Chapter 61 The word he uttered was "..."
It was two days later when Shen Xi had fully recovered.
She leaned back on the bed and listened as Qingqiu recounted the rumors that had been circulating in the capital for the past two days.
After Xue Ningrong lost power, he was imprisoned in the cold palace. The crown prince went to plead for him, but for some reason, he angered the emperor again and was confined to the Eastern Palace.
As for the internal reasons, the emperor spared some face by suppressing those palace secrets and keeping them hidden.
As soon as this matter came to light, the Xue and Xie families were naturally implicated. When a wall falls, everyone pushes it down, and now they are in a state of utter chaos. Xie Chengyan is also busy with these trivial matters all day long.
It wasn't until late at night that he returned home.
The candlelight made his tall figure appear even thinner and longer, casting a hazy shadow on the wall.
Shen Xi stepped forward and, even in the dim light, could clearly see the dark circles under his eyes and the slight weariness on his face.
These past few days, he has been busy cleaning up the mess and taking care of Shen Xi's health, working non-stop for many days without getting a proper rest.
She frowned slightly and lightly touched his eye with her fingertip, but before she could say anything, Xie Chengyan pressed down on her, his weight pressing down on her and pulling her into his slightly chilly embrace.
A low, husky whispered in my ear: "Let me hold you for a while."
Shen Xi paused, but didn't push him away. She let him hug her, only raising her arms to wrap around his back, bringing the two of them even closer together.
Xie Chengyan gently touched her temple, and after a long while, asked, "How are you feeling today?"
When Xue Ningrong abducted her, he didn't know the strength of the drugs he used. She felt weak all over for the first two days and only recently recovered.
Shen Xi nodded: "I've been better for a while now. It's you who hasn't had a proper rest these past few days."
She complained, but Xie Chengyan clearly didn't take it to heart, and chuckled lightly: "Once this busy period is over, things will be much more relaxed."
The words were simple, but Shen Xi became increasingly worried.
Although she hadn't sat down and talked to him properly before, she had some idea about Xie Chengyan's background. The busyness he mentioned must not be limited to the current mess, but must also be planning something she didn't know.
Shen Xi's heart sank. She stood on tiptoe, clung to his shoulders and hugged him even tighter, deliberately asking, "Then... when will you be done?"
After she finished speaking, Shen Xi sensed Xie Chengyan, who was buried in her neck, pause for a long while before slowly speaking, his warm breath brushing against her neck: "Before the Lantern Festival, everything should be over before the Lantern Festival next year."
Just then, Shen Xi chuckled and said, "That's perfect, it even coincides with your birthday."
But this time, Xie Chengyan did not answer.
Shen Xi noticed something was wrong, raised her hand and pushed him away slightly, explaining, "I know it's not your birthday, but you still have to accept the birthday gift."
In the dim candlelight, Xie Chengyan looked at her, a complex emotion flashing in his eyes after hearing those words.
Before Shen Xi could examine it closely, he leaned down and kissed her, their lips lingering and caressing each other in a tender and passionate embrace.
Shen Xi staggered back two steps from the sudden kiss, but Xie Chengyan refused to let go and relentlessly pursued her.
Outside, the snow had stopped and the wind had died down. The snow reflected the clear moonlight, making the sky less dark than before.
Inside the room, as the kiss was about to end, Shen Xi, panting softly, looked up and gazed into his deep eyes.
Xie Chengyan unconsciously frowned, staring down at her lips. After a moment, he raised his hand and wiped away the water droplets with his fingertips.
He said in a hoarse voice, "Alright, if you're still willing to send it, I'll definitely cherish it."
The words sounded a bit strange, and Shen Xi paused for a moment, but didn't dwell on it, smiling gently: "Of course I'll send it."
The two chatted for a few more minutes, and when Shen Xi saw that he looked tired, she urged him to take a bath and rest.
After everything was finished, it was already late at night. Lying on the couch, Shen Xi snuggled closer to Xie Chengyan, who then embraced her and gently patted her back.
The room was quiet, and the breathing above him was steady, but Chen Xi knew that he had too many things on his mind and had not yet fallen asleep.
Under the cover of night, people lowered their guard, and Shen Xi spoke in a low voice: "Did you have a bad time in Qingzhou back then?"
He spoke hesitantly, as if afraid of touching on some sour spots.
Xie Chengyan was indeed slightly taken aback, and asked in return, "Why would you ask that?"
Shen Xi rubbed against his chest and said in a muffled voice, "Because you always say that you've forgotten your memories before you were seven years old, the bad ones, so you want to forget them as soon as possible."
For a moment, Xie Chengyan didn't respond to her words and fell silent again, his palm on her back unconsciously caressing the soft flesh of her waist.
Seeing this, Shen Xi understood and added, "It's better to forget about it. Let's not mention those unpleasant things again..."
But Xie Chengyan suddenly spoke up, his tone calm: "Qingzhou is a rare and wonderful place. Those few years should be considered the best period of my life."
The low, husky voice fell into the boundless night, inexplicably creating ripples.
This answer was unexpected for Shen Xi. She tilted her head slightly, her forehead brushing against his chin.
Before she could ask further, Xie Chengyan lowered his eyes and continued, "When I was young, I was unruly and disobedient. Countless tutors hired by my family were driven away by my temper. Whenever I was punished by being confined at home to copy books, I never complied. I always tried every means to escape. I was skilled at prying open doors and breaking windows, scaling walls and climbing trees."
"After going out, I would get together with three or five other children my age and play around, catching fish and hunting birds. These were all obviously boring things, but I would play all day and not want to go home. Every time, my family would personally drag me back. Everyone in the neighborhood knew that there was a little devil in my house."
Shen Xi was somewhat stunned. She had never imagined that Xie Chengyan was so mischievous when he was a child, a stark contrast to his current personality.
Even someone as uneducated as Xie Wenlang, who still possessed the refined manners of a noble family, had never heard of him being so mischievous before.
Shen Xi couldn't help but chuckle, and asked curiously, "How did you manage to drive away those teachers?"
Xie Chengyan followed her words and recalled, and couldn't help but feel a dull jolt in his chest: "Back then, we were all just kids, so of course we did whatever made us happy. We would deliberately overturn the inkstone and splash ink on the teacher's face, or take advantage of his unpreparedness and throw a snake into the study. We did a lot of bad things, big and small."
As Shen Xi listened, she tugged at his hand and played with it: "I really underestimated you. How could you have had so many bad intentions when you were little?"
"One of the teachers said before he left, 'You can tell what a child will be like at three and what he will be like at seven.' He thought that I was spoiled by my family and that I would inevitably become a cynical person when I grew up, and that I would never be able to get rid of my mischievous nature in this lifetime."
Shen Xi raised an eyebrow: "It seems this teacher misjudged you. If you hadn't said it yourself, who would have thought that you, Xie Chengyan, would be like this when you were young?"
Xie Chengyan chuckled noncommittally, his chin gently brushing against her cheek.
After hearing this, Shen Xi recalled her original question and became even more puzzled: "If that's the case, then why do you always refuse to recall this memory and insist that you've forgotten it?"
The moment the words left his mouth, the atmosphere noticeably froze.
For some reason, Xie Chengyan did not change the subject as usual that day, but instead continued talking according to her wishes.
"Because it was too beautiful, but beautiful things are always fleeting, I can't hold onto them, and they never truly belonged to me."
He spoke in a short, calm, and gentle voice, as if he had already accepted this predetermined outcome after countless setbacks.
Shen Xi's heart trembled slightly, and in an instant, she suddenly remembered many past events.
The puppets depicting the brothers fighting in Wangxianlou, the more than ten foals in the stable that look exactly like Tafeng, and the sword that Xie Wenlang mentioned only briefly in a letter.
There's also the Lantern Festival.
He told her that he hadn't been able to keep what he wanted.
There were signs of this in every single thing.
My heart felt like it was being submerged in a vat of vinegar, an endless sourness welling up inside me, a mix of emotions washing over me, and all I could do was hold him tightly.
After hesitating for a long time, he could only squeeze out a dry word of comfort: "No, they really existed."
Xie Chengyan, however, was no longer concerned about this. Instead, he comforted her by patting her back reassuringly, his tone as calm as if he were talking about someone else's business.
"When I was six years old, a fire burned all that past to ashes, and I came to the capital from Qingzhou. Since then, these past events have had nothing to do with me. But many people like to ask me about Qingzhou and the past. After being asked so many times, I didn't want to think about it anymore, so I just said that I lost my memory in the fire, in order to get some peace and quiet."
Shen Xi felt increasingly uneasy. It must have taken a lot of trials and tribulations to turn Xie Chengyan, who was once so vibrant and unruly, into what he is now.
Admittedly, he is now calm, promising, and far-sighted, but he lacks a bit of youthful vibrancy.
Shen Xi swallowed hard, then asked, "What happened with that fire?"
The candles inside had been extinguished. By the moonlight, Chen Xi followed her memory and found the scar on his shoulder, running her fingertips over it.
Xie Chengyan paused for a moment, then took her hand: "It was just an accident. We just happened to run into each other on the way back to Beijing, and that's the excuse we always use."
Shen Xi snuggled closer to him, holding him even tighter, and murmured, "Xie Chengyan..."
Noticing that her mood had been dampened by his words, Xie Chengyan stopped talking. His eyes darkened, and he lowered his head to place a light kiss on her forehead.
"Go to sleep, it's getting late."
Thus ended this incomplete reminiscence.
Shen Xi knew he was hiding something and trying to change the subject, but this time she suddenly didn't want to ask anymore. For him, every time he recalled those memories, it was no different from tearing open his wounds.
She tacitly agreed not to continue the topic.
But even with her eyes closed, Chen Xi's chaotic thoughts kept her from finding peace and made it difficult for her to fall asleep.
Even when I drift off to sleep in the middle of the night, I'm always having dreams.
In her dream, she was in Qingzhou, a place she had never been before. Sometimes she saw children running around in the courtyard, climbing over the wall, and other times she saw a sparse winter day with flames soaring into the sky.
She seemed to see a young child escaping from the fire, his fair face smeared with ash, stumbling forward as he ran, bumping into a woman who bent down and carefully wiped the ash off his face.
All night long, her dreams were chaotic and disjointed, and Shen Xi couldn't get a good night's sleep.
In the end, it was as if he was possessed by a nightmare, unable to escape from the dream.
Until the surrounding winds and clouds changed, she found herself standing on the edge of a steep cliff. Her foot slipped, and she plummeted straight down, the wind howling past and whipping her red dress in the wind.
Shen Xi suddenly woke up with a start, her forehead covered in cold sweat.
The sky outside the window was bright, and the person beside her had gotten up and left sometime earlier. The bright light fell on Shen Xi, who was still in shock.
In a daze, Shen Xi thought of that strange and bizarre dream. In her last glance before falling off the cliff, she remembered someone rushing towards her, but she only had time to catch a glimpse of them out of the corner of her eye.
But she still recognized the person; it was Xie Chengyan.
However, what he called out was the very clear "sister-in-law".
*
Affected by this bizarre dream, Shen Xi was in a daze all day long, pondering it from time to time.
As evening approached, she spent some time in the small kitchen watching the servants prepare a bowl of soup, intending to send it to Xie Chengyan.
Xie Chengyan returned home early that day, but was still handling official business in his study. Although he never avoided her, Shen Xi wasn't very interested in his affairs.
Aside from bringing him food once or twice, he rarely went to Xie Chengyan's study.
As she reached the door, Shen Xi heard a few whispers coming from inside, realizing that Xie Chengyan was discussing important matters with someone. So she slowed her pace and decided to wait outside for a while before going in.
But suddenly, she heard her own name.
"There's no point in keeping Shen Xi around."
His voice was deep and calm; she knew that voice all too well, the one he had whispered in her ear last night.
Shen Xi frowned and secretly peeked inside.
But then they saw something in the brazier slowly burning out.
Dark blue with bamboo pattern.
It was a sachet that she embroidered stitch by stitch.
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