Función clerical - Capítulo 12
When Shen Zhili woke up again, the moon was high in the sky.
He looked up and met Su Chenche's gentle and captivating eyes. He blinked and said, "Zhi Li, you smell so good."
She hadn't showered for a day and a night since being kidnapped by Hua Jiuye.
Shen Zhili: "...That's disgusting, let's use a different phrase."
Su Chenche pondered, "Zhi Li, you are so beautiful."
Shen Zhili: "..."
Did he really meet Ye Qianqian?
Struggling to sit up, Shen Zhili moved his stiff hands and feet, took a flint and steel to light the stove in the cave, and glanced at the sky outside, saying, "It'll be 1-3 AM soon. Everyone will be asleep by then, so let's go."
Su Chenche: "Okay."
Shen Zhili stretched and then realized that Su Chenche was still sitting in the same spot: "Aren't you going to get up and move around a bit?"
Su Chenche smiled and shook his head: "No need."
Shen Zhili sensed something was wrong. She bent down to take a closer look and found that his arms were covered in bruises from being pressed down. She couldn't help but get angry and said, "Are you stupid? Can't you move around a bit?"
Su Chenche smiled gently: "You're sleeping soundly, I don't want to wake you."
Shen Zhili knelt down on one knee and began to massage Su Chenche's arm.
After a long pause, he finally spoke, "Hey, Su Chenche, don't be so nice to me, I'll take it seriously..."
The flames crackled and popped.
Su Chenche's voice was also muffled by the sound of flames: "Zhi Li, then let's just pretend it's fake."
Shen Zhili was stunned: "Huh?"
Su Chenche's handsome face was as clean as when we first met, his eyes clear: "If you treat it as a fake, you won't feel any pressure, right?"
"I just wanted to be nice to you, that's all."
At that moment, Shen Zhili could hear her own heartbeat, so fast that it was almost uncontrollable.
Do such people really exist...?
She let go of his hand, lowered her eyes as if to hide her embarrassment, sat down to the side, picked up a piece of firewood to poke the fire, and remained silent.
Su Chenche's voice rang out again: "Zhili, since it's still early, why don't you tell me about your past? I want to hear it."
Shen Zhili said in a low voice, "There's nothing to say about my affairs."
Su Chenche seemed somewhat disappointed: "I'm so unwilling. Why couldn't I have met you sooner...? My memories are only of you, but I know nothing about yours..."
Her amber eyes were half-closed, revealing a hint of sadness and loneliness.
Shen Zhili pinched the bridge of her nose: "Okay."
As soon as he finished speaking, Su Chenche moved closer to him, hugging his knees. A smile played on his lips, and his ears seemed to perk up. At the same time, he pulled out a pen and paper from somewhere and said, "Go ahead and say it!"
Shen Zhili: "..."
Is it too late to back out now?
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Her past...
It's really not a glorious past...
Shen Zhili closed her eyes and thought for a moment before slowly speaking, "I lived in that large, mixed housing complex until I was nine years old, the place I took you to last time. It used to be a shelter for people with nowhere else to go. The conditions were worse than what you see now, because there were many idle homeless people there, so it was much dirtier." She paused, "If you think about it, I lived there for about six or seven years... I never met my parents; my memories are all from there..."
Su Chenche didn't move his pen, but just stared at her quietly, his eyes revealing a faint emotion.
Once they start talking, they suddenly don't want to stop.
She hadn't had a chance to talk to anyone for so long that even her memories had become somewhat hazy, but she didn't want to forget them.
Shen Zhili's gaze fell into the distance, and she smiled, "Actually, it's not hard to understand. I'm a girl, and my health isn't good. Keeping me at home would just be a burden. I should be grateful to my parents for abandoning me there instead of strangling me. At least they gave me a chance to live... I was lucky. Not long after I was abandoned there, my adoptive mother found me. She was a pitiful woman who had lost her child and was abandoned by her husband. Her family was even poorer. Fortunately, she still had a pretty face, so she did some prostitution to support my mother and me. But I was always sick, and every time I got sick, it cost a lot of money. Without money, she had to take on even more work... In the end, she still died. That day was my birthday. She was negotiating with a customer to see if he could give her a few more copper coins to buy me some candied fruit as a birthday gift. But they got into a fight and she got beaten up. Without money for treatment, she lay in bed for less than a month before dying... Back then, even if there had only been one or two taels of silver, no, half a string of cash, maybe she wouldn't have died. You probably can't imagine how cheap a human life could be..."
Su Chenche suddenly pressed down on her shoulder and said in a deep voice, "Zhili, stop talking."
Shen Zhili pushed him away, smiling nonchalantly, "That's about all the sympathy I have... Later, I didn't stay in that large, crowded place for long before my master rescued me. He brought me to Rejuvenation Valley, cured all my chronic illnesses, taught me medicine, and even entrusted me with the inheritance of Rejuvenation Valley... Although my senior brother looks fierce and bad, he was actually quite righteous when we were young. He bullied me, but he also took the blame for me when he did something wrong. When I was sick, he would bring me snacks and trinkets. But I was naive back then and really disliked him..." She smiled again and spread her hands, "I told you before, there's really nothing to say about my story..."
With his fingertips gently touching Shen Zhili's eye sockets, Su Chenche's voice was so gentle it seemed to drip with water: "But you look like you're about to cry."
"No way!" Shen Zhili shrugged. "I'm just a little cold. Hey, don't sit so close."
Su Chenche stretched out his left arm and slowly wrapped it around her, not tightly, just using his arm to form a protective circle around her, so that she could break free at any time if she wanted.
Shen Zhili suddenly didn't know what to say. She just curled up as if she felt cold, hugged her knees, her long eyelashes trembled and closed, and her face was ashen.
There are still many things left unsaid.
For example, when her adoptive mother was seriously ill, she endured her illness and visited countless clinics and begged many of her adoptive mother's former benefactors, but no one was willing to save her only relative.
She even considered selling herself, but she wasn't pretty enough and her health wasn't good enough, so no one wanted her.
For example, after her adoptive mother died, she endured countless scornful looks and lived a very difficult life. When she collapsed in the snow and could no longer get up, she truly felt that perhaps dying like this would be a kind of relief.
Therefore, she needs to be rich enough, richer than anyone else.
For a moment, even the rustling wind gradually stopped, and in the long, silent night, only the crackling sound of flames burning wood could be heard.
The flames burned for a very long time, until even the crackling sound gradually faded away.
Shen Zhili blinked hard, and when she opened her eyes again, there was no longer any emotion from the previous night in them.
She stood up, hesitated slightly when she glanced at Su Chenche, and then slipped out of the encirclement of his arms and body.
He then walked to the now-extinguished fire, reassembled the firewood, and said with a smile, "Let's go."
Su Chenche also stood up, his eyes filled with the same deep affection as always, but also with a hint of pity...
Shen Zhili had a headache: "Can you please stop looking at me like that, like I'm a pitiful little thing? I didn't want to talk to you because I was afraid you'd act like that... It's giving me a headache..."
Su Chenche shook his head and smiled: "I don't pity you."
Shen Zhili looked at him with suspicion.
Su Chenche's beautiful fingers gently smoothed Shen Zhili's slightly disheveled hair, his voice deep and moving: "From now on, I'll be here, and I won't let you have a chance to feel sorry for yourself."
Shen Zhili paused for a moment, waved Su Chenche's hand away, coughed twice, and was about to speak when a series of footsteps suddenly came from outside.
No more than five people know about this place!
So who are the people who came...?
Chapter Twelve
Without hesitation, Shen Zhili pulled Su Chenche and hid behind the stone door.
As the stone gate slammed shut, Shen Zhili breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Don't wander around... What are you doing?!"
Su Chenche tapped on a stone coffin and asked, "What is this...?"
The space inside the stone gate was quite large, and there was even a cold lake with several kinds of aquatic flowers planted in it, which looked quite beautiful, but because it was in a dark and sunless space, it appeared somewhat gloomy.
The stone coffin was placed by the lake.
Su Chenche lowered his head, his fingertips touching the stone coffin, his eyes seemingly lost in thought.
Soft hair cascaded down one shoulder, obscuring Su Chenche's face, revealing only his high nose and half of a gentle eye. Shen Zhili's consciousness suddenly became hazy for a moment.
Inside the same stone gate, there once was a man who tenderly stroked the stone coffin, his gaze so deeply affectionate that it could make any woman swoon.
He would sit by the stone coffin for a whole night, sometimes drinking wine, sometimes playing music.
It's hard to imagine that the arrogant and domineering man would also have moments of weakness and helplessness, and struggle with unfulfilled desires.
She was sitting on the other side, resting her chin on her hand, staring blankly at the handsome and powerful man.
Her master.
In his half-drunk, half-awake state, he would laugh and tell her ambiguous things, some true and some false, but all about that woman. The trivial details would gradually take shape in his mind, a person she could never reach.
"I told you not to move!" Shen Zhili snapped back to reality, pulled Su Chenche back, and said simply, "My master's most beloved woman is placed in this stone coffin."
Su Chenche pondered, "Your master's wife?"
Shen Zhili paused for a moment: "No, she doesn't like my master."
Su Chenche guessed: "Your master killed someone and hid the body here because of love turned to hate?"
Shen Zhili couldn't help but retort, "Can you please stop thinking such terrifying things! No one would kill their beloved!"
"No!" As if making a defense, Su Chenche added, "Uh, anyway, I won't."
...Why does it feel like they're trying to cover something up?
But then the stone gate opened at that very moment.
"Miss……"
"Butterfly..."
Shen Zhili relaxed immediately, leaning against the wall and sighing, "Luckily, I thought..."
Dieyi walked down the steps carrying an eight-treasure glass lamp, her expression a mixture of urgency and trepidation: "Miss, the whole valley is looking for you. I guessed you might be here, so I came looking for you... Quick, I'll take you out."
When her gaze swept over Su Chenche, she hesitated for a moment, then revealed a knowing, ambiguous smile: "So Young Master Su is here too."
Su Chenche smiled back, his manner gentle and refined: "Of course I won't leave Zhili alone." He cupped his hands in a gesture of respect, "I'll trouble Miss Dieyi to lead the way."
Dieyi then turned her gaze to Shen Zhili.
"I was worried about you for a long time, but now that Young Master Su is here, I can rest assured."
Shen Zhili: "...If you look at me like that again, believe me, I'll beat you up?"
Dieyi covered her lips with her sleeve, her laughter like silver bells: "Oh my, is Miss shy? How adorable!"
Shen Zhili shuddered: "It's only been half a month, how could you..." become so perverted!
What exactly did Hana Kuya do to you?!
"Alright, Miss, let's hurry up and leave. It would be troublesome if we were discovered." Dieyi waved her sleeve, extinguishing the candlelight, and took the lead out of the cave.
Shen Zhili hesitated only slightly before following her out.
Regardless of the fact that Dieyi has followed her for many years, even if Dieyi wanted to harm her, she might not have any means to resist now. At worst, she would just be caught by her senior brother, which is not a big deal.