Chapter 15

Chapter 15

It was hard to describe that intimate, almost indecent smile.

Tempting. Aloof. Tinged with a trace of pity that seemed both there and not. It stirred an indefinable restlessness in my chest, leaving me uncomfortable from head to toe.

Something was wrong.

“Wang Yu, have you… taken mineral powder?”

One of his hands pressed down on my shoulder. His palm was feverishly hot, yet his fingers were icy cold. I quickly set the boshan incense burner aside and helped him out to sit in the corridor.

Only then did I see the flush on his face, the haze in his eyes. His burning body swayed this way and that until, in the end, he toppled straight into my arms, his damp, cool black hair spilling all over me.

Not far away, two Lady Attendants stood with their hands lowered, with no intention whatsoever of coming over to help. They merely spoke from a distance.

“Ever since the young lord was attacked on the mountain that day, he has suffered from leg pain. Whenever the weather turns overcast, he must take powder.”

So that was it.

After taking mineral powder, one’s body would grow feverish, and one had to loosen one’s outer robe and bare the chest. It was said that some truly free-spirited eccentrics would even pick a few lice from their hair and eat them.

Yet after waiting for quite some time, I still did not see Wang Yu pick out any lice.

The sky gradually darkened completely. A Lady Attendant brought over another pot of plum wine, chilled in crushed ice. She poured it into thin porcelain cups in pairs, then added a few sweet preserved fruits. The wine was pale red, its delicate fragrance spreading everywhere.

Wang Yu pointed at the wine pot. “Serve the wine.”

He asked to be waited on, but the Lady Attendant instead retreated several steps. Gradually, even her silhouette disappeared from sight.

I had no choice but to pick up a cup and pour the wine toward those soft red lips. After serving him several cups in a row, I carefully tested the waters. “Wang Yu, about my previous wish… may I change it?”

“And what will you use to make the exchange?”

He looked as if he were smiling and not smiling, a faint ripple passing through his brows and eyes. “Were those gold beads not all taken by that commoner from Ba Commandery?”

At his words, a chill ran down my spine. “You knew why I came, yet you still made me undress you and serve you wine?”

Terrifying. Whether in Ba Commandery or Chuzhou, whether high in the temples of power or far out in the wandering world, perhaps nothing could escape the eyes and ears of the Wang Clan!

Knowing he had misspoken, he only gave a soft snort.

“Yu Mu, the fattest rat in Ba Commandery. The Governor’s Mansion is crawling with starving rats, and you, a wild little rat, ran straight into their nest, still dreaming you could steal meat from inside?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. For a long while, I could not speak.

“Of course, I only knew you had lost the gold beads. I did not know you had injured your face.”

As he spoke, Wang Yu’s cold fingers lightly touched my cheekbone. The wound I had scraped open in that dark alley had still not healed after all this time, and his touch brought a faint, ambiguous itch.

…He seemed to be hinting that I should say something, or do something.

Only then did I belatedly realize that from the moment I came in, everything he had done seemed…

As if he were trying to seduce me?

But he had always looked down on me. What was the meaning of this?

No, Nan Jinping. Don’t dream.

Wang Yu and I were as far apart as clouds and mud. Even if he did have some interest in me, once I entered the rigidly hierarchical Wang Clan, a lowborn concubine’s daughter like me would be nothing but a puddle of filth-anyone who saw me could step on me.

With no other way out, I could only helplessly seize that hand and pretend not to understand his hint.

“Wang Yu, with your ability, taking back the stolen gold beads would be as easy as turning over your hand. After that, I can sell the estate and return every last bead to you intact…”

Seeing him listen with an absent expression, my eyes reddened.

“As long as you find Xiao Mei for me.”