Chapter 25 025 Are you crying? Why?
Night fell on the earth, and fine snowflakes drifted down, landing on the boy's hair.
Lu Yuanyuan shrank further into the shadows, staring at him warily, and gave him the order to leave: "What are you still doing standing here? Get out of here."
Duan Lansheng scrutinized her. Clearly, he was not cultivating Taoism in his sea of consciousness and was in the shadows, yet his two gazes were not affected by the darkness in the slightest. When he spoke, his voice was calm and firm: "You can't stand firm on your own."
He wouldn't be trying to stand here and help her up, would he?
Lu Yuanyuan was extremely unwilling and pushed him away, saying, "I'll just hold onto the pillar. Just don't stay here."
Her gaze swept across the yard, and she pointed to the fence in the distance, saying, "Go stand over there. Don't come over unless I call you."
Duan Lansheng frowned slightly, seemingly disagreeing. But because of her repeated insistence and refusal, he finally obeyed and turned to walk away, standing with his back to her in a corner of the courtyard.
Actually, with his hearing, he should still be able to hear the sounds at such close range. Fortunately, the cold wind tonight should mask some of the noise.
When I slipped and fell, I think I sprained my ankle again. Without support, the pain in my ankle is more intense than before. Moreover, to compensate, my life points dropped.
Lu Yuanyuan gripped the pillar tightly, enduring the discomfort to steady herself. The rough wood was wet with snow, damp and cold. Her palms stung with cold after only a short while of holding it.
Lu Yuanyuan was filled with anxiety, worried that Duan Lansheng would return. She tried to finish the task quietly, then hurriedly straightened her clothes, washed her hands with snow water, and went out the door.
Upon hearing the sound, Duan Lansheng quickly walked towards her and was about to bend down to pick her up.
"Don't!" Lu Yuanyuan resisted his hug, pulling her hand back. She took a larger step and felt her movements were somewhat restricted, and a bad premonition immediately arose. But before she could figure out why, the next second, a slight "ripping" sound came from under her skirt. Her trousers suddenly came loose and slid down her legs, piling up in layers to her ankles.
Lu Yuanyuan froze.
The inconvenience of ancient clothing lay in the lack of elastic bands; it was all secured with ties, one on the left, one on the right. The more rushed you were, the more easily you'd lose your balance. She probably tied it wrong somewhere just now…
In her panic, she immediately tried to pull up her pants to hide her embarrassment. However, the boy beside her also heard the cracking sound and squatted down even faster than she did, rolling up her skirt to her waist and telling her to hold it herself: "Take it."
Then, his fingertips touched her ankle. Her coat was lifted, revealing her legs below.
Her legs were slender and white, a testament to her pampered upbringing in the mortal realm, where even riding a horse would cause her thighs to chafe. Having arrived at Mount Shu, and before she could cultivate her Golden Core, her body remained weak. A gust of cold wind caused her to shiver uncontrollably, her knees instantly turning red, as if pink paint had seeped onto a snow-white silk cloth.
Duan Lansheng saw it, but without pausing for a moment, he slipped his fingertips under her trousers and helped her put them on. Then, no longer listening to her commands, he picked her up and quickly carried her back into the house.
The door kept the cold wind and snow out, while the charcoal fire burned quietly in the basin. Duan Lansheng placed her back on her own bed and lit the candlestick. The dark room was instantly filled with candlelight.
Under the bright candlelight, Duan Lansheng's eyes were clear and bright, his neck skin was like jade, and his black hair was loose, giving him a somewhat ethereal and otherworldly air. He put down the candlestick, turned around, took a set of clean clothes from the chest, returned to the bedside, and said, "Your clothes are wet, you need to change."
I put pants on her just now because it was windy. Actually, the pant legs are still wet from the snow.
The girl's clothes were soft, and they appeared even more tiny in his hands.
Lu Yuanyuan gripped the mattress tightly, her face flushed red. She snatched the pants away and couldn't help but become irritable: "I know! Go to sleep."
Seeing her so ashamed, Duan Lansheng didn't say anything this time and turned to leave.
Lu Yuanyuan covered her head.
Duan Lansheng did dress her, but that was in his past life.
In this life, she was determined to become his friend first, and she managed to take care of him quite easily, even with their little one. But then, he turned into this, and in this state, he crossed the line of friendship with her, almost instantly reminding her of what she wanted to forget. She needed some time to adjust her mindset and think about her next step.
.
But this time, before she could figure it out, she developed a fever that very night.
When she first caught a chill in her sea of consciousness, she slept through the night by clinging to Duan Lansheng, who was like a power bank, thus escaping illness. But that night, perhaps because she had been exposed to the cold wind for too long, the chill had penetrated too deeply into her body, and she could no longer rely on any tricks to avoid disaster.
Lu Yuanyuan was feverish and dizzy, her bones aching and sore. She huddled under the covers, vaguely sensing voices in the room. She opened her eyes and saw Duan Lansheng by the bedside, and the person speaking to him was the old doctor.
Her eyelids grew heavy, and she drifted off to sleep again. During this time, it seemed someone helped her up and fed her medicine. The medicine was very bitter, and she tried to push it away with her tongue, so the person fed her little by little with a spoon.
A day passed just like that. When Lu Yuanyuan woke up again, it was already dark outside the window. Her face was flushed, and she felt weak all over. Because she had drunk too much water, she was once again facing an embarrassing situation. Slowly opening her eyes, she saw Duan Lansheng sitting next to her, holding a book in his hand.
His fingers were long and white, and he turned the pages silently.
Lu Yuanyuan bit her lip.
Last night's act of stubbornness caused so much trouble. This time, she's learned her lesson. Because her throat was dry, she reached out from under the covers and grabbed Duan Lansheng's sleeve. Her body temperature was high, but his wrist felt cool to the touch.
Almost the instant she reached out her hand, Duan Lansheng realized she was awake. He immediately put down his book and used the back of his hand to feel her forehead: "Your fever hasn't gone down yet. Are you thirsty?"
Lu Yuanyuan shook her head, forced herself to sit up, her cheekbones flushed, looking listless: "I need to pee."
Practice makes perfect, and this time she was much calmer.
She didn't want to ask Duan Lansheng for help. But if things continued this way, she would be the one who suffered.
To her surprise, Duan Lansheng took her coat and put it on her before going outside. When he returned, he was holding something in his hand and said, "The doctor said you can't be exposed to cold wind."
That was a new chamber pot.
Lu Yuanyuan took a closer look, her expression immediately changed, and she tried to run to the ground. But she hadn't expected that she was so weak from her illness that she swayed as soon as her feet touched the ground. Fortunately, Duan Lansheng caught her in time, preventing her from kneeling heavily on the ground.
Her condition only served to confirm that she couldn't go out on her own.
Duan Lansheng tightened his grip on her waist slightly, pulled out a silk handkerchief, covered his eyes, and then picked her up.
Even a sick person can't resist his persuasion.
The moment she lost control, tears streamed down Lu Yuanyuan's face, whether from relief or overwhelming shame, it was hard to tell. With things as they were, she closed her eyes, resigned to her fate, and stopped struggling. When she was put back on the bed, she buried her face in the blankets like an ostrich, not uttering a sound from beginning to end.
A moment later, she felt a silk handkerchief dampened with hot water wiping her.
The room was quiet. Duan Lansheng seemed to still be blindfolded, but he was a half-demon, and there were some things he didn't need to do with his eyesight. For example, right now, all he could touch was her handkerchief.
Suddenly, Duan Lansheng stopped wiping: "Are you crying?"
"..."
"Why?"
Lu Yuanyuan gripped the blanket tightly, her voice muffled and fierce: "I didn't!"
Duan Lansheng paused, straightened her clothes, washed his hands, then pulled the blindfold off her eyes, dug her head out of the blanket, and frowned as he examined her: "You have it."
Lu Yuanyuan stared at him.
After her rebirth, she showed weakness and feigned docility more than once, but she never felt that she was really weak, because although she was in the book, she could look down on the fate of the characters in the book from the perspective of an outsider.
She always held back, handling things with ease, and she felt she had improved since her previous life.
All her concessions were temporary pretenses she made after foreseeing the future and weighing the pros and cons. Whether to fawn or not, whether to be gentle, to win hearts or to bully, the choice was entirely in her hands.
But now, she seems to have fallen into a passive position again, and her armor has been completely torn down.
How embarrassing! How shameful!
I still lost face in front of the person I least wanted him to look down on.
I swore I would never cry over things from my past life again, but new trials await me in this one. The switch for tears, along with my melted reason, went out of control.
Her gaze was like two small knives, piercing and refusing to let him get close.
“You took care of me like this from the beginning.” Duan Lansheng’s hand was brushed away by her, but he didn’t leave. Instead, he placed that hand on her cheek, leaned down, looked into her eyes, and said in a deep voice, “Why can you give me a bath, but I can’t wipe you down?”
Lu Yuanyuan: "..."
So, this guy learned how to take care of people from her?
That's right. The Duan Lansheng in his current state of consciousness is different from the real him; he hasn't been disciplined by the male virtues of the Shu Mountain Sword Sect. He's just following the example she set for him, treating her in the same way she treated him.
Lu Yuanyuan suddenly felt like she had shot herself in the foot.
However, Duan Lansheng is known for his fastidiousness and aloofness. If he hadn't joined the Shu Mountain sect in real life, would he have developed this kind of personality—isn't that a bit of an exaggeration? Doesn't he find it dirty?
Isn't this ruining her public image?
"Fine, I don't want to think about this now." Lu Yuanyuan came back to her senses, her eyes, which had been washed with water, were bright and red, blazing with fire: "That's two different things. I just gave you a bath, I didn't...do that kind of thing to you."
She still couldn't say the words "potty training," paused, and then said angrily, "Besides, that happened so long ago, why do you remember it so clearly?"
The sea of consciousness must have filled in Duan Lansheng's memories, making him believe that he had lived with her for a long time. Therefore, in Duan Lansheng's mind, it must have been a long time ago that she found him.
Lu Yuanyuan sighed, shielding her eyes with her arm, and said resentfully, "Besides, you were a fox back then, not a human. Becoming human is a different matter. Not everything can be done by helping each other, don't you understand!"
Duan Lansheng stopped and remained silent for a long while before finally speaking: "Why not? Aren't we husband and wife?"
The word "husband and wife" was like a poisoned needle, unexpectedly piercing Lu Yuanyuan's heart. Her eyelashes fluttered, and she abruptly let go of his hand, only to find that Duan Lansheng's expression was very serious, not like he was joking.
Lu Yuanyuan: "………………?"
Damn, she thinks she knows why he's acting so strangely. What exactly has this lousy mind been feeding him?
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