Chapter 239 The Last Time
After all that commotion, Meng Jinyao was sweating again.
Gu Jingxi asked the maid on night duty to bring a basin of warm water. He carried the basin back to his bedroom and personally wiped the girl's body.
When his hand touched her skin, Meng Jinyao trembled, feeling ashamed. But since he had seen everything about her, both what she should and shouldn't have seen, she simply gave up and let him wipe her.
At this moment, Gu Jingxi didn't have any bad intentions. He simply wiped her body, dressed her, and then held her to sleep.
The soft, warm fragrance in my arms brings an indescribable sense of satisfaction.
Meng Jinyao nestled in Gu Jingxi's arms, motionless. The shame overwhelmed her thoughts, making her too embarrassed to look Gu Jingxi in the eye.
Gu Jingxi called her softly, "Ayao."
Meng Jinyao asked, puzzled, "Why has my husband been calling me by my maiden name all night?"
Gu Jingxi paused for a moment. Actually, he felt that calling her by her maiden name would be more intimate, but he said aloud, "Ayao's maiden name is beautiful. Is it from the phrases 'Jin Jing Ling Long Ying Yao Qiong, Xuan Cao Yin Yin Rui Cong Long'?"
When asked about the origin of her name, Meng Jinyao thought of her grandfather. She suppressed her shame for the moment and replied, "Yes, it comes from this poem. My grandfather gave me this name."
Gu Jingxi said, "Grandfather must really like Ayao with this name."
“Grandfather loves me the most.” Meng Jinyao smiled, tilting her head up to look at him. “Grandfather will probably like his grandson-in-law very much too.”
Gu Jingxi smiled and said, "That's not necessarily true."
Meng Jinyao glared at him: "You're not him, how do you know?"
Gu Jingxi replied, "After we got married, I heard my mother say that when our two families made a marriage agreement, my father wanted me to be engaged to you, but your grandfather didn't like me. I was young then, and he didn't like me. Now that I'm this old, he's even less likely to like me."
Meng Jinyao was surprised: "Is that so?"
Gu Jingxi nodded slightly: "There was such an incident."
He then continued, "Later, the marriage agreement between the two families was finalized. Your father asked your grandfather which of his four grandsons he preferred as his granddaughter's husband, but your grandfather said at the time that the children were still too young to choose one, and that the marriage agreement should be finalized first."
Meng Jinyao knew about this matter. Because it was a marriage arrangement made by the old Marquis, the Gu family also attached great importance to it. Later, everyone tacitly agreed that it would be Gu Xiuming, the grandson with the highest status. Gu Xiuming never objected until the day of the wedding when he regretted it and wanted to run away from the marriage.
After a moment, she smiled and said, "Although there was the incident with Gu Xiuming, my husband and I are still quite destined for each other."
"Yes, it is quite a coincidence."
Gu Jingxi agreed. He never imagined that the fearless little girl would eventually marry him.
Afterwards, Meng Jinyao chatted with him casually, and before she knew it, she had fallen asleep.
Seeing that she had fallen asleep, Gu Jingxi closed his eyes and went to sleep as well.
-
The next morning.
For the first time ever, Meng Jinyao woke up before Gu Jingxi. Her gaze traced his handsome sleeping face, and when it landed on his pale pink lips, she couldn't help but recall the embarrassing events of the previous night, and her face flushed with embarrassment.
But upon closer reflection, I felt like I had lost out.
She was completely naked when Gu Jingxi looked at her, but Gu Jingxi remained fully clothed, so she couldn't see what the man looked like at all.
Gu Jingxi slowly opened his eyes and found his little wife staring at him without blinking, seemingly unaware that he had woken up. He smiled and asked, "How long do you want to watch, A-Yao?"
Hearing this, Meng Jinyao snapped out of her reverie and calmly said, "Husband, you're awake. Get up quickly, you still have to go to the Dali Temple for your shift."
Gu Jingxi said gently, "I'm off today, I can sleep a little longer."
Meng Jinyao was taken aback: "So soon it's time for your day off?"
Gu Jingxi gave her a resentful look and asked, "You left me at home and went to the estate for two days. You must have been having so much fun that you forgot about time. If you include those two days, do you still think it went by quickly?"
Listening to his tone, Meng Jinyao felt more and more that he was like a young wife who couldn't live without her husband, a typical resentful woman. When she met his resentful eyes, she felt inexplicably guilty and quickly looked away, asking, "Husband, what day is it today?"
"The tenth," Gu Jingxi replied, then, as if afraid she might forget the month, added, "The tenth of September."
Upon hearing this, Meng Jinyao's eyes lit up: "The tenth of the ninth month, isn't that the day the results of the autumn imperial examinations are announced?"
Gu Jingxi nodded and said, "That's right."
Meng Jinyao immediately became excited. She wanted to see if her confident, albeit illegitimate, son had passed the imperial examination, and also to see how her eldest and second nephews had done.
Her voice was filled with barely concealed excitement: "Husband, today is an important day, we shouldn't sleep in, let's get up now."
After she finished speaking, she pushed Gu Jingxi away, out of his arms, and sat up with a somersault.
Seeing this, Gu Jingxi chuckled: "So excited, anyone who didn't know better would think you were also participating in the autumn imperial examination."
Meng Jinyao straightened her expression, adopted a loving mother's demeanor, and said softly, "I didn't participate, but my son did. As a mother, I care about my son. You are the father, don't you care whether our son is on the list?"
Gu Jingxi said calmly, "It's all up to fate. It's good to be on the list, but I won't be disappointed if I don't make the cut."
Upon hearing this, Meng Jinyao understood what he meant. He had no expectations for this son, so whether or not he passed the imperial examination, it wouldn't affect him in the slightest.
After a moment of silence, Meng Jinyao asked carefully, "Since my husband has long since lost interest in him and has no intention of letting him inherit the title, why did he still make him the heir apparent?"
Gu Jingxi replied, "My mother said to give him another chance."
Meng Jinyao suddenly remembered that on the day Xuanyi got married, Gu Xiuming's biological father also came to the wedding banquet. At that time, her husband's words "the last time" must have meant this.
She seemed thoughtful, then asked, "What if he's been pretending all along? Then you could petition the Emperor first, and there would be no reason for him to depose the Crown Prince."
Gu Jingxi said with certainty, "With his personality, if he doesn't truly change, even if he pretends well, he will still make stupid mistakes. I've also had people keeping an eye on his every move recently."
Meng Jinyao was surprised. No wonder he had been so calm. Suddenly, she became a little curious: "When did you start monitoring him, husband?"
Gu Jingxi asked gently, "Last month, when Xuanyi got married, Xiuwen took leave from the academy to come back for the wedding banquet and came to see me. Does Ayao remember?"
Meng Jinyao nodded slightly: "I remember, he said he wanted to ask you for help with his studies. Is there something else?"
Gu Jingxi said unhurriedly, "Xiuwen said that Xiuming is acting a bit strange. The eldest sister-in-law and the second sister-in-law have not gotten along for many years. You could tell when Xuanyi returned home. She must have been wronged at her parents' home. But the second sister-in-law did not take the opportunity to kick the eldest sister-in-law who loves her daughter when she was down. On the contrary, Xiuming seemed to be gloating."
He paused for a moment, then continued, "However, I don't quite understand what kind of grudge could those siblings have? Perhaps it's just Xiuwen's imagination, or he's overthinking things, but I'll still have someone keep an eye on Xiuming, so that I can know in advance if he tries anything funny in the future."
Meng Jinyao was slightly taken aback. In a flash, something rushed through her mind, so fast that she couldn't quite grasp it, and she felt a little lost.
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