Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Fortunately, the two days passed quickly. Si Yan entered the palace with Jihe.

Back at Haitang Courtyard, Jihe had just pushed open the main room’s door when she was stopped.

“Wait.”

Si Yan stood outside the threshold, her eyes on the gap in the door.

Before leaving, she had trapped a strand of hair there. Without looking closely, no one would have noticed it.

Now the hair was gone.

Someone had been here!

The two went inside and examined the room with great care.

Nothing seemed to have been searched or taken. There were no signs of tampering around the locked chest’s keyhole. They even looked beneath the bed.

Si Yan stood in the middle of the room, her brows slightly drawn, twisting the silk cord at her waist between her fingers.

Was she imagining things?

Perhaps the wind had blown the hair away?

So fine and light, it could have drifted into some corner at the slightest breeze.

Or perhaps she had never secured it properly?

She had been hurried when she left, less careful than usual, and might only have caught it loosely.

Before she could reach a conclusion, someone knocked on the courtyard gate.

Jihe wiped the dust from her hands and hurried to open it.

Outside stood Xiao Fuzi with a food carrier, his round face full of smiles.

“Ling… Oh? Someone new?”

He was about to hand over the carrier when he saw who had opened the gate. He paused, then brightened again.

“Hello, new sister! I’m Xiao Fuzi, here to bring Miss Si her meal!”

Remembering Linghe’s instructions, Jihe stepped aside. “Come in. Put it on the table.”

“Right away!” Xiao Fuzi walked in delightedly, set down the food, and turned to make his escape.

“Xiao Fuzi, wait.”

Si Yan came out of the room and rested a hand on the doorframe, her expression awkward.

“Go back and tell your master I need to speak to him. Ask him to…” Come early tonight.

The words were on the tip of her tongue, but she could not bring herself to say them.

Said aloud, they would sound different, as though she were terribly impatient.

“Ask him to do what?” Xiao Fuzi blinked twice, earnestly waiting for the rest.

Si Yan’s ears burned. She bit her lower lip and scraped twice at the doorframe with her fingers.

“Just tell him I need to speak to him.”

Xiao Fuzi’s eyes darted. His smile grew especially brilliant, and his voice rose in enthusiasm.

“I’ll be sure to deliver the message!”

After nightfall, Si Yan sent Jihe to rest in the outer room and reclined on the daybed with a storybook.

She turned two pages without taking anything in, then two more with no better result.

All those tales of scholars and beauties seemed less moving than a single glance from a certain someone.

At last, she lay on the bed, covered her face with the book, and closed her eyes.

A faint sound came from the window. She had only just moved the book aside when a shadow descended over her.

The familiar scent of ambergris mingled with the cool night air, enveloping her completely.

A muffled sound escaped her.

The kiss came so swiftly and fiercely that she had no chance to react.

She still half held the storybook, its spine pressing uncomfortably between their bodies.

Jiang Youze’s hot breath came down over her, his lips grinding against hers.

His low voice slipped through the narrow space between their joined mouths, the rising note at its end impossible to suppress.

“Xiao Fuzi said you missed me.”

What? When had she said that? How exactly had Xiao Fuzi delivered her message?

Si Yan pressed her hands against his shoulders, trying to make room to explain.

But he held too close. She could not push him away at all.

She turned her head to escape his lips, and his kiss followed to the corner of her mouth.

She turned again. He followed again.

At last, she stopped trying to evade him. Words escaped between her lips in fragments.

“I… I didn’t… Wait… I have something to tell you…”

“Tell me.”

Jiang Youze answered indistinctly, her lower lip still caught between his. His kisses never paused.

“What is it?”

He scarcely sounded as though he were asking a question. He might as well have said, “You talk. I’ll keep kissing.”

“I can’t talk like this…”

Si Yan turned her head aside, trying to escape that endlessly demanding mouth.

“Then don’t.”

Jiang Youze rolled over her, his palm steadying the back of her neck and making her lift her face to his.

Then he deepened the kiss.

At this moment, nothing mattered to him more than kissing her.

Let the sky fall, let the palace walls collapse. Whatever happened could wait until he had kissed her enough.