Volume One, Chapter 11: Unusual Emotions

She brushed past the two and staggered over to Shen Suyun’s side, grabbing her hand and placing it against her own neck.

“Miss!” Long Yu hurried after her.

Xia Guang and Yun Jin both had tears welling in their eyes, utterly stunned that she would go to such lengths for a mere servant.

“Do you really think I wouldn’t dare kill you?” Shen Suyun was momentarily stunned, but then a blaze of hatred reignited within her heart.

Xiao Yuanyi had become so emaciated that she could be strangled to death with one hand.

Long Yu tried to push her away and called for help among the onlookers. The prince and princess were on their way; they couldn’t afford to kill the miss.

Lou Xianyue ran over from a distance and cried out to heaven upon seeing the scene.

With her strength, she easily pulled Shen Suyun aside, who, in truth, had loosened her grip herself.

“Mother, you need to stay calm! She at least gave us snow lotuses yesterday, and... and...” Lou Xianyue stopped Shen Suyun, her gaze filled with concern as she looked at the limp, lifeless Xiao Yuanyi collapsed on the ground.

Xiao Yuanyi coughed twice, then sounded a puzzled nasal note, but in an instant, she fainted again.

Lou Xianyue’s face paled drastically as she hurried over to check her breath. Shen Suyun was stunned but relieved that she was still alive.

“What are you standing there for? Hurry and take her back! Someone go fetch the doctor!”

Long Yu and Xia Guang were panic-stricken and couldn’t get her to rise for a long moment. Lou Xianyue, unable to bear it, was about to act herself, but unexpectedly, someone arrived even faster.

The newcomer was clad in black armor, exuding an imposing presence. His cold and stern face seemed to be covered by a layer of frost.

“Wake up.”

Lou Hejing first tapped Xiao Yuanyi’s face. Though he restrained his strength, he still left faint finger marks on her delicate skin. Was she made of tofu?

When she did not awaken, Lou Hejing pressed firmly on her philtrum with such force that even Lou Xianyue feared he might kill her.

Fortunately, it worked. Xiao Yuanyi opened her eyes, shedding hot tears that landed on Lou Hejing’s hand instantly.

Lou Xianyue’s expression was complicated; if she were pinched by the Seventh Young Master like that, she would surely cry too.

Xiao Yuanyi’s eyes were bloodshot as she stared straight at the man before her. Her thick lashes and slightly upturned eyes evoked an image of a delicate, pampered lynx slave.

Lou Hejing recalled raising a plump embroidered tiger in his youth; when he grew tired of petting it, it used to look at him with a similar expression.

He snapped back to reality. “Can you walk?”

Suddenly, Xiao Yuanyi’s cough surged up uncontrollably, veins bulging along her neck, and the purple-red finger marks were clearly visible.

Lou Hejing glanced at Shen Suyun. “Second Aunt, I’ll take her back first.”

---

Shen Suyun nodded faintly, looking away.

Lou Hejing easily lifted Xiao Yuanyi, who didn’t react until her face pressed against the cold armor on his chest, causing her to shiver.

Long Yu followed them back, and Xia Guang, seeing that Yun Jin was unattended, boldly took her along as well, thankfully without opposition.

Throughout the journey, Xiao Yuanyi kept her head lowered, unsure where to place her hands yet still aware of the shocked stares from the Lou household servants.

She guessed Lou Hejing’s actions were to prepare for the upcoming grand performance.

Though it was all an act, it would at least ease her recent days.

“Thank you, cough...”

Lou Hejing laid her on the bed. When he touched her face, he sensed her temperature was off.

Falling ill so early in winter was indeed delicate.

“Don’t go out anymore. Rest well here in the Qingyuan Garden. When the prince’s household sends people, you must know what to say and what not to say. As long as you cooperate obediently and restrain the servants, nothing like today will happen again.”

Standing by the bedside, his armor made him look even more formidable.

“Don’t try any more tricks. I already know what kind of person you are from my time in Yanjing.”

His dark eyes seemed to pierce through everything.

Among all the Lou family, Xiao Yuanyi’s feelings toward him were the most complicated: resentment, guilt, now mingled with fear and frustration, along with the embarrassment of being exposed.

Yet if she didn’t act this way, how could she save Yun Jin? How could she carve out a way to survive?

If he believed the rumors and thought Bao Pan was a thousand times better than her, he should have just sought to marry Bao Pan outright, so she wouldn’t be a nuisance to him.

But what use was it to speak of this now?

“I understand. I will cooperate obediently and definitely satisfy His Majesty,” she said with a self-mocking smile, curling up.

That strange feeling welled up again in Lou Hejing’s heart. Though he already knew her true nature, and their two families were enemies, he occasionally still softened.

Perhaps the northern barbarians had killed fewer people recently?

Busy with his affairs, he soon left, but news that he personally carried her back to Qingyuan spread quickly. The steward immediately sent her the monthly allowance due to her as the Seventh Young Master’s wife.

The court doctor remained indifferent to her, but upon hearing she had produced the Tianshan snow lotus, he rarefied himself to prepare a medicinal decoction.

Though Lou Hejing had returned the snow lotus to her, it seemed he merely wished not to acknowledge her feelings, letting others misunderstand it as a reasonable explanation for his change of attitude toward outsiders.

Long Yu nervously fed her medicine. “Miss, you really scared me to death. Please don’t ever risk your life like that again.”

“There won’t be a next time,” she replied.

---

Once the people from the Nan’an Prince’s household left, this move was undoubtedly courting death.

Yun Jin and Xia Guang brought in a burning brazier. Seeing Xiao Yuanyi’s complexion had improved, they knelt at her feet in unison.

“Miss risked her life to save us today. We deeply regret our past mistakes and do not ask for your forgiveness, only for a chance to repay you.”

Their expressions and tone were sincere, but who could know what they truly thought? Had they been truly good-natured, they would never have followed Nurse Liu in humiliating her before.

If Xiao Yuanyi hadn’t been left with no one else to rely on, they wouldn’t have stayed—this was the truth.

She nodded in acknowledgment. The two thanked her profusely and hurriedly asked what she wished to eat for lunch.

Now, in their eyes, Xiao Yuanyi was turning her fortunes around. Walking outside, they no longer had to lower their voices and demean themselves.

The Lou family had few rules; no tedious formal greetings—only on the first and fifteenth of each lunar month did the family gather for a meal.

It was the people from Yan Sheng Hall who came to invite her, and only then did Xiao Yuanyi realize.

Her cold had not yet cleared. Those on the border were accustomed to the harsh cold, using little charcoal in winter. The coal allocated to Qingyuan was scant. She could not sleep on a heated bed and had had several restless nights, so how could she recover?

No one cared how she fared. They only wanted her to appear less unfamiliar before the Nan’an Prince’s family and the emperor’s envoy.

Indeed, this time not only her relatives came, but also an official dispatched by the emperor. What could the purpose be?

“Seventh Young Master’s wife, is the food not to your taste?” Qin Zhiyin asked, noticing Xiao Yuanyi had not touched her chopsticks.

“Mother-in-law, forgive me; I can’t eat spicy food.”

Lou Hejing sat beside Xiao Yuanyi and glanced at her upon hearing this.

“My oversight. Someone, send some Yanjing dishes from the kitchen.”

The dishes arrived quickly. Though somewhat mismatched, they were the most appetizing food Xiao Yuanyi had eaten in a long time. She unwittingly ate an extra bowl of rice.

She didn’t notice Lou Hejing watching her for quite some time.

After rinsing her mouth, Qin Zhiyin looked at them with a benevolent smile. “Seventh Young Master, it’s true you’ve been almost living in the barracks these days. You just married; how could you leave your new bride alone in an empty house? And you’re no longer young; having heirs early is most important.”

In a general’s household, there was no mourning period. Leaving heirs meant going to battle without worries.

Shen Suyun’s expression was dazed, and she dropped her chopsticks with a clatter.

Lou Hejing and Xiao Yuanyi were both calm, devoid of any newlywed shyness or joy, like two wooden statues.

The onlookers could only see this and feel the bitter irony and absurdity.