Recklessly Breaking a Delicate Branch - Chapter 12

From afar, all she could see was the man walking with vigorous strides, a light, clear smile playing on his lips as he followed her around.

Zhou Yan’s joy arose when he realized that Jiang Wan-shu seemed not to have carried out an escape plan.

Under the sunlight, setting aside the muscle that even Zhou Yan’s outerwear couldn’t completely conceal, the man’s eyebrows were enchanting and wicked, possessing the handsome features of a foreign land.

When the man again helped her onto the horse, and after a night had passed, as she slept into the morning, Jiang Wan-shu was awakened by Zhou Yan’s voice, which had recovered its loudness after a night of rest.

“If you don’t get up soon, it’ll be too late to plant the seeds.”

Beside the old wooden bed, Zhou Yan was currently smiling as he gazed at the girl before him.

The girl’s skin was fair, and because she had slept on the bed all night, a piece of her shoulder was exposed where her inner garment slipped, revealing the girl’s full, delicate beauty beneath her slender shoulder. He had an inexplicable desire to reach out and touch her, but as soon as he extended his hand, he immediately suppressed the thought.

Jiang Wan-shu would only eat more if he fed the food to her mouth. It would take several days for the seeds to be planted, sprout, and grow into vegetables. He urgently wanted Jiang Wan-shu to become stronger, reminding himself to restrain this thought.

He had originally intended not to wake the girl before him, but after he started to scatter the vegetable seeds somewhat randomly into the small patch of land he had cleared beside the house, he remembered what Jiang Wan-shu had said the day before.

He worried that his solo attempt at planting this time would be a waste of effort, so he simply called out to wake her.

However, the girl before him seemed unwilling.

Jiang Wan-shu’s bright eyes were tightly shut, her hands unconsciously shielding her eyes, as if warding off the sunlight that had already entered the room, and expressing annoyance at Zhou Yan for waking her up so early in the morning.

The man stood there waiting for half a quarter of an hour, but the person on the bed had not woken up. Zhou Yan, resigned, spoke again, “If you don’t get up, I’ll have to do it myself.”

The girl, not yet fully awake from sleep, let his ceaseless chatter go in one ear and out the other.

She turned over and shifted her entire body toward the inner side of the bed. The girl’s back was slender, and her inner garment was smooth cotton. As she burrowed inward, the delicate shoulder beneath her long neck, which should have been covered by fabric, was inadvertently exposed a little.

Under the warm sunlight, the girl’s skin appeared exquisitely smooth.

Zhou Yan watched her meaningfully for a few seconds, then recalled the messy scene outside. With a sigh, he walked to Jiang Wan-shu’s side. Just as his large hand was about to touch the girl, Jiang Wan-shu suddenly sat up quickly.

Zhou Yan was surprised and narrowed his eyes as he assessed the person before him.

He didn’t intend to waste time. Seeing her awake, he didn’t ask further but simply said that there was plenty of ‘brain’ outside for her to use.

Under Zhou Yan’s every word of instruction, Jiang Wan-shu stared at the man before her, on the verge of tears.

Based on her interactions with Zhou Yan over the past few days, Jiang Wan-shu finally believed that he would keep his promise—he had said he wouldn’t touch her before their marriage. Thus, in front of him, she was no longer as reserved as before, as the greatest danger to her had been lifted.

If she thought about it carefully, apart from Zhou Yan forcibly keeping her by his side, he had been quite decent to her in all other aspects.

It’s just that she was so sleepy now. The travels of the previous day had utterly exhausted her, and she hadn’t expected to have to wake up so early today to recall her tutor’s words and personally engage in farm work.

She reluctantly took the cleaning implements Zhou Yan handed her. After using them, she yawned and followed the man out of the room.

Because she had bought many dresses she liked at the clothing store yesterday, and thanks to Zhou Yan’s diligence, he had washed several of them for her last night, they were perfectly dry this morning. The dress she was wearing now was her favorite color, a soft coral-red, gold-threaded gauze gown.

Jiang Wan-shu was already born with a beautiful and delicate charm; now, this coral-colored gown made her face even more alluring, like a rose in bloom. As the breeze blew across the girl’s clothing, it clung to her, revealing Jiang Wan-shu’s slender waist, which could be encompassed by a single hand.

Just the act of walking a few steps made the man standing behind her gaze in stupefaction.

But the man didn’t know that the girl still walking ahead was looking at the scene before her with a slight hint of disdain.

Small vegetable seeds were scattered messily in lumps on the uncultivated soil. Jiang Wan-shu took a deep breath as she looked at it.

Beside the uncultivated soil were several farming tools, things she hadn’t seen inside the house. She thought that Zhou Yan must have borrowed these items from someone else.

Under Zhou Yan’s gaze, Jiang Wan-shu squatted down and meticulously picked up the seeds one by one.

Zhou Yan naturally guessed why she was doing this, and he went over to join her, picking up the seeds that were still scattered on the ground.

Once they had completely picked up all the seeds, Jiang Wan-shu had already convinced herself.

She poured the handful of seeds she held into the man’s large palm, then turned her attention to the farming implements lying on one side, and slowly walked toward them.

She stopped less than half a chi from the tools, took a deep breath, and thought idly that she should have never used this excuse to make Zhou Yan take her out. Now, here she was, lifting a rock only to drop it on her own foot.

Before, she had only read about the hardships of farming in books. It was only when this scene was before her that she truly felt it.

She picked up the hoe, which resembled what her tutor had described, and spoke.

But the moment her hand grasped the handle connected to the hoe, Jiang Wan-shu’s body stiffened.

For no other reason than that the hoe was too heavy; she couldn’t lift it.

Zhou Yan had never intended for Jiang Wan-shu to do manual labor. Seeing her determined to pick up the hoe, he quickly walked over to her.

A look of unwillingness crossed Jiang Wan-shu’s face. It was only a tool, yet it was so heavy she couldn’t lift it.

When the hoe in her hand was suddenly taken by the man, she realized how close he was to her.

The heat radiating from the man made her instinctively retreat a few steps, but she was immediately steadied by the man who wrapped an arm around her waist.

He opened her fair, tender palm, poured the seeds she had just given him back into Jiang Wan-shu’s hand, and said with no great change in expression, “Let the man handle the sweaty work. You just sit there and direct.”

The man, who had taken the hoe, pointed with his other hand towards a shady spot under the eaves of their house. Jiang Wan-shu looked in the direction he pointed and noticed for the first time that a wooden stool had been placed there, which hadn’t seemed to be specifically arranged like this before today.

Jiang Wan-shu glanced at the cleanly placed chair, and seeing Zhou Yan’s strong physique, she stopped arguing and very self-consciously walked toward the wooden chair.

Jiang Wan-shu first pressed the armrest of the wooden chair, testing with a little force to ensure the chair wouldn’t break from age and cause her to fall, then slowly sat down.

The weather had entered autumn, and even though the breeze was cool, Jiang Wan-shu still felt a little heated.

Now, sitting upright on the wooden chair, she used her clear, gentle voice to offer directional suggestions to the man who was still working. She could vaguely see the distinct, rock-hard muscles of the man’s powerful body outlined beneath his thin clothing.

Even though the man was only wearing thin clothing now, the work he was doing was heavy manual labor. In less than a quarter of an hour, sweat beads began to roll down his sharp, handsome face, periodically dampening his clothes.

The man, accustomed to rough habits, casually tossed the hoe he was using to till the soil onto the ground. He lifted the corner of his undergarment with one rough hand, pulled it up a bit, and then quickly straightened his arm to pull off his clothes.

With the man’s clothing removed, the beautiful, elegant girl sitting under the eaves in her fine silk dress could clearly and fully see the man’s bare, muscular body beneath his light clothing.

Though he was handsome, combining the sharp and gallant appearance of a free-spirited prairie man, his body was much stronger and taller than many naturally towering prairie people.

This was also why Jiang Wan-shu sometimes felt intimidated by him. Not to mention his great height, just looking at the six-pack abs clearly visible on his stomach when his shirt was off—they were deeply defined, as if a craftsman had spent decades carving them onto a hard, solid rock.

Under the faint autumn sunlight, every muscle on the man’s body was clearly illuminated, each one revealing his strong and powerful physique.

Jiang Wan-shu had never seen a man bare-chested in front of her. She instantly flushed crimson with heat, quickly pressed her two small hands against her eyes, and dared not look again.

The man picked up the hoe that had fallen to the ground again and continued to bury his head, digging small pits for the seeds. As he focused on the ground, he habitually glanced sideways at Jiang Wan-shu.

Upon seeing the girl sitting stiffly on the wooden chair, with both hands covering her eyes, that single glance was enough to captivate him.

He quickly realized what was causing the beautiful little delicate flower to act this way, and he couldn’t help but curve his lips into a smile.

In their grasslands, men often worked like this when it was hot. It was simply that this little delicate flower was prone to shyness; seeing a man remove his clothes made her afraid to look.

Because the work today was physically demanding and caused sweating, Zhou Yan was already wearing easily removable upper and lower undergarments. Seeing Jiang Wan-shu wanting to flee yet needing to continue directing him, a playful impulse arose in him.

He reached for the inner garment he had just taken off and tossed it towards the fence he had recently built nearby. With accurate judgment, he flung the inner garment onto Jiang Wan-shu’s thighs.

Jiang Wan-shu subconsciously held her breath, not wanting to smell the man’s sweat-drenched inner garment flying toward her. But the gust of wind that carried the shirt blew the clean and pleasant scent of he luo towards her nose before she could start holding her breath.

Realizing this, Jiang Wan-shu quickly lowered the hands that were blocking her eyes and looked down, startled at the loose clothing on her lap.

This man was sweating, yet he had no body odor?

In the past, she often liked to plant flowers and catch butterflies in the imperial garden at the palace. Because her location was near her father’s imperial study, many military officials would walk past during the summer. The summer heat was intense, and except for a few people, one could almost always smell a hint of sweat from the military officials’ quick paces.

Therefore, she had subconsciously assumed that Zhou Yan, who was accustomed to manual labor, would be like the military officials she had encountered.

Jiang Wan-shu’s mind wandered. Her bright, innocent apricot-like eyes flickered with a trace of daze after the initial surprise, like a small rabbit that had just escaped a trap, confined to darkness for days, with a look of post-trauma disbelief.

Zhou Yan saw this, stood up straight, resting the hoe on the ground with his right hand. “If you want to look, then look. I’m not as petty as you.”

The backdrop of his robust physique made the man before her look like a solid bronze statue, firm and towering.

The voice full of laughter reached her ears, causing the girl who was still looking down to look up at him unexpectedly. She always had a habit of autonomously ignoring things she had seen before on subsequent viewings, so this time, her gaze shifted to the landscape below the man’s sharply defined six-pack abs. Looking further down were the man’s lean waist and…

Instantly, Jiang Wan-shu’s fair, bright little face burned crimson, and she lowered her head even further, overcome with inexpressible shyness.

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