Chapter 23 Chapter 23 "Madam, what are you panicking about?"...
Outside the window, snow falls silently.
Occasionally, the accumulated snow breaks the branches of flowers, making a rustling sound in the quiet night.
Sheng Puzhu lay on the brocade quilt, her black hair disheveled and covering her entire back, a few strands of black hair stuck to her sweaty neck, her slender white fingertips tightly grasped the brocade quilt, her knuckles flushed red.
"How much longer will you take?"
Her voice was so soft that it seemed to melt into the night, and the ending was lingering and broken, almost out of control.
The man seemed to be oblivious to what she said, his thin lips pursed, the muscles in his waist and spine tensed, his palms clasped around her wrists. His delicate curves and tall figure blended in the night, like the snow weighing down the branches outside the window.
The snow is getting heavier.
Layer upon layer is pressed on the branches.
Until the flower was squeezed out of juice by the heavy snow, the delicate buds trembled, and the chill of the snow made them look even more beautiful.
The sky is boundless, and the falling snow leaves traces.
The flowers sway in the wind, their rich fragrance accompanied by an unsettled breath. The snow covers the flowers, interweaving into a winding and endless stream.
"Thank you Zhiyan!"
"I'm going to break."
Sheng Puzhu was on the verge of collapse. She finally couldn't bear it anymore and called him by his full name. She opened her rosy lips slightly and bit his cold white wrist.
"It's almost there." Xie Zhiyan pretended not to hear, his teeth grinding against the delicate flesh behind her ear, his palms so strong that they left red fingerprints on the back of her waist.
"That's already the second time. Stop it now." Sheng Puzhu's eyelashes trembled, and the tears on his eyes made them look even darker and longer.
"Um."
"good."
Xie Zhiyan was not annoyed and agreed, but he did not show any intention of stopping. The hoarse ending of his voice revealed an imperceptible satisfaction.
He stared at her rosy cheeks and wet lips, and suddenly chuckled, with a dark tide in his eyes.
"I told you to check it carefully."
"A gentleman's promise is a promise. How can I lie to you?"
"You... bastard." Tears hung on Sheng Puju's eyelashes. Her white undershirt was stuck to her back and pushed up, revealing her white and rosy skin underneath.
Although it was clearly a curse, the tone that came out of his throat was one of anger and annoyance, and he almost didn't have the energy to glare at people.
Only a hint of smile remained at the corner of her eyes, making her pupils slightly sway.
It was past midnight, and in the quiet night, there were occasional cat-like murmurs.
Sheng Puzhu closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep.
Her slender white fingertips unconsciously grasped the slipping brocade quilt, her breathing was slightly rapid with a lingering aftertaste, even the curled arc revealed laziness and weakness, and on her jade-like wrist, a layer of light pink spread, just the width of the man's palm.
"Are you asleep?" Xie Zhiyan reached out and pushed away the wet hair pressing against her cheek. His fingertips accidentally rubbed against her rosy and plump lips, feeling a burning sensation.
"Hmm." Sheng Puzhu frowned and hummed twice exhaustedly in his sleep.
The next morning, the sky was slightly bright.
She seemed to have had a long dream with no concept of time, and slowly opened her eyes in a daze.
"Madam, what time is it?" Sheng Puzhu asked out of habit.
"At the hour of Mao."
"Did I wake you up?" Xie Zhiyan turned around.
Why wasn't that Madam Du's voice? Sheng Puzhu was stunned for a moment, and finally came to her senses.
She shook her head. Through the hazy curtain, she saw that the man had already gotten up. He stood beside her and dressed with meticulous movements. His cold, white, long fingers pinched the gold and jade button on the collar, pressed it into the buttonhole with a little force, and then smoothed it out.
Sheng Puju thought of the warmth of his fingertips last night, which was as refreshing as water. Her thoughts were in a mess at that time. Before she completely collapsed, she seemed to have not only scolded him, but also bit his wrist hard.
Fragments of memory flashed through my mind intermittently.
Although she was the one who tricked him in the beginning and he had an excuse to use when he caught her, but when she thought about the times when her soul left her body, she no longer cared about anything else and said all kinds of nonsense. She didn't know if he heard her clearly in that confusion.
Her breathing became heavier, and her lips were bitten by her pearly teeth. The moist color was like the dew on the flower buds in the morning, fragile and beautiful.
As a good wife, I have to ask a question now that he is awake.
"My dear."
"Do you need help getting dressed?"
Sheng Puzhu's voice was very sleepy and soft, giving people the illusion that she was acting coquettishly.
Upon hearing this, Xie Zhiyan walked lightly to the front of the couch. He leaned over and slowly lifted the curtain with his cold white hand.
"It's still early, Madam, please continue to sleep."
Sheng Puzhu looked up at him and couldn't help but sigh in her heart. Apart from that abnormality in that matter, this man could barely be considered considerate in other aspects of the relationship between husband and wife.
Then she heard Xie Zhiyan's voice saying, "Madam was exhausted last night."
"Based on the level of careful inspection I've done, it's unlikely you'll be able to get up."
"Don't force yourself."
He still has the nerve to mention last night!
Sheng Puzhu didn't know whether she was embarrassed or annoyed. Her cheeks flushed red. She turned over angrily, closed her eyes and ignored him.
When I opened my eyes again, the sun's shadow was already slanting across the ground.
The deep gold color is vividly reflected on the window lattice, and the delicately carved flower branches on the window seem to come alive.
"It can't be that serious. Why does it look like the sun is about to set?" Sheng Puzhu muttered to himself, hugging the quilt and trying to sit up.
As a result, she fell back limply, a soreness rising from deep in her bones, like a pouring stream, nailing her back to the couch.
“…”
"My lady, just call me when you wake up."
"Why did you sit up by yourself?"
When Aunt Du heard the sound, she walked into the inner room with a smile, holding a bowl of steaming milk in her hand.
Sheng Puzhu closed his eyes as if all his strength had been drained away. He moved his fingertips and slightly curled up his legs, but he did not feel the sticky and uncomfortable feeling as expected. Instead, there was a very faint medicinal fragrance in the tent.
The body under the brocade quilt was dry, the underwear had been changed, and even the most private parts of the body had been carefully cleaned and applied with ointment.
After so many times, she was sure that after each incident, he would carefully clean up her things while she was asleep.
As for when he started doing this, it might be the first time she was injured and couldn't give her medicine, and he accidentally saw it.
She couldn't quite describe what kind of feeling she was in. Applying medicine in that place was something she found difficult to talk about even to her closest friends, A'niang and Madam Du, let alone to her husband.
But he did it anyway. Sheng Puzhu simply suppressed this strange emotion and didn't think about it, just thinking that Xie Zhiyan was considerate and meticulous in his work.
"Mammy, what time is it now? When I opened my eyes, it felt like the sun had already set?" Sheng Puju asked weakly with his eyes closed.
Madam Du sighed deeply, "My wife must have slept so hard that she didn't know what heaven and earth were."
"It's past the afternoon, and now it's past midnight. If you delay any longer, my dear master, you will miss dinner again."
Sheng Puzhu was frightened. She hurriedly opened the curtain and climbed up with the help of Madam Du.
When she thought about going back to her parents' home, she only got up early once yesterday, and today was even more exaggerated. She slept until the sun went down. She didn't know what her younger sister at home would say about her laziness behind her back.
"Have Puyao and the others come?" Sheng Puzhu rubbed his eyebrows.
Madam Du said helplessly, "Fourth Lady is very lively. After breakfast, she came to talk to you, holding the cat."
"Later, the Third Lady also came."
"But you haven't woken up yet, Madam. The two young ladies were chasing butterflies in the garden for half an hour before going to pay their respects to the old lady. After lunch, the young ladies didn't come to see you in person, but sent a nanny to ask about it."
"Well, what do you say, Madam?" Although Sheng Puzhu had anticipated the result, he still asked without giving up.
As expected, Madam Du pounded her chest with a worried look on her face. "What else can I say? Of course I'll tell the truth."
well.
She couldn't count on Madam Du for lying and fooling people, but while she was out of the house for a few days, she sent Li Shuang and the other three to Linlang Pavilion in turn to do some work. Otherwise, with Li Shuang and the others around, let alone fooling Sheng Puyao, she would have had some chance of fooling even a young girl like Sheng Mingshu.
"That's right."
Madam Du slapped her forehead and said, "There is one more thing I forgot to tell you, Madam."
Sheng Puzhu picked up the milk and was drinking it in small sips.
As she tilted her head back, the collar of her dress loosened slightly, revealing a section of her snow-white neck. Her cheeks were white with a hint of pink, like the beauty of a crabapple tree in spring. She must have cried so hard yesterday, as the corners of her eyes were still slightly red.
She heard Madam Du clear her throat and say, "The Marquis of Changxing came in person today and said he wanted to apologize to the Second Madam."
"After reading the confessions obtained during the interrogation at the Dali Temple, the Second Madam cried several times at night. When she met the Marquis of Changxing today, if the old lady hadn't held her back, she would have wanted to scratch his face."
Sheng Puzhu paused while holding the bowl of milk. "How's it going? Did you cancel the marriage?"
Madam Du shook her head. "It doesn't look to me like he's here to break off the engagement. He brought a lot of valuable gifts, saying they're for the Second Lady to nourish her body."
"But he never mentioned the engagement letter or the token, only insisting that Liu was foolish and blinded by greed. He then firmly stated that he would immediately send Liu Jiao'e back to her hometown in Yizhou."
"Marquis Changxing is at least a prominent minister in the court of Great Yan. How could he be so shameless as to abandon even the most basic principles of propriety and integrity?"
Sheng Puzhu licked the milk stains on her lips with the tip of her tongue and sneered, "Back then, Xue Hanwen went to great lengths to please Mingshu. This shows that everyone in the family had bad intentions. Now that the truth has been revealed, if they break off the engagement with Mingshu, wouldn't that be a disguised admission of the dirty deeds done by the Changxing Marquisate?"
"By then, I'm afraid that in Chang'an, any family that loves their daughter will not marry her to such a vicious man."
"He married Mingshu because he was attracted by the reputation of the Mingde Marquisate for integrity in the court, hoping to use the relationship between the marriages to further his career in the court."
"If we cancel the engagement now, it would be like forcing their family into a dead end. How could the Marquis of Changxing care about his reputation? If we push him too far, he might even resort to desperate measures."
Aunt Du took a deep breath and said, "Madam, what should we do?"
Sheng Puzhu curled her lips and said, "Don't worry, Ma'am. The Changxing Marquis's Mansion will agree to cancel the engagement, unless he doesn't intend to take the life of the only legitimate son in the family."
Speaking of this, she couldn't help but think of the beginning of last night, when she was still able to concentrate, she did not forget to ask Xie Zhiyan to remind Lu Siqing that he must find a way to detain those people from Changxing Marquis Mansion in the Dali Temple for a few more days.
It was because she took the initiative to mention Lu Siqing that the man, who had already come once before, frowned, said nothing, and forcefully pressed her over, not stopping until he had pushed her to a complete collapse.
She didn't know why this man, who looked as cold and calm as the wind and clouds, would turn into a ferocious beast and eat her up at night if he had any contact with meat.
Initially, she disliked his strength and his domineering and overbearing manner in matters of the heart, which made the two of them very incompatible.
Although he would now pay attention to her reactions and feelings beforehand, Sheng Puzhu still felt that this jade-like man, with his strength and the ability to break her at any time, would never be restrained.
The incompatibility and unbearableness are always clearly reflected in her body, which is completely different from his.
If he had not left home because of the urgent news from the border on their wedding night two years ago, with Xie Zhiyan's physical strength, Sheng Puzhu would not have been able to spare the energy to open the Linlang Pavilion of her dreams.
After rushing, I finally made it to Shouchunju for dinner.
Before nightfall, the sisters of the Sheng family finished their meal with Old Madam Sheng and agreed to play mahjong in the warm room.
It can be seen that Madam Sheng is in a very good mood. She even ate half a piece of lotus root candy, which she usually dislikes because it is too sweet.
"grandmother."
"What good news have you had?"
Sheng Puyao was not good at playing mahjong, so she sat next to the old lady with a box of gold and silver dumplings to help with the accounting.
Madam Sheng squinted her eyes as she read the cards. She first asked Sheng Mingya, "Are your sister and mother feeling better today?"
"I heard from Madam that Mingshu had a fever again last night, and your mother barely ate a bite of lunch."
Sheng Mingya tilted her head and thought for a moment: "Don't worry, Grandmother, my second sister is able to get up and walk around today, and she even ate half a bowl of bird's nest porridge. Mother was so angry about the Marquis of Changxing that she was confused. I heard that my sister can eat now, and her complexion is visibly better."
Madam Sheng nodded: "Take good care of it, and it will eventually be well and healthy."
After she finished speaking, she looked at Sheng Puyao and grabbed a handful of golden dumplings from the wooden box and placed them on the table. "Don't blame me for being in a good mood. I was righteously angry about what Changxing Hou said during the day, and then Lu Siqing came."
"well……"
"Lu Siqing is handsome, but unfortunately he has a cold temper. He came here today to bring me the confessions from the mother and son from the Changxing Marquis' Mansion after interrogating them."
Sheng Puzhu threw a card, the corners of her lips curled up: "Grandmother, Lu Siqing didn't just send a confession, right?"
"That's right." Old Man Sheng laughed. "Lu Siqing said that the Dali Temple will continue to detain them for a while on the grounds of obstructing official business and that it will take time to interrogate the spies."
"When the Marquis of Changxing agrees to cancel the engagement, then we'll release him."
The result was already known, but Sheng Puzhu, to cheer the old lady up, still asked with a smile, "Lu Siqing is really thoughtful. Otherwise, he could have just sent someone else to make the trip and not wasted his time going back and forth."
"That's right, I said the same thing." Madam Sheng clapped her hands. "I accepted his favor, so naturally I had to keep him for a meal before leaving, but Lu Siqing didn't even drink tea."
"It looked as if someone in the mansion was chasing him, and he ran out of the flower hall in the blink of an eye."
Madam Sheng said with some regret: "Next time we have a banquet at the mansion, Puzhu, please talk to Zhiyan and ask him to bring Lu Siqing with him. We must thank him properly."
Sheng Puzhu agreed: "Wait until my second brother finishes his studies at the Imperial College. It will be Mingshu's birthday."
"A birthday party is still a party. We've invited Lu Siqing to our house anyway, and since we'll be attending the party with my brothers, it won't interfere with the women. What do you think, Grandmother?"
Madam Sheng thought about it carefully and said, "That's fine. Mingshu's birthday happens to be around the winter solstice. By then, there will be many families in Chang'an hosting banquets. It wouldn't be out of place for us to invite Lu Siqing to our house."
Sheng Puzhu has been unable to resist all beautiful things since she was a child, otherwise she would not have been able to smile and talk to Xie Zhiyan when he returned home two years after leaving home.
It's because this man has a handsome face that is unique in the world.
As for Lu Siqing, his appearance was completely different from Xie Zhiyan.
His coldness is a kind of gloomy loneliness. His skin color has not seen the light for a long time, his veins are pale blue, and his handsome and delicate facial features make him look like fine porcelain.
Sheng Puju was inevitably curious about such a unique man, but of course she was just admiring him. After all, all the jewelry in Linlang Pavilion was designed by her and then made by craftsmen.
Sometimes when her inspiration runs out, she always looks for something new that can give her different ideas.
Sheng Puzhu was a little distracted, holding the leaf cards in her hand, the pearl bracelet on her fair wrist jingling. She didn't think much about it, and just followed the old lady's words and praised: "Lu Siqing looks cold, but he is actually a very warm-hearted man."
"That's right." Old Madam Sheng agreed.
“Crash—”
The beaded curtain hanging in front of the warm room was lifted by a slender hand.
Xie Zhiyan slowly stepped into the flower hall. The cloud and thunder patterns embroidered with silver thread on his dark blue round-necked robe glowed coldly under the light.
There was a smile on the corner of his lips, but his eyes were as deep as a pool.
The leaf card at Sheng Puzhu's fingertips fell onto the table with a "pop".
Memories of last night came flooding back—
She did not forget that yesterday she had only mentioned the three words "Lu Siqing" in the middle of her conversation, and before she could finish her words, he knocked her down so hard that she seemed to be broken into pieces on the mattress.
She asked him what he was angry about, but he didn't say anything. The longer he remained silent, the stronger his anger became. In the end, he pushed her to the point of being on the verge of death several times until he completely collapsed.
"My dear." Sheng Puzhu's waist suddenly weakened, and she hurriedly lowered her eyes to pick up the cards, but knocked over the teacup.
Xie Zhiyan leaned over, his breath carrying the cool aroma of cypress seeds. He took out a handkerchief and seemingly wiped the water stains off her face, but in a whisper only the two of them could hear, he asked, "Madam, what are you panicking about?"
His fingertips accidentally brushed against the red mark on her wrist that was covered by a pearl bracelet.
“Could it be…”
"Didn't you get a good night's rest?"
Sheng Puzhu was so angry!
He clearly did it on purpose. He knew she hadn't rested well, but he still brought it up.
His eyes were as deep as the bottomless abyss, and he almost said that she couldn't have a good rest tonight.
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