Chapter 225
Chapter 225
The voice behind Ji Hanyi was familiar. She turned and saw Shen Si standing there, saluting the Crown Prince.
This was the first time she had seen Shen Si in the morning since entering the palace. While he exchanged courtesies with the Crown Prince, she hurried to his side and bent her knees with him.
Jiang Xuan watched her, then looked at Shen Si. His uncle had likely heard that Father had summoned his aunt and had therefore rushed into the palace now.
He smiled and personally raised Shen Si’s hands. “Uncle must have come for Aunt. I happen to have important business to attend to, so your timing is perfect.”
Ji Hanyi listened as Shen Si exchanged several more remarks with the Crown Prince. Only after Jiang Xuan left did her formal posture relax slightly. Shen Si’s warm hand closed around hers, and his deep voice sounded beside her. “His Majesty summoned you today?”
Ji Hanyi nodded and related everything that had happened in the Emperor’s study.
Shen Si looked down at her gentle features. Amid the imperial garden’s profusion of flowers, she seemed filled with life beneath the bright spring sun.
His heart eased. From her expression, she had not suffered any grievance.
He had always worried that the Emperor might regard Ji Hanyi with suspicion because of her father.
An emperor’s small measure of guilt meant nothing before the demands of power.
Shen Si had been overwhelmed with work these past two days and had not found time to see her since that night. Today, he had hurried here from his office as soon as he heard she had been summoned. It was enough that she was safe.
Ji Hanyi also told him that His Majesty had asked her to complete the remaining paintings in the Hundred Flowers collection and that the Crown Prince intended to send a golden peony to their residence. Shen Si tilted his head and studied her fair, lovely face, gave a low acknowledgment, and led her back.
His grip was firm. Walking beside him with her head slightly lowered, Ji Hanyi remembered how stern and reckless he had been the previous night.
She did not know why her thoughts turned to it now. Perhaps because even Shen Si, who looked as aloof as a banished immortal, could also…
Once begun, her thoughts could not be stopped. Ji Hanyi lifted her free hand to her cheek.
It was strange. Before they had known such physical intimacy, her mind had never wandered this way.
Shen Si glanced at the pink flush upon her face. The faintest curve touched his lips. He knew what she was thinking.
After accompanying Ji Hanyi to report to the Empress, Shen Si returned with her to her room. He sat beside her on the large chaise and glanced at the little plate of cherries on the table. There were fewer than before.
Ji Hanyi was terribly fond of food. Whenever fruit was delivered, she could finish it all in a single afternoon while chatting with her maids. The last time Shen Si came, the attendant at the door had explained that they dared not send in too much. Every plate was emptied, and they feared she would upset her stomach.
Shen Si understood Ji Hanyi’s nature. She had been like this as a child. It was better to send less-not because he begrudged her the fruit. She could eat two plates when idle, but had given herself a stomachache several times in the past.
He looked at the woman seated rigidly beside him, hands resting upon her knees. Smiling, he brought a cherry to her lips. His eyes darkened and his voice lowered. “They were just delivered. They are full of juice. Taste one.”
It was an innocent sentence, yet Ji Hanyi’s cheeks turned crimson in an instant. Even the hand she raised to take the cherry trembled.
She did not understand what was wrong with her. Why did the sight of Shen Si always make her remember those things?
Shen Si watched the blush spread to the roots of her ears and raised a brow. “Why is Ah Yi’s face so red?”
He leaned closer, his voice husky. “What is Ah Yi thinking about? Hmm?”
His words left Ji Hanyi dizzy. She could not stop recalling the previous night and everything that had happened between them behind the bed curtains.
Even the sight of his fingertips before her stirred a faint wave of heat and expectation through her body.
Alarmed by her own thoughts, Ji Hanyi instinctively refused to acknowledge them. She leaned back and shook her head at random. “Nothing…”
Shen Si studied her reaction. Her luminous, watery eyes held a trace of invitation she herself did not recognize.
Her gaze was enticing him, wet and yearning, asking him to soothe her body.
Her eyes were naturally full of feeling. Now, shy and hesitant, she possessed the intoxicating allure of a fragrant bedchamber. It was not something she consciously intended, but her body’s natural response.
She had tasted sweetness and experienced pleasure. Naturally, she wanted it again.
She had always been greedy for delicacies.
It seemed that although the previous night had been brief, she had been satisfied. That offered him some consolation for his own sleepless night.
With a faint smile, Shen Si placed the cherry in his own mouth and bit into its juice, never taking his eyes from Ji Hanyi. “It is very juicy and very sweet. Does Ah Yi truly not want a taste?”
Ji Hanyi stared at his movements and the slight moisture upon his lips. Suddenly, she remembered that dim day when he had lifted her legs…
A tide swept through her body, beyond her control.
At that moment she understood with perfect clarity that her body truly longed for Shen Si to hold her again.
But she was not a wanton woman. Since childhood, she had observed the proprieties embodied by the Three Letters and Six Rites. Why had she become like this?
If she continued meeting Shen Si’s eyes, he would surely see every thought she had just entertained. His gaze had always perceived everything.
Ji Hanyi sprang to her feet and turned toward the bright window. She stared blankly at the pattern carved into the wooden lattice, her mind both empty and crowded with emotion. For a moment, she did not know what to do.
She could not remain so close to Shen Si. Above all, she could not let him discover the truth.
She hurried to the daybed, picked up the unfinished needlework from the low table, and lowered her head over the embroidery hoop. Seeing Shen Si’s purple robes approach, she kept her eyes down and forced herself to say calmly, “I don’t want any.”
Shen Si stopped before her. He looked at her slightly flustered hands, the red agate earrings trembling beside her face, and the pointed chin beneath her thick black hair. The curve of his lips deepened.
He bent over the twin lotus flowers on her embroidery hoop. His warm breath slipped beneath the collar of her spring robe, and his voice was husky with temptation. “It suddenly rained last night. The bed curtains felt cold and empty. I found myself wishing Ah Yi were there.”
“Fortunately, you have only two days left in the palace.”