The water in the tub was already half-cold. Feeling the warm, delicate touch of her fingertips on his back, the muscles across Xie Zheng's shoulders and back tensed involuntarily. On the hand resting on the tub's edge, the pale blue veins on its back stood out.
His head still throbbed from the alcohol. Hearing the hoarseness in her voice, he struggled to stay lucid and replied, "It doesn't hurt."
Fan Changyu's fingertip traced down the long scar on his back. Lowering her gaze to the mark, which was nearly half an inch wide, she said, "Of course it doesn't hurt now. What about before it scabbed over?"
Xie Zheng's phoenix eyes drooped slightly. The candlelight gilded his thick, dark lashes with a faint, warm glow, and for a moment, the lines of his face seemed to soften.
He appeared lost in thought, his long lashes casting a shadow on his eyelids. He only said, "It didn't hurt before it scabbed over, either."
Fan Changyu felt as if a wad of damp cotton was stuck in her chest. She tilted her head back and blinked, forcing back the stinging sensation that welled in her eyes. Unable to bear the sight of his back, ravaged by whip marks, she turned her head away. Two words rasped from her throat, "Liar."
She said hatefully, "You've tormented yourself into this state. Weren't you afraid of dying on the battlefield? Don't you still have to take revenge on Wei Yan? Is this how you go about seeking vengeance?"
Xie Zheng was silent for a moment before he said slowly, "Only when the wounds on my body hurt did I know I was still alive."
Fan Changyu was taken aback.
His voice was low and raspy as he let out a soft laugh. "When you chased after me from Chongzhou, covered in injuries, and I saw you sitting on horseback crying, I thought, to hell with revenge, I don't care anymore. Just please stop crying. But my surname is Xie, and my father is Xie Linshan. I can barely remember his face, but I still remember his chest and abdomen, crudely stitched up after being cut open. I remember the shape of the sixty-seven arrow wounds on his body..."
"If I died, perhaps I could be with you with a clear conscience. But as long as I'm alive, I can't have the slightest connection to you."
Hearing him speak of General Xie's death again, Fan Changyu's heart ached with a sour, piercing pain.
She choked out, "I didn't blame you. I didn't blame you that day..."
Even she, an outsider, was overcome with grief upon hearing of General Xie's tragic death, let alone his own son.
Even Zhu Youchang had once thought her father was a traitor, to say nothing of Xie Zheng, who had never met him. She had no way to prove her father's innocence to him without any evidence.
Even now, recalling the situation that day, Fan Changyu was still filled with nothing but suffocating pain and helplessness.
Xie Zheng raised a hand to wipe away the crystalline tear that rolled from her eye. It was unclear if he was drunk or sober as he murmured, "Why are you crying again?"
His thumb caressed her cheek, his half-drunk, deep black eyes reflecting her and the flickering candlelight. "In those days, you were always crying in my dreams, too. At first, I thought that if I just never saw you again for the rest of my life, I could eventually let go."
"But even when I tried my best not to seek out any news about you, you still wouldn't give me peace in my dreams."
"Sometimes, one moment I'd be in Lin'an Town and you'd be smiling and calling my name. The next, you'd be in a wedding dress, about to marry another man. He was handsome and refined, seemed to be a scholar. The calls in the wedding hall to bow to heaven and earth pierced my eardrums. You, with your veil on, bowed with him, the corner of your lips curved up, looking so happy..."
He couldn't continue. The drunken haze in his eyes suddenly turned chillingly fierce. The thumb caressing her cheek pressed harder, yet his harsh tone was laced with a hint of grievance. "You always know how to torture me. What are those injuries I suffered? They're not even half as agonizing as the heartache of seeing you marry someone else in my dreams... I wanted nothing more than to chop that man into a pile of minced meat. When I woke up and saw the bed canopy, the rage was hard to quell, but I was also very happy."
"I realized then that I couldn't bear to see you marry another. Thankfully, there's still time."
Even with most of his reason eroded by alcohol, he stopped himself from saying the last sentence.
If she had married, he would have annihilated the man's entire clan to take her back! Then he would chop the man who dared to marry her into mincemeat and feed him to the dogs!
She was his! She could only be his!
Anyone who dared to covet her deserved to die!
That sinister, twisted nature that came from his very bones was like the final floodgate in his heart, one he always guarded. He himself loathed it; he couldn't let her know.
If she knew, she would surely avoid him like the plague...
Fan Changyu's cheek stung from the rough caress of Xie Zheng's thumb, but she didn't pull away. Hearing him speak of his time in Kangcheng after they parted, the bitterness in her heart was hard to dispel.
The more she understood this man, the more she realized how difficult that day's choice had been for him.
She grabbed the hand Xie Zheng was using to wipe her tears and pressed it firmly against her own cheek. Her tear-filled eyes, shimmering in the warm candlelight, looked at him with determination as she said in a hoarse voice, "Xie Zheng, from now on, let's be together, properly. And you're not allowed to abuse your body anymore."
When her brilliant eyes stared at someone without blinking, it was as if the entire world lost its color, leaving only the clear, warm, gentle light in their depths. It was like the warm sun on a winter afternoon, slowly melting the icicles hanging from the eaves.
Xie Zheng met her gaze, stunned for a long moment, before he gently stroked her cheek and said, "It wasn't abuse."
Remembering the crisscrossing scars on his back, Fan Changyu still felt a pang of sadness. "Your back is in that state, and you say it wasn't abuse?"
"According to The Xie Clan's code, anyone who commits a great transgression shall receive one hundred and eight lashes, and the sin can be absolved. After taking those one hundred and eight lashes, I could come find you with a clear conscience. In the future, I can also marry you into the Xie family with the three letters and six rites."
Fan Changyu's eyelids trembled. Despite her best efforts to restrain herself, a single, clear tear rolled from her eye and fell into the tub, creating ripples.
No wonder he had told her after the victory banquet in Lucheng that he no longer cared if her surname was Fan or Meng. It turned out he had already atoned in such a way.
She covered her eyes with her hand and tilted her head up slightly, but she couldn't hide the sob in her throat. "What am I supposed to do with you?"
Perhaps because he was drunk, Xie Zheng's eyes were also tinged with red. His voice was deep and hoarse. "I want to take Meng Shi Changyu as my wife. Will you accept?"
The sour, swelling feeling in her chest intensified, yet there was no outlet for it.
Fan Changyu felt the tartness rise all the way to the tip of her nose. She stared at the man, whose black hair was completely soaked and whose beauty was almost demonic, and said earnestly, "If you'll marry me, I'll marry you."
Xie Zheng's jet-black eyes locked onto her without blinking. "No regrets?"
Fan Changyu met his gaze and asked, "Are you thinking of going back on your word already?"
She glared at him, her tone tinged with defiance.
Xie Zheng didn't speak.
A large hand cupped the back of her head, forcing Fan Changyu to bend forward, and then her breath was stolen.
Xie Zheng had drunk a lot of wine. When he pried her teeth apart, the rich taste of alcohol spread between their lips and teeth. Fan Changyu felt it was different from how she felt after drinking.
He kissed her fiercely, sucking on her lips and tongue until they were numb and sore before he released her.
Fan Changyu leaned against the edge of the tub, left with only enough strength to gasp for air.
Her face was flushed from the lack of air, and her apricot-like eyes shimmered with moisture.
The front of her clothes was almost completely soaked, revealing the tight outline of her chest bindings.
Xie Zheng's breath hitched, the darkness in his eyes deepening.
A fire seemed to ignite in the cold air, making the blood surging through his limbs sizzle.
He stood up abruptly, stepping out of the tub in one long stride. He lifted her and placed her on the nearby table. Looking down at Fan Changyu's lips, slightly swollen from his kiss, he covered them again, the darkness in his eyes looking as if it would devour her whole.
Fan Changyu's back hit the screen behind the long table. A muffled grunt had just escaped her when her breath was stolen once more.
Her eyes were full of untamed spirit as she tried to regain the upper hand, but she was pinned down tightly by him. Towards the end, she felt dizzy. A wave of coolness spread across her chest, and as her bindings came loose, she subconsciously wrapped her arms around Xie Zheng's head.
His damp hair brushed against her warm skin, the coldness sending shivers through her and making her shoulders instinctively curl inward.
He was like a wolf that had starved for too long on the frozen plains in the dead of winter, suddenly given a piece of fatty meat, so overwhelmed he didn't know where to start.
His movements were far from gentle, even uncontrollably rough.
Fan Changyu frowned slightly, drawing in a sharp, shallow breath. She patted his firm shoulder, her voice breathy and tinged with softness, "You... be gentle."
The night he left Jizhou, he had bitten her until she was swollen. She hadn't dared to wear her chest bindings for days afterward.
Xie Zheng kissed her lightly and finally released her. When he looked up, his eyes were scarlet, and a vein bulged on his neck, looking rather frightening.
His breath was as scorching as fire, but his voice was steady, though extremely hoarse. "Not afraid?"
Reflecting the candlelight, Fan Changyu's eyes were soft and warm, veiled with a mist like a forest at dawn. It was as if she held the first light of morning in her eyes, warm and bright. She asked him back, "Afraid of what?"
Xie Zheng couldn't resist cupping her jaw and kissing her again. A long while later, he rested his forehead against hers, his scarlet eyes filled with a near self-loathing as he said, "You're the one who decided to marry me. He's not a good person, you know."
Fan Changyu reached out to touch his face and said, "I have eyes. I can tell what kind of person you are."
Xie Zheng said viciously, "What if I'm deliberately putting on an act in front of you?"
Hearing his strange words, Fan Changyu raised her bright eyes and said deliberately, "Then... I'll have to reconsider?"
The large hands on her shoulders tightened abruptly, the force so great it felt like they would crush her shoulder blades. Xie Zheng spoke with a sinister edge, "Too late."
His eyes held a sense of finality and a trace of ruthlessness. Beneath his calm expression hid a brokenness and mockery that even he himself was unaware of. "Fan Changyu, for the rest of your life, you can only be tied to a bastard like me."
Fan Changyu had only meant to tease him. Hearing him talk about himself like that, a pang of pain bloomed in her heart again.
How could she not know what kind of person he was?
She leaned in and planted a kiss on his cheek, saying, "Then let's be tied together. They say the good die young. If you're a bad person, I might even be a little happier."
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