My Senior Sister Says She Will Marry No One But Me - Chapter 32

Almost as soon as Du Yunge finished speaking, Xue Shuyan immediately nodded and agreed, “Alright.”

As if she had been waiting all along for Du Yunge to say those words.

Her response was so resolute and straightforward that even Du Yunge, who knew her temperament well, was taken aback by such a swift reply. Suspiciously, Du Yunge looked Xue Shuyan up and down, as if trying to spot something unusual about her longtime senior sister. In the end, however, she found nothing out of the ordinary, except for a faint, inexplicable sense of happiness emanating from Xue Shuyan.

But Du Yunge dismissed this thought as soon as it arose. After all, Xue Shuyan had always been a person who acted with reason and purpose whether she was angry, happy, or cold as ice, there was always a clear cause. Although lately, the frequency of her inexplicable bouts of unhappiness had increased significantly, in Du Yunge’s heart, she remained the reliable Senior Sister Xue. How could she suddenly be happy for no reason? That clearly wasn’t something Xue Shuyan would do.

The room prepared for them by the Emei Sect’s leader was originally a master suite meant for one person. A green gauze partition stood in the center of the room, dividing the spacious suite into two halves. All furnishings, such as bronze mirrors, washbasins, and dressing tables, were arranged identically on both sides. The only difference was that the bed outside the partition was slightly larger, as Xue Shuyan, with her mixed Hu heritage and years of martial arts training, was taller than Du Yunge. Giving her the larger bed made perfect sense.

In the past, Xue Shuyan had always slept in the outer chamber of Du Yunge’s room, separated by a solid wall no matter how close they were. But now, things were different. The green gauze partition was semi-transparent, and if the gauze were even thinner, one could almost make out the silhouette of the person sleeping inside.

For some reason, Du Yunge suddenly felt shy. The words, “Senior Sister, I’ll go wash up first,” lingered on the tip of her tongue for a long time before she could finally utter them, her voice as faint as a mosquito’s hum. Her face flushed bright red with embarrassment. Fortunately, Xue Shuyan, with her exceptional martial skills and profound inner strength, could hear even such a soft-spoken sentence. She gave a slight nod and said quietly:

“Go ahead. I’ll trim the lamp wick for you here.”

Seeing that Du Yunge still hadn’t moved, Xue Shuyan suddenly understood and added:

“I promise I won’t look.”

By the time Du Yunge emerged from behind the green gauze partition with her hair still damp, Xue Shuyan was still sitting bolt upright in the outer chamber, her back firmly turned to the partition and facing outward, with no intention of glancing back. This eased Du Yunge’s nerves a little, and she thought to herself, “Indeed, in all the world, my Senior Sister Xue is the most trustworthy. She keeps her word and conducts herself with integrity truly different from hypocrites like He Zhenzhen. She truly lives up to her sterling reputation.”

After the Emei Sect maids had carried away the wooden tub filled with flower petals from behind the partition, Xue Shuyan beckoned to Du Yunge:

“Come, let me dry your hair for you.”

Mount Wangyou was perilously steep, and even during the height of summer in July, the nights remained cool. Yet Du Yunge had a habit of washing up before bed, often leaving Feng Chengchun fretting that she might catch a chill from sleeping with damp hair. It wasn’t until Xue Shuyan learned to channel her inner energy to dry Du Yunge’s hair that Feng Chengchun finally set her worries aside.

By now, Du Yunge had grown accustomed to Xue Shuyan drying her hair. She obediently took a seat, letting Xue Shuyan’s hands glide freely through her cascading black tresses. With precise control of her inner energy, Xue Shuyan’s fingers swept over the strands, and in no time, the once-damp hair gradually dried.

It was fortunate no one could witness this scene, or they might have exclaimed at the sheer extravagance of it all. Channeling inner energy externally demanded exceptional cultivation and meticulous control, a feat that would bring most to ecstatic joy if achieved in their prime, with even their masters swelling with pride. Yet here was someone who had mastered it at such a young age, only to use it for drying her junior sister’s hair? Truly, comparisons like this could drive one mad.

After changing into her sleepwear and preparing to extinguish the lamp, Du Yunge suddenly heard Xue Shuyan’s voice from the outer room:

“Yunge, may I sleep in your room tonight? I spilled water on my bed.”

Startled, Du Yunge thought, if the bedding were soaked through, how could anyone sleep? The damp, cold sheets combined with Mount Emei’s already cool temperatures would make it unbearable. Hastily throwing on a jade-colored robe, she rushed out from behind the gauze screen:

“Senior Sister, don’t panic. What happened?”

Xue Shuyan stood by the bed, holding an overturned cup, her expressionless face hardly conveying “an accident.” Instead, it seemed almost deliberate though someone like Du Yunge, who trusted her reliable senior sister implicitly, would never notice.

“I accidentally knocked over the cup,” Xue Shuyan said.

Had anyone who knew or even just heard of Xue Shuyan been present, they might have blurted out:

“Stop pretending! Who are you trying to fool?”

Xue Shuyan, the esteemed head disciple of Miaoyin Sect, renowned even beyond the frontier as the foremost young talent of the Central Plains, accidentally spilling a cup of water? With her skill, she’d have caught the cup the moment it tipped, not spilling a single drop.

Even if, by some remote chance, she had been distracted and failed to catch it, how much water could one cup hold? She had just used her inner energy to dry hair, why not apply the same method to the bedding? Surely drying a small patch of damp sheets would be far easier than drying a full head of long hair.

“Alright, so even if this cup held as much water as a large bowl, enough to soak the bedding completely, as if a great flood had just passed, the Emei maids outside aren’t unbreathing blocks of wood either. They just came in to carry out the bathwater. Calling them once more to ask for a fresh set of bedding wouldn’t be a problem, especially since the Emei Sect Leader explicitly said, ‘Treat our honored guests well.’ Who would dare mistreat them?

But Du Yunge just couldn’t wrap her head around it. She almost took everything Xue Shuyan said at face value, her mind wholly preoccupied with the question of whether she should share a bed with her senior sister. She didn’t even consider the many inconsistencies or alternative solutions.

Xue Shuyan subtly employed a retreat-as-advance strategy, saying calmly, ‘If Yun’ge finds it troublesome, I can make do on the long bench in my clothes for the night.’

This masterfully pitiful remark, which could serve as a textbook example of what not to do, finally became the last straw that broke the camel’s back. As Xue Shuyan had anticipated, Du Yunge’s heart softened. She pushed open the door of the green gauze cabinet and said:

‘Then come in, Senior Sister. But my sleeping posture might not be very good. If I startle you in the middle of the night, please don’t blame me.’

Xue Shuyan was inwardly overjoyed, but on the surface, she remained as unflappable as ever, perfectly embodying the phrase ‘two-faced’ in a whole new light:

‘How could that be? Thank you, Yun’ge.’

Only after the two of them lay down on the same bed did Du Yunge realize how naive her earlier thought ‘It’s just one night; I’ll endure it and it’ll be over’, had been.

In her previous life, after marrying into the He Manor, aside from her wedding night when she was too drunk to even know if she had consummated the marriage, she had never shared a bed with He Zhenzhen. Moreover, at the Miaoyin Sect, she had always slept alone since childhood. Suddenly having someone beside her made her feel stiff all over, unable to find a comfortable position. The bed was soft, the pillow height was just right, and Xue Shuyan was certainly not the type to move around carelessly, yet Du Yunge lay there like a dried salted fish, so uneasy that even her breathing felt off.

Xue Shuyan noticed her stiffness and thought she might have been too hasty. She gently pushed Du Yunge’s pillow further inward and shifted herself outward, creating a bit more distance between them. The overly intimate proximity, where they could almost count each other’s eyelashes and hear each other’s breaths, suddenly widened, and Du Yunge immediately felt much better. Combined with the mental exhaustion from copying sheet music all day, she was soon pulled into the realm of dreams by the Sandman.

Just before she fell into a deep sleep, she faintly saw the oil lamp’s wick form a flower shape. She lightly nudged Xue Shuyan’s back, who was sleeping on the outer side, and murmured drowsily:

‘Look, Senior Sister… the wick is blooming.’

Her voice, already gentle and sweet, carried an extra layer of wholehearted trust and softness in her sleepy state. Even such a simple sentence could melt one’s heart.”

Xue Shuyan looked up and saw the lampwick flower a rare, auspicious double-bloom. She thought to herself that this was a fortunate sign and softly replied:

“Yes, I see it.”

Her voice was uncharacteristically gentle, whether from exhaustion or the hazy illusion cast by the dim lamplight and deepening night, she couldn’t tell. By the time Xue Shuyan noticed Du Yunge’s breathing had steadied, a closer look revealed her younger sect-sister had already fallen asleep. Her ink-black hair cascaded over the plain pillow, composing a picture of a slumbering beauty truly poetic and breathtakingly lovely.

Timing: night; Setting: a dimly lit room, the same bed; Circumstance: Du Yunge was fast asleep.

Had it been anyone else in this situation, they might have thought, “If I don’t seize this opportunity to do something, I’ll be the laughingstock.” But Xue Shuyan had no intention of taking advantage. The person she had admired for years lay defenseless before her, and she refused to betray that trust.

In the end, she did nothing more than hold Du Yunge briefly, then restrained herself and withdrew her hand. Even that was enough to leave her heart content, and the double-blooming lampwick flower seemed all the more perfect.

When one loves someone to the extreme, every act of restraint feels like sipping celestial nectar.

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【Mini Theater】

Du Yunge: There’s no way my Senior Sister Xue would do something like this!

Feng Chengchun: …Please stop talking, my dear Sect Leader. You truly have no idea what she’s capable of.

【Mini Theater · I’m Just an Innocent Bed】

The Bed in the Green Gauze Cabinet: Oh, how foolish I was. I only knew that Miaoyin Sect would be snowed in during winter, cut off from the world; I didn’t expect plans to change so quickly, with a few people descending the mountain ahead of schedule to stir up trouble. I was lying peacefully in the storeroom, gathering dust, when suddenly a group of Emei disciples hauled me out, saying some exceptionally beautiful guest and her perpetually icy-faced senior sister needed lodging, and I was to be moved into the green gauze cabinet. Being an obedient bed, I go where I’m needed so off, I went. Sure enough, a stunning young lady and a walking glacier arrived. I thought I’d be placed in the outer chamber, but to my surprise, I ended up in the green gauze cabinet, sharing a room with the iceberg. I panicked, thinking, “This is bad wood can’t handle extreme cold!” Frantic, I turned to the most experienced Sister Washbasin for help. Sister Washbasin said, “What are you worried about? You’re doomed anyway.” I didn’t believe her at first, but then—

That woman splashed water on me! The nerve! Just to share a bed with your Sect Leader, you’d harm an innocent bed like me? Alas, where is justice?!

Du Yunge: ?????????

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