Chapter 80

 

Yuan Ci Xian was dizzy from anger, that her feet suddenly trip and she almost fell to the ground.

Behind her, Lu Shi Qing’s complexion changed. He stretched out his hand to help, but unexpectedly she held the wall to stabilize herself, so he could only retract it ruefully and continued to follow. But he didn’t dare to follow closely, cautiously stopped half a step after taking two steps.

It wasn’t until they reached the other end of the underground passage at Lu Mansion and Yuan Ci Xian broke the mechanism as soon as she went up, that he rushed forward at the risk of being cut in half. In the end, he was still a step too late as the corner of his robe was caught in the crack of the door, and he couldn’t pull it off. He opened his mouth to call her for help, but saw that she was already asking someone to prepare water for a bath without looking back, so he had to untie his robe, like a golden cicada came out of its shell.

When he finished tossing and caught up with her again, she had already shut the door to the clean room with a “bang”.

He stopped outside, listened to the sound of splashing water coming from inside, but he didn’t go in after all.

Yuan Ci Xian undressed her clothes, dismissed a few maids, stepped into the bathtub, buried her whole face in the water, closed her eyes and kept recalling the past with Xu Shan during the past year.

If all the Xu Shan in her memory was turned into Lu Shi Qing…

When she quarreled with him, he changed his identity and put on an act to mediate.

Oh well done!

When she saw that he had not come to propose marriage for a long time, when she was anxious, he changed his identity and taught her how to tease him, and taught her how to “cater to people’s preference”.

Wow, that’s great!

When she arranged for him to meet Xǔ Sanniang…

Wait.

Yuan Ci Xian suddenly raised her head from the bathtub, stared down at the ripples on the water surface, and her mind suddenly played the scene where she arranged for Lu Shi Qing to meet Xǔ Sanniang and she sat on the bank of the Lushui River—the wupeng boat in the middle of the river was shaking violently, making circles of beautiful ripples, which made people who looked at it boiling red.

What was he doing with other people in the boat while she was sitting on the bank freezing?

She instantly laughed out of anger, stepped out of the tub while her blood were surging up, wrapped in a casual robe, and rushed out: “Lu Shi Qing…!”

Lu Shi Qing was sitting at the table thinking about life, and when he heard the sound, he got up without a pause, then stood up straight while facing her: “Yes.”

He then saw her clothes were messy, her unclosed neckline exposed a large area of ​​snow-white skin, and a drop of water fell down her chin, dripping all the way down then slowly flowed into her extremely deep ditch.

He was so restless that the end of his nose became hot, as if he had become that droplet of water.

Yuan Ci Xian didn’t pay attention to this, asked with her chest heaving: “What’s your relationship with Xǔ Sanniang? You used to have a romantic relationship with her, later in front of me you even… you even rock the boat with her? Lu Shi Qing, your face is thicker than a city wall! You betrayed Xu Ru Qing yesterday, are you going to betray me tomorrow?”

She clearly scolded in a fit of anger, but her eyes turned red when she finished scolding.

It’s all a lie that there was only one Lu Shi Qing, she saw that he could transform into two, one swimming in the water and the other running on the ground, one was intimate with Xu Ru Qing, and the other was affectionate with her.

Although Lu Shi Qing was scolded bloody, he was actually relieved. He was afraid that she would hide it and not ask, and would be secretly obsessed with this matter. Only when she scolded him would he have a chance to explain.

He quickly replied: “The person who has a romantic relationship with her is my teacher Xu Congxian, not me.”

Yuan Ci Xian was slightly taken aback when she heard this, and then her head that was sluggish from anger started to turn again.

The moment she saw Lu Shi Qing in Xu Mansion, she really thought that he and Xu Shan were the same person from the beginning to end. After all, some stories could not be smoothed over simply by fabricating them out of thin air, if he only role-played a couple times, there’s no way he’d be that good at it. Listening to him now, she realized that something was wrong.

In the romantic relationship that Xǔ Ru Qing told her, Xu Shan was six years older than her. And according to the rumors, this person rose to fame thirteen years ago. But Lu Shi Qing was only ten years old at that time, so his age was really not right.

Then he really was not Xu Shan.

Seeing her frowning and thinking deeply expression, Lu Shi Qing seemed to feel that the crisis was about to be resolved, so he hurried forward, but halfway through, he heard her roar again: “Lu Shi Qing…!”

He abruptly stopped, didn’t go any further and stood up straight, “Yes.”

Yuan Ci Xian opened her mouth wide: “Since Xu Congxian is your teacher, how could you do such things with your teacher’s wife? At that time, I haven’t engaged with you, but where did you put your teacher?”

Lu Shi Qing rubbed his forehead because of a headache. He had said at the beginning that Xǔ Ru Qing’s move was to push him to the pit of fire.

He hurriedly raised his head and said, “Yuan Ci Xian, I didn’t do anything to be sorry for you and my teacher, I really didn’t.”

Even he himself felt that this explanation was very weak and flat, so Yuan Ci Xian naturally didn’t believe it: “You didn’t? Then did you and your teacher’s wife broke into a brawl in that boat?”

“I…”

Seeing that he couldn’t explain, Yuan Ci Xian gritted her teeth, turned around and climbed onto the bed, pulled the quilt over her head and covered her face, obviously not wanting to talk to him again.

Lu Shi Qing sighed, hesitated for a moment, then he untied his belt, took off his robe and climbed up, thinking that it might be easier to talk on the bed, but she stopped him halfway through the climb: “Go away, I don’t want to sleep with you. ”

He stopped on the edge of the bed: “Then where do I sleep…”

“Your house is so big. You need to ask me?”

This sentence “your house” was to draw a clear line with him.

Lu Shi Qing said with difficulty: “If my mother knows that we sleep in separate rooms on our wedding night, I’m afraid she’ll be anxious.”

Yuan Ci Xian froze for a moment, then her heart softened a little. After a long silence, she poked her head out and pouted: “Then you find a place to sleep in this room.” After saying that, she got up and picked up another quilt at the end of the bed and threw it at him.

He caught it with a trembling hand and looked around.

He was familiar with every corner of this bedroom. But he never thought that one day he would need to choose a place where he could settle down from those corners.

He looked left and right, and finally lowered his head and said, “I’ll sleep on the footstool next to the bed, is that okay?” Seeing that this square inch was the closest to her.

Yuan Ci Xian said “do whatever you want” and covered herself with the quilt again.

Because the candles could not be extinguished on wedding night, Lu Shi Qing just spread the mattress on the footstool and lay down without saying a word.

It was so quiet that they could hear each other’s breathing, he guessed that even taking a breath would disturb her at this time, so he tried to relax as much as possible. After suffering in silence for more than half an hour, he didn’t know whether she fell asleep or not, but because the place for his feet were too narrow and crowded, and shrinking his body felt uncomfortable, so he turned over a little bit to ease his stiff back.

After turning over like this, Yuan Ci Xian’s muffled voice suddenly came from above: “Lu Shi Qing, are you asleep?” This question was exactly the same as when he spent the night in her carriage for the first time on the way to the south.

But this time he didn’t dare to joke, just said: “No.”

It’s just that he didn’t hear her next words for a long time.

He waited for a while, and was about to ask her what she wanted to say, when she said again: “I already believe that you have nothing to do with Xǔ Sanniang.”

She was too shocked by the sudden truth before, and trying to recall within the turbulent waves, she was so angry that she spoke incoherently.

Lu Shi Qing’s heart was excited when he heard this.

She continued to lie flat, looking at the ceiling above her head and said: “I just calmed down and thought about it, I feel that I can tell what is true and what is false.”

Even though he told her countless lies, but the knife in his chest was real. The person who fell into the enemy’s hands because he was anxious for her was indeed him. In that case, he couldn’t possibly do that kind of thing.

“As for Xǔ Sanniang, I don’t know her very well, so I don’t dare to claim that I understand her, but I think all women are the same. Just like I used to like to get close to you in front of Shaohe, so did she. That day on the boat, she probably acted for me on purpose. She wanted me to retreat and give up on your teacher.”

Lu Shi Qing sighed.

He didn’t explain Xǔ Ru Qing’s real intention to her just now, because he didn’t want to pierce the last layer of window paper between the two of them.

He didn’t want her to remember her struggles and wavering. It was his fault that he lied to her for a whole year and made her like that imaginary Xu Shan. She didn’t have to blame herself.

But even if he didn’t say it, she figured it out and faced it frankly.

He had to admit that sometimes she was really braver than him.

Yuan Ci Xian took a deep breath, as if she had made up her mind: “Lu Shi Qing, you deceived and played me for a year, and I was half-hearted with you for a year; you didn’t tell me about your political side, and I didn’t explain to you about Yuan family’s direction. Although I feel deeply hurt when I think back to the days when I jumped up and down like a clown and you just watched, but I really don’t have the right to criticize you too much, so… just consider us even.”

Lu Shi Qing swallowed with difficulty, then he said: “Yuan Ci Xian, I don’t want to get even with you.”

Yuan Ci Xian blinked stiffly, and then heard him continue: “You did nothing wrong, it’s me who still owe you. If now we’re even, then how could I repay you?”

Her half-heartedness was his fault, and she should have reservations about his ambiguous and unclear side on politics. Although he secretly hoped that she would be honest with him, he actually knew that there was nothing wrong with her doing so.

Yuan Ci Xian seemed to understand what he meant now. He probably misunderstood that the so-called even meant that they didn’t owe each other anymore, from now on the single-plank bridge turn into a wide sunny road, so he desperately took the blame on himself and insisted that she give him a chance to repay.

She laughed and said: “Do you think I’m heartless, marrying you today and divorcing you tomorrow?”

Lu Shi Qing choked. That’s what he thought. After all, she didn’t even have the intention of sharing the same bed, maybe she really didn’t want to hand over her perfect body to him, so might as well retreat.

She sighed: “You come up.”

Lu Shi Qing came to his senses at this time, got up in one breath, and looked at her with flickering eyes.

Yuan Ci Xian rubbed her tired eyes: “Don’t look at me like that, I’m too tired today, I’ll let you hug and sleep first, we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

Lu Shi Qing said “Oh” in a calm tone, but he went into her quilt in the blink of an eye, and his head quickly began to think about how to get a foot after winning an inch.

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