Chapter 138: I Don’t Want to Know Either
“It’s beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.”
Jiang Huai’s little hands were almost clapping red. After Chu Xianning finished her performance, his clapping was childishly enthusiastic, resembling that of a child. Chu Xianning’s eyelashes lifted slightly.
“So noisy.”
Jiang Huai glanced at her with a hint of grievance, “I want to listen more.”
“What do you want to hear?”
“Bijian Liuquan.”
“That’s a piece for flute and xiao duet.”
“I know.” A bamboo xiao appeared in Jiang Huai’s hand.
Chu Xianning looked at him with dissatisfaction. She always felt that sohow she had been outwitted by Jiang Huai again. So, when she brought the bamboo flute to her lips, her eyes revealed a trace of reluctance. But once she truly began to play, her brows gradually relaxed.
In the courtyard, the sounds of the bamboo flute and xiao intertwined and flowed. Jiang Huai’s gaze rested on Chu Xianning’s face, and as he watched her eyes, his heart seed to finally quiet down.
When the piece ended, Chu Xianning put away her flute, and Jiang Huai also stowed his xiao. He picked up the porcelain bottle from the table, his hands no longer trembling. He moved the chair from beneath him closer to Chu Xianning.
The pleasant fragrance at the tip of his nose seed to bring them closer. Chu Xianning’s waist was slender and well-proportioned, like piled snow. Jiang Huai poured a drop of thick dicine onto his fingertip and gently touched Chu Xianning’s slender waist.
Chu Xianning bit her lip.
She suddenly felt an inexplicable unease. The touch of his fingers seed hotter than she had anticipated, perhaps due to the effect of the dragon blood elixir. She felt a tickling sensation, and Chu Xianning straightened her waist, trying to look away as if Jiang Huai was torturing her.
It was just a light touch from Jiang Huai’s fingertips, but she felt as if her skin had taken on the heat from his fingers as if a fla had brushed over her skin.
What expression did Jiang Huai have at this mont?
Surely he must be delighted, having taken advantage of her again.
You knew his intentions from the start, so why didn’t you refuse?
And now, if you cannot suppress your desires later and embarrass yourself in front of him, how will you maintain your dignity as his master?
What are you thinking, Chu Xianning?
She quietly questioned herself in her heart, but no one could answer her.
Moonlight fell on her cheeks and also on the skin of her waist, making her skin appear moist and lustrous as if it were glowing. Just as Chu Xianning began to feel uneasy and wanted Jiang Huai to stop, she turned her face towards him and caught his gaze, but then she was montarily stunned.
Because Jiang Huai’s eyes were very clean.
Seeing those eyes, it was as if she heard the wind whispering in her ear, carrying her through ti, back to the evening when she brought Jiang Huai back to the courtyard, and the boy’s eyes were just as clean.
When did his eyes stop being so clean?
Chu Xianning closed her eyes and began to reminisce. She rembered when Jiang Huai was fourteen, and as usual, after her bath, she stepped out of the bathhouse in a thin white dress and sat in the courtyard’s lounge chair, flipping through ancient texts.
The boy, looking up inadvertently, froze, dropping the book from his hands as if he were spellbound. She, puzzled, asked,
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing... just... Mother looks so beautiful, I was srized.”
Back then, he said such annoying words, but at that ti she didn’t mind, taking it as her child complinting his mother’s beauty. She felt a small pleasure in her heart. But when did she start to realize that Jiang Huai’s filial piety had begun to deteriorate?
It seed to start when he no longer wanted to call her “Mother.”
At first, she dwelled on this change, discussing it in secret with Luo Yueguan in their boudoir. Luo Yueguan, who didn’t understand these things, only mocked her, saying,
“Who made you bring a wolf into the house? Now you know the trouble?”
She didn’t believe her child had really beco a wolf, and after reading many plays, she thought he was just growing up, becoming rebellious, and not wanting to be restrained by elders anymore, hence the change in how he addressed her.
She didn’t care much about it, after all, she wasn’t his birth mother. But his address changed not only from “Mother” back to “Master,” but at so point, he started calling her “Sister,” and Chu Xianning suddenly shuddered, finally understanding.
Maybe Luo Yueguan was right.
So, in a rare move, she tied Jiang Huai to a tree and whipped him hard with a long whip, hoping he would rember the lesson and learn fear. But he seed to just nod in agreent, and even though he stopped calling her “Sister,” many of his subsequent actions and words implied that he no longer truly regarded her as his beloved mother, but as...
In her panic and unease, she arranged a marriage for Jiang Huai.
She knew Jiang Huai harbored resentnt, but what of it?
Perhaps he was just too young to understand his feelings; just happened to grow from a boy to a man without other girls around, so he developed inappropriate thoughts towards her. Once he married Luo Qingyu and had his own wife, he would gradually understand her well-intentioned efforts.
But tis changed, and four years had passed since she arranged his marriage. He was now nineteen.
Recently, she seed to see less and less ‘cleanliness’ in Jiang Huai’s eyes, as if he was always trying to say sothing, do sothing, to stir her heart. She should have rejected him the first ti he tested the waters, but it seed that every ti, in the end, she chose to indulge him. Even now, the pretext was that he was opening her ridians, which would benefit her future cultivation or heal old injuries, but the truth was that at this mont, her waist was being carefully played with by a man.
Chu Xianning didn’t care about the old injuries or whether the ridians were opened, but why was she sitting here willingly?
She opened her eyes.
Before opening them, she felt an inexplicable, strange anticipation. She hoped to see lust and greed in Jiang Huai’s eyes, giving her a reason to make him let go. But when she looked into Jiang Huai’s eyes, she saw the purity and cleanliness of his childhood, as if it were a lazy sumr evening when she leaned on the lounge chair watching the sunset, and Jiang Huai stood behind her, gently massaging her shoulders and neck.
He seed to be better at pretending than she was, often leaving her unable to read his eyes as if they hid a deep mist.
That Jiang Huai, who was worldly, despicable, and shaless, was him, and so was the pure, clean boy.
“What is Master thinking?” Jiang Huai asked softly.
“Thinking about what you are thinking.” Chu Xianning replied calmly.
Jiang Huai was taken aback, then chuckled, “I was thinking sothing very rebellious.”
“Tell .”
“It’s nothing much, just that when I saw Master co out in that dance dress, I couldn’t help but be amazed. The thought of touching Master’s waist later made nervous, my hands trembling badly. Master has always been very kind to since I was young, but my mind is full of despicable and dark thoughts, I’m such a scoundrel.”
“So?”
“But when I actually touched it, it suddenly reminded of when I was a child in the courtyard, just like this, Master sitting quietly in a daze, and I massaging Master’s body. Back then, it seed like I didn’t want anything, just that alone was very comforting, so my heart suddenly and inexplicably cald down.”
Jiang Huai had already spread the dicine evenly on Chu Xianning’s waist with the elixir. He took out a silver needle, found Chu Xianning’s acupoint, and gently inserted it while talking.
“Does it hurt?”
“No.” Chu Xianning shook her head lightly.
“It will be over soon.”
The bright silver needle reflected the light, and Jiang Huai’s movents were very serious. He took out a second silver needle, which was to be placed just above Chu Xianning’s tender belly button.
He squatted down in front of Chu Xianning, gently inserted the needle, and when he looked up, Chu Xianning’s face was right in front of him.
Their eyes t, and Jiang Huai suddenly asked, “Does Master want to drink a couple of cups later?”
“I have to deal with the drawbacks of the Flower Spirit Body tomorrow, I shouldn’t drink too much.”
“Then forget it.” Jiang Huai replied softly.
“One cup is fine.” Chu Xianning said softly again.
Jiang Huai was startled, then chuckled, arranging two cups on the table and pouring out peach blossom brew made in spring into the cups. The scent of the wine was fragrant. Jiang Huai leaned closer to Chu Xianning’s waist, removed all the silver needles, and then used a wet handkerchief to wipe away the remaining dicine. His actions were serious and ticulous, without overstepping any boundaries.
After wiping the dicine clean, Jiang Huai picked up his cup, and Chu Xianning also raised hers. She only sipped a little, and so did Jiang Huai.
That ant they could drink many more sips from this one cup.
“You still haven’t made it clear to , between Wen Wanwan and Luo Qingyu, what do you plan to do in the future?”
“I promised to marry Luo Qingyu when she turns twenty, and I also promised that if Wen Wanwan still wants to stay by my side in the future, I will marry her too.”
“Your promises are useless, what if Luo Qingyu doesn’t agree?”
Jiang Huai just sighed, “I had a fight with Luo Qingyu when I was at Qingxuan Sect, and thinking about the reason now, it’s kind of funny.”
“How so?”
“Qingyu said I was fickle outside, always making her worried and scared, and hoped that I would take her body to prove that I loved her enough. I didn’t agree, and I said a lot to her. I thought she would drop her obedient act and talk to seriously, but she continued to play her obedient role, crying and begging not to leave her. When she cries, I can’t do anything, I can only compromise obediently. But it was then that I realized that if I really wanted to consider marriage in the future, it was very necessary for to get to know Luo Qingyu more rather than continue to play the brother-sister house ga.”
“As for the future? I’ll worry about that when it cos. Thinking about it makes too annoyed to bother.” Jiang Huai raised his cup and blinked at Chu Xianning, “Master knows , I hate trouble the most.”
“Is that so?” Chu Xianning looked into his eyes seriously, expressing doubt.
Jiang Huai looked into her eyes with a helpless smile. He didn’t speak, but it seed like he guessed what Chu Xianning was doubting.
He had always been particularly averse to trouble, so when Luo Qingyu tried to make him love only her, he started a sloppy conversation, leaving the choice to Luo Qingyu. He never cared much about love or not love, perhaps because he had been lonely for so long, he didn’t crave love as much.
But when it ca to liking Chu Xianning, he never felt the slightest bit of trouble. He failed and fought, fought and failed, but was completely undeterred, imrsed in it. As long as Chu Xianning didn’t truly kick him away, he was like a little shaless dog, coming back ti and again.
This seed to be more than just liking, but had beco a strange obsession.
Perhaps this is the restlessness of not being able to obtain what one desires?
“There’s one thing I’m not afraid of no matter how troubleso it is, but I won’t say it.”
Jiang Huai looked innocently at Chu Xianning’s eyes.
“I don’t want to know either.”
Chu Xianning turned her face away and picked up the cup for another small sip.
She had always had a low tolerance for alcohol, and with a small sip, her snow-white cheeks were tinged with a blush.
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