Chapter 29, page 29: She was enveloped by the scalding heat...
Chapter 29
Xie Huaiyuan's gaze was uncertain as he asked, "Miss Lin, why are you here?"
The moonlight, as white as frost, fell upon the graceful woman in the covered walkway, who exuded a cool and aloof aura. Holding an ancient zither, she gazed at him from afar. Strands of hair tucked behind her ears swayed down to her front with her movements, slipping into her slightly open robe. Her eyes sparkled with alluring charm.
"Can I miss you?"
Upon hearing this, Xie Huaiyuan slowly curved his lips into a smile, his emotions unreadable, and said, "After nightfall, the Prince's mansion is heavily guarded. How could you possibly get in?"
Upon hearing Xie Huaiyuan mention this, Lin Wan shrugged and dropped a jade pendant with a magnolia flower pattern. Her fair fingertips hooked the pendant's cord, swaying back and forth, making it surprisingly conspicuous in the night.
She hadn't originally intended to come looking for Xie Huaiyuan, but ever since he sent someone to deliver the guqin, there had been no further news. She couldn't play the guqin, and especially after hearing Su Furong mention that the guqin was a gift from her maternal grandfather when he was young, how could such an important guqin be wasted in her hands?
After waiting for several days, the news she received was that he had not attended court for many days. The more Lin Wan thought about it, the more uneasy she felt. She couldn't explain why. In the blink of an eye, she was already standing at the gate of the Prince's Mansion.
The guards at the Prince's mansion were indeed very strict, even menacing, scrutinizing her so closely that she was almost suspected of having ulterior motives and was refused entry.
Upon seeing the jade pendant in her hand, he was so shocked that he couldn't even finish his sentence, "You..."
The guards were so shocked they couldn't close their mouths, their eyes wide with suspicion as they stared at her, speechless and hesitant to speak. Instead of forcibly driving her away from the palace gates, they hurriedly opened the gates, bowed, and respectfully welcomed her into the palace: "Please...please come in."
Lin Wan glanced at the jade pendant in her hand, her brows furrowed in confusion.
He found the jade pendant in his room last year and has been carrying it with him ever since.
After Xie Huaiyuan saw the jade pendant in her hand, he lowered his eyes, smiled faintly, and sighed softly: "So the jade pendant ended up in your hands."
"This jade pendant is very important, isn't it?" Lin Wan put away the jade pendant and examined it carefully in the night. It was of excellent quality and indeed a jade pendant of superb appearance. The fact that one could freely pass through the Prince's mansion with this jade pendant meant that it was not a simple thing. "After the fire last year, I couldn't find you anywhere. The only thing I found was this jade pendant that you had left behind, so I kept it for you for the time being. Now I'll return it to its rightful owner."
Lin Wan handed the jade pendant back to him, intending to return it.
"Now that it's in your hands, consider it a gift. You can keep it. If you don't like it," Xie Huaiyuan smiled faintly, his eyes showing a rare gentleness, "you can throw it away, it's up to you."
Lin Wan's eyes suddenly lit up, her gaze intoxicated, and she said, "Throw it away? I would never throw it away. You said you were giving it to me, so I can't take it back."
Watching Lin Wan happily and carefully place the jade pendant into her bosom, Xie Huaiyuan chuckled softly, "Well, I won't take it back. This jade pendant was meant to be given away anyway."
After a long silence, Xie Huaiyuan's Adam's apple bobbed. He looked at the night sky and said, "It's late. You should go back."
"Hmm." Lin Wan pointed to the guqin beside her. "It's a waste to leave this guqin with me. I can't play it, so I'll give it back to you."
The corridor was silent for a moment before Xie Huaiyuan's cool voice rang out.
Do you want to learn the piano?
"You'll teach me?"
The familiar conversation rang out again, and Lin Wan couldn't help but smile. She had brought it up with him several times before, and the answer she received was always unwilling. Now, after going around in circles, she was still back to the same topic, which she found really funny. Although Lin Wan was reluctant, she still spoke first and said, "However, I also know that the young master is too busy to have any free time, so let's just forget about it and pretend I didn't mention it."
Xie Huaiyuan did not answer, but instead stared intently at her and asked, "Do you want to learn the zither now?"
Until Lin Wan stepped into the courtyard pavilion and saw the servant nimbly place the guqin she was carrying on the stone table and then step back to stand guard at a distance, she felt that everything was happening in a way that was hard to believe, as if it were a dream. She quietly reached out and pinched the back of her hand slightly, and winced in pain. It wasn't a dream after all.
The courtyard is spacious, and the gentle breeze seems to carry a faint, cool fragrance, like a dream.
Xie Huaiyuan leaned against the stone table, his slender fingertips lightly caressing the strings. He lowered his head slightly and pressed the strings. Suddenly, the corners of his eyes turned up slightly, and a warm light reflected in his clear eyes. A faint smile appeared in his eyes as he asked, "...What would you like to hear?"
Lin Wan was slightly surprised. She turned her head to look at him, smiled with arched eyebrows, and her soft voice rang out involuntarily, with a hint of coquetry at the end of her words, which made people's hearts tremble slightly: "Autumn Wind Lyrics".
Xie Huaiyuan paused, his fingers accidentally plucking a string. A slight tremor lingered in his ears, making his heart tremble. He quickly raised his eyes again and chuckled, "...Miss Lin, you really are being impolite."
At this moment, the servant quietly placed the brewed tea and snacks on the other corner of the stone table, and then quietly withdrew.
Lin Wan ignored his reply, lifted her skirt, stood up, walked around the stone table to his side, and sat down on the chair next to him amidst his surprised gaze. A light, sweet fragrance wafted from her clothes as she moved, spreading out and mingling with the breath of the person beside her.
"What," Lin Wan said with a smile, "Does Your Highness not know how to play this piece?"
Xie Huaiyuan lowered his eyes and did not answer. His fingers touched the strings again, pressing down on the slightly trembling strings, as if pressing down on his wildly beating heart.
A few moments of silence followed.
Lin Wan didn't necessarily want to hear "Autumn Wind Lyrics," but she had the good fortune to hear this piece many years ago. She liked it so much that she asked the musician for the name of the piece and had remembered it ever since. She didn't know the names of the other pieces, but she did. She reached out and tugged at the sleeve of the person beside her, tilted her head slightly and looked at him, and said, "If you don't know it, then let's change to another piece. But I can't think of any other pieces right now. Why don't you choose one yourself, Your Highness? Anyway, I think whatever you play sounds good."
After a long while, a voice came from beside me: "Then how do you know that someone played this piece for you?"
"I suppose so. I vaguely remember it was at a clan banquet. There was an older sister in the family who was good at playing the zither. I forgot what day it was, but it seemed to be a celebratory banquet. That older sister played this piece at the banquet." The breeze rustled the leaves, mixed with Lin Wan's delicate voice: "Entering the gate of my longing, you know the bitterness of my longing. Long longing, long remembrance; short longing, endless longing. If I had known it would bind my heart so, I would rather we had never met."
Before the words had even finished, a delicate melody began to play. Long, slender fingers plucked the strings, their sleeves and the strings of the guqin complementing each other. The fingers moved with fluid grace, the sleeves fluttering as if dancing, and the music, delicate and lingering, captivated the heart with every string and every note.
Lin Wan realized that he was truly captivating her heart at this moment. Looking at him so closely, with the music of the zither, it felt as if his fingertips were pressing against her heart, and she suddenly felt her cheeks burning.
As the fingertips paused, lightly touching the strings, the melody gradually drifted through the courtyard, faint and elusive, eventually returning to complete silence.
Actually, she was lying. She deliberately brought up the "Autumn Wind Song". Back then, the song she heard was not played by her older sister, but by a young boy. However... fate had other plans. The boy who played the song back then was long gone, but the listener still only remembered the song.
The song ended.
She was still staring intently at Xie Huaiyuan, her eyes brimming with autumn water. The moment Xie Huaiyuan turned to look at her, she hurriedly stood up and interrupted, "Your Highness's zither playing is unparalleled in the world, it's so beautiful. I wonder who will be fortunate enough to marry you in the future, and who will be able to hear such beautiful zither music every day. How wonderful!"
Lin Wan didn't hear the movement behind her. She couldn't turn around for the time being, so she leaned forward to pour tea, took a small sip to clear the tears welling up in her eyes, and turned around to ask, "Would the young master like some tea?"
Upon hearing this, Xie Huaiyuan lifted his eyelids to look at the person in front of him. Under the moonlight, his clearly visible pink lips shimmered with a moist luster, more alluring and seductive than any seductive fairy in a storybook, making one's mind wander.
Suddenly, those alluring lips drew near, parted slightly, and her breath was as sweet as orchids. Xie Huaiyuan inexplicably felt a tightness in his throat, and his Adam's apple bobbed noticeably.
Lin Wan thought that since she was in someone else's residence, how could she only care about drinking tea and ignore others? So, she poured a cup of tea for Xie Huaiyuan, handed the cup to him, and as if by accident, lightly touched his palm with her fingertips. With a slight smile, she said, "After you have drunk your tea, Your Highness, could you play a piece of music?"
After finishing his tea, Xie Huaiyuan still felt a bland and tasteless sensation in his mouth. When he looked up, he met her fox-like eyes, which were waiting to take the teacup from his hand. He was momentarily stunned, and it wasn't until another person sat down beside him that he looked away, slowly exhaled the breath he had been holding back, and said, "You think it sounds good? How does it compare to your family elder sister who plays the zither?"
"You are better." Lin Wan straightened her skirt slightly, leaned steadily against him, looked back at him intently, and said each word clearly.
Xie Huaiyuan breathed a sigh of relief, but then he remembered what his mother had said.
In fact, he knew that she hadn't come to the appointment that day because she was with Gu Qinghe. He had waited at Lishan Academy for most of the day, from sunrise to sunset, but still hadn't seen her. He couldn't help but send someone to check on her, and the reply he received was exactly as his mother had said.
Upon hearing the news, he still gazed at the gate of Lishan Academy, letting out a self-deprecating sneer. Perhaps this was the consequence of his previous neglect of her.
But what made him even more ridiculous was that, no matter how unwilling he was to mention it, no matter how many days he was punished to reflect in the ancestral hall, during those dark days accompanied by the incense and candlelight in the ancestral hall, he thought his heart had lost all life. But unexpectedly, tonight's sudden meeting ignited a raging fire in his heart, instantly forcing him to retreat with no way out and confront his inner self.
Xie Huaiyuan chuckled and said, "What else would you like to hear?"
Lin Wan yawned quietly and said in a soft, sweet voice, "Anything is fine, I like listening to whatever you play."
The person beside him placed their hands on the strings again, their fingertips twirling the strings, and a soothing melody poured out.
Lin Wan looked at the person playing the piano for her in the night and felt inexplicably happy. She was so happy that even if it was a dream, it was still a good dream.
The delicate sounds of the zither drifted into her ears, and she was momentarily distracted, remembering that she had drunk the medicinal soup before leaving the house. At that moment, she felt her eyelids were as heavy as a thousand pounds, and they gradually closed one by one.
She swayed and suddenly leaned completely against Xie Huaiyuan. His warm breath wafted through her sleeves, becoming increasingly hot. She gently adjusted her head to find a comfortable position and rested it against his shoulder, hearing his steady breathing in her ear.
She fell asleep.
My heart was pounding like thunder, deafeningly loud, and the notes on the piano at my fingertips were already a jumbled mess.
"Does the young master have someone he admires?"
"Why are you ignoring me again? Don't you recognize me anymore?"
"I admire the Crown Prince."
Do you like it?
"I confessed my feelings to you but you didn't respond."
...Don't you like it?
The music abruptly stopped, and Xie Huaiyuan lowered his eyes to look deeply at her leaning against him, letting out a long sigh.
How can you be so fickle even when trying to seduce someone? Why do you still have to provoke Gu Qinghe!
I wish I could keep her at home and never let anyone see her!
She drifted off to sleep, when suddenly she felt a strange weight on her lips. For a moment, she felt as if she had lost all five senses, and could feel nothing but the touch on her lips.
The scalding heat enveloped her, making it increasingly difficult to breathe. She had to open her mouth to gasp for air, but instead, she was overwhelmed and plundered. Amidst her heavy panting, she felt her tongue growing numb.
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