Chapter 71 Grown Men Long for Love
Li Qiqi suddenly looked at Qin Yunuan with a stern and curious look, as if she had wanted to see a few clues in Qin Yunuan’s always elegant eyes. Unfortunately, she didn’t get anything. But Qin Yunuan had looked through her.
Time seemed to freeze. Li Qiqi said after a long time, “Yes, I was surprised. I was puzzled. I felt it strange that although Master Su became a military doctor and marched with the army, and I never met him again, but we were together for many years after all. I couldn’t believe that he looked at me like a stranger. No, more indifferent than strangers. He was very indifferent to everyone, except for you. At that moment, I comforted myself over and over again, that he was not the real young master Su. He must not be. He was just a person who looked like him. I didn’t find out until I received a letter from my little sister from Jianzhou….”
“Enough,” Qin Yunuan interrupted the woman’s lengthy remarks mercilessly, “I’m not here to listen to your tragedy. You just need to tell me. What is the poison on the wounded dagger?”
“Why should I tell you?” Li Qiqi smiled suddenly, “I’m going to die anyway, what’s wrong with not being buried alone?”
A cold light flashed in Qin Yunuan’s eyes, but she was not angry. She slowly moved closer and only whispered something in Li Qiqi’s ear. Li Qiqi’s complexion changed immediately. Her eyes widened. Her nails almost buckled into the wet bars of the prison door. She whispered, “You are so like your father. Behind your polite appearances, you are evil wolves that eat people without spitting bones.”
“Thank you for your compliment,” Qin Yunuan gently brushed Li Qiqi’s hair blocking her eyes through the prison door, “So, you can say it now.”
“Okay,” Li Qiqi raised her head and took a deep breath. She had a mysterious smile on her face when speaking, “The detoxication was simple, but I’m afraid that you might not find one ingredient of the medicine, Third Miss. The snow lotus in the polar glacier, Third Miss. It’s early summer now. Even if you had gone to the ice sheet in the extreme north, your friend’s body would have stunk when you return.”
Qin Yunuan leaned backward. She seemed to be sizing up Li Qiqi and said with a click of the tongue, “Li Qiqi, Li Qiqi. I used only to know that you are not a good person, but I don’t know that you could be so poisonous in your heart.”
“Since everyone in the world has wronged me, why should I be worthy of all the people in the world.” Although she wasn’t sentenced, Li Qiqi knew that she could no longer survive by Qin Zhi’s means and the words that Qin Zhi said to her. What was ridiculous was that she was not afraid at all when she was near death.
Qin Yunuan stood up, put away the prescription that Li Qiqi said just now, and smiled, “Concubine Li, everyone is very busy. We have no time to wrong you. You overestimate yourself.”
This woman had always been so confident and calm. No matter what kind of trap she was in. No matter how strong the enemy she faced. She looked down at the world even with a little arrogance and dignity. Li Qiqi knew that she had lost. She lost completely.
Qin Yunuan was about to turn around when Li Qiqi said with a faint voice behind, “Since when did you start to suspect me? Was it when I beg you to take me to see Young Master Su for the last time? Or, did you also know that I put the green bamboo snake inside, right? Or….”
Qin Yunuan paused and did not turn back, “I didn’t prepare to believe in all your stories from the moment you arrived in the mansion.”
It turned out that she had never won from the beginning. When it came to men, Su Chenghai had always been thinking about this little cousin. As for strategy, she was like a buffoon messing around under the nose of this woman.
She seemed to have gathered up great courage and shouted again as Qin Yunuan took a few strides forward, “You are so right in your calculation, but do you know that the Cousin Su that you have spent every day with, the Cousin Su that you would rip your heart out for was not the real Su Chenghai. The real young master Su had long been….”
“I know,” Qin Yunuan interrupted her, tilting her head, “dead.”
The starry sky tonight was dark and depressing. A few scattered stars appeared to be lonesome in the night sky of early summer, which came in a sudden.
Qin Yunuan settled her lilac embroidered coat in the wagon. She borrowed this carriage from Fang Ziying temporarily to deceive the public. Also, the Grand Miss Fang, who was already married, returned today. Therefore, Qin Yunuan said to the gatekeeper when he was about to close the city gate, that she had come to visit relatives with Grand Miss Fang, but accidentally lost her way on the road. The janitor only glanced at the carriage. He let her go after realizing that this was indeed carriage of the Fang Family.
“You go home first,” Qin Yunuan ordered Ting Xue.
“Third Miss, you….” Ting Xue felt a little uneasy in her heart. Now that the Qin Mansion got a lot of publicity, she was afraid that something would happen to Qin Yunuan.
“I need to be later. Maner was injured now, and nurse Liao had to look after Baochuan. We need someone clever in the yard.” Qin Yunuan urged Ting Xue to get off the wagon, and then she said to the driver Huang Dashi, “Brother Dashi, let’s go to Prince Ning’s Mansion.”
In the Jiyu house at the east end of Prince Ning’s Mansion, Leng Changxi was staying in the side study room, wearing only a dark purple robe and revealing most of his white underclothes. When raising his hand to turn over the pages, his outline of the chest was visible even when it was hidden under cover of underwear. His eyes were even brighter than the morning star in the night sky. They brightened up, especially when hearing Leng Wu’s report. He said that Qin Yunuan was coming. The warmth and care flew out his eyes naturally like a hot spring.
“General, Third Miss Qin has been waiting at the back door. Do you want to see her or not?” Leng Wu reminded him.
“Let her in,” Leng Changxi’s voice seemed to be quite calm. Putting away the book, he raised his hand to carry the teacup and looked as Leng Wu hurried out. After half a sip, he ordered nanny Yuan who was in charge of the house to come in.
After a moment, nanny Yuan hurried out the gate. Later, she took three little servant girls with her, each holding a tray with almost the same bat-shaped mask on, which were similar to the one on Leng Changxi’s face at the time.
Xue Si, who guarded at the door, was curious and shot his mouth off, “What is Master going to do?”
Nanny Yuan glared at Xue Si with a sneer and said, “A guest is coming. Master wanted to change his mask and asked me to pick a good-looking one.”
Xue Si was stunned and scratched his head, “Aren’t all these masks sent in a batch, aren’t they the same?”
Nanny Yuan didn’t give a direct answer. Instead, she gave a mischievous smile, squeezing out several folds on her face, “Believe it or not, this guest must be a distinguished one, and also a woman.”
Xue Si shook his head in disbelief, “Impossible. Master has always regarded women as nothing. He never cared like this. It must be something new from Prince Anyang Zhao Huijin.”
Nanny Yuan had her tricks of the trade after working for Leng Changxi for so long. She cheerfully coaxed the hot-blooded Xue Si into a bet of ten silver tael, which was equivalent to Xue Si’s wage of two months without spending anything on food or drink.
When he spotted Qin Yunuan, who was led by Leng Wu on the shortcut through the back door, Xue Si stood at the gate, extremely regretful that his ten tael was gone.
“The general is inside.” Leng Wu led Qin Yunuan to the door and instructed her to push it by herself.
She needed much courage to open the door. It was the first time that Qin Yunuan met Leng Changxi in private. Just two people, he and she.
Qin Yunuan’s favorite Sweet Olive incense was burning in the room. A porcelain bottle was placed on the elegant and comfortable mahogany case, with a fresh apricot blossom in it.
Leng Changxi held the scroll, but his mind had long drifted away from the lines in it. From the moment when Qin Yunuan pushed the door open, all his attention fixed on Qin Yunuan firmly. It was like being attracted by a magnet, he looked at her gentle but heroic eyebrows, a small but not arched nose, those slightly pursed pale cherry lips, and her delicate collarbone. Her full breast heaved as she breathed as he moved his eyes downward, which made Leng Changxi shivered all over. It seemed that a bonfire was scorching his body. A wave of heat was surging down in his abdomen. This was a feeling he had never experienced before.
The heat of his abdomen tormented him. After a long time, Leng Changxi raised his head slowly and looked at Qin Yunuan, “You are here.”
It seemed that in his words, he had seen through the purpose of Qin Yunuan’s visit. Qin Yunuan stood seven steps away from Leng Changxi. He dressed casually today, still wearing the black mask that he had never taken off. His manner was also casual. It was terrifying that he could always control people casually and see through people’s minds at will.
Since she was speaking with a wise man, Qin Yunuan cut the crap, “I’m here to borrow an iceberg snow lotus from General Leng.”
“What for?”
“To save people?”
“To save your servant girl?”
Qin Yunuan paused and nodded, “Yes.”
Leng Changxi smiled gently and closed the book in his hand, “Do you know that this thing you want to borrow, Zhao Huijin tried everything possible but failed to get it from me. Wouldn’t it be unreasonable for me to give it to you once you ask?”
“I have thought it over,” Qin Yunuan looked directly into the deep eyes of Leng Changxi, “I will pay the bill monthly according to the market price. And within ten years, I will definitely pay off.”
For the first time, Leng Changxi saw Qin Yunuan asking for help. She was a little unconvinced and clever in trivial matters. But pride was planted deep in her bones. A little hedgehog with thorns turned into a little sheep asking for help for a servant girl. Leng Changxi felt both sweet and bitter in his heart.
“Ten years?” Leng Changxi raised his eyebrows. “That’s too long. It happened that my mother had a sore throat recently. I was thinking about giving her this Tianshan snow lotus tomorrow. Huh? What do you say?”
Qin Yunuan’s eyes turned cold, “General Leng, to be honest, Zhao Huijin aimed at you when he tried to hurt me. But he killed the young master Shangguan and also injured Maner mistakenly. How could you shift all your responsibility?”