A Single Tie Of Long Hair Seals A Lifelong Commitment - Chapter 81.2

Chen Liangyu’s gaze fell on Xie Wenjun’s eyes. Her lashes were long and thick, and her eyes were deeper in color than ordinary people’s. In the year they first met, the first thing Chen Liangyu remembered was Xie Wenjun’s eyes.

Deep. Pitch black.

Bottomless.

Now she realized that those round, doe-like eyes were captivatingly beautiful.

She then looked at Xie Wenjun’s nose, the corner of her mouth, her neck… and further down, her eyes grew increasingly suggestive.

When Xie Wenjun looked up, Chen Liangyu’s gaze was lingering on the area beneath her lapel.

“What are you looking at? Trying to be a hooligan?” Xie Wenjun said.

Suddenly, a looseness at her waist. A breeze, like one passing through a mountain forest, blew into the gap of her robe. Focusing, she realized her leather belt had been taken by Xie Wenjun.

Stroking, grinding.

A layer of lichen—a beast hide, extremely thick—was spread under the low table in the fairy pavilion.

By the time Chen Liangyu’s mind had cooled down slightly, she was already rolling on the beast hide lichen with Xie Wenjun, kissing passionately.

Xie Wenjun had a very long silk ribbon tied in her hair. With one tug, her black hair fell over her shoulders.

Chen Liangyu gripped the ribbon. In a moment of carelessness, the ribbon knotted around her wrist. The other end was tied to the short leg of the low table.

Chen Liangyu felt a little panicked.

This isn’t right!

She resisted but was firmly pressed back onto the lichen by Xie Wenjun, who was holding her shoulders. Her back rubbed against the animal fur, causing a slight prickling sensation.

Xie Wenjun untied her outer garment, leaned over, and bit open the ties of her inner garment, one by one. “No students. I ask you, why were you willing to teach me back then?”

“The emperor’s command was hard to disobey; I was forced.”

“No other reason?”

“My eldest brother said there was a silver reward. I haven’t seen this reward to this day, Your Highness. Will you repay me?”

Xie Wenjun removed her finger guards. “No silver reward, but something else can be repaid.”

Chen Liangyu felt inexplicably startled by her action of removing the finger guards.

“Your Highness! Someone will die!”

Xie Wenjun said, “I’m afraid my finger guards will scratch you. Not everyone is a beast like you.”

Xie Wenjun said, “Keep your voice down, don’t scream! It would truly be fatal if someone found out!”

The slender silk ribbon was almost torn in half by Chen Liangyu’s grasp.

She called out, “Your Highness.”

Xie Wenjun managed a response in between.

Chen Liangyu gritted her back teeth, trying her best to keep her voice steady. “That time when I returned to Yongdu before the New Year, I went to the Eldest Princess’s residence.”

She just didn’t knock on the door to seek an audience.

She climbed to a high spot and sat quietly, gazing at that deep mansion for a long time.

It wasn’t a good vantage point; she couldn’t even see the figures in the courtyard, only the flying eaves of the roof and the muddy gray walls outside the residence.

She knew the Eldest Princess’s residence had been fully repaired. When Xie Wenjun came to her door asking for shelter, she wondered if there was a slight possibility that Xie Wenjun harbored the same feelings as her.

That night, Xie Wenxi was fast asleep.

The candlelight flickered on her serene face, her beautiful long lashes cast down, concealing her dark eyes.

Chen Liangyu thought of leaving the room late at night, wrapped in a half-shoulder langsha gauze cloak. She walked onto the street blankly, not watching the road, not knowing which alley she turned into.

The cool breeze was refreshing, making her slightly more sober.

That seed, planted at some unknown time, grew with the watering of years. She thought it was a graceful daisy, allowing it to grow and bloom, only for it to unexpectedly blossom into a variegated Leopard Flower.

The flower’s mesmerizing, rich colors were filled with danger, tempting her to approach and touch.

She still found the unusual feelings she harbored for herself to be absurd.

Her soft-soled boots made no sound on the ground. Leaving the alley corner, a straight avenue lay ahead.

The streets of Shangyong City all had similarities. She stood in the night, unable to distinguish which street it was, but she stepped forward.

As she walked, she remembered.

This was the road she took to escort Xie Wenjun back to the palace after rescuing her from the Northern Yong fleeing soldiers on the day the army returned to Yongdu.

“How did I end up here?”

She mumbled, but her steps continued forward.

Recalling every detail of that day, she re-walked the path from that time, step by step, with such earnestness.

Until she reached a large banyan tree, where she stopped, gazing at the half-human-high stump beneath the tree.

That day, Red Mane was waiting for her there. What was unusual was that Red Mane, which never allowed outsiders to approach, had uncharacteristically allowed Xie Wenjun to mount its back.

Chen Liangyu stood under the moon, by the familiar horse-hitching post, silently feeling something cracking open in her heart, like shedding a shell.

Searching around, it was the capsule fruit produced by that Leopard Flower.

The fruit stalk was swelling at an astonishing rate. The pale brown fruit split longitudinally along the septum, scattering a shower of seeds onto the soil.

The seeds, like shredded round pieces of paper, like shattered stars in the sky, poured down like a cascade of moonlight from the Milky Way. When the wind blew, they scattered everywhere.

She let the wind blow the tiny new seeds toward every inner wall of her heart.

It was only then that she truly accepted the unconventional emotion deep within her heart.

The side hall was silent; voices would be amplified and travel far. Chen Liangyu endured to her limit, her eyes overly moist, and tears slid down the outer corners of her eyes. The drumming from the arena saved her.

Twelve drum beats, sending off the imperial carriage.

Time seemed to stretch out. She didn’t know how many hours had passed. Chen Liangyu’s hands were trembling even as she straightened her clothes, and her legs were so weak she could barely stand.

It was Xie Wenjun who helped her up, enabling her to barely perform the farewell ritual toward the direction of Xie Yuan’s imperial carriage returning to the palace.

A circle of constriction marks was visible on Chen Liangyu’s wrist. Xie Wenjun stared at it for a moment, held her hand, and rolled up her sleeve, exposing a section of her arm.

Her lips pressed against the red mark, kissing it softly, and then she said, “Let’s go back.”

The Myriad Festivities have reached their end, with only the final “Medical Skill” event remaining.

The wind was gentle, and the sky was clear.

In the lakeside pavilion of the Marquis of Xuanping’s Residence, Chen Luan and the one-armed Jiang Bojin were locked in an intense game of black and white chess.

Chen Luan stirred the tea foam, looking at the chessboard, hesitating where to place his piece. “If he wants to earn fame through suicide-admonition, I will fulfill his literary aspiration.”

There were still voices in court calling for the execution of the Gu family.

Jiang Bojin had perpetually messy hair that looked like a bird’s nest; it was always disheveled, no matter how he tried to comb it. His sleeve was empty; without his forearm, he couldn’t pick up the chess pieces. Chen Luan had specially found a young attendant to help him handle the pieces.

“I knew you were capable, boy, you’re just like me! Gentlemen must be ruthless and decisive in their actions. You and that person surnamed Chen are not on the same path.”

“Sir, I am also surnamed Chen.”

The game of chess was slowing down more and more.

“That’s right, that’s right. See, I forgot that part again.” Jiang Bojin asked, “The Gu family was acquitted. Did Xun Xian have any objections?”

“Chancellor Xun reported illness.”

“Hmph, I thought he’d try to commit suicide by smashing his head against a pillar for fame! A Chancellor of the State, who just runs away when faced with a problem.” Jiang Bojin’s face and eyes were filled with contempt. “To call him mediocre, his aptitude is indeed lacking. To call him talented, he can barely stand out in a crowd of ordinary people. It’s only because the heroes have fallen and new talents haven’t yet risen that a mediocre person like him can achieve the position of elder statesman and dictate state affairs. In our time, even the Twelve Marquises wouldn’t have a place for him.”

Chen Luan said, “I gather His Majesty intends to form a marriage alliance with Northern Yong.”

“I expected as much,” Jiang Bojin’s thoughts drifted from the chessboard. He pondered, scratching behind his ear with the stump of his arm. “But His Majesty currently has no suitable princess of marriageable age. If a marriage alliance is to be formed, the only option is to send the Eldest Princess to Northern Yong for a marriage of peace.”