Chapter 13: Qingqing can only be his Qingqing
The dream he had longed for day and night was finally within reach. Feng Huaihe breathed a soft, nervous sigh, and reached out with trembling hands to gently stroke Zhu Qing's face, chin, and lips.
In his previous life, Feng Huaihe kept his secrets hidden for nearly a hundred years, and no one knew what it felt like to be intimate with Zhu Qing until his death.
So that's how it is. Her skin was smooth and warm, like a warm cloud under my fingers.
He dared not imagine what it would feel like to hold someone completely in his arms and press them down beneath him.
Feng Huaihe dared not think too deeply. He took a deep breath and lowered his fingers. His fingers, which had been holding a brush and carving knife for many years, had developed a thin layer of calluses and were somewhat rough, as if they were being worn uncomfortable. Zhu Qing groaned and shifted her shoulders, causing the collar of her inner garment to slip open and reveal her collarbone.
Feng Huaihe stopped moving.
By the light streaming in through the round window, one could see a four-leaf clover birthmark on Zhu Qing's collarbone.
Zhu Qing's collarbone is shaped like a bamboo leaf with a beautiful curve. The four-leaf clover birthmark is in the middle of her collarbone, just like a four-leaf clover placed on a bamboo leaf, which is wonderfully beautiful.
Anyone would find it hard to resist such temptation. Feng Huaihe knew all too well that Zhang Yin in his previous life loved kissing Zhu Qing's birthmark.
I remember it was the Battle of Luzhou. Feng Huaihe followed Zhu Wen to the battlefield. Later, Zhu Wen was busy with political affairs and returned to Bianliang first, leaving Feng Huaihe behind to guide the tactics.
Not long after, Li Cunxu also went to the battlefield. As Li Cunxu's strategists, Zhu Qing and Zhang Yin also came along.
That was the first time Feng Huaihe saw Zhu Qing after her marriage.
Even though the world was in chaos, people were suffering, and everyone was in pain, Zhu Qing looked very well. At that time, Feng Huaihe knew that she must be very happy with Zhang Yin.
Even more furious than when she married him, it broadened Feng Huaihe's mind, made him dizzy, and led him to make wrong decisions, resulting in heavy losses and defeat in the Battle of Luzhou.
But Feng Huaihe refused to leave and secretly slipped back to see Zhu Qing. He saw her and Zhang Yin playing around when no one was around, and Zhang Yin would always pick her up and kiss the birthmark.
He kissed her and called her, "Qingqing, you are my Qingqing."
It was only then that Feng Zhijian realized that she was Qingqing, who was neither a betrayal of Buddha nor a betrayal of love, rather than Qingqing, who wanted to leave behind a pure reputation in the world.
Feng Zhijian was filled with resentment. He hated himself for always being closed off. Although he secretly admired her, he had never had any real interaction or communication with her, which led him to mistakenly believe that she was Qingqing.
She was originally Qingqing.
He lost control of himself and was discovered and captured on the spot by Li Cunxu's men. Li Cunxu valued his talent and wanted to keep him, but the proud man refused. He would never serve the same monarch as Zhu Qing's husband.
Those strategists who refused to defect were a menace if kept alive, so Li Cunxu wanted to kill him. Zhu Qing stopped him in time, saved him, and took him to the military tent.
She found Zhang Yin's clean clothes for him to change into, and told him that she would find a way to send him away, but she would only save him this once.
Feng Zhijian threw the garment heavily on the ground, stomped on it several times, and gritted his teeth, saying, "Zhang Yin's clothes? What do you take me for? Wearing your husband's clothes?"
Zhu Qing frowned in confusion: "It's been raining a lot in Luzhou lately. I just saw that your clothes were thin and dirty, so I kindly offered to change them for you. You..."
"I don't need your sympathy, and I don't need Zhang Yin's clothes!"
That night, a heavy rain fell in Luzhou. The rain was torrential and the thunder was deafening. Amid the pattering rain, Zhu Qing silently looked at him for a long, long time. Finally, she silently picked up her clothes and said, "Sir, you're always like this. You don't trust others and are so sensitive that you can assume the worst about them. If you don't want to wear it, that's fine. You can go now."
Feng Zhijian didn't know what Zhu Qing's gaze meant, but he felt a dull, painful, and sour feeling in his heart from Zhu Qing's gaze. After Zhu Qing finished speaking, he took the clothes, turned around, and put them into the bag that strategists always carried.
She didn't look at him again.
Feng Zhijian's deepest impression of that night was Zhu Qing's disappointed look as she turned her back, and the fact that Zhang Yin and some of her daily necessities were all mixed together in her open bag.
They're so intimate; that's probably how it is between married couples.
A deep and inescapable sense of inferiority crept into Feng Zhijian's heart.
He said nothing and left in the pouring rain. After returning to Bianliang, Zhu Wen sighed at Li Cunxu's abilities, saying that one should have a son like Li Yazi, and then went to settle accounts with Feng Zhijian.
He no longer trusted Feng Zhijian, which made Feng Zhijian's situation increasingly difficult. Only by fighting fiercely with Zhu Qing and Zhang Yin time and time again could he regain a little of Zhu Wen's trust.
Since then, every time I see Zhu Qing, it's been about scheming against each other on the battlefield, or the silent battles between strategists through their writings.
Feng Huaihe felt a tightness in his heart as he recalled the past. He had nowhere to vent the hatred and inferiority he felt in his previous life. Seeing Zhu Qing sleeping soundly, he gritted his teeth in hatred, bent down, and stuck out his tongue to lick the four-leaf clover in Zhu Qing's collarbone.
In her past life, she mistakenly thought he was Qingqing; in this life, she can only be her own Qingqing.
A soft tongue swept across, bringing a moist, slippery sensation, like a warm snake's tongue. Zhu Qing shuddered and finally opened her eyes, still dazed.
As soon as she opened her eyes, she saw what looked like a dark shadow sitting by the bed. Before she could react, she heard a thud and the bed stool was suddenly knocked to the ground. Zhu Qing was startled. Could it be that Tian Lingzi sent someone to assassinate her?
She quickly turned on the bedside lamp, and when she looked up, she saw Bao Bao lying on the floor, meowing.
Zhu Qing breathed a sigh of relief, squatted down and patted its head: "Was that you by the bed just now?" That dark figure was probably just seeing things after waking up.
With a soft meow, Zhu Qing took it as an answer. She glanced out the window; it wasn't even four in the morning yet. She planned to go back to sleep, but then noticed that the door was ajar.
Zhu Qing lit the lamp and went to close the door. Her elbow accidentally knocked over a small porcelain bottle on the shelf. Since this was someone else's space, Zhu Qing felt bad about leaving it there and reached out to put the small porcelain bottle back.
But when he lifted it, the bottle remained perfectly still.
Zhu Qing frowned in confusion, trying to lift it, but still couldn't. Having watched countless spy dramas, Zhu Qing immediately realized—it must be a trap!
Zhu Qing tentatively turned the porcelain vase in a different direction.
boom--
A loud noise came from behind, and Zhu Qing turned around with a start, only to see that the wall with the painting of a lady welcoming spring had been moved aside.
Zhu Qing raised the candle in her hand and slowly approached curiously. The light dispelled the darkness behind the wall, and Zhu Qing saw that it was a small dark room with no doors or windows, but it was ventilated from somewhere, and there were seven or eight lamps in the four corners.
The lamps were burning, their bright light filling the entire dark room, while wisps of black smoke swirled in the air.
There seemed to be something painted on the wall. Zhu Qing walked closer to take a look. On the dark wall was a painting of a newlywed couple. The bride had no face, but the groom's face... was actually Feng Huaihe?
Dude?
Zhu Qing was startled, her eyes widening in disbelief. There were not only newlywed murals, but also depictions of embracing, consummating the marriage, and growing old together…
The women in the painting have no faces, only the man's face resembles Feng Huaihe's. It's not hard to guess that this is Feng Huaihe's fantasy house!
He's become so twisted, secretly harboring a crush on someone but afraid to confess, keeping a portrait of his rival, and fantasizing about intimacy with his sweetheart in a place like this...
Each mural was so intimately familiar that Zhu Qing's heart raced as she looked at them.
Her gaze shifted and she saw a huge portrait hanging at the highest point. In the painting, a bloodied man was hanging on the city wall, his body covered in countless cuts, each with a piece of flesh missing from it.
At a glance, Zhu Qing recognized it as the punishment of slow slicing.
The man was suspended high at his feet, with pieces of bloody flesh piled up, and countless ragged refugees crowded around, scrambling for them.
During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, war raged everywhere and famines were frequent. It goes without saying what these people did by looting.
Cruel images flashed through Zhu Qing's mind, and a deep fear crept into her entire body. She felt dizzy and even nauseous, as if she wanted to vomit.
Zhu Qing covered her mouth to look at the man's face, but his head was hanging down, and his hair, congealed with blood, hung down and stuck to his face, obscuring his features.
The painting is signed in the lower right corner and dated the first year of Tianfu, the year Shi Jingtang ceded the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun.
Feng Huaihe's mentality is too abnormal. Why would he store such a thing in such a place? In his time, it would have been a matter of calling the police.
Zhu Qing felt as if she had glimpsed the darkest side of Feng Huaihe. Terrified and at a loss, she quickly ran out, but suddenly kicked something.
She looked down and found it was a puppet.
Even though the puppet had no face, Zhu Qing recognized it immediately as the Yingchunhua girl, despite having seen it so many times.
Zhu Qing discovered that countless wooden puppets were scattered in a corner of the ground, all of them Forsythia Maidens. They had no faces, but each had a different posture: standing, sitting, lying down, bathing...
How long must one have secretly watched others to carve such a naturally moving puppet?
The dim, yellowish light from the tree lamps flickered on and off, making the puppets appear strangely lifelike, as if they might come to life at any moment and strangle Zhu Qing.
Zhu Qingsheng had never seen anything like this in a legal society before. It was too creepy. Her scalp tingled, and goosebumps rose all over her body. She even imagined Feng Huaihe secretly murdering his love rival here.
The man being tortured to death in the painting might be the portrait of his rival in love that he showed to himself.
Otherwise, why would he carry a portrait of his love rival with him? Maybe his love rival is already dead at his hands.
Fearing discovery, Zhu Qing rushed out of the dark room in a panic. Trembling, she turned the porcelain bottle back to its original position and watched as the wall was restored. Only then did she clutch her chest and breathe a sigh of relief. It seemed that she could no longer stay in this room.
I thought people with connections would get preferential treatment, but now I see it's actually shocking.
Zhu Qingguan opened the door inexplicably, then collapsed onto the bed, her heart pounding and her hands and feet feeling cold.
She turned over and saw the forsythia girl on the wall. Suddenly, she felt sorry for the girl and thought that Feng Huaihe, being so perverted and powerful, would definitely not let the girl off easily...
Zhu Qing thought that Feng Huaihe's thoughts were really too dark.
Before she accidentally entered this dark room, she had no idea that Feng Huaihe was this kind of person.
In the original owner's memories, Feng Huaihe was aloof and taciturn, elegant and polite, and dressed in white, he was like an immortal descended to earth. No matter what kind of difficult problem he encountered, he was always calm and composed, and then he would come up with a brilliant solution.
I thought he was a god, but who knew...
Anyway, judging from the current situation, even the wedding mural has been painted. Although he didn't actually get the person, Feng Huaihe must have already DIY'd his own version based on the person's portrait.
Zhu Qing thought about it and felt... well, this is really hard to say.
Anyway, once we've resolved Tian Lingzi's matter, we need to stay away from Feng Huaihe from now on.
In the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, where there was no legal protection, modern people couldn't afford to mess with them.
Zhu Qing was lost in thought, and as the night deepened, she drifted off to sleep again.
-
Zhu Qing slept soundly through the night, filled with fear and terror, but also had nightmares.
She dreamt that she had mistakenly entered Feng Huaihe's secret chamber. Suddenly, this man appeared out of nowhere, gave her a sinister smile, grabbed her by the back of the neck, and hung her from the city wall.
You've discovered my secret. Today is your death day. Die slowly!
No!
Zhu Qing jolted awake, sitting bolt upright in bed, only to find it was broad daylight; it was all a dream.
Zhu Qing, still shaken, touched her chest and breathed heavily, "Thank goodness..."
As he spoke, he raised his sleeve to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead.
"What did you dream about?" a voice suddenly rang out in the room.
"who!"
Zhu Qing looked up in fright and saw Feng Huaihe's face.
In an instant, the face that had threatened to hang her from the city wall and subject her to a slow slicing in her nightmare was right in front of her. The scene she had witnessed in the dark room flashed through her mind, and Zhu Qing's scalp tingled instantly. "You... how are you here?"
"You seem very flustered. Is it because of Tian Lingzi? Or did you have a dream?"
Feng Huaihe stood casually beside the shelf, his snow-white clothes bathed in the summer morning light. His features were gentle, but his eyes were distant as he slowly walked towards her.
"Don't move!" Zhu Qing shouted anxiously. Feng Huaihe stopped abruptly, frowning as he asked, "What's wrong?"
A note from the author:
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A big thank you to the baby for throwing this landmine!
P.S.: While refining the outline for the Battle of Luzhou today, I realized I'd made a mistake again about Li Cunxu's state. I initially wrote it as Qi, but it was actually Jin. I'll correct that later and revert it to Jin. Sorry! I always get this mixed up; in the previous book, I also mistakenly wrote it as Qi State Fengxiang, when it was actually Jin State Jinyang.
[No wonder the locations never match the map in my head when I write about war. Why do I always fall for the same thing repeatedly? *facepalm*]
While I wouldn't be too particular, it's still best not to break these fundamental principles. Sorry, don't be misled, Li Cunxu was from the state of Jin, and the struggle between Zhu and Li was also a struggle between Liang and Jin.
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