C29

"Nothing else. Is your hand okay? " Pei Ruochen smiled and shook her head. She bowed slightly and looked at the 'puppy dog girl' squatting beside her leg, and felt pity in her heart.

"Is there really nothing else?" The lover did not answer, but merely looked at him with a smile. "Do you have nothing else in this world that you want?"

Like her. Did he not want her, thought her lover?

She wanted him.

"Of course not — I remember you telling me that people are like dust, and the heavens are eternal, so everything in this world is actually insignificant." Pei Ruochen smiled and said. Then, she caressed the strings of her zither, causing a series of 'ding dang dong' sounds to ring out. "But even if you understand this logic, who can actually understand it?"

This time, she did not fall into silence. Instead, she lowered her head and murmured softly, "Who can be as indifferent as the firmament?"

Pei Ruochen was slightly surprised. She lowered her head and looked at her lover, who was drawing circles on the ground with his finger. The head of the crow girl was so obedient that it made people smile.

He reached out his hand and stroked her head lovingly, messing up her hair like a brother.

Her lover raised her head and looked at him, enunciating each word, "You and I will get married."

Pei Ruochen didn't expect that she would say such words out of the blue. Stunned, she immediately smiled and asked, "My beloved, do you know what marriage means?"

"Marriage. Even if I like you, you like me. So, you treat me well, I treat you well, and it gets better and better. A good thing is a lifetime." The woman answered matter-of-factly.

"But you are already married to Houlan." Pei Ruochen kindly reminded him, "As for me, I have an engagement with Princess Lu." He paused for a moment before continuing, "The wedding day is ten days from now."

"But, why did you marry the princess? Do you want him?" the woman asked.

"And you? Why did you marry the Carefree King?"

"Because …" Houlan Xue could afford to support me, so he wouldn't care about my existence. After all, he had many wives, not one more, not one less. I have the freedom I want.

"I want it to be as simple as yours. But my freedom is not the same as yours. And what I want is more complicated than what you want. " Pei Ruochen replied, "My dear man, I like your simplicity but this love is far from enough."

After saying that, Pei Ruochen stretched out her hand and pulled her lover up from the ground. Holding her pale little finger, she wiped off the dirt from the circles she had drawn, and then leisurely loosened her hand.

"After you finish painting, send someone to deliver it to my residence. It's going to snow and it's going to be cold. "Take care of yourself." After Pei Ruochen finished her sentence, she gracefully turned around, appearing just like an ordinary visitor.

His lover, who was left behind, could only look at his back and suddenly wanted to kneel down and draw circles.

Of course, she didn't actually draw circles: Eleven, who had been hiding behind the screen, came out, followed by He Lan Xue's mocking laughter.

"Why are you so eager to meet your little lover?" She looked down at her lover's bare feet, which were red from the cold, and mocked, "To welcome you on your own accord, but to be humiliated by yourself."

Her lover looked at him, then turned away without a word.

It was cold, but she still got into bed.

"Hey, are you sorry?" He Lan Xue rushed to catch up and grabbed her hand. Without caring about the pain that made her grimace, she gloomily asked, "Husband is talking to you. You don't know the art of zither, chess, painting, and red embroidery.

The girl turned around and curiously looked at He Lan Xue. She didn't know where his suppressed anger came from.

"You're my wife, how dare you treat other men …"

"What about you?" Her lover blinked and asked innocently, "Are you in compliance?"

"Ugh …" He Lan Xue became mute and then confidently said, "I am the Prince."

She was too lazy to deal with him, nor did she try to convince her with a feminist idea.

She had always disliked changing others, just as she had never changed herself.

"Do you think that Pei Ruochen is better than this king?" He Lan Xue realized that she had been ignored. She couldn't help but angrily protest, "Could it be that This King can't satisfy you?"

With that, a certain Snow very innocently thought of the other meaning of 'satisfaction', and an embarrassed look appeared on her face.

At first, her lover intended to continue ignoring him. However, when she saw He Lan Xue's unrelenting manner, she kindly replied, "I think he is good."

"Don't be fooled," He Lan Xue sneered and said, "You think that his modest Young Master doesn't know that he is the most hypocritical. First, he had eagerly sent the daughter of his beloved into the palace, and now he wanted Pei Ruochen to marry You'er. You'er's uncle was the Marquis of Zhennan, and he had a third of the army. You'er had grown up with Ruochen, so naturally, they couldn't tell the feelings between a man and a woman, but Pei Ruochen could tell the difference. He knew that You'er treated him like a brother, but he didn't really like her, so he still agreed to this marriage. "Say, if he isn't greedy for power, then what is he?"

Her lover listened very attentively, then looked at He Lan Xue with indifference. She blinked and said, "You don't like me either. Didn't you marry me as well?"

A choking expression appeared on She Lan Xue's face. It was as though she had just eaten a fly. She was speechless.

"I know you like Empress Xiao Rong," her wife said carelessly as she climbed onto the bed. "I saw it all the other day. Why are all of you like this? You don't marry the person you like, but you are with the person you don't like."

When she finally climbed into bed, she turned around and smiled at him indifferently. "Actually, I'm the same."

He Lan Xue was stunned. Her emotional actions just now had been replaced by an inexplicable silence. After a long while, he whispered, "It's not that I don't want Rong Xiu to enter the palace to be a queen, but that I can't win."

When she finished, She Lan Xue's lips curved up in a self-deprecating smile. She then turned around and walked to the door. She then turned back and gently placed her shoes in front of her lover's bed. Then, she silently left.

Her lover didn't expect his reaction. Looking through the screen at He Lan Xue's slowly fading back, she suddenly felt depressed and at a loss.

Pei Ruochen was right. After that day, it snowed heavily for three days. The new year was nearing.

Perhaps it was because of Helene Xue's care that the housekeeper no longer dared to deduct the charcoal and supplies from the people of Eli. During these past few days, he had been filling the house and dozing off. It was rather quiet.

As for He Lan Xue, she didn't come again.

Several times, Yi Ren wanted to draw a picture of the blind youth, but just as she raised her hand, she sighed and put it down again. She stared at Yao Qin in a daze, but no one knew what she was thinking about.

Eleven rarely sees such a distraught young lady, tilting her head and looking at her with a vague understanding.

Looking at it, he realized that the young miss had already fallen asleep. Her head was slowly pounding against the jade zither. Ding ding dong dong dong. It was the symphony of dreams.

On the fourth day, the wind and snow stopped, and the sun began to rise again.

Her lover finally began to work. After laying the table and grinding the ink for a long time, she leaned over the table and drew for a long time. Finally, she finished.

Eleven moved closer to take a look, squinting his eyes and pondering for half a day, then he said with a dark look on his face, "Miss, why does this Thief look exactly like Lord Xiao Pei?"

Her lover knew he had made a mistake.

Truly, if one didn't understand love in one's lifetime, only then would they be able to love each other, causing love in the next.

Killing people.

And so, another day passed.

Just like this, the people she wrote about were all the shadows of someone. Her lover could only constantly draw, sleeping when she was tired, eating when she was hungry, and the days had returned to their previous chaotic state. Nine days passed in a blink of an eye.

By the tenth day, the wounds on her palm had mostly healed, and she was becoming more and more adept at drawing.

After breakfast, his wife was sitting at the table, furiously writing as usual. Before she had even drawn a few strokes, she heard Eleven call out in surprise at the entrance to the yard, "His Highness is here."

Houlan Xue, dressed in snow-white mink fur coat, leisurely walked over from the small path. The snow-white mink fur coat reflected his beautiful, jade-like face, and it was even more of a frosty snow that was incomparably beautiful.

No wonder Eleven was so happy, so... Fantasy.

She only glanced at it for a moment, then turned around and continued to write furiously on the table.

He Lan Xue wasn't angry, on the contrary, she stopped behind her in a good mood. She coughed, and then hesitantly asked, "Is your hand ready?"

Then she raised her hand and waved it before his eyes to show that all was well.

"What are you doing?" He Lan Xue didn't know what to say.

"Draw a fugitive." The woman lowered her head and answered indifferently.

"Fugitive?" He looked over from behind and saw the entire table full of drawings. There were no fugitives, only the silhouette of a person, standing or standing. All of them were Pei Ruochen. "Ruochen is a fugitive?"

He Lan Xue sighed. She reached out her hand to take the drawing from her lover before speaking indifferently, "Pei Ruochen will be getting married today. If you like him, you will still have a chance." After he finished speaking, he took out a folded letter from his bosom. "This is a letter of suspension. From today onwards, you will no longer be this king's wangfei — lover, do not hide in a cupboard."

She turned her head and looked at him dumbly for a long time before she suddenly stood up with a smile. She gave a fierce hug to He Lan Xue and dashed out without looking back.

He Lan Xue felt a ball of soft and gentle jade rushing into her embrace before quickly separating. When she turned her head, all she saw was the back of a running figure. The corner of his mouth curled up, revealing a smile. It was a smile that ended in an indescribable sense of melancholy.

His wife rushed all the way out of the manor. For the first time ever, she was not lost.

When they arrived outside, there happened to be a manservant leading a horse over. When he saw her, he was about to bow to her. However, he didn't expect her to have already jumped onto his horse like that.

Startled, the horse shot out like an arrow from a bow.

It was also at this moment that her lover suddenly reflected: It was as if he couldn't ride a horse.

However, now that he thought about it, it was as good as lighting up later on in the day. It was already too late.

Helpless, she could only lower her body and tightly hug the horse's neck, allowing the wind to blow past her ears.