Chapter 19
Chapter 19
Shengsheng Zhou had intended for Siran Ming and Zhiyu Jiang to share a carriage.
Both parties rejected the arrangement without hesitation. Each insisted on riding with Shengsheng. Left with no alternative–and under Rong Li’s increasingly peculiar gaze–the three of them squeezed into the same carriage.
A-Pang was not awake at all hours. Most days, they spent more time hidden in Shengsheng’s hair, sleeping, than doing anything else.
The first time Siran saw them, he was so startled that he nearly exposed his supposed amnesia.
The incident only added to his questions.
Who exactly was Shengsheng Zhou?
And why could he hear her inner voice?
*A-Pang, can the plot still be saved?*
Shengsheng lowered her head and pretended to sleep while secretly speaking with A-Pang.
The plump little red panda yawned.
[Don’t worry, Shengsheng. The World Law isn’t that rigid. The book only says the heroine carried Siran Ming through the mountains and struggled to keep them alive. It describes their life after coming down in much greater detail.]
*So we can’t return to the Yong Kingdom yet. We have to stay in that town below the mountain for a while? What does the World Law require us to accomplish in this part?*
A-Pang paused before answering.
[To pay for Siran’s treatment, the heroine pawns the keepsake her uncle left her.]
[Once Zhiyu sells the keepsake, this plot segment will count as complete.]
Shengsheng sighed despite herself.
Zhiyu had lost her memory, and most of Siran’s injuries had already healed.
Worse, Rong had found them. Unless not one person in the entire rescue party carried money, how could the pawning possibly happen? That would be utter nonsense.
Because her eyes remained shut, Shengsheng did not see the emotions crossing Siran’s face: astonishment, shock, and finally profound stillness.
Zhiyu, who could not sleep, did notice.
She pressed her lips together and asked hesitantly, “Xiao Ming… do you need the privy?”
Xiao Ming was a nickname Shengsheng had invented for Siran in private. Innocent Zhiyu had simply used it to his face.
Siran had heard the name in Shengsheng’s thoughts and knew exactly where it came from. Still, hearing it from Zhiyu made him frown.
“Do not call me that. And no, I do not need the privy.”
Zhiyu drew out a long, disappointed “Oh…”
Privately, she had every intention of doing it again.
Shengsheng’s eyelid twitched.
Perhaps she should never open her eyes. What would she say if Siran asked who had given him the nickname?
When she awakened the following morning, the first thing she saw was a broad expanse of bare male chest.
Her mind promptly stopped working.
Had she transmigrated a second time? Where was she, and why was there a man here?
“Mm… don’t move, Shengsheng,” a husky morning voice murmured above her. “Can’t we sleep a little longer?”
At the same time, she felt someone’s face buried against her back, each soft breath warming her skin.
When consciousness finally returned, Shengsheng closed her eyes again. She did not want to accept reality.
How had the sort of passionate morning-after scene that would be censored a thousand times in a romance novel turned into this?
The three of them had gone to sleep at proper distances from one another.
Now Siran had Shengsheng locked against his chest, one arm cinched around her waist so tightly that she could not move. Zhiyu, who should have occupied Shengsheng’s present spot, had instead wrapped all four limbs around her from behind like an octopus.
What stood between the male and female leads?
Schemes? Family background? Status? Some tragic secret that could never be spoken?
No.
It was Shengsheng Zhou.
She tried to wriggle free.
Both embraces immediately tightened.
*Can this novel still be saved? A story with absolutely no passion will lose every reader it has. Author, do you understand me?*
In the collapsed nest specially made for him, a well-fed, fluffy little bird heard her lament in his sleep. He flicked one wing in disdain, then went right on dreaming.
***
Qingming was a very small town.
Small enough that if a woman scolded her child at night, everyone in town would know about it the next morning.
The party had originally planned only to rest in Qingming, replenish their water and provisions, then continue on their way.
That changed when Siran Ming put on an expressionless face and informed Rong Li that his wounds hurt.
Rong’s fierce devotion to her sovereign took over. She immediately ordered the entire party to stop for two days. They would resume the journey only after His Majesty recovered.
After personally leading her horse into the little inn’s stable, Rong wiped two nonexistent tears from the corners of her eyes.
In the past, Siran had fought on battlefields without uttering a sound even when blood soaked through his clothes. Yet now he admitted that he was in pain.
If Your Majesty said it hurt, then how unbearable must the agony be?
Surely it was the sort that shattered tendons and bones and plunged a man straight into hell.
***
“Shengsheng, peel me another one.”
Siran Ming sprawled across the bed and addressed the dark-faced Shengsheng Zhou beside him.
He had always been handsome, but his amnesia had stripped away the oppressive bloodlust that once clung to him. Today, he had also exchanged his usual black robes for a bright blue silk gown. The result made him look like a wealthy young gentleman stealing a day of leisure.
No wonder Shengsheng had softened toward him lately.
This Siran and the man he had been before seemed like two entirely different people.
Zhiyu Jiang immediately protested, “You already got two! The next one is mine!”
Her voice was aggrieved, but her eyes remained fixed hungrily on the pomegranate in Shengsheng’s hands.
Shengsheng surveyed the fruit peels scattered across the floor, the storybooks and snacks strewn over the bed, and felt her expression darken further.
When she had served Fusheng Duan, his obsession with cleanliness had forced her to keep everything spotless at all times.
Yet she had stepped away for only a moment, and these two unruly children had already turned the room into a disaster.
“Both of you. Get. Up.”
The fury was unmistakable in both her face and voice.
One had been lying down and the other sitting, but the moment they saw her rage, both sprang upright as if flames had caught beneath them.
Shengsheng lectured them at length while cleaning, muttering without pause. She resembled a seventy-year-old mother who could find nothing satisfactory about her hopeless children.
Neither Siran nor the completely amnesiac Zhiyu was familiar with care that combined exasperation, disappointment, and hidden affection.
Siran had received the harshest elite education from childhood. His father had never valued him or intended to make him emperor, but his servants had still threatened suicide whenever they caught him neglecting his studies.
This was the first time he had experienced Shengsheng’s quiet indulgence.
So this was what it felt like to be managed by one’s wife.
No wonder his married advisers complained endlessly about being ruled at home, only to grin until every wrinkle showed the moment their wives appeared.
Had the bird sleeping peacefully and ignoring the outside world heard Siran’s thoughts, he would have scoffed.
Birds did not eat such ridiculous things.
For Zhiyu, a neglected concubine-born daughter whose life had never been easy, the experience was even more unfamiliar.
“I must have been born to wait on people!” Shengsheng snapped. “I left for one moment, and look what you did! Are you pigs? Even pigs don’t ruin their own nest like this!”
Her sharp gaze cut toward them.
“You’re only getting in my way. Go outside and find somewhere else to be. Stop interfering with my work!”
She physically herded both chastened troublemakers out of the room and shut the door behind them.
Then she turned and noticed the little bird sitting obediently beside his nest. He had eaten every piece of fruit she had left him and arranged even the pits in a neat row.
Shengsheng’s appreciation soared.
“At least you know how to behave.”
She strode over, scooped the resting bird into both hands, and kissed him noisily several times.
Awakened beneath a coating of her saliva, the bird’s gaze quietly changed.