheng's mind, like a budding spring.
Perhaps even without this medicine, they could still have made a start?
Xie Xianheng glanced at his younger sister, suppressing his tender longing deep inside. "Why ask so many questions, young lady?"
He got up and took a small box containing a double-butterfly jade pendant from his clothes chest. He then wrote a note and placed it inside the jade pendant box.
"Give this to the young mistress, she will understand."
The box was delivered to Baoyin that same day, but when she looked into her wife's room while holding the box, she saw that her husband was sitting motionless by her wife's bedside, watching over her as she slept, like a Buddha.
Baoyin didn't dare to meet her son-in-law alone at all, so she waited outside until the moon was high in the sky and her wife had woken up before she brought the box and a bunch of newly bought rouge, powder, hairpins and jewelry inside.
Le Jin sat blankly on the bed for a while, rubbed her eyes and yawned, then suddenly remembered what Meng Shutai had said before she fell asleep in the carriage.
"You're leaving on the third day of the Lunar New Year?"
"Yes, a portion of the pagoda storing the Buddha's relics has already been built."
Meng Shutai smoothed her disheveled hair, his gaze cool, like the moonlight outside the window.
He was leaving, about to depart… Le Jin’s heart pounded with excitement, and she vaguely realized that this was a golden opportunity. With him not in Luojing, she could do whatever she wanted without any more constraints.
Le Jin's face lit up with joy, but she feigned disappointment, "But if that's the case, then you won't even be able to see the wedding of the young master and Lady Jiang?"
Meng Shutai nodded.
"Then I can..."
"No. Cizhang can handle the social engagements outside. I've already discussed it with my father and mother."
Le Jin hadn't expected him to actually do it. Could she not go out without him?
But that was her partner's wedding! A wedding that would never happen again if she missed it! Le Jin's heart was bleeding.
But then I thought it wasn't a big deal. Once he left, I'd be far away from the emperor and would still be free.
"All right."
She verbally agreed, and Meng Shutai finally smiled, touched her hair, and went to wash up.
Bao Yin seized the opportunity and immediately stuffed the box into Le Jin's hand, saying, "This was sent by the Prince of Zhennan."
As soon as Yue Jin opened it, the jade pendant with its two butterflies shone brightly in the candlelight. Below it was a slip of paper that read: "Flowers never fade, the moon is endless. Two hearts are one."
A smile involuntarily crept onto her lips; even with her limited education, she understood the meaning of the sentence. Looking in the direction Meng Shutai had left, Le Jin finally felt a genuine thrill of "betrayal."
There was no anxiety or unease as she had imagined, only a slow, suppressed pleasure.
Le Jin's eyes darted around, and she instructed Bao Yin, "My son-in-law once prepared some medicine powder for me to treat asthma. Do you still have it? Wrap it up and send it to the Prince of Zhennan. Oh, and remember to include a note with it, just write..."
Outside, a crowd was bustling about. She was distracted, keeping an eye on Meng Shutai's possible return at any moment. She also rummaged through her already limited collection of writing materials. After a pause, she said, "Write 'May our love last forever, and may you take care of yourself.'"
-----------------------
Author's Note: Posting right on time again! I'll definitely have to switch my writing hours tomorrow. [crying emoji]
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
