After My Paranoid Act to Woo My Cold Master Failed - Chapter 43

“Wait a moment. I want to build a very, very big snowman with Master,” Shen Shuheng said, using her hands to gesture just how large she wanted the snowman to be.

“Alright…” Fu Xueke replied, her gaze drifting toward the girl’s wrists as she fell into a daze.

Unknowingly, the two of them walked into the kitchen.

Shen Shuheng looked at the large spread of dishes on the table and pointed at them. “Master, are we not eating these?”

“Those are leftovers from last night. If we heat them up again, the flavor won’t be as good as before,” Fu Xueke explained.

“But Master must have put so much heart and effort into making such a big feast.” Shen Shuheng didn’t want the things her Master made to go to waste. Anything her Master cooked would surely be delicious.

“A-Heng just happens to love eating leftovers,” she said, grabbing Fu Xueke to stop her from going to make something else.

Every dish was untouched, and the presentation remained exquisite. Aside from being cold, they looked no different from when they were freshly made.

“Let’s use spiritual energy to heat them up before eating, okay?” She tilted her head back to look into her Master’s eyes; her own reflection was mirrored in those deep pupils.

Shen Shuheng immediately matched her words with action. A golden spiritual energy enveloped the dishes on the table, transferring heat into them.

“Alright,” Fu Xueke agreed. She remembered that her disciple usually disliked reheated food, yet today she claimed to love it.

Once the meal was hot, she brought a set of bowl and chopsticks for her Master. “Master, you eat too! Accompany A-Heng.”

Fu Xueke nodded and sat down to join her.

Shen Shuheng wanted to build the snowman with her Master as soon as possible, so she began shoveling rice into her mouth at high speed.

“Cough…!” Her face turned scarlet as she coughed violently, tears pricking at her eyes.

She had eaten too fast and accidentally choked.

A pair of hands began to pat her back continuously—it was an action of extreme tenderness.

“Are you alright? Drink some water, and don’t eat so fast in a moment,” Fu Xueke said, handing her a cup of dark brown, steaming tea.

Once the coughing subsided slightly, Shen Shuheng took the cup from her Master’s hand and downed it in one go. The bitter taste of Chinese medicine flooded her mouth. Her small face wrinkled like a bitter melon, but she forced herself to swallow it down.

She felt the bitterness of the medicine seep into her stomach; the taste lingered on her person, refusing to dissipate for a long time.

Suddenly, something cool touched her lips. She lowered her eyes and saw a finger as white as jade pressing a segment of orange against her mouth.

“This time it is sweet,” her Master’s voice flowed like a cold mountain spring. Even before she bit into the orange, she felt the previous bitterness suppressed by that cool, clear voice.

At this moment, Shen Shuheng craved sweetness intensely. She eagerly moved to take the orange and, in her haste, accidentally took both the orange and her Master’s fingertip into her mouth.

Wet warmth enveloped Fu Xueke’s finger. She tried to withdraw it, only to find that her disciple, as if possessed by a mischievous streak, had lightly nipped her.

The girl did not seem to think there was anything improper about her behavior.

At this moment, she was entirely in a childlike state of mind—doing whatever she pleased without ever considering consequences or right and wrong, following only her “true heart.”

A few tears from her coughing fit remained in her eyes, making the corners of her eyes appear a faint, alluring crimson.

The owner of those eyes looked at her with an expression of pure innocence. Her eyelashes trembled slightly and her eyes shimmered; it was a uniquely captivating charm.

Only today did Fu Xueke realize that her disciple no longer possessed merely the naive sweetness of a young girl. The charm of a mature woman was beginning to take over the corners of her eyes and brows.

To Fu Xueke, this was an even more fatal danger—a temptation that could lead to eternal perdition.

She slowly averted her eyes and looked out the window.

As if annoyed, Shen Shuheng applied a bit more pressure with her teeth on the fingertip, both nibbling and licking. In short, she simply would not let her Master’s hand leave.

Fu Xueke watched the snow outside. Crystalline flakes danced and fluttered. Under the sunlight, the snowflakes looked like distant apricot blossoms, spinning and twirling as they fell, rising and falling in a constant cycle.

It felt as though an invisible wind was also tossing her up, letting her fall, tossing her up, and letting her fall again…

The Hall of Heart-Searching was under a perpetual snowfall. Even if it was high summer outside the mountains with scorching sun and noisy cicadas, here the snow would still fall heavily.

At this moment, she could only fix her mind elsewhere.

In her eyes was the pure snow. In her heart were filthy de…sires.

Outside, the snow seemed to dance and fall slower and slower. The shapes of the flakes and their trajectories through the air were all clearly displayed before her eyes.

A-Heng’s teeth on her finger moved slower and slower as well. Everything in her surroundings became agonizingly slow, as if deliberately trying to make things difficult for her.

She had never longed so much for time to flow faster—just a little bit faster. Ideally, so fast that everything in the world would be nothing but a blur in her vision.

The wind stopped. The snowflakes no longer whirled in the air but drifted gently to the ground.

The wet warmth vanished, replaced by a cool sensation that felt somewhat cold. The wind outside had died down, but a “wind” had risen inside the room.

“Master!” A shout pulled her back to her senses.

She turned her head back. A strange, lingering sensation remained on the fingertip that had been bitten.

“Are there more? I want more,” Shen Shuheng said with a sweet smile. “It really is so sweet; the bitterness in my mouth is all gone.”

“There are more. I will peel them and put them on a plate for you.” Fu Xueke did not dare use her hand to feed her disciple again.

A moment ago, she only needed to withdraw her hand to end it. No matter how strong her disciple was, she couldn’t possibly be stronger than her. Her mind claimed she was afraid of making her disciple sad, but was it not because she herself wanted it? Every time, she used her soft-heartedness toward her disciple as an excuse to indulge the growing de…sires in the depths of her heart.

Finally, they had grown from seeds into intricate, tangled vines, firmly rooted in her soul, refusing to let go even in death.

All she could do was drink poison to quench her thirst.

Fu Xueke did as she had done before, taking several oranges and placing them on the table, peeling them one by one and arranging the segments on a white jade plate.

She feared her disciple would look at her with that innocent face again and ask: “Master, why aren’t you feeding me anymore?”

She intentionally spoke of building the snowman to distract her.

Fortunately, her disciple was still easy to fool at this moment, her entire heart set on the snowman.

After finishing the meal, Shen Shuheng stood up, ran to Fu Xueke, and pulled her along.

The Master and disciple went into the courtyard and found an open space.

“Let’s build a big snowman! We’ll build a Master, and then an A-Heng!” Shen Shuheng’s smile was bright, more dazzling than the sunlight in the sky.

“Master, guess which season I like best?” Shen Shuheng squatted down, grabbing a handful of snow and packing it into a ball.

Fu Xueke also squatted down, tilting her head. “Autumn. Because the fruits and melons are fragrant then, and you are a little glutton.”

The girl huffed. “Wrong, wrong! Guess again, Master. A-Heng is a person, not a glutton.”

Looking at her like this, Fu Xueke’s eyes were full of indulgence. “Then… Spring?”

“Wrong.”

“Summer? Because of the iced plum custard.”

“Wrong again,” Shen Shuheng shook her head, looking at her as if to say How can you be so bad at this?

Fu Xueke laughed. “Could it be you like Winter? Aren’t you very afraid of the cold? There are no delicious fruits in winter either.”

Shen Shuheng nodded several times, her large dark eyes twinkling. “A-Heng likes Winter best.”

She waited a moment, but her Master didn’t ask her, “Why do you like this season?”

She grew a bit anxious; she couldn’t say the words she had prepared.

She leaned her face close to Fu Xueke’s ear and whispered mysteriously, “Master, don’t you want to know why?”

Fu Xueke’s hands were still busy. The fist-sized snowball was growing larger under her touch, soon becoming as tall as a three-year-old child.

“I don’t,” she said mischievously.

“No, you do want to know.” Since her Master said she didn’t want to know, she insisted on telling her.

She pressed against Fu Xueke’s ear, her voice soft and sweet. “Because Master’s name has ‘Snow’ (Xue) in it. And A-Heng grew up with Master in a place where it’s always snowing. So A-Heng likes Winter best, and likes Snow best!”

After saying this, she sat on the snow and began to laugh loudly. She laughed so much she eventually lay back on the snow, grabbing a handful and tossing it into the air.

The snow filled the air, fluttering down until it covered Fu Xueke’s head and shoulders.

Snow that has been packed by hand and thrown loses its lightness; it felt like a heavy heap of salt being poured over someone.

Shen Shuheng hadn’t expected her casual toss to land entirely on her Master. Feeling a bit panicked, she scrambled to her feet.

She didn’t even stop to brush the snow off herself. Instead, she rushed to Fu Xueke’s side and diligently brushed the heavy accumulation from her Master’s head and shoulders.

“Master, I’m sorry. A-Heng didn’t mean it.”

Fu Xueke looked at her without the slightest hint of anger, saying playfully, “A rebellious disciple who knows to correct her mistakes isn’t too rebellious.”

Shen Shuheng became meek and submissive. Whatever her Master said was law—after all, it was she who had done wrong.

Suddenly, a clump of snow on Fu Xueke’s shoulder slid into her collar.

Shen Shuheng immediately reached in after it, catching the snowball before it could fall further down.

“You rebellious disciple, what are you doing?”

“This time the rebellious disciple didn’t rebel against Master,” Shen Shuheng said, cupping the melting snow water. “It was the snow being disobedient; it wanted to fall into Master’s clothes and freeze you. A-Heng was helping Master.”

“Thank you,” Fu Xueke said, her emotions complicated.

Shen Shuheng smiled contentedly and went back to rolling her snowball on the ground. She noticed her Master’s snowball was already taller than her while she was squatting; she couldn’t fall behind.

Her movements grew faster, though she still couldn’t catch up to her Master.

Fu Xueke placed the nearly man-high snowball in position and refined its shape. “The one in your hands will serve perfectly as the head.”

Shen Shuheng looked up at the one her Master had built and handed her snowball over.

Fu Xueke took it and placed it on top. The basic shape of a snowman was finished; it only needed details.

Working together, the Master and disciple finished the frame of a second snowman, though it was slightly shorter than the first.

“Now we need to give them eyes, a nose, and a mouth!” Shen Shuheng looked at the snowmen with excitement.

“Go get two carrots for the noses,” Fu Xueke said.

Shen Shuheng shook her head immediately, her mouth turning down in distaste. “I don’t want carrots; they taste terrible. A-Heng wants oranges for noses. Oranges are delicious!”

“It’s not as if you’re the one eating them… but fine, we’ll use oranges for noses,” Fu Xueke said, amused.

“What do we use for the eyes?” She tilted her head, looking at Fu Xueke in confusion.

A few round beads of black jade appeared in her Master’s hand, reflecting the sunlight beautifully.

Shen Shuheng pressed the black jade into the snowman’s head for eyes and stuffed an orange below them for a nose.

With its round nose, the snowman looked quite adorable and clumsy.

Shen Shuheng frowned, feeling that something was still missing. What was it?

She remembered—clothes. They were both wearing clothes, so naturally, the snowmen should wear clothes too. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be right.

“Master, can I have one of your robes? The snowman has no clothes to wear.”

Fu Xueke took a white robe embroidered with a crane motif from her storage bag and handed it to her disciple, not blaming her at all for the strange request.

Shen Shuheng followed suit and took out one of her own robes, dressing the snowmen one by one.

Fu Xueke saw her putting her own robe on the shorter snowman. “That snowman is you?”

“The one in my clothes is me, and the one in Master’s clothes is Master,” she said.

“You are shorter than me; the taller snowman should be me,” Fu Xueke said, feeling playful.

“That is only temporary. A-Heng will grow taller—taller than even Master.”

Hearing this, Fu Xueke let out a soft laugh. Her expression was tender as she watched the girl before her.

“Master… I was supposed to be practicing my swordplay. Why am I here?” Suddenly, Shen Shuheng looked around in a daze, then at the snowmen in front of her. Why were they wearing their clothes? Who was so childish? It certainly wasn’t her.

A flash of surprise crossed Fu Xueke’s eyes, but she quickly returned to normal.

The childishness on her disciple’s face had vanished completely. It seemed her intellect had returned, which meant her damaged soul had also recovered.

However, she hadn’t expected the damaged soul to recover so quickly and so suddenly.