Chapter 56 The crescent moon illuminated a handsome face covered in a thin blush...
Bai Yuan seized upon the key point: "Iron mask?"
The peasant woman held a piece of dry firewood in her hand, momentarily forgetting to add it to the stove: "Yes, Gouwazi from the village saw it with his own eyes. He was so scared that he lay on the ground, afraid to breathe, which is why the thugs didn't find him. Otherwise, even Gouwazi probably wouldn't have survived."
Bai Yuan pressed further, "What was the Iron-Mask man dressed like?"
After Xiao Tiezhu was murdered, the village was abuzz with rumors. Details naturally spread among the villagers. A peasant woman described the man as: "He was very tall and thin. The iron mask on his face was a bit blackened. He wore gray cloth clothes and carried a long knife. He used that knife to kill Xiao Tiezhu."
Her appearance and attire matched the masked man Bai Yuan had seen before. She asked, "Is there anyone else with him?"
The peasant woman immediately said, "Yes, there was a little girl. It was that little girl who said something to Xiao Tiezhu, but Gouwazi didn't hear clearly. Who knew that the masked man would raise his knife and kill Xiao Tiezhu on the spot. Luckily, there was a pile of hay in front of Gouwazi, and his legs went weak and he collapsed behind the hay. That's how the thugs didn't find him, otherwise they would definitely have killed Gouwazi to keep quiet."
Bai Yuansheng asked suspiciously, "Little girl? How old is she?" She remembered that Chen Ying did not look like a little girl; if she had to say, she must be a grown woman.
The peasant woman's sallow face was flushed red by the slanting light of the flames burning in the stove: "According to Gouwazi, that girl is probably fifteen or sixteen years old."
"What does she look like?" If she's fifteen or sixteen, then she shouldn't be Chen Ying.
"I heard she's quite pretty, with well-defined eyes and a decent nose. She's just incredibly thin, like a skinny monkey, with slightly dark yellow skin, and wearing coarse cloth clothes; she looks like a country girl..."
Upon hearing this description, Bai Yuan couldn't help but recall the dirty girl who had entered the River Tomb with Wang Xiang.
The peasant woman said, "There's still a scar on my face or forehead."
Upon hearing this, Bai Yuan suddenly became certain that the dirty girl had indeed stabbed Zhou Yaren at the river mound and had a wound on her forehead.
She followed Wang Xiang into the river tomb one minute, and then got entangled with Chen Ying, the Iron-Faced Man the next. What kind of person is this girl?
Bai Yuan asked, "Who else was traveling with them?"
The peasant woman was taken aback by the question: "That's all. Gouwazi only saw the two of them. After the Iron-Faced Man killed Xiao Tiezhu, he just grabbed the little girl and shoved her onto the carriage, and then he ran away."
Perhaps Chen Ying and Lu Bing are inside the carriage.
The peasant woman continued, "When Gouwazi saw the carriage drive away, he immediately darted out from behind the haystack and rushed over, but Xiao Tiezhu was already dead. Oh dear, he bled a lot, staining a large patch of yellow earth beneath him red."
The driver hurriedly asked, "Have you reported it to the authorities?"
"Of course they reported it to the authorities. Old Zhang took Gouwazi to the yamen to report it."
"Have you caught that masked man yet?"
The peasant woman shook her head and waved her hand: "We still haven't caught them."
Bai Yuan asked, "Do you know which direction they went?"
"The carriage headed south, but when the authorities went to chase after them, someone said they saw them not go far at all, and even circled around outside the village. Who knows, the thugs might still be around here," the peasant woman said, her heart filled with fear.
"No wonder." The driver put the lid on the iron pot. "We came into the village to ask for lodging, but no one would open their doors."
“A life has just been lost, and no one is sure if the culprit has left or not. The villagers are all scared. And you also came in a horse-drawn carriage. Who would dare to open the door?! If it weren’t for the accident just now, in which I twisted my ankle, and because you all look kind and don’t seem like bad people, I wouldn’t have dared to let you stay overnight.”
Bai Yuan didn't ask any more questions, turned around and left the kitchen, heading towards the house.
...
Zhou Yaren vaguely felt a hand groping around his waist, but he was too dizzy, his head was spinning, and his body became unusually sensitive when his eyes and ears were closed. The hand touched his waist, stroked his abdomen inch by inch, and then actually reached inside his clothes.
Who is this and what are they trying to do?
Zhou Yaren struggled to bring himself back to his senses, and then instinctively raised his hand to grab the hand that had reached inside his clothes. However, he was powerless and weakly gripped the other person's wrist and half of his own belt, silently stopping the other person's reckless behavior.
Bai Yuan then reached into his waistband and pulled out an exquisite white porcelain bottle, asking in a calm voice, "Did that kid from Taihang Road give this to you?"
At this moment, Zhou Yaren was deaf and in a drowsy state, so she was naturally unable to respond.
Seeing that he didn't react, Bai Yuan realized that he was deaf, so she withdrew her hand without caring. As she raised her wrist, because Zhou Yaren was still holding her wrist, the belt hanging between his thumb and forefinger was pulled open, and her clothes suddenly loosened.
Zhou Yaren frowned, resisting amidst a wave of dizziness: "No..."
Bai Yuan heard him mutter something indistinctly, but couldn't understand it, so she slowly leaned down towards him: "What did you say?"
Zhou Yaren tried his best to open his eyelids. In fact, it made little difference for a blind person to open their eyes or not, but he could see a blurry white shadow through the gap in his eyes, which was slowly pressing down on him.
"Don't……"
He felt as if all his strength had been drained, making it difficult for him to move and leaving him with no way to avoid it.
Bai Yuan leaned closer, listening intently: "What? Don't? Don't what?"
Zhou Yaren's ears were ringing. She raised her hand to push the other person away, but her elbow was too weak and powerless. Her hand rested lightly on Bai Yuan's shoulder.
He felt he had used a lot of strength but couldn't push the other person away, but as far as Bai Yuan was concerned, his fingertips lightly tapped his shoulder.
Bai Yuan Bu Ming Suo Yi: What does this mean? What is this person trying to express?
She even looked at the spot on her shoulder that had been touched with suspicion, wondering if there was something unclean on it.
But no, she only saw a few slender, white fingers clinging to her, gripping her shoulders with a slight tremor.
Bai Yuan couldn't understand his body language, nor did she intend to waste time trying. She straightened up, poured out a pill from the small white porcelain bottle, crushed it, and smelled it. She noticed that Zhou Yaren had been taking this kind of pill for the past few days. Although it had some effect, it wasn't very effective. It wasn't something specifically designed to treat the symptoms and the root cause; at most, it could relieve pain and replenish blood and energy.
However, there was no other choice at the moment, so Bai Yuan poured out a pill and fed it into Zhou Ya's mouth to temporarily keep him alive.
Bai Yuan plugged the bottle and was about to put it back when he lowered his eyes and noticed that Zhou Yaren's belt was undone and her clothes were disheveled. The finest silk was extremely smooth, and the snow-white collar was slightly open, revealing a section of her shapely collarbone. An inch below that was a scabbed scar. Bai Yuan wasn't sure which of these incidents it was from, but the scar on the side of her neck was from when she had used an iron lock to bind her inside her body. She had used coercion and enticement to inflict such a cruel injury.
Bai Yuan took the opportunity to lift his clothes.
Zhou Yaren felt a sudden chill in her chest, her raven-feather-like eyelashes trembled, and her throat bobbed painfully as she swallowed the bitter pill down her esophagus.
He knew, of course, who was tearing off his clothes. Zhou Yaren's soft hands stopped them again, her voice low and hoarse: "Innocent...no..."
Bai Yuan paused, then asked, "Hmm?"
He turned his head away as if he couldn't face it, facing the solid earthen wall, a thin blush gradually creeping up his ears.
"What do you mean no good?" Bai Yuan glanced at the various wounds on his body. "They've already scabbed over; no need for medicine."
As she spoke, she inadvertently caught a glimpse of a pale pink crescent moon mark on Zhou Yaren's waist.
Bai Yuan's heart skipped a beat, and his actions outpaced his thoughts. He reached out and slipped his hand inside the other man's disheveled white undergarment, grabbing the man's slender waist.
Zhou Yaren suddenly stiffened, her waist and abdomen tensed up, revealing several smooth, thin muscles, and she could even feel the other person's cool fingertips constantly rubbing against her waist.
Zhou Yaren was caught off guard.
Bai Yuan lowered his head and frowned, repeatedly rubbing the mark on Zhou Yaren's waist with his fingers. The crescent moon not only did not get rubbed off, but became even more crimson, blooming on her snow-white skin.
She looked up, almost bewildered, and asked, "How did this happen here...?"
What came into view was a handsome face covered with a light blush.
Zhou Yaren involuntarily tensed up, and trembled slightly under Bai Yuan's fingertips. He had never experienced this before, and his already hot body temperature became even higher.
Bai Yuan gripped his waist, pressing his fingertips firmly against the crescent moon mark: "How come there's a crescent moon mark here?"
A buzzing sound filled Zhou Yaren's ears, completely drowning out Bai Yuan's voice. He couldn't hear it and could only watch in fear as Bai Yuan leaned down again, his cool breath brushing against his ear, sending shivers down his spine.
"Can you hear me?" Bai Yuan leaned closer and asked, finally noticing the other person's unusual behavior. He frowned in confusion, "Why are you shaking? Where does it hurt?"
Zhou Yaren trembled and clenched his teeth, his mind filled with the idea that men and women should not touch each other. However, Bai Yuan disregarded this and tore open his robes to reach in, taking advantage of his weakness and fondling him.
Bai Yuan received no response, so he lowered his eyes and looked at Zhou Yaren for a moment, observing his seemingly restrained appearance.
Bai Yuan didn't know what illness he was suffering from, yet he endured it so unbearably, so he reached out to check his wrist pulse.
Zhou Yaren's hand, which had initially resisted, was grabbed by Bai Yuan and pressed against the bed to take her pulse.
Zhou Yaren was overwhelmed by the pressure and couldn't break free.
Bai Yuan felt his pulse was unstable, sometimes strong and sometimes weak, floating and feeble, rough and sluggish. He pondered and said, "Disordered internal energy, blood deficiency and qi deficiency, blood stasis..."
This wasn't the end of it. Bai Yuan's brows furrowed lower and lower as he felt the chaotic pulse. This person was truly badly injured, his body completely depleted, with his qi and blood meridians being the most damaged.
Zhou Yaren experienced a sharp, stabbing pain throughout her body, sometimes mild and sometimes severe, leaving her almost powerless to resist.
A moment later, Bai Yuan withdrew her hand, her gaze sweeping over the crescent moon that she couldn't rub off and that was getting redder the more she rubbed it. It was like a birthmark on her side, but she knew very well that the crescent moon was not a birthmark.
at the same time--
"Miss, the meal is ready..." The driver stepped into the house with great enthusiasm, only to stumble upon this ambiguous scene, and immediately fell silent, speechless with astonishment.
"I don't need it." Bai Yuan was unusually calm and indifferent, completely unaware that there was anything wrong with the situation.
The driver reacted with lightning speed, immediately slipping away to avoid looking at the room and closing the door behind him with lightning speed, stammering, "Ah, ah, okay."
As he made the bed, he thought he would be sharing the night with this young man, while the young woman would have to make do with her sister-in-law. But who knew…
Seeing this, the driver turned and walked towards the kitchen, intending to ask his sister-in-law for two more quilts to sleep on the floor.
Bai Yuan was completely unaware of the huge misunderstanding he had caused. He carelessly gathered up Zhou Yaren's disheveled clothes, tied his belt without any distraction, stuffed the porcelain bottle back into his arms, and then got up, opened the door, and went out.
Zhou Yaren was left lying on the couch, bewildered and helpless. His tense body finally relaxed as if he had escaped a disaster. He had exhausted himself in the undercurrent of resistance just now, especially his lower back muscles, which were unusually sore. Then came endless fatigue, which swept over him and dragged him into a daze. So much so that Zhou Yaren thought it was a chaotic dream.
In his chaotic dream, someone pulled open his collar, and a slightly cool hand reached in, grasping his waist, slowly and gently caressing, kneading, and rubbing...
He seemed unable to escape it, and could only passively endure it against his will, his slender body tensing up under the back-and-forth caresses of that hand.
He felt hot, his body temperature rising steadily. He felt a faint breath brush past his ear, and the hand on his waist suddenly slid down an inch and rested on his protruding hip bone. So that night, Zhou Yaren developed a high fever, his whole face and ears were flushed red, as if they were about to bleed.
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