Chapter 91. Hot wax dripped down. ...
I'm giving you a chance.
The man frowned and walked back.
His cold hands embraced her, letting her hold onto one of his shoulders. He leaned down to press his lips to her warm lips, enticing her to open them and their lips met.
The cold wind howled through the night, and the mourning hall was drafty on three sides. The two people embracing each other leaned against the wall, swept up by the wind, their long sleeves, shawls, and even the delicate white mourning headscarves and hair ribbons all tangled together.
The pine needles in the brazier had burned out completely. She lost her balance slightly and kicked the brazier to the ground, sending smoke and dust flying out and filling the air. This did not affect the two of them's passionate, fiery lovemaking at all.
She raised her hand and placed it on the back of the man's neck, her nails digging into his skin and drawing blood. Then, she used her crimson fingertips to stroke the man's Adam's apple, leaving a few red marks.
"Isn't this inappropriate?" She tilted her head back and breathed on the man, a sly smile playing on her lips. "What will Leng Zhen think of us? Doing this kind of thing next to his coffin..."
"What will happen if he does it?" Yin Yuan said calmly. "Will he be so angry that he dies, or will he turn to death?"
As he spoke, he lowered his head and buried it in her neck, gently licking the thin bones and trembling veins of her neck.
After licking for a while, the two of them, half-asleep, held hands and went to the incense table. They brushed away the white candles and paper money on the table, and she turned around and sat down.
The man buried his head and kissed all the bite marks on his neck, kissing from top to bottom down to his chest, biting open the buttons on his vest one by one.
She placed her hands on the table, her fingertips suddenly touching the solidified wax on the table, and rolled her eyes, a half-smile on her face.
As Yin Yuan unbuttoned all the buttons and looked up to kiss her, hot wax dripped down.
The wax settled between his eyebrows, slid down his nose, and left a mark of moderate color on his face. The oily wax, illuminated by the candlelight, shone like jade on his skin.
"..." He stared at her for a moment, his eyelashes lowered in a daze.
She held the white candle firmly, then smiled and dripped it onto his face. Seeing that he didn't react, she moved it down to his neck to gather her strength. The candle flame was blown by the wind and landed on his long hair, burning off a few strands.
The wax dripped down her collarbone, hidden by her collar, and she didn't know where it had gone. All she could see was that the blue embroidery on the collar was covered in wax, shiny and glossy.
The man grunted, "...That's enough."
He glared at her with his face covered in wax and looking utterly disheveled.
"Is it hot? Why don't you open your collar a bit? Or just take it off?"
She withdrew her hand, dripped a drop onto the back of her hand, and before she could feel it properly, the man snatched the candle away, extinguished it, and wiped away the small drop from the back of her hand.
"It's not hot."
"I won't take it off."
Why don't you take them off?
"...I have scars on my body, they're not pretty."
As if he had just thought of something, he lifted her dress and bent down to press himself against her.
"Ah..." It wasn't until the lingering warmth of the wax clung to her skin that she realized this joke had ultimately harmed her.
Compared to his warm, moist lips and tongue, the sticky white ointment on his nose was far more aggressive, showing no regard for her fragility and sensitivity, rubbing upwards with all its might. His nose was already straight, and now the hump on it was coated with wax; with each rub, she opened her mouth even wider. The poplar wood table was soaked with water, turning a dark color. Even after the wax cooled, other hot, sticky wax was ready to flow out amidst the congestion.
They used up almost all the white candles displayed in the hall, and by the end there was hardly any light left. So, the next day, as the morning mist was about to clear, the two of them tidied themselves up and the mourning hall. One went home to catch up on sleep, while the other went to check in. They also made sure to instruct the servant to buy more candles and paper money.
On her way home, Leng Cuizhu ran into Jiang Mimi and her maid shopping for clothes. As soon as Jiang Mimi saw her, she came up to greet her and said she would give her some fabric to make winter clothes.
“Thank you, Miss Mimi. Well…” she stroked the brocade in her arms, “I’ll accept these pieces of fabric.”
“Okay.” Jiang Mimi took out a letter and handed it to him. “Please accept this, my wife.”
The letter was signed Chen Xun. She accepted it hesitantly and thanked Jiang Mimi.
"How are you, sir?"
"Don't worry, my lady, the magistrate is doing well. He's been busy with some trivial matters at the yamen lately, which is why he's neglected you for a while."
“I see,” Leng Cuizhu pursed her lips, “I thought…”
"Wife." Jiang Mimi called out to her.
"The master also said that he will always be on your side, and no matter what mistakes you make, please don't take it to heart."
"The salt fields have recently encountered many setbacks and business is not good, but the master will not be discouraged, so you don't need to blame yourself."
Leng Cuizhu was surprised: "He really said that?"
"I...I...I never thought he would say that. I thought he was going to break up with me." She thought that if she cut ties with him completely, Chen Xun would ignore her and even find a chance to take revenge on her. She never expected him to be so forgiving, so forgiving that she couldn't believe it and suspected that Jiang Mimi was bluffing her.
Jiang Mimi shook her head: "Where?"
"The adult has always been a person who values feelings."
She felt relieved and asked curiously, "But I heard before that the master wasn't very good to his first wife?"
"I heard that his wife died early, and in order to become an official in the court, he used his wife's dowry money to buy..." Seeing that Jiang Mimi's reaction was not right, she suddenly closed her lips.
“It certainly doesn’t sound good,” Jiang Mimi nodded. “It’s ruthless and selfish. But if it were Lord Chen who died young, and his wife survived and enjoyed the status and wealth he brought her, would you still think that way, my lady?”
No, it's true.
If the woman were the one who benefited, she would only think that the girl was very clever.
So, she actually has a prejudice against men?
ah……
I don't think this is a problem. After all, she's a woman too, so of course she can understand women better. Besides, most women are great, not nearly as bad as men, and deserve her tolerance.
If she doesn't care about women, why should she care about men? What's there to care about in men? Most of them are just reaping what they sow, making a fuss over nothing.
"Oh...no."
“But,” Jiang Mimi smiled, “whether it’s a man or a woman, doing such a thing is the same. They are equally selfish and will be abandoned by everyone. So there’s no need to glorify him or her; they are both extremely despicable.”
"Even if you tell him that it is wrong, he will still do it because he is blinded by greed. Who doesn't want to climb to a higher position by stepping on the suffering of others? In this world, who is without desires?"
Leng Cuizhu seemed to understand but not quite.
Indeed, everyone has desires and is driven by desires. Most people in the world will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. In such an environment, who is right and who is wrong is determined by the strong and the victors.
Twisted, inhumane, but that's the truth.
So, her joy at Leng Zhen's death can't be entirely blamed on her being cold-blooded and heartless, can it? Her concealment of Leng Zhen's true identity from everyone except herself can only be described as a weighing of pros and cons, right? And her obsequious flattery towards Yin Yuan in order to obtain the indenture... what do these petty schemes of hers amount to in the eyes of others?
Even if she did something truly heinous, so what? She was bad to others, but she was good to herself, so she could be considered half a good person.
As the mother of the deceased, she and the hired mourners were required to mourn and offer sacrifices before Leng Zhen's memorial tablet every morning and evening.
Leng Cuizhu tried to cry all morning but couldn't shed a few tears. The thought of crying again that night gave her a headache. She figured that if she had something else to do, she might be able to get away from it, so she went to the Yin residence to help Yi Yinwan.
"Go away! Don't cause me any more trouble here," Yi Yinwan shooed her toward the door of the accounting room, cursing as she did so. "You're so annoying, even with someone dying in your family, you still can't stop making a fuss. Don't come looking for me, I'm swamped with work, unlike you who have so much free time."
Since Leng Zhen's passing, Yi Yinwan has become much more irritable than usual. At first, she would still speak seriously with people, but now she is completely unable to do so. She either argues or curses at people she sees.
“Hey, Madam…” Leng Cuizhu, despite being chased out, still tried to squeeze back into the room. She approached Yi Yinwan and, seeing the table covered with account books, said, “I can read account books. I can help Madam with the accounts, really…” She stopped abruptly halfway through her sentence.
Yi Yinwan opened the ledger and tore off several pages, throwing them into the wastebasket. She tore off one ledger after another, showing no mercy.
She turned her head and saw that Leng Cuizhu was still lingering, so she stomped her foot and shouted, "Get out! Get out! Stop bothering us here. Yin Yuan is in the backyard, go find him and play!"
Realizing she couldn't help Yi Yinwan and might even make things worse, she quietly agreed, "Okay..."
The weather has turned cooler these past few days, and there are more fallen leaves in the yard. She stepped on the soft fallen leaves, looked up at the bare tree canopy, and slowly walked towards the backyard.
Halfway there, she remembered the gray rabbit behind the artificial hill and took a detour to the artificial hill.
When they arrived at their destination, what they saw before the rabbits were men crouching by the grass, feeding themselves.
"...Yin Yuan?"
Yin Yuan looked up at her and asked, "What's wrong?"
He pulled his cloak tighter over his shoulders and sighed, "You've come to see that rabbit again?"
"Hmm..." She nodded slightly.
“She’s asleep in the grass,” the man said, pointing to a cotton nest in the grass.
She walked over to the man and squatted down, staring with him at the fluffy cotton nest in the grass and the protruding rabbit ears.
"This is... the nest you made for it?"
“No,” Yin Yuan replied, “it was a gift from my subordinate. I thought it would need it for the winter, so I gave it to it.”
She raised an eyebrow: "Is this your rabbit?"
The man glanced at her: "It's yours."
“I gave it to you before, and you asked me to take it back, so I had Yi Yinwan take care of it. Less than half a month later, the rabbit ran into the woods in the yard and couldn’t be called out. It must like to stay in places with plants.”
She remembered that it was true; Yin Yuan had inexplicably given her a rabbit before. She had argued with him at the time and was feeling very upset, so she asked him to take the rabbit back.
"Wasn't the previous one a white rabbit? How come this one is..." she asked suspiciously.
Yin Yuan lowered his head and tore at the cabbage: "It doesn't bathe, it likes to dig in the dirt, it's dirty."
Aren't you going to wash it?
The man frowned, glanced at her again, and his expression... was somewhat strange.
That's true. She really couldn't imagine what it would be like for Yin Yuan to bathe a rabbit. Maybe he would get splashed with water and even get bitten on the hand by the rabbit?
She picked up the vegetable leaves from the ground and tore them into pieces, bit by bit.
"The servant said the deceased's parents should go to mourn, why aren't you going?"
The man paused in tearing the vegetables.
"I'm not going."
"Why not go? It's not like he doesn't have a father. Aren't you his father?"
The man turned around, his gaze lingering on her clear, bright eyes, which remained fixed on them for a long time.
Am I?
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