Neither Feiying nor Nuanyang dared to disturb him. This was the northwest exit. Xie Xun had been waiting for more than an hour, and while Xiyanshan was perfectly quiet, his eyelid wouldn’t stop twitching.
The question of who would prevail was one that everyone yearned to know the answer to.
The third round of polo and archery was in full swing, the lively noise filling the air. A few ladies joined in on the ga, but Xie Xun had no interest in such diversions. All he wanted was for his Second Brother to co safely out of the mountain forest.
Fengyu, Fang Lingjun, Lin Xiao, Zhang Boxin and others had tead up to play polo. They won three rounds, leaving Princess Huazhen so furious that she demanded a one-on-one match with Fengyu, only to be blocked by Fang Lingjun. Exhausted, Fengyu ca over to find Xie Xun, sitting with him on the mountainside to wait for Xie Jue. Fengyu was confident that the Second Young Master would erge victorious.
"The spotted deer is definitely his," Fengyu remarked, attempting to offer him so comfort.
"Why?"
"Because he’s clever," Fengyu said with a smile. "The spotted deer has a spirit. It likes intelligent people."
Xie Xun chuckled despite himself. It was the first ti he’d heard such a claim, though he knew Fengyu was just trying to console him. "If I had gone into the mountains with my Second Brother, would you have been worried?"
His gaze was candid and fervent, making Fengyu blush. She avoided his scorching eyes. "No, I wouldn’t."
"Stone-hearted."
"Is today the first ti you’ve discovered the Third Miss’s iron will?"
"That night at the banquet in Wangjiang Restaurant, you were so afraid Princess Huazhen would misunderstand that you went to great lengths to sever our ties. But now you’re not worried at all?" Xie Xun teased, his tone playful. "Out here in this wilderness, with just the two of us, it’s bound to invite gossip."
Fengyu’s mindset had long since shifted from that ti. Her brows curved with a smile tinged with emotion. "If I were to be criticized, would you protect ?"
"Of course!" Xie Xun mused inwardly. With the Third Miss’s attitude, anyone who provoked her would hardly co out unscathed.
"Then there’s nothing to fear!" Fengyu lowered her eyes. Though she was naturally reserved, the emotions budding within her were unstoppable. Falling for Xie Xun was, in truth, the simplest thing in the world.
As the Third Miss sat so close, speaking in veiled confessions of affection, Xie Xun felt his chest warm. A young man’s love is difficult to conceal, so unabashedly ardent that even the sun seed pale by comparison.
"Fengyu, do you know what you’re saying?"
Confronted by the intensity of his gaze, Fengyu, ears burning, avoided his eyes. Unlike Xie Xun’s unabashed passion, she beca tongue-tied when pushed for an answer.
Xie Xun was overjoyed, stealing a quick kiss on her cheek. Fengyu’s skin burned where he touched her. She slapped her hand over her face and glared at him. "What are you doing?"
"I wanted to kiss you," Xie Xun replied with disarming honesty, his words enough to make anyone blush.
Qiuxiang was on the verge of tearing her handkerchief apart as she coughed furiously, trying to remind Xie Xun to restrain himself. This was the open wilderness! If soone caught them, how would her young lady hold her head up?
Fengyu, an innocent maiden just beginning to understand matters of the heart, couldn’t entirely grasp the underlying longing in Xie Xun’s actions. "Don’t touch ."
"Why not?" Xie Xun grinned triumphantly. "You’re destined to be mine sooner or later. If I want to hold you, I’ll hold you. If I want to kiss you, I’ll kiss you."
"Shaless!" Fengyu retorted, her face flushed as she tried to defend her dignity. "It’s improper."
Xie Xun fell silent. What did love have to do with propriety? If the Third Miss hadn’t just recently co of age, he might have mistaken her for soone far older, bound up in rules and decorum to the point of rigidity.
He liked her. When he saw her, he wanted to hold her hand and kiss her face. Yet he restrained himself, afraid of startling her. But desiring to touch the person you love—wasn’t that the most natural instinct?
Xie Xun wetted his lips, loosening the collar of his high-necked garnt slightly to reveal a sliver of his elegant neck. His Adam’s apple moved, and his voice carried a hint of seductive warmth. "Fengyu, do you want to touch it?"
Fengyu looked at him, aghast, as if she had just heard sothing unthinkable. Her eyes widened in shock, and her body heat surged to her head. "I... I don’t!"
"Really?" He smirked, watching her with teasing amusent. Fengyu avoided his eyes but couldn’t stop herself from glancing at his neck.
Xie Xun decided to tease her further. As his Adam’s apple moved again, Fengyu’s gaze was helplessly drawn to him, her fingers itching to reach out. Her hand, as if acting on its own, seed ready to graze his neck.
Had she lost her mind?
No, it had to be Xie Xun casting a spell on her.
Xie Xun laughed softly, and Fengyu snapped out of her daze, as though soone had dragged her forcibly back into reality. Realizing her lapse, she flushed with embarrassnt and anger. "Xie Xun... I take it back!"
Turning on her heel, Fengyu fled. Knowing he’d gone too far, Xie Xun laughed as he caught her arm. "Alright, alright, don’t be angry. What’s there to be shy about wanting to touch your future husband?"
When she heard him speak so brazenly, Fengyu tried to stomp on his foot, but Xie Xun evaded her with a smile, bending over and cajoling the Third Miss while mischievously provoking her further. "Next ti I take off the Soul Suppressing Pearl, touch wherever you like."
He paused, his grin deepening. "Anywhere at all!"
Fengyu was so livid she almost drew a dagger. "I don’t want to!"
They tugged and quarreled, the air thick with tension yet softened by an undeniable intimacy.
Qiuxiang was coughing so much she feared losing her voice, but she dared not intervene. Furious, she glared at Nuanyang, only to find Nuanyang and Feiying deliberately gazing skyward, pretending not to notice. See no evil, hear no evil.
After successfully teasing Fengyu, Xie Xun felt a newfound ease. All afternoon, his nerves had been on edge, his eyelid twitching incessantly with worry about sothing happening to Xie Jue in the woods.
Though so close, there was no trace of him. The uncertainty gnawed at Xie Xun.
"Fengyu, thank you."
Xie Xun suddenly grew serious. Fengyu, still flushed from their earlier banter, was sowhere between anger and compassion. Knowing his concern for Xie Jue, she reluctantly let his frivolity slide.
"Thank for what? I haven’t done anything."
"You don’t have to do anything," Xie Xun said. "Just stay within my reach."
As long as Fengyu was within his sight, she could soothe all his unease. It was a mysterious power, almost like a binding thread. Whether it was her comforting him by the riverside when he was disheartened, or her accompanying him now as he anxiously awaited Xie Jue, she smoothed over all his rough edges and chaos.
"Fengyu, why have you changed your mind again?" Xie Xun couldn’t fathom the thoughts of the young woman before him, but he yearned to understand. She had rejected him before—so why did she now seem to acquiesce?
Why?
Fengyu smiled faintly. She didn’t enjoy hunting and had been terrified here in Xiyanshan, having endured bites from venomous bees and snakes, their toxins still lingering in her body. Nightmares often haunted her as she dozed, like the image of a green snake flicking its tongue at her throat, startling her awake in a cold sweat.
She’d co along on this hunt purely to accompany Xie Xun, to ensure the safety of everyone in the Marquis Mansion. She had told herself it was for her elder sister’s sake, but deep down, she knew that was a lie too fragile to hold up.
It was for Xie Xun!
The Young Marquis had stord into her heart with all the finesse of a brigand, setting up camp there. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t dislodge him. She could only let him stay.
Fengyu understood there was nothing she could do.
The crisis between the imperial family and the Marquis Mansion would culminate in either brutal conflict and devastation or a peaceful compromise. No one knew which it would be.
When she had rejected Xie Xun’s confession in the outskirts of the city, it wasn’t just her short lifespan that she was concerned about. She also didn’t want to gamble with the Marquis Mansion’s slim chances of survival. Fengyu’s desire for control was no less formidable than Xie Xun’s.
In both her business dealings and personal life, she needed everything to remain within her grasp. She detested losing control. The struggle between the imperial family and the Marquis Mansion was a chaotic and perilous storm far beyond her reach.
This was the variable she couldn’t control. As soone of little consequence, agreeing to Xie Xun would an tying her fate irrevocably to his. She refused to let that happen, resisted her aversion to such a chaotic life.
Xie Xun was her sole exception.
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