After Accidentally Marking the Cold and Elegant Eldest Princess - Chapter 40

Chapter 40: Deeply Scenting the Pheromones

Yan Yunti pressed her hands down on either side of Yuan Jingxue, maintaining a distance that was incredibly close.

Yuan Jingxue was forced to meet her gaze. Yan Yunti’s temperament was truly different from her own; the girl spoke such words as if they were a matter of course, without a trace of bashfulness, as if she truly considered this as normal as drinking water.

Instead, it sparked a flicker of displeasure in the Princess’s heart.

Would she make such a request regardless of who the other person was?

Suppressing the tremor in her heartstrings, Yuan Jingxue maintained a cold expression. “Can Miss Yan distinguish between whether it is her body thinking, or her heart?”

“What if I can’t?” Seeing that there was no immediate refusal, Yan Yunti knew there was hope. She lowered her head to the side of the Princess’s neck. Her stray hairs tumbled down, slipping into Yuan Jingxue’s collar and poking downward.

Feeling the fine itch against her chest, Yuan Jingxue pulled the hair out, using the strands to point at the person. “This hair is so restless; how can I be at ease? Perhaps pulling it out would be simpler.”

“Would Your Highness have the heart to?” Yan Yunti’s nose lightly brushed against her side-neck and cheek before she pulled back slightly to look at her. “If you find me restless, then cover my eyes and bind my hands and feet. I guarantee I won’t be able to do anything else.” As she spoke, she offered both hands, holding them out before Yuan Jingxue. “I am at Your Highness’s disposal.”

Yuan Jingxue lowered her eyes and saw the emerald jade bead string on the girl’s wrist. Thinking of the memory of being controlled, she was actually moved by the suggestion. She stood up, took two waist sashes from the wardrobe, and handed the purple one to Yan Yunti. “Cover your eyes.”

The light purple silk was doubled over. Yan Yunti covered her eyes and tied it tightly behind her head. All that remained of her vision was a dim, purplish light; she couldn’t even make out Yuan Jingxue’s silhouette.

She raised her bound-together hands before Yuan Jingxue. “Your Highness, help me.”

Yuan Jingxue did not make a sound. She took the crimson sash and wound it circle after circle around Yan Yunti’s wrists, binding her hands together tightly. Once she was sure Yan Yunti could not move, she grabbed the sash, pulled the girl forward, and then tore off the cold-scent patch behind her own neck, releasing her pheromones.

A few wisps of the elegant magnolia fragrance leaked out, accompanied by the Kunze’s warning: “Fifteen minutes. When you are done smelling, you leave.”

“Fine,” Yan Yunti replied in a low voice. She felt Yuan Jingxue shift her sitting position, and the pheromones seemed to move closer. She leaned forward, her nose touching Yuan Jingxue’s hair bun before sliding downward to get close to the back of the neck. She inhaled deeply, allowing the Kunze’s scent to invade her nasal passages.

Unable to see or touch, Yan Yunti smelled with even greater focus and detail. The Kunze’s pheromones seeped into her flesh and deep into her marrow, drawing out the hidden thoughts within her more quickly and urgently.

Initially, Yan Yunti truly hadn’t planned on doing anything.

However, she didn’t understand why Yuan Jingxue had agreed to let her smell the pheromones today. She had thought that given the Eldest Princess’s icy temperament, she would have to beg at least twice more before gaining a reluctant agreement.

But today, everything seemed too smooth.

Was this logical?

It wasn’t—unless, during these three days, she wasn’t the only one who found things difficult to endure.

Yan Yunti moved her wrists. The sash was tied very tightly, but it wasn’t impossible to undo. However, she didn’t need to undo it.

Yan Yunti’s nose brushed forward lightly, sliding across the back of the Kunze’s neck. her breath grazed the slightly heating gland, accompanied by the warmth of her voice: “A-Xue, I want to hold you.”

Yuan Jingxue suppressed the rise and fall of her breathing, moving her neck forward slightly. She spat out two cold words: “No.”

“Is it really no?” Yan Yunti pursued her, her lips hovering just above the skin. “I won’t untie the bonds. Can’t I just simply hold you?”

Yuan Jingxue turned her head to look at the Qianyuan. She couldn’t see those peach-blossom eyes, but she could see the girl’s flushed cheeks and heating earlobes. Why had it come to this, merely from smelling pheromones?

“Why hold me?” Yuan Jingxue didn’t understand why she bothered to ask.

Sensing the breath from her speech, Yan Yunti moved toward her face, her voice low and soft: “Because… rabbits are very soft.”

The fat white rabbit had long since jumped off the daybed, running off to play somewhere unknown.

Yuan Jingxue turned her body back and rebuked her coldly: “I am not your rabbit.”

“I know, A-Xue isn’t a rabbit,” Yan Yunti replied softly. She roughly gauged the direction and raised her bound hands, suddenly circling the woman in her embrace from above. Her arms happened to lock in just the right position. She added in a low voice: “A-Xue has a pair of very soft, very nice-to-touch rabbits.”

Yuan Jingxue was provoked into anger: “Yan Yunti, have you forgotten what you said?”

“I haven’t,” Yan Yunti moved her hands down to circle Yuan Jingxue’s waist, trapping the Princess’s hands within the loop as well. She pressed her entire body against Yuan Jingxue’s back, resting her head in the nook of the Princess’s neck. She took a deep breath and sighed: “Your Highness, it’s more than just your pheromones that I’m thinking of.”

The other’s breath, the scent of her body, even the sensation of her skin—she missed it all. Just a hug was already a show of great restraint.

“Does Your Highness not think of it as well?” Yan Yunti lifted her head, her lips grazing the edge of Yuan Jingxue’s ear. “During these three days, has Your Highness never once thought of my pheromones, my scent? Have you never dreamed of me?”

Yuan Jingxue suddenly felt as though she had spun a cocoon only to trap herself. She had bound Yan Yunti’s hands, yet now Yan Yunti was using that bond to trap her own hands; she couldn’t untie the girl, which only made it easier for Yan Yunti to cling to her and refuse to let go.

Every time she tried to take control back, this was the result.

Perhaps this was also a warning. If she couldn’t control Yan Yunti’s actions, then she should stop trying to exert control, lest she sink deeper and deeper.

“No,” Yuan Jingxue’s voice was utterly indifferent.

Yan Yunti didn’t believe her. She returned to the back of Yuan Jingxue’s neck, her lips pressing against the edge of the Kunze’s gland. She sighed again: “Your Highness is always like this—saying the opposite of what is in her heart. If your heart was truly undisturbed, why didn’t you change the bedding before going to sleep, but instead ordered it replaced in the middle of the night? The night before leaving the villa, did Your Highness also fail to sleep well?”

Yan Yunti felt she had been overthinking before. Perhaps that night, Yuan Jingxue had also been disturbed by the scent she had left behind, which was why she had the bed changed in the dead of night.

It wasn’t necessarily true that there wasn’t a single ripple in Yuan Jingxue’s heart.

However, the Eldest Princess would not admit it. She only countered her with a faint: “You’re overthinking.”

Yan Yunti let out a light laugh. “Whatever Your Highness says goes.” Her lips drifted over the back of the neck but ultimately did not press onto the gland. The moment Yuan Jingxue withdrew her pheromones, Yan Yunti knew the time was up. She cooperatively moved her hands away and used her teeth to pull the other end of the sash, untying herself.

She placed the two sashes on the daybed and rose to take her leave. “Thank you, Your Highness, for granting this servant a scent of your pheromones tonight. It is late; this servant shall depart now.”

She was so polite and distant, as if the person who had been clinging to her and deeply scenting her pheromones just moments ago wasn’t her at all.

Yuan Jingxue looked at the rabbit that had run back and gave a reminder: “Take this rabbit with you. It is a wild rabbit after all; why keep it by a person’s side and bind its nature?”

Yan Yunti looked at the white rabbit that had run back and burrowed straight into Yuan Jingxue’s lap. She quirked an eyebrow slightly. “If Your Highness dislikes it, you can have someone release it. Provided… Your Highness can bear to.”

After saying this, Yan Yunti turned and left.

The room was suddenly empty, and the scent left behind by the Qianyuan dissipated bit by bit with time. Yuan Jingxue suppressed the thoughts rising within her, pinched the silver sachet, and held it to her nose. The cedar scent of the Pheromone Pill seeped into her, calming her thoughts considerably, but a faint, vague craving was also rising.

She had thought Yan Yunti wouldn’t be able to restrain herself from releasing her pheromones.

But Yan Yunti had done nothing. Her actions today, compared to the past, couldn’t even be called “excessive.” Somehow, this made her even more difficult to read.

The rabbit in her lap shifted about but no longer ran away. Yuan Jingxue lowered her eyes to look at it. After a long silence, she raised her hand and slowly stroked the rabbit’s back, gently smoothing its fur. She whispered a single phrase: “Silly rabbit.”

If you knew you were to be confined to a small corner of the world forever, how could you possibly be willing to stay?

The next day, Yuan Jingxue personally took the rabbit into the hunting forest. She released it into the woods, letting it vanish into the thicket.

As she was about to leave, she suddenly heard Xiao Ran say in surprise: “Eh? It’s back.”

Yuan Jingxue’s heart stirred. She turned and saw the white rabbit that had just vanished running back to her feet, still chewing on some grass. It seemed it had just gone to find food.

Yuan Jingxue crouched down to look at it, lightly poking its nose. “You’re not leaving?”

The rabbit, of course, could not answer her. It nuzzled against Yuan Jingxue’s fingertip with an intimate attitude. Yuan Jingxue picked it up and whispered a warning: “If you don’t leave now, you won’t be able to leave later.”

The rabbit didn’t care what she said, nestling comfortably in her arms. Yuan Jingxue rose with it, looking at the soft white creature, not understanding why it had run back. Was the forest where it could run freely not better than being by her side?

But since you chose to come back, then… you are not allowed to run away again.

Yuan Jingxue mounted her horse and took the rabbit from Xiao Ran. As she turned her horse, she saw two people riding together not far away—it was Yan Yunti and the Dongyou envoy, Zhongli Yu. They were saying something to each other, speaking in low tones and laughing; it was clear they had a good relationship.

Yuan Jingxue’s mood, which had just been lifted by the rabbit, suddenly sank. Yan Yunti didn’t seem to have taken her warning to heart at all.

The three met head-on. Yan Yunti was the first to see Yuan Jingxue—and the rabbit in her arms.

It seems the Eldest Princess couldn’t bear to throw it away after all.

Yan Yunti wore a respectful expression. She released her reins and cupped her hands in a salute. “This servant greets the Eldest Princess.”

Zhongli Yu’s gaze moved deftly between the two of them, pausing for a moment when it swept over the rabbit in the Princess’s arms. She remembered Yan Yunti saying yesterday that she wanted to catch a rabbit. Now, the Eldest Princess had a white rabbit in her lap.

Judging by the way the two were acting now, no one would think they were acquainted or familiar with each other.

Was it all just my hallucination?

“Zhongli Yu greets the Eldest Princess,” Zhongli Yu followed suit with a salute.

“No need for formalities.” Yuan Jingxue’s gaze swept over the two coldly as she rode her horse past Yan Yunti’s side.

For a moment, Yan Yunti felt that Yuan Jingxue was angry. Although her expression hadn’t changed much, her aura was noticeably colder.

Why was she angry? Was it because she had deliberately teased her last night, or because she was talking and laughing with Zhongli Yu today? Or perhaps both?

Yan Yunti really wanted to know the answer.