Chapter 84 Locking the Wutong Tree (Seventeen) Jealousy
The moonlight was completely swallowed up by the thick clouds.
As Song Qiling watched her junior brother slowly walk out of the darkness, she was surprised to realize that he walked without making a sound.
But today he was dressed in black, and when he stood in that alley, he was like ink blending into the darkness, making him almost unnoticed.
No one knows how long he stood there, or how long he watched. Perhaps he noticed the sound of wheels rolling? Or perhaps he had been waiting for her at the alley entrance for a long time, since there was only one road leading to Lake Stone Alley.
Lost in her own thoughts, she forgot to close her half-open lips, but no longer had the courage to utter the rest of her sentence.
My hand suddenly felt warm.
Song Qiling turned to look at Wan Hongling through the carriage window, only to see a smile playing on her lips. "Young Master Song, what did you just say? I didn't hear you clearly."
Her gaze shifted downwards, landing on the nails painted with red nail polish on the back of her hand. She awkwardly withdrew her hand, placing it neatly at her side, unsure of where to look.
Gu Lianzhou really knows how to choose his timing; she probably won't be able to confess today.
After thinking it over, she said with difficulty, "Miss Wan, please... be careful on your way back."
As they were talking, the junior brother had already approached.
He politely bowed to Wan Hongling, then his eyes swept over her face without making a sound, but his voice was directed at Song Qiling, "Senior brother went to meet a beauty today, leaving me waiting for quite a while."
Song Qiling: "..."
What nonsense is this person spouting?
Undeterred by his interruption, Wan Hongling nodded to Song Qiling and said, "It seems that Young Master Song still has something to say to me, but since there are other people around, we might as well meet another day."
She glanced up at the alley behind the two of them, a thought forming in her mind. "It's not too far from where I live, so it's convenient to walk around here."
As she spoke, she stood up, leaned against the car window, and whispered the location of the Wan residence to Song Qiling.
As she spoke, the sweet scent of cosmetics wafted over us.
Song Qiling was paralyzed as if someone had struck her vital point. She only came to her senses when the wheels rolled by and the wind they brought brushed against her clothes.
As the carriage drove further and further away, she raised her hand to lightly touch her nose, lowered her eyes guiltily, and dared not look back at her junior brother's expression.
"Senior brother." Gu Lianzhou's voice sounded rather resentful at this moment.
Song Qiling hummed in agreement, her eyes flickering as she turned around. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a figure standing quietly in place, no more than a foot away from her.
With no way to avoid it, she finally looked up and met a pair of dark eyes.
Dressed in black, Gu Lianzhou stood there with a cold and indifferent gaze, exuding an aura of icy indifference, like a cold-blooded assassin, and she was the one waiting to be assassinated.
Fortunately, the "assassin" was not in a hurry to take her life. He stared at her face for a while, and then his thick eyebrows furrowed slightly, as if his annoyance was written all over his face.
This was truly the first time Song Qiling had ever seen him like this. Although she felt a little guilty, she still forced herself to ask, "Junior brother, are you angry?"
Seeing that the man didn't respond, she took a step forward and tentatively asked in a rather irritating tone, "Were you... waiting for me all this time?"
"Yes," Gu Lianzhou replied succinctly, but his words revealed a hint of impatience. "You're having a good time outside, and now that you've found someone you like, you've completely forgotten about your junior brother?"
Where did this conclusion come from?
Not wanting to cause any misunderstanding, Song Qiling stubbornly explained, "My relationship with Miss Wan is completely innocent. We just happened to meet today and had a meal together."
Seeing the growing suspicion in her junior brother's eyes, her tone became unsteady, "Miss Wan is a very open-minded person. Seeing that it was getting late, she invited me to ride in the same carriage. Nothing else happened between us."
As she finished speaking, a hand suddenly gripped her cheek. The force wasn't strong, but it startled her so much that her breath caught in her throat.
"Oh? Is that so?" Gu Lianzhou chuckled, lightly brushing his fingertip across his senior brother's cheek, then held out his hand to show her, "How could that girl be so careless as to leave rouge on your senior brother's face?"
As instructed, Song Qiling lowered her eyes and glanced at the bright red mark on Gu Lianzhou's fingertips, her mind buzzing.
No wonder my junior brother was acting so strangely tonight; he must have mistakenly thought I had gone out to steal a beautiful woman.
Young men of this age often harbor an inexplicable sense of unease, unable to bear seeing their brothers find love before them, as if that would leave them all alone.
Song Qiling understood and expressed her respect.
Having figured it out, she took out a handkerchief from her sleeve and pressed it against the evidence that was in his eyes. Then she looked up and grinned at him in his bewildered gaze, a hint of silliness creeping onto her face.
"Good junior brother, I know you won't believe anything I say now." She pinched her junior brother's well-defined fingers and rubbed them hard, as if to say she was going to deny everything. "Maybe it was an accident. Just wipe it clean."
She wiped diligently, unaware that to others, her demeanor was no different from that of an irresponsible playboy.
Gu Lianzhou lowered his eyes and stared at her, his gaze moving from her rouge-stained fingertips to her handkerchief. His dark eyes revealed no emotion, but his chest felt increasingly heavy, as if a fire was burning inside him.
The fire burned ever brighter, and by the time the senior brother wiped away the trace and let out a long breath, the fire had reached its peak, the flames licking his throat and burning him with intense thirst.
What else in my senior brother's mouth is true?
He kept saying he disliked Wan Hongling, yet today he rode in the same carriage with her, squeezed into the cramped space, doing intimate things that couldn't be told to outsiders, and even reeking of alcohol...
Had their relationship developed to this extent in places he couldn't see?
As his gaze swept over his senior brother's newly changed clothes, Gu Lianzhou was almost ready to draw a conclusion about their relationship.
Okay, very good.
I even dressed up today so I could see her.
"Senior brother." He called softly, his voice hoarse, like sand rolling over Song Qiling's eardrums. It sounded like a dull knife slowly scraping against his nerves.
Long, slender fingers grabbed the brocade handkerchief that hadn't been put away yet, slowly tightening their grip. The neat nails turned slightly white from the force, as if they were grasping not a handkerchief, but a rein for their senior brother.
Even if Song Qiling was slow to notice, she would realize his unusual behavior at this moment.
She looked up in surprise: "What's wrong?"
Without making a sound, Gu Lianzhou suddenly pulled back his strength, causing Song Qiling, who was holding the other end of the handkerchief, to stumble forward and fall into his arms with a cry of surprise.
The crisp scent of soapberry filled her nose. Song Qiling instinctively looked for something to hold onto with her hands, but her palms suddenly pressed against a warm and hard chest. Even through the fabric, she could feel the pounding heartbeat beneath her, which made her palms go numb.
As far as her eyes could see, she could see his Adam's apple and his taut jawline. She could even feel the slight rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, each breath dangerously overlapping with her panicked and helpless gasps.
The incident happened so suddenly that before I could figure out what had gotten into my junior brother, my heart started pounding wildly, my mind was buzzing, and a jumble of thoughts surged in and out like a tide, leaving only an unprecedented sense of dread.
What exactly does he mean by this?
In her panic, her body had already made a decision before she could react.
"It's getting late, we should go back and rest..." Her voice was soft, and before she could finish speaking, she broke free from Gu Lianzhou's embrace, as if the air around him was filled with thorns.
In the present situation, bewilderment had overwhelmed his guilt. Song Qiling didn't dare to raise his head. He hurriedly brushed past his shoulder and plunged into a dark alleyway. His steps were hurried and fragmented, like a cat whose tail had been singed.
Watching that hastily departing figure, Gu Lianzhou frowned slightly, a dark and unfathomable ripple passing through his eyes.
He clenched his knuckles, feeling the lingering warmth on his fingertips slowly dissipate with the cool night breeze, and suddenly bit down on the soft flesh inside his mouth.
A sharp pain, accompanied by the stench of blood, spread silently between his lips and teeth, as calm as rust, yet with a strange sweetness, while a secret pleasure arose in his heart from this destructive urge.
The clouds dispersed, and the cool moonlight poured down without obstruction, pinning his shadow to the ground.
A few strands of dodder swam helplessly out from beneath his feet, their tender roots trembling and twining anxiously in the air, just like their owner's restless and unsettled thoughts and anxieties that could only grow silently in the dark night.
-
Song Qiling fled back to the small courtyard in a disheveled state, shrinking back into a corner of the narrow room. Without even bothering to turn on the lamp, she lay back on the bed, panting heavily.
She raised her hand and pressed it to her chest, feeling her heart pounding violently in her chest cavity. The thin layer of sweat from the heat dampened the stray hairs on her forehead, sticking to her skin, just like her thoughts at this moment, bubbling away.
My junior brother's illness seems to be getting worse. Just like the night he first entered the Murong Mansion, he seemed to have become a different person because of the disordered dodder.
That must be true.
It certainly can't be for any other reason.
Recalling the look in her junior brother's eyes just now, she felt a hint of anger in them, along with some emotions she couldn't understand.
What could it be?
Song Qiling closed her eyes, not daring to think any further.
I stared into the darkness for a long time, until the sweat on my body cooled down and my heartbeat gradually calmed down. Suddenly, I heard the soft sound of a door closing next door.
She sat up instinctively and looked behind her. Her junior brother's residence was separated from hers by only one wall. In the past few days, she had been judging when her junior brother closed the door and went to bed by these subtle movements.
Although she didn't intend to spy, she still seemed petty, especially after her junior brother went mad tonight...
The faint sound of splashing water could be heard from the wall, as if hot water was being poured into a wooden bucket.
Junior brother is about to wash up and go to sleep.
Song Qiling thought this to herself and secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
It's fortunate that this person didn't come knocking on her door demanding an explanation; since she still has the leisure to take a bath, she must be alright...
Whether it was because she felt guilty or something else, she even breathed very softly, lying quietly on the couch, intending to get up and boil water after the other side had rested.
Suddenly, a loud thud, like a heavy object falling to the ground, rang out, penetrating the not-so-thick wall and reaching her ears.
Feeling an unusual burning sensation on the inside of her forearm, Song Qiling was startled. She sat up and lifted her sleeve to look.
The golden seal of Xishan on the inside of his arm was faintly burning.
Her gaze suddenly turned cold. She turned her head to look into the darkness and hissed, "There's a demonic aura."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com