Love's Debt Comes Knocking - Chapter 6

The grandmother and granddaughter were about to have a frank talk. After exchanging a glance with Physician Su, Lu Jinhuan rose and excused herself.

Once they had left, the old lady’s expression softened further. “A’Guai.”

Lu Yang responded sluggishly, her flushed little face finally willing to leave the cat’s belly. The orange cat opened a pair of innocent round eyes—the saying “pets resemble their owners” was absolutely true.

Facing her well-behaved granddaughter since childhood, the old lady couldn’t bear to speak a single harsh word. She raised her arm. “Help me take a walk in the back garden.”

“Yes, Grandmother.”

In August, the flowers in the back garden were in full bloom. Though they lacked the competitive beauty of spring, they still held a unique charm at first glance.

Lu Yang’s heart felt heavy as she cradled her plump orange cat in her arms. The cat, usually content to eat and laze around, was quite adept at reading people’s moods. At this moment, it quietly served as its owner’s adorable pet.

“Tell me, what happened?”

The young mistress of the Lu family looked embarrassed, the heat that had just been blown away by the wind instantly returning to her lovely face. She took a deep breath, regaining her usual calm and composure, and began recounting the story from the sudden breach of the embankment in Wuti City.

Once she started speaking, the words flowed naturally.

When the natural disaster struck, the entire city’s residents were busy fleeing for their lives. In the chaos, she became separated from her entourage and had no choice but to seek refuge in the mountains. Unexpectedly, she encountered a mysterious old woman.

The old woman, with her white hair and wrinkled skin, possessed astonishing strength. She dragged Lu Yang to another mountain—Peach Mountain.

On Peach Mountain stood a dilapidated temple, and within that temple hid a beauty in distress. After much contemplation, the young mistress of the Lu family decided to step forward and rescue her…

The old lady’s eyelids twitched, pressing for details. “How did you rescue her?”

Lu Yang was someone who dared to act and take responsibility. Despite her embarrassment, she answered earnestly, “Your granddaughter had intimate relations with her.”

“You took her?”

The question was so direct it left no room for subtlety. Lu Yang’s mind wavered, and she nodded lightly. “Yes.”

With her fair skin and tender face, she could handle a room full of cunning merchants with ease. However, in daily life, especially when facing her most beloved grandmother, she couldn’t hide her thoughts at all.

Suppressing the waves rising in her heart, the old lady asked casually, as if making small talk, “Which family’s daughter is she?”

Lu Yang shook her head, feeling unusually dejected. “I forgot to ask.”

She had a feeling that even if she had asked, the other party might not have answered truthfully.

It was just a fleeting romance.

Like dew condensing on leaves, it disappears with the sunrise.

Vanishing without a trace.

No one understood her granddaughter’s temperament better than the old lady. Knowing that her well-behaved granddaughter had encountered romance during her travels—and in a place as unromantic as a dilapidated temple on a rainy night—she suppressed a smile at the corner of her lips. “What did the girl look like?”

Lu Yang snapped back to reality, realizing her grandmother was teasing her. She endured her shyness and replied, “She was the most beautiful I’ve ever seen in my life.”

The coldest, the most beautiful.

She carried herself with such reserve, as if drawing lines around everyone’s standing ground. Without her permission, no one could cross that boundary.

Her excessive reserve made her seem aloof and distant.

Yet, despite her aloofness, she had allowed Lu Yang to approach and warm herself by the fire, not minding to show kindness in small, manageable ways.

Having lived most of her life, the old lady had also experienced youthful innocence and romance. How could she not see that her well-behaved granddaughter had developed a surprising fondness for this chance-met girl?

She thought of her own life. Losing her husband at a young age, her son in middle age, with both her son and daughter-in-law passing away in the same year. The once lively household was left with only an old woman and a newborn granddaughter to rely on each other.

For years, she had exhausted her efforts, relying on sheer determination to expand the Lu family’s business overseas, all for the sake of her beloved granddaughter.

She dreamed of the day her precious granddaughter would marry.

But Lu Yang’s nature was pure and innocent—not in the sense that she couldn’t see through others’ schemes and was easily fooled, but rather that she remained utterly clueless about matters between women.

While the young master next door had a house full of wives and concubines, her own A’Guai didn’t even dare to hold a girl’s hand. Weren’t all the maids in her household pure and beautiful? Yet the way she looked at them was far less affectionate than how she gazed at a cat.

More often than not, the old lady worried that Lu Yang might one day take a fancy to some smooth-talking young man.

Fortunately, the one who shared a spring breeze with her was a girl.

The conversation had essentially reached its end, but Lu Yang still had many things pent up inside that she couldn’t bear to keep to herself. Her grandmother dismissed her with a few words, busy seeking out Physician Su to discuss how to nourish her body.

Nourish her body…

Nothing could be more humiliating than this.

She had known since she was three that she was different from ordinary women. She was a daughter of the Lu family, with an inherently powerful bloodline capable of impregnating women.

Yet, lamentably, in her first-ever encounter with a woman, she had become weak after just one night?

What a disgrace!

Lu Yang puffed out her cheeks in anger.

Just then, Lu Jinhuan swayed her slender waist as she walked over, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her in front of the flower bed. She spoke cautiously yet slyly, “Did you take advantage of someone, or were you taken advantage of?”

“Sister Jinhuan!”

The young mistress couldn’t bear such teasing. Lu Jinhuan quickly said, “Alright, alright, alright. Then let me rephrase—was that person a man or a woman?”

“Of course, a woman.”

“Oh, was it that intense? How could you—”

“Don’t say it!” Lu Yang glared at her sideways.

Fine, I won’t say it. But does that mean you’re not suffering from kidney deficiency?

“The young mistress’s condition is unusual.”

The old lady had just been overjoyed that her precious granddaughter had finally awakened to such matters, only to have a bucket of cold water poured over her head. “What do you mean, Physician Su?”

“Earlier, in front of the young mistress and Miss Jinhuan, some things were inconvenient to mention. If it were just a one-night affair, given the young mistress’s constitution, it wouldn’t have caused any harm at all.” Physician Su hesitated for a long moment before speaking softly, “The young mistress’s condition seems more like her ‘initial essence’ was taken…”

The so-called ‘initial essence,’ when it comes to the Lu family, shares a similar meaning to a man’s vital essence.

The character ‘initial’ preceding ‘essence’ refers to the first time—the first time one engages in intimacy. The aftermath of depleting one’s initial essence is a tendency to feel easily fatigued.

This closely matches the current state of the young mistress of the Lu family.

The Su family had dealt with the Lu family for generations. The old lady was not well-versed in medical principles, and there were many things she didn’t understand as clearly as Physician Su. But there was one thing she grasped: “You mean…”

She leaned forward, her breath tightening.

Physician Su nodded. “We must find the girl who spent that night with the young mistress as soon as possible. It’s highly likely that the girl is already carrying the Lu family’s bloodline.”

The old lady’s eyes instantly lit up, her entire being radiating vitality. “Really?!”

“It’s better to believe it than not.”

In any case, the Lu family’s descendants could not be left to wander outside.

After a moment of wild joy, the old lady quickly calmed down and called out loudly, “Someone!”

“A portrait? Why does Grandmother want a portrait of that girl?”

The other party didn’t want to have too much to do with her. How could Lu Yang disrupt her life just because they had shared one night together?

“I never thought you’d be such a romantic, so protective of her. But if the old lady wants her portrait, who can stop it? Whether you draw it or not, the portrait must be made. The old lady is waiting for you.”

Lu Jinhuan glanced at her and added, “If you don’t start drawing soon, the old lady won’t even want to eat dinner.”

That serious?

Lu Yang hesitated.

“Quick, draw!” Lu Jinhuan pressed the brush into her palm, coaxing softly, “You wouldn’t want the old lady to go hungry, would you? It’s just a portrait—she’s your own grandmother. What could she possibly do to that girl?”

That was true. Lu Yang would sooner doubt she was still dreaming than suspect her grandmother couldn’t tolerate a young woman.

“Fine.”

She gripped the brush handle. “You go out first.”

Lu Jinhuan was both amused and exasperated by her.

In all the world, the young mistress of the Lu family reigned supreme. She deliberately straightened her posture. “As if I care to watch.”

Once outside the study, Lu Jinhuan turned her back to the door and gazed up at the distant sky, suddenly struck by a wave of bewildered helplessness.

The old madam never acted without purpose; she wouldn’t suddenly want to see what the other girl looked like on a whim.

But what about her?

She, who was born for Lu Yang and lived for Lu Yang—where should she go from here?

The best outcome would be if Lu Yang were willing to take her.

But would she be?

Her earlier remark about Lu Yang being a romantic wasn’t just idle talk.

People said outsiders saw things clearly. Lu Yang was likely developing feelings for that girl.

A fleeting night of passion might be a spice of life for a libertine, but for the young mistress who had followed the rules for eighteen years, it was an earth-shattering thrill.

If that girl possessed exceptional beauty and a gentle temperament, naturally holding the advantage of intimate relations, where would there be any room left for her, Lu Jinhuan?

The Lu family was vast in wealth and influence, yet its household was simple. Marrying Lu Yang was the best choice.

Worry creased Lu Jinhuan’s brow. Through the door, she could almost see the tender joy rising in that little rascal’s peach-blossom eyes.

Hiding it away, not letting anyone see—this meant she was utterly smitten with that girl!

Her heart was in turmoil.

To delve deeper, her feelings for Lu Yang weren’t some desperate, life-or-death infatuation. Yet having met someone as pure and clear as Lu Yang, how could anyone else compare?

Not to mention, the young mistress of the Lu family was a match one couldn’t find even with a lantern throughout the Great Zhou Dynasty.

At least she knew that if she married Lu Yang, Lu Yang would remain loyal and cherish her for a lifetime. Because that person was stubborn and single-minded.

With complex emotions, the single-minded young mistress completed the final stroke. The beauty’s grace leaped off the paper—truly radiant as the clear moon, cool as autumn, especially those eyes, tender yet profoundly detached.

Looking at the portrait, she seemed both satisfied and dissatisfied.

This was already the best she had ever painted.

She personally brought it before the old madam.

As the scroll unfurled, what met the eye was a portrait of a beauty meticulously rendered by the young mistress’s delicate brushwork—

The beauty sat beside a campfire, the flames illuminating her face, setting off hair as dark as ink and skin as white as snow. As if hearing a sound, she lifted her head, a fine bead of sweat tracing her sharp jawline. Her eyes held both lethality and coldness, her features exquisitely pure yet strikingly vivid. Boundless wariness and restraint tightened her pale pink lips.

Lu Jinhuan’s pupils trembled. She drew a sharp, cold breath, astonished that her family’s precious phoenix egg had provoked such an extraordinary girl in a remote mountain temple!

The old madam’s reaction, however, was inscrutable, her smile profound.

Lu Yang watched everyone’s responses with a sense of pride, feeling it still wasn’t enough. She added earnestly, “I only captured a third of her essence.”

The real person was far more beautiful than the portrait!

“Good, good.”

The more the old madam looked, the more she liked it. She carefully stored the painting away. When Lu Yang pressed further, she only smiled and replied, “You’ll know in time.”

So mysterious.

Trusting her grandmother implicitly, Lu Yang wasn’t worried that the old lady would harm the girl in the painting.

After dining with her grandmother, she returned to her room and obediently drank her medicine—a tonic for nourishing the kidneys and replenishing vitality, meant to help her recover quickly from her exhausted state.

Even so, she still took her time, spending nearly half an hour to finish the bowl of medicine.

She would take a small sip, then another, the bitterness lingering on the tip of her tongue. Even as the liquid cooled in her stomach, she remained indignant, refusing to admit her own inadequacy.

Lifting her clothes, she stared at the clearly visible lines of her slender waist for a long time, frowning. “How could I be all show and no substance? I clearly…”

Recalling the steamy, fervent scene from that night, her heart raced out of rhythm.

She clearly… had been magnificent.

As thoughts by day give rise to dreams by night, after experiencing the daytime ordeal of kidney deficiency and candid confession, Lu Yang once again dreamed of that dilapidated temple, battered by wind and rain.

The warm, flickering firelight cast faint, shifting shadows across the small space, while the sound of wind and rain persisted beyond the doors and windows.

Amidst the unsteady, reckless motions, the inexperienced youth, ignorant of the ways of passion, gradually mastered the art under the trembling guidance of the woman.

She seemed to have learned how to please, reveling in it tirelessly.

Sweat trickled down her neck, melting even the coldest of snow.

Even at her most disheveled in the dream, the woman remained composed and serene. She must have come from an excellent background, a deep-sea pearl nurtured within the profound heritage of a noble family.

The pearl shimmered brilliantly in the darkness, captivating Lu Yang’s gaze.

And so, the ripples began to sway.

At the most intense and passionate moments, the woman opened her tightly shut eyes, which seemed to be painted with the beauty of lakes and mountains, the elegance of the mortal world.

Her soul seemed to float in mid-air, her lips slightly parted, her jade-like arms tightly wrapped around Lu Yang’s neck, like a drowning person clinging to a life-saving piece of driftwood.

Amidst nine parts of composure, a hint of barely restrained emotion was squeezed out.

Fragile, helpless, inescapable.

Her entire body radiated vibrant vitality.

“Lu Yang.”

She called her name.

Lu Yang, inexperienced, lost herself in the woman’s husky voice and half-drunken, half-awake gaze, instinctively lowering her head.

“Lu Yang.”

The woman lightly traced the skin at the back of Lu Yang’s neck, letting out a faint sigh.

“Too fast.”