The Young Marquis is Ruining the Court! - Chapter 27

Chi Zhou had rarely seen Xie Jiu so candid and direct, and for a moment, he was dazed, frozen in place.

But the burning phoenix eyes before him were stunning, their radiance rivaling the morning sun, making it impossible to look away.

As if bewitched, Chi Zhou reached out instinctively and covered those bright eyes with his palm.

Long eyelashes trembled against his palm, fluttering like butterfly wings and stirring the air.

After a long time, or perhaps just a fleeting second, Chi Zhou sighed softly, lowered his hand, and met Xie Jiu’s gaze.

“Jiu Jiu, you can’t be like this,” he accused in a low voice.

Xie Jiu looked at him in confusion, tilting his head slightly with an air of harmless innocence.

Chi Zhou found himself unable to say another word.

He couldn’t exactly say: You can’t be this cute, otherwise I’ll really want to take you and elope.

Fortunately, the last shred of his remaining sanity pulled Chi Zhou back, preventing him from being completely led astray by beauty.

He reached up, pinched Xie Jiu’s cheek, and decided to talk nonsense. “You’re too cute, it makes me really want to kiss you.”

The moment the words left his mouth, Chi Zhou saw Xie Jiu’s already flushed earlobes turn a deep crimson, as if they were about to drip blood. His eyes flickered, looking like a startled rabbit.

Chi Zhou withdrew his hand and let out a stifled laugh, privately evaluating him as: Innocent.

This kid really didn’t seem like someone from a brothel; every gesture was as pure as if he were completely inexperienced.

Every time Chi Zhou teased him, he managed to harvest a blushing kitten.

He saw Xie Jiu’s gaze fall upon his lips, then the youth pursed his own lips, as if calculating something.

With a smile, Chi Zhou pushed him away and stood up to walk toward the backyard. “I remember asking the carpenter to make a rocking chair earlier. I wonder where it went, I want to soak up some sun.”

He assumed that since Xie Jiu had been flirted with, he would definitely be too shy to see him right now. He left considerately, giving the kid time to process things on his own.

He didn’t know that almost the instant he turned around, the person behind him took a half-step forward following his pace. Fingers extended into the air before curling back slightly, maintaining a gesture of wanting to grab his hem but stopping short.

Xie Jiu’s eyes darkened slightly, and he bit his lip in frustration.

He missed it…

He missed the chance to kiss his brother openly.

Even though last night he had been brooding over the fact that he could only rely on the medicine’s effects to kiss Chi Zhou until he could barely hold back his saliva, he had actually failed to seize the opportunity just now.

What was he thinking?

Xie Jiu lowered his head, remembering the image that had flashed through his mind a moment ago.

The young man lying on the bed with his clothes disheveled and face flushed, eyes tightly shut as if trapped in a nightmare he couldn’t escape, long brows slightly furrowed, and lips constantly half-open, chasing the tiny bit of moisture from another’s mouth.

Brows smoothing when his thirst was quenched, pushing back after tasting something fishy, so delicate that it made one not know what to do with him.

Even when that “fishy taste” was his own essence, he was so disgusted by it that if even a drop touched the corner of his mouth, he would turn his head and spit.

The image was so erotic that he hadn’t reacted in time, actually letting Chi Zhou slip away from his presence.

Xie Jiu stood there for a good while, long enough for Jin Ge to wander around his feet in confusion twice, before he finally let go of that regret.

He gave the puppy’s belly a light kick, his tone none too friendly. “Go play with him.”

How annoying, he had brought home a clingy dog to compete for affection.

Xie Jiu went back to the kitchen and began preparing the fish for lunch.

The courtyard regained its silence, with only the sound of the wind passing through the halls.

The shadow guards hiding in the dark witnessed their master standing in a daze for a long time. They looked at each other and sighed in unison.

Their master was perfect in every way—killing and plotting without blinking—except when it came to the young Marquis Chi…

“Sigh—”

A sigh drifted on the wind, followed by a succession of other sighs, sounding for all the world as if they had all lost their wives.

The kitchen was quiet for two seconds before the sound of a knife being sharpened rang out, sharp and piercing, the “scritch-scratch” exceptionally clear.

The hidden guards exchanged looks and quickly scattered like startled birds.

He was not to be provoked.

Chi Zhou lay in the backyard soaking in the sun for a while. Xiaochuan was frolicking by his feet. The late spring and early summer sun was just right, and the green vegetables planted in the yard were lush and vibrant.

For a moment, he suddenly felt that if things stayed like this forever, it wouldn’t be bad at all.

If his life had been like this when he first transmigrated, he probably wouldn’t have thought about running away at all.

Chi Zhou closed his eyes and took a nap, feeling a bit conflicted internally.

I mean, was there a possibility that the reason the Male Lead agreed to “marry” into the Marquis’s manor wasn’t entirely due to the original host’s coercion, but because he also wanted to use the manor as leverage?

In that case, could he reach a state of mutual benefit and balance with the Male Lead?

He would hand the manor over to Xie Mingjing to protect everyone’s lives, including his own.

If so, perhaps the Male Lead would be generous enough to accept him keeping a “big cat” on the side? After all, nothing substantial would happen between him and Xie Mingjing anyway.

Chi Zhou’s thoughts wandered aimlessly, his mind drifting into a mess.

But before he could think it through, the sound of footsteps approached, and the light before his eyes was suddenly blocked.

Chi Zhou opened his eyes.

Before him was a hand with slender, well-defined bones shielding him from the sun. Chi Zhou stared at it for a moment before realizing that although he always viewed Xie Jiu as a kid, this person’s hand wasn’t small at all.

He thought about it, and without looking at Xie Jiu, he reached out, pressing his palm against the youth’s palm to compare.

The moment they touched, Chi Zhou keenly felt Xie Jiu’s palm tremble, his fingertips seeming to curl inward.

He hooked his fingertips around Xie Jiu’s to prevent him from suddenly withdrawing, then compared their sizes and said with novelty, “Jiu Jiu, your hand is actually bigger than mine.”

It was a full finger-joint longer, very suitable for wrapping around things.

Just as Chi Zhou thought this, he saw Xie Jiu bend his fingers while still hooked, naturally wrapping his hand completely within his palm.

Because Chi Zhou was still hooking onto him, no matter how you looked at it, it appeared as a hand-holding he had actively sought out.

Chi Zhou blinked, looking at their joined hands, then up at Xie Jiu.

Xie Jiu’s expression remained cold, not softening despite the intimate gesture.

Chi Zhou was stunned for two seconds. He didn’t let go, but suddenly thought of something, sat bolt upright, and used the hand-holding gesture to yank Xie Jiu toward him.

Caught off guard, Xie Jiu stumbled, his other hand urgently grabbing the armrest of the rocking chair to avoid falling.

He widened his eyes in slight surprise, his gaze filled with confusion and doubt.

In the next second, he heard Chi Zhou say excitedly, “Jiu Jiu, what would you do if you found out I was keeping another man on the outside?”

The blood in his veins turned cold almost instantly. Chi Zhou was eagerly staring at Xie Jiu, wanting to conduct a survey to find a feasible answer for his plan, but Xie Jiu just stared straight back at him. His thin lips parted, uttering a syllable that scattered in the wind, almost sounding like a hallucination: “Who?”

Chi Zhou was taken aback. Before he could respond, he felt the hand holding his tighten inch by inch. Bone pressed against bone, and it hurt.

Getting no answer, Xie Jiu raised his other hand, pressing it against Chi Zhou’s shoulder while his thumb lightly brushed against his neck.

The movement was intimate and erotic, yet his gaze was as cold as midwinter ice.

He stopped looking at Chi Zhou entirely, his vision following his thumb until it locked onto the bobbing Adam’s apple.

Then he asked softly once more, “Chi Zhou, who are you keeping?”

An extremely eerie sense of danger surged from the soles of his feet. Chi Zhou’s spine tingled, and his neck instinctively straightened. He tilted his head back slightly, allowing that rough finger to wander across his throat, pressing lightly against his Adam’s apple.

Xie Jiu was leaning in so close that Chi Zhou couldn’t even see his eyes clearly; he could only see the taut jawline and pursed lips.

He could tell Xie Jiu was angry. All because of a casual hypothetical.

Chi Zhou was a bit dazed. The finger rubbing his neck was rough and cool, like a cold-blooded animal slowly coiling around its prey.

His survival instinct screamed of approaching danger, but everything within his field of vision told him this was just a “big cat” going crazy out of jealousy.

So, Chi Zhou acted as if he were crazy too.

He looked at the lower half of the face drawing closer and closer. Ignoring his hand that was nearly being crushed and the finger pressing on his Adam’s apple, he tilted his head up within the restraint, offering a pacifying kiss to those tightly pursed, displeased thin lips.

Xie Jiu had a slight protrusion on his upper lip, a philtrum bead. Chi Zhou didn’t know what he was thinking, but he nibbled it gently and gave a tender tug.

All the external force on his body vanished instantly. He could even feel Xie Jiu suddenly become stiff and flustered.

The moment their lips met, Chi Zhou was still a bit bewildered, not quite understanding how he had actually gone through with the kiss. But once he realized the person in front of him was even more at a loss than he was, he relaxed completely.

Chi Zhou’s tongue darted out to lick that lip bead before he let go, retreating back into the rocking chair and returning to his leisurely posture.

Almost as soon as he backed away, Xie Jiu instinctively leaned forward, as if he were being pulled along.

Chi Zhou burst into a soft laugh, as if the person who had just been held by the throat wasn’t him.

“I only said ‘if,’ why are you so jealous?” he asked with a smile, completely dismissing Xie Jiu’s rude behavior from a moment ago, and naturally dismissing his own flippancy.

Xie Jiu pursed his lips, looking displeasedly at Chi Zhou’s moving mouth. His straying consciousness returned to his body, but he no longer had a reason to continue the kiss, leaving him frustrated and annoyed.

To make matters worse, Chi Zhou had said that. He glared at Chi Zhou and snapped, “There is no ‘if’.”

Chi Zhou was stumped. Estimating that the youth’s emotions weren’t as bad as they seemed, he thought for a bit and said, “Suppose I have a friend…”

Xie Jiu gave a cold snort and said nothing.

Chi Zhou: “…”

He fell silent for two seconds then struggled to continue, “Suppose I have a friend who, for certain reasons, has to marry someone else. The other person doesn’t like him, and he doesn’t like them either. He keeps a…”

Chi Zhou hesitated, for a moment not knowing what word to use.

But Xie Jiu finished the sentence for him: “A mistress.”

Chi Zhou: “!”

He widened his eyes in shock, looking at Xie Jiu in disbelief, unable to understand how that modern term (Xia San) appeared in this era.

But Xie Jiu said it so naturally, as if it were a common vocabulary word.

So Chi Zhou could only suppress the doubt in his heart, nodding after a two-second silence. “Right, my friend keeps a ‘mistress’ outside. What do you think the legal spouse would do if they found out?”

Xie Jiu didn’t answer. He just looked down at him, his gaze falling on Chi Zhou’s lips rather than his eyes. For a moment, Chi Zhou wasn’t sure if he was feeling regretful about that abruptly ended kiss.

Chi Zhou was desperate to use an answer from a person of this era to predict Xie Mingjing’s thoughts. When Xie Jiu ignored him for so long, he grew anxious. Unable to help himself, he grabbed the youth’s collar, yanked him down, and planted a loud “smack” of a kiss on his lips.

“Hurry up and tell me, mm”

His words were swallowed. One hand gripped the back of his neck, pulling his body slightly off the rocking chair. His back tensed straight, and his fingers grasped at the empty air.

Unlike the previous gentle kiss, every inch of his mouth was invaded. His air was plundered, saliva was continuously secreted and swallowed between their lips and teeth, and their tongues were entwined so tightly he could barely retract his into its shell.

It felt as though someone had crashed into the most private depths of his body.

After a long while, when physiological tears involuntarily pooled in the corners of Chi Zhou’s eyes, Xie Jiu finally let him go. He lightly pinched Chi Zhou’s neck to comfort him and tenderly kissed away the tears at the corners of his eyes.

“Brother, if I were that legal spouse, I would kill the thing you’re keeping outside. As for you, I would lock you up.”

He spoke the most terrifying hypothetical in a gentle voice, taking advantage of Chi Zhou’s dazed state to reveal his truest self.

Even though his lips were still glistening and red from the kiss.

“But if I were that ‘mistress,’ you should be glad I haven’t gone crazy enough to drag you down to die with me.”

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