Chapter 66: The raging fire spreads across the prairie
Feng Yanyuan's heart suddenly trembled, and he subconsciously raised his arms, but stopped when he touched her clothes. His slender fingers curled up in the air and then fell to his sides.
He pursed his thin lips sharply and said coldly, "What are you doing? Repaying a favor?" But the ending tone revealed a hint of tenderness uncontrollably.
The girl raised her face, and her watery eyes looked straight into his, like two clear pools with the bottom visible, reflecting his forced calmness.
Feng Yanyuan's Adam's apple moved slightly, and he suddenly felt his breathing a little tight. He forced himself to turn his head away with annoyance, but the slightly red tips of his ears were exposed.
Yun Yuan loosened her grip on his collar, took a half step back, and after a moment of silence, she suddenly asked softly, "Why... Mo?"
Feng Yanyuan stiffened slightly, and when he turned to look at her, his eyes still etched with panic. She smiled faintly, tears still lingering in the corners of her eyes, like drops of water about to fall from a tree branch in the early morning after rain.
Yun Yuan took out the neatly folded yellow paper from her body.
"This yellow book was sent to Xuanhe Hall. Yuanfengwei didn't have time to take it away, so Songhezi gave it to me." Her fingertips trembled slightly as she touched the word 'Moyuan' on the yellow book.
"When a master releases a slave, don't they all give him their own surname? Why is mine 'Mo'?"
He leaned against the porch again, pretending to look away casually: "Would you rather have the surname Feng?" He crossed his arms, "I just picked it casually, it suits your ability as a pharmacist. If you don't like it, you can change it. White, blue, yellow, red..."
She said nothing, only staring at him quietly with her clear eyes, letting all the jokes he had prepared fall to pieces on her lips. This was completely different from what he had expected—he had intended to casually list the surnames of various colors and leisurely admire her hurriedly saying, "This one is good!"
He could play hide-and-seek with her for the rest of his life, but he had never considered what his expression would be when she was willing to be honest.
Feng Yanyuan pulled her into the house and closed the door behind him.
"You..." Yun Yuan watched him slowly close the door, then avoid her gaze and turn to the table, remaining silent. Her voice trembled slightly, "When did you notice?"
He lowered his eyes and fiddled with the crossbow on the table, a faint smile on the corner of his lips: "If I really want to start from the beginning..." His fingertips lightly brushed the crossbow string, "Probably the time you played the piano."
Yun Yuan's breathing stopped - she had only played the piano for him once.
Her qin skills were rusty to begin with, having been preoccupied with studying martial arts and poison-removal techniques for years. Even her dancing was somewhat casual, let alone her qin skills. She'd simply practiced a few tunes when she learned he was a pianist, hoping they wouldn't be needed. But then, on a whim, he insisted she improvise a piece called "Bright Moon and Gentle Breeze." In a hurry, she cobbled together a few melodies, but he memorized a folk song and played it even better than she did.
She was suddenly startled.
No, that wasn't a folk song... it was... a piece she'd made up when she was a kid, just to pass her teacher's test! She'd been so nervous at the time that she'd assumed it wasn't a popular piece taught by Taoyao, so she'd assumed it was a folk song.
She suddenly remembered what he had said at that time - "I have heard this song..."
But she had clearly only played this piece for Mr. Qinle...
"Have you...really heard of it?" Yun Yuan was stunned. "How could you...?"
Feng Yanyuan looked up at her, his eyes reflecting a ray of slanting sunlight coming in through the window, and the corners of his mouth curled up: "Guess."
When she was dazed, her pair of round deer eyes were particularly clear and lovely.
He couldn't help laughing. "You wouldn't have guessed it. I didn't get to see you then. I was weak when I was young, so my mother took me to Moyun Hall to seek medical treatment. I stayed there for three or five days, and every day I heard the servants talking about their sister-in-law—"
He picked up the teapot and poured himself a cup. The tea created ripples in the cup. He took a sip of tea, his eyes filled with smiles.
"They say that little girl, barely knee-high, is already a street bully, constantly driving the neighboring young man to tears. One day, she was even thrown flat on his face by a 7-foot-tall man cursing at the street corner. Your late mother even boasted to everyone she met, saying that her little girl, only four or five years old, already understood pharmacology and possessed wisdom far beyond the reach of adults."
The teacup fell gently on the table, making a soft "click" sound.
"The other day I was strolling in the garden when I suddenly heard the sound of a zither—" He shook his head and laughed, "The playing was really poor. I thought at the time, this is a real disrespect to a good instrument."
Outside the window, the sun was dim, and his voice gradually softened. "But as I listened, I noticed some rather subtle turns. I followed the sound, but found the pavilion empty. Only a group of servants were running around the garden, carrying their clothes, shouting, 'My sister-in-law has disappeared again!'"
He looked up at her and couldn't help laughing, saying, "So the eldest daughter of the Mo family who was learning the qin has taken advantage of her teacher's time to go to the toilet and escaped somewhere."
As Yun Yuan listened to his story, those dusty memories suddenly came alive, and she couldn't help but smile: "So that's how it is. It turns out that the song I made up over ten years ago was so bad that you still remember it now."
Feng Yanyuan suddenly turned serious. "It's true that the song is terrible, but it's also very spiritual. If you just fix a few of the flowing lines, it will be a wonderful piece." His eyes gleamed with a glimmer of determination. Seeing Yun Yuan lower her eyes and try to hold back a smile, he couldn't help but laugh too. "You're right, I do have some grudges."
Feng Yanyuan stared at her smiling eyes, "But when you said it was a folk song, I didn't think much of it." He tapped the edge of the teacup with his fingertips, "But when I think about how you hurt Feng Wu..." He suddenly chuckled, "He got a hundred lashes for the first time in history! Then I remembered the rumor about the Mohist girl teaching a lesson to a seven-foot-tall man. Plus, you are proficient in pharmacology..." He paused, his voice gradually sank, "Until I knew what Feng Xiaoming had done..."
The sunlight shone in from the window, casting a light shadow between his brows. He looked at her lowered profile and whispered, "You've always insisted on staying, even going through life and death situations. Why do you want to escape as soon as he leaves?"
Yun Yuan's eyelashes cast a fine shadow under her eyes.
Feng Yanyuan looked at her slightly trembling shoulders and continued, "When you persuaded Senior Yue to take the Jade Blood Resurrection Pill..." His voice became softer, "You also told him that you were a descendant of the Mohist school and knew the formula, right?"
A faint bitter smile appeared on Yun Yuan's lips, and there was a hint of self-mockery in her eyes.
"As expected..." She sighed softly, "Nothing can be hidden from the eyes of Mr. Feng San. It's hard for you... to play this trick with me for so long."
Feng Yanyuan lowered his head and smiled bitterly: "I know you don't trust the Feng family." His voice was slightly hoarse, "You... don't trust me either."
Yun Yuan's eyelashes trembled slightly. But... since he had guessed her life story and still kept her by his side...wasn't he afraid that she would be eager for revenge and plot against him as well?
Her heart ached - hadn't she plotted against him too?
"Then you..." She said in a very soft voice, "Aren't you afraid that I will hold a grudge against you and..." The rest of the words were choked in her throat, like the dust in the afterglow of the sunset, suspended in the warm light.
Feng Yanyuan lowered his head and retrieved the sachet at his waist, his fingertips caressing the crude bird-shaped ornaments as he let out a laugh. Seeing the embroidery so red, Song Hezi must have raised an eyebrow last night when she opened the sachet to extract the medicine. He still remembered the old medical sage's whispered sigh when he first began to awaken: "This tiny sachet is worth ten herbs from Xuanhe Hall!"
He couldn't even be sure how many times she had saved him...
Over the past few days, every time the truth became clearer, his heartache deepened. How could he still doubt her and blame her?
Feng Yanyuan said firmly, "You won't. The Mo family... won't."
A teardrop reflected the blood-red residual light, and condensed into clear amber on the girl's white chin.
Feng Yanyuan leaned forward, and gently wiped away the tears on her cheek with his slender fingers: "But... I want to hear the truth."
Yun Yuan's heart skipped a beat: "What truth?"
"Impermanence Poison..." His voice tightened, "Can it be cured?"
Yun Yuan lowered her eyes, shook her head, and smiled bitterly, "There's no real antidote to Impermanence." Her fingertips twisted the belt of her clothes. "The so-called antidote merely numbs the mind, temporarily blocking the poison... In the end, the person who takes it will become a walking corpse, a puppet on a string."
Feng Yanyuan's hands dropped, as if all his strength had been drained away. He lowered his head: "Then you..."
“But I—” Yun Yuan whispered like a child who had done something wrong: “I… vomited.”
"What?" Feng Yanyuan looked up suddenly, his eyes full of disbelief. "Spit it out?"
"Even my father was helpless against that poison, so how could I dare to test it on myself?" Yun Yuan curled her lips, her voice becoming softer and softer. "I took medicine before I left, which can form a barrier on the surface of my internal organs... Plus, I got back in time, so I vomited out that Impermanence Pill..."
Before she could finish her words, Yun Yuan was suddenly pulled into a warm and spacious embrace by a strong force.
Feng Yanyuan's arms tightened like an iron hoop, locking her firmly in his embrace. She rested her forehead on his violently heaving chest, feeling his rapid heartbeat through the fabric of his clothes.
The young man lowered his head, the emotions surging in his eyes almost drowning her. He suddenly chuckled, his warm breath brushing against her ear: "I knew..." His voice was filled with unconcealed pride, "How could the little Mo family bully get himself into such trouble!"
The afterglow of the setting sun shone through the window lattice and danced between his brows.
She looked up at the tiny glint in his eyes and suddenly noticed that the corners of his eyes were a little red. She reached out to touch him, but he grabbed her wrist, interlocked their fingers, and pressed them against her heart.
It was beating so fast and hard that it seemed to be about to burst my chest.
The corners of her eyes were still red, and tears were hanging on her eyelashes, about to fall, but she suddenly pursed her lips and smiled - like a pear blossom that had just bloomed after the rain, with a wet and crystal look that made his heart tremble.
His eyes darkened as his fingertips caressed the delicate skin of her wrist, his Adam's apple rolling gently. When he came to his senses, he had leaned over and placed a light kiss on the tip of her nose.
Her breath hitched. The touch was gentler than a spring breeze, yet it numbed the tip of her nose. As their breaths mingled, she unconsciously tilted her head upward, meeting his thin lips. At first, it was a light touch, a test, a silent confirmation. Then, his grip on the back of her neck deepened, a fiery, insistent embrace, like a wildfire consuming a field, leaving no room for retreat.
She was pressed firmly against the vermilion lacquer pillar, the carved wood cool behind her, his body, scorching like a branding iron, in front of her. Their chests pressed together, their heartbeats gradually synchronized, a deafening roar like the beating of drums.
As her breathing became heavier, a moan escaped unconsciously from her lips and teeth, spreading a charming sound in the quiet room.
His breathing suddenly became heavy, and the originally restrained kiss became forceful, his hot lips and tongue thrusting in with the momentum of conquering a city. His slender fingers dug deep into her loose black hair, and his other hand tightly clasped her slender waist, pulling her towards him.
She felt pain from being rubbed, but she also felt a tingling sensation sweeping through her body, and her legs couldn't help but weaken. She subconsciously clutched the front of his shirt, and the fine cloud-patterned silk was wrinkled and messy between her fingers.
The wind chimes on the eaves swayed, and the crisp sound could not cover up the intertwined breathing, which was rapid and hot, and could not hide in the silent twilight.
Feng Yanyuan suddenly stopped - slowly let go of her lips that had been sucked until they were rosy red, suppressed his heavy breathing until his breathing gradually calmed down, and then bit her lips lightly.
Her eyes were misty and her heart was trembling slightly.
His voice was wrapped in scorching breath, and every word was burned into her ears: "Don't—" His hot lips moved along the side of her neck, biting her collarbone punishingly, "Don't leave without saying goodbye."
Each word was punctuated by a delicate kiss, like a series of seals. Yun Yuan tilted her head back, her fingertips digging deep into the fabric of his shoulders.
As dusk deepened, the last ray of setting sun passed through the carved window lattice, casting mottled light and shadow on the folded sleeves of the two people.
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