Chapter 26: Peeking under the Moon, the Smile Intensifies
The night is as dark as ink, with only a bright crescent moon in the sky, casting its light unreservedly on the world.
The courtyard was quiet. The hustle and bustle of the day had all fallen asleep, leaving only the rustling sound of the evening breeze through the bamboo leaves and the low singing of unknown mountain insects in the distance.
Inside, Su Qinghan had already retired. But she wasn't asleep. She lay quietly on her side in bed, listening to the sounds outside. Meanwhile, Shen Ye sat cross-legged in the middle of the courtyard, eyes closed, each breath long and deep.
He is regulating his breathing.
Ever since he'd dissected his sword moves with Su Qinghan during the day, the ocean of emotions within him, forcibly suppressed by the Lightless Heart Sutra, could no longer maintain its surface calm. Su Qinghan's shadow, her swordsmanship, her words, "Your sword, isn't it?", were like pebbles dropped into a lake, stirring up layers of ripples that never ceased.
This directly affected the true energy in his body.
The zhenqi of the Lightless Heart Sutra should have been like the still waters of the abyss, calm and still, cold and silent. But now, this zhenqi had become restless, sometimes like a galloping wild horse, rushing through his meridians, and sometimes like a blocked glacier, stagnant and stagnant.
This feeling of being out of control was unprecedentedly unfamiliar and dangerous to Chen Ye, who had the word "control" engraved in his bones.
He had to re-master it.
Under the moonlight, beads of sweat gradually formed on his forehead, and his face paled slightly from the onslaught of his inner energy. He tried to guide the frantic internal energy back to his dantian, but with little success. The inner energy was like a herd of rebellious beasts, refusing to obey his command as their master.
Inside the window, Su Qinghan quietly sat up, put on a coat, and walked to the window. She didn't push the window open, but simply moistened a corner of the window paper with her fingertips, poked a small, barely noticeable hole, and cast her gaze out.
She told herself that she just couldn't sleep and was looking at the moonlight. Or maybe she was observing the training method of a top master. Only by knowing yourself and the enemy can you win every battle.
But deep down in her heart, there was a voice saying: She just wanted to see him.
Seeing his furrowed brow and pale face, her heart tightened. She could sense the unstable aura surrounding him, clearly something had gone wrong with his training. Was it a relapse of the hidden injury he sustained when he saved her that day? Or... something else?
Chen Ye realized that forcible suppression wasn't a good idea; it was better to release it than to block it. He opened his eyes, stood up, and decided to use some physical exertion to release the uncontrolled energy within him.
He walked to the neatly stacked pile of firewood in the corner of the yard. Among them was a particularly thick and solid stump, which he had dragged down from the mountain a few days ago. He had originally planned to spend some effort to make it into a sturdy table.
At this moment, this tree stump became his best outlet.
He took a deep breath and forced the energies coursing through his body into his right palm. He didn't use any techniques, simply aiming to release this energy with pure force. He could feel as if his palm was holding a fireball about to explode, scorching and violent.
He slapped the tree stump with his palm!
The scene he expected should be that the tree stump would split in the middle, cleanly and neatly.
However......
"boom!!!"
A dull but explosive noise seemed particularly abrupt in the silent night.
The incredibly hard stump didn't crack. It... exploded.
Yes, it exploded.
Countless wood chips and fragments of varying sizes flew around like flowers scattered by a fairy. Some even landed on the eaves, making a series of crackling sounds. For a moment, the entire courtyard seemed to be raining sawdust.
After the dust settled, the man in the middle of the yard remained frozen in place, maintaining his palm-stretching posture.
His hair and shoulders were covered with sawdust and dust. In the moonlight, his always handsome and cold face was stained with a few streaks of dust, and his expression was one of rare, pure confusion and astonishment.
He seemed to have never expected that his "out-of-control" palm strike would have such a "brilliant" result.
He slowly withdrew his hand, looked down at his palm, and then looked at the messy ground. He looked like a child who accidentally broke the most expensive vase in the house, and stood there at a loss.
Behind the window, Su Qinghan was also startled by the sudden loud noise. But when she saw the scene in front of her, she was completely stunned.
What did she see?
She saw the assassin in the Tianji Pavilion who killed people without leaving any blood and came and went like a ghost, the top master who could break her proud sword skills with just a branch. At this moment, he was like a clumsy apprentice, getting himself covered in dust and dirt, staring blankly at the broken wood on the ground.
This picture formed a strong and interesting contrast with his usual cold and controlling image.
That's kind of... clumsy cuteness.
The corners of Su Qinghan's mouth lifted slightly uncontrollably. She tried to hold it back, but the smile welled up from the bottom of her heart like a spring, and she couldn't suppress it no matter what.
She felt her shoulders trembling slightly. She quickly covered her mouth with her hands, fearing that any sound would disturb the man who had "made a mistake" in the yard.
But when she saw Shen Ye stretch out his hand, trying to brush off the wood chips on his shoulder, but because of his stiff movements, he pushed a larger piece of wood into his collar, and then his whole body froze, she finally couldn't bear it anymore.
"Puff~~"
A very light, suppressed laugh escaped from between her fingers.
This laughter, though faint in the quiet night, was as clear as if it were ringing in my ears.
It was like the finest feather, gently scratching Chen Ye's earlobe, making him tremble all over.
Hearing the laughter, Shen Ye's movements completely froze.
It's not like he hasn't heard women laugh before. Throughout his career, he's heard charming laughs, flattering laughs, crazy laughs, and even the mournful, owl-like laugh of someone dying.
But this was the first time he had heard such a crisp, clean laugh filled with pure joy without any impurities.
Moreover, the laughter was directed at him.
His body reacted faster than his brain. He turned his head sharply, his gaze like a sharp sword shooting towards the source of the sound - the closed window.
Through the small wet hole, he met a pair of eyes.
What kind of eyes are those?
In the hazy moonlight and the shadows of the window panes, those eyes shone as brightly as stars fallen into the mortal world. With a smile, they curved into two beautiful crescents, and as they moved, they seemed to be filled with the tenderness and light of the entire night sky.
There was no sarcasm, no contempt, only a pure, warm smile.
At that moment, Chen Ye felt as if his heart was gently bumped by those curved smiling eyes.
For the first time, his heart, which had been frozen for many years, felt what it meant to be "hot".
An unfamiliar, uncontrollable heat surged from his chest and rushed to his cheeks. He could clearly feel his cheeks and even his ears heating up and turning red at an alarming rate.
The Lightless Heart Sutra completely lost its effect at this moment. The mental method that was supposed to instantly calm the blood and restore the body to absolute calmness was now like encountering its natural enemy, completely defeated.
He, Chen Ye, the chief assassin of Tianji Pavilion, the man who would not even frown in the sea of blood and swords, experienced for the first time in his life what it meant to "blush" and what it meant to "have a heart pounding like thunder."
He could even hear the buzzing sound of his blood rushing through his veins.
He was completely panicked.
This feeling made him feel more helpless than facing a thousand enemies.
He turned around abruptly, almost as if fleeing, with his back to the window. He didn't know what to do or what to say, so he could only lower his head and pretend to clean up the mess on the ground.
He bent down and frantically picked up a piece of broken wood, then decided it wasn't right, dropped it, and picked up another. His movements were chaotic, completely devoid of his usual calm and composure.
He only wanted to do one thing now, that is, to bury his face so that she wouldn't see it.
Behind the window, Su Qinghan looked at his back, which was obviously "guilty as a thief" and "trying to cover up his crime but making it even more obvious", and the smile in his eyes became even more intense.
She slowly lowered her hand that was covering her mouth, leaned against the window, and quietly watched the man who was clumsily struggling with a pile of broken wood in the moonlight.
It turns out that he also has this side.
It turns out that icebergs can also blush.
At this moment, he wasn't a cold-blooded killer, nor was he the unfathomable night. He was just a big boy who panicked and didn't know what to do when she smiled at him.
Su Qinghan's heart became softer than ever before.
She suddenly felt that this courtyard, this moonlight, and this night were so beautiful that they seemed unreal.
And the man with his back to her, with a hint of blush still on his ears, made her feel... extremely at ease and extremely close.
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