Chapter 86 Chapter 86 "You can't even understand the love confession note?" ...
Xue Yuanyin was stunned for a moment and said, "No... I haven't seen it yet."
She didn't want to admit that she was avoiding this matter, so she changed the subject as if nothing had happened and said:
"How are you hurt? Are you seriously injured? Can I take a look?"
Zhang Jingxuan glanced at her, seemingly unaware that she was deliberately changing the subject. He lowered his eyes, touched the compress Huaizhou had placed on the edge of the bed, and asked:
"Do you really want to see it?"
Xue Yuanyin nodded, not understanding why. "Can't I watch it?"
Zhang Jingxuan didn't answer. He slowly crouched down and said, "Let's see."
Xue Yuanyin sat down on the edge of the bed and was about to reach out to lift the pajamas on his back when she suddenly remembered something and froze a little.
"Where... where were you hit?"
Zhang Jingxuan glanced at her sideways and said with a bit of amusement:
"The blame isn't where you think it is."
Xue Yuanyin didn't expect him to see through her at a glance, and said awkwardly:
"How do you know what I'm thinking? I'm just asking casually."
"Okay, feel free to ask. I'll give you a random answer: it's on my back, nowhere else."
Zhang Jingxuan closed his eyes and said softly, "It's a little heavy. I wasn't afraid to scare you."
Xue Yuanyin reached out and gently lifted the pajamas from his back. Because of the movement he had just made when he stood up, blood had seeped through the gauze and seeped through the pajamas, making them look bloodstained.
She carefully tore off the gauze and saw the crisscross of new and old wounds on his back. Even though she had been mentally prepared, she still froze slightly at this moment.
Although it was not bloody, it was covered with bruises, scattered messily on the cold white skin, which was quite scary.
She couldn't help but ask, "Is the Zhang family's punishment so severe?"
Zhang Jingxuan lowered his shirt and sat up with his palms on the bed. Xue Yuanyin wanted to stop him from getting up, but thinking that Zhang Jingxuan was a proud person and would definitely not like to talk to her while lying down, she refrained from speaking.
When he sat up, Zhang Jingxuan's forehead was already covered with cold sweat. After he sat firmly, he looked up at her and said softly:
"What about you? Did it hurt when the Marquis of Qing'an whipped you?"
Xue Yuanyin was speechless for a moment. To be honest, the Xue family guards were quite strong. The whip made her ears buzz and cold sweat pour out. Although the wounds had healed a lot now, they were still very hideous at that time.
But when the words came to her lips, she pretended to be relaxed and changed the subject, saying: "It's nothing, it's been so long, I almost forgot about it."
Zhang Jingxuan looked at her quietly, a slight pain rising in his heart, and whispered: "But I haven't forgotten."
Xue Yuanyin was startled again, and her gaze met his deep and profound eyes. She felt flustered and stumbled to change the subject:
"I've been coming to see you these past few days, and I brought you some medicine. It's something my father, Marquis Qing'an, left behind from the battlefield. It's more effective than regular dressings. I have something else to do in seven days, so I brought you some seven-day medicine."
After seven days, his wounds would be slightly better, and she would leave without guilt or burden.
Zhang Jingxuan didn't answer, but suddenly asked something else: "I heard that you've been looking for a marriage partner recently?"
Xue Yuanyin let out an "ah" and then a throaty "hmm".
Zhang Jingxuan looked over at her with calm eyes, staring at her, and said slowly: "Did you find anyone you like?
His eyes made Xue Yuanyin feel guilty for no reason. She didn't know how to answer, so she turned her eyes away and talked about something else:
"Well... I brought you some persimmon cakes. They're grown in my garden. They're a little sweet, a little sour, and very delicious. Would you like to try some?"
Unexpectedly, her random words gave Zhang Jingxuan a loophole. He laughed meaningfully and said:
"Add some acid...Xue Yuanyin, are you referring to me?"
Xue Yuanyin felt a surge of panic in her heart, and without thinking, she denied it immediately:
"I'm not! I didn't mean to say you were jealous!"
After saying this, Xue Yuanyin's face turned red, and she wanted to slap herself in the face!
This is so embarrassing! It's like using scissors to poke a hole in the window paper.
Unexpectedly, Zhang Jingxuan did not answer immediately. Xue Yuanyin paused and an outrageous thought came to her mind -
He's not really jealous, is he? Not really...
Zhang Jingxuan didn't answer. He looked straight at her and said, "Haven't you read the letter I sent you yet?"
Xue Yuanyin breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that he didn't continue to embarrass her by changing the subject. She nodded and said, "Give it to me. I didn't have time to read it."
She pretended to be calm and said, "What did you write? It's not a secret that can't be told. Just tell me verbally now."
Zhang Jingxuan raised his eyebrows slightly, his tone natural: "I'm fine with either. But you have to think it over carefully. Listening to what I say now doesn't mean you have to reply to me right then and there. Are you sure?"
Xue Yuanyin quickly said, "Then, then stop talking! I'll go back and take a look."
Zhang Jingxuan looked at her and said, "Xue Yuanyin, did you not have time to read it, or did you not dare to read it? Are you afraid of what I would write in the letter?"
Xue Yuanyin subconsciously avoided looking away: "I didn't."
Zhang Jingxuan grasped her wrist, gently but with undeniable strength, and said:
"I've changed my mind. I want you to open it now and read it in front of me. Don't wait until we get back."
Xue Yuanyin felt inexplicably flustered. He looked like this, which always made her feel that something was wrong. Her intuition told her that after reading this letter, the window paper would be broken. However, she was not ready and could not bear his pressing questioning.
She racked her brains and stumbled over it, "How could you open a letter in front of someone? Of course you have to read it alone. I'll open it when I get home."
Zhang Jingxuan held her tightly, not letting her get up, and said slowly, "I'm afraid you won't tear it apart again after you go back."
Xue Yuanyin didn't want to admit that her thoughts had been predicted. She had wanted to wait until she escorted Xue Chang back before taking it apart.
Zhang Jingxuan didn't give her any more time to delay. Letters were easy to find. He took them out from her sleeve with his backhand. Without waiting for her to stop him, he opened the envelope and handed her a slightly old letter with dense handwriting on it. He said:
"Read it here. Finish reading it. Or do you want me to read it to you myself?"
Xue Yuanyin snatched the letter away, but it was too late. Her eyesight was very good and she had already read the first few lines clearly.
It has come to this...
Xue Yuanyin spread out the yellowed letter with a bit of resignation and looked down at it.
The letter was very long and had a lot of words in it. It didn't seem to have been written recently, but rather as if he had started writing it just as he was going to war.
The letter begins like this:
"I'm glad to see you. I'm writing to you. I hope you're doing well. I've arrived at Qintang Pass. The yellow sand here is rolling, and the world is vast, completely different from the capital. On the first day I arrived, I've missed you deeply. Are you all right in the capital?"
Further down, there are daily notes like a notebook. In the beginning, he wrote every day, and with just a few strokes, he described in detail what happened after he went to Qintang Pass. Later, he wrote again after a while, usually when something big happened.
For example—
"On the tenth day of the first lunar month, today is your seventeenth birthday. I made a little figurine out of yellow clay, but my craftsmanship is poor and it doesn't look like anything. Fortunately, you can't see it. I regret that I can't be with you, but I wish you a happy birthday from afar."
"On February 15th, I was nearly ambushed. Although I was seriously injured, I was fortunately able to escape danger in the end."
"On the seventh day of the third month, I was wounded in my left shoulder. The pain is excruciating. However, the war is intense, and the battlefield is not a place to recuperate. Fortunately, I am still strong and should be able to get through this. I miss you so much. I wonder if everything is going well for you in the capital."
And so on and so forth, until he finished writing about the life-and-death dangers he faced in Qintang Pass for more than two years and how he sometimes missed her.
Each day is not very detailed, but the time is long, so the letter is also very long.
Xue Yuanyin was silent, his eyes were sore, and his heart was beating fast, as if something sour and bitter had soaked into his chest, flooding up and then slowly overflowing.
I read until the end, when the army returned to Beijing and the letter was finished.
That was the latest ink writing. It was different from the rough ink on the battlefield. It was fine and valuable ink. Xue Yuanyin stared blankly at the last line of writing.
At the end of the letter, the writer wrote in clear and sharp handwriting:
"I am delighted to see you, my lord. All the hardships of the past are like the passing of thousands of sails. The clouds have parted, the sun has appeared, and the sky is bright. Spring is here, and the scenery is beautiful."
And at the end, he said: "Written by Jingxuan, June 8th."
The eighth day of the sixth lunar month...is the day when the army returns.
So when she escaped from his carriage that day, he finished writing the end of the letter when he returned home?
The air in the room was very quiet, but Zhang Jingxuan did not intend to give her too much time to consider, and spoke at the right time:
"Have you finished reading it?"
Xue Yuanyin felt her cheeks getting hot, and she guessed that she must have blushed. She had already realized what he meant by writing this letter...
Her heart was in turmoil, but she didn't want him to see her weakness and her lack of confidence, so she pretended to be calm and put the letter aside, saying:
"I know you miss me, but there's no need to write like this, so formally... You wrote too much, I, I didn't understand it."
The room was filled with a suffocating sense of ambiguity. She couldn't stand it any longer and wanted to get up to open the window for ventilation, but she still calmly explained:
"It's so hot in June, I'm sweating."
Zhang Jingxuan suddenly clenched her hand and inserted his fingers between hers. The injury on his back did not affect the movement of his arms. He only exerted a little force and pulled his palm inward. Xue Yuanyin was caught off guard and fell onto the bed into his arms.
The faint scent of pine wood wafted into Xue Yuanyin's nose, making her momentarily dazed as she tried to struggle and push back. When she realized how bad this posture was, she raised her eyes in panic and met his slightly deep eyes.
It seemed that after sending this letter, he, who was such a reserved person, no longer concealed anything.
Zhang Jingxuan intertwined his fingers with hers, letting her fall into his arms in such a terrible position. Taking advantage of her unpreparedness, he turned over and pressed her down. Relying on her back injury, she did not dare to struggle violently, lowering her eyes and saying in a hoarse voice:
"You're the top scorer in the Imperial College's annual exam, can't you even understand a love confession?"
He lowered his head and leaned close to her ear, watching the small, round earlobe slowly turn red and hot. He deliberately repeated the question in a low, throaty voice:
"Answer me, huh?"
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The author has something to say: My health is too poor, so I will update daily if I can finish writing. If I can't finish, I will update the next day. If I can't update, I will take a leave of absence.
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