Un cœur pur dans un pot de jade

Chapitre 23

"You still dare to talk back!" I turned around and glared at Yan Chaohong. "Now I suspect that he's not just an old acquaintance, but also my former lover. Just wait until he's full of jealousy and comes back to challenge you to a duel!!"

Door-to-door bag delivery

Do you fancy him?

I touched my palm, thinking about the last look the savage gave me as he left. I was so struck by how impressive his English was that I overlooked the question he had asked.

His question was clearly directed at Yan Chaohong. I even remember that when he wrote that sentence, his fingertips trembled slightly; he was definitely not joking.

As night fell and the wind rose, the candlelight on the table flickered.

I hunched over my desk, my head throbbing, unable to piece together any clues about the whole thing. Did I really time travel? Or was I just dreaming?

Could the savage be my boyfriend? That's absolutely impossible, unless I really have amnesia—the savage was my boyfriend before I time-traveled, and then I time-traveled here with him, and then we got separated, and I lost my memory?

But that's absolutely impossible! My boyfriend's surname is Zhao, and I don't remember breaking up with him. How could I have hooked up with some wild man without even realizing it?

Good heavens! I tilted my head back, mouth half open, feeling utterly helpless about my love life.

If my mom knew I was like this, she'd definitely come back from the past and strangle me!

She never taught me to have an affair. I've known since I was little that women who flirt with others don't have a good ending, and I don't want to have a bad ending!

There was a knock on the door. Yan Chaohong had returned. I got up to open the door, but something was wrong—the knocking was coming from the courtyard gate. But why did I see the wild man who had vanished at dusk standing straight in front of my door like a door god, with a natural expression on his face? When he saw me, his lips even twitched. Yet the knocking outside the courtyard continued.

“You…” I saw that the wild man’s face was haggard and pale, and I was too embarrassed to ask him to make way for me so that I could go out and open the door for Yan Chaohong.

"Is there something you need?"

The savage held up a bag in front of me, and I finally realized—"A travel bag just like mine?!" At this moment, in this place, in this situation, I felt that it wasn't me who had traveled through time, but the savage.

"You, son," the savage said to me silently.

"My son?" I didn't understand.

He bent down and placed the travel bag inside the door. The knocking continued. I took a deep breath to calm myself down and told the savage to stand still.

"Answer me one question first—" gathering her thoughts, "No, two questions!"

The savage nodded obediently.

"First, did you travel here with me?"

The savage shook his head, his eyes burning.

I knew he understood me; I even felt he could see right through me. Before I even opened my mouth, I felt he had already guessed the question I was about to ask—"Do you like me?" I finally made up my mind and asked him seriously, "You like me a lot, don't you?"

He closed his eyes, and the corners of his lips, which had been turned up, turned down slightly. The savage nodded.

"Sun Qingshan!!!" The person knocking on the door outside the courtyard finally started to shout impatiently.

"Here he comes!" I glanced at the savage again, squeezed past him, and opened the door for Yan Chaohong at the courtyard gate.

"Don't you know how to fly?" I asked Yan Chaohong the first thing I saw. "Why don't you fly in? Why are you just banging on the door like that? Isn't that a waste of effort?"

Yan Chaohong glared at me, "If you don't want the hassle, why install a door at all? Why not use the main door? Are you going to be a thief?"

I turned around and realized that the savage who had been standing at the door was gone. Thank goodness he was gone, I breathed a sigh of relief. Otherwise, I really wouldn't know how I would have managed to deal with two men at once.

"Little Green Mountain, did you miss me?" Yan Chaohong quickly changed her expression, stretched out her head, and reached up to hug my waist.

"Wait a minute!" I wanted to explain to him immediately what a fleeting romance was. Of course, it wasn't that I didn't like him, but now that our relationship had developed into a three-way one, the appearance of the wild man made me very confused and anxious. Compared to that, my relationship with Yan Chaohong, which was based on nightly encounters, was really no match for a single question from the wild man. But before I could say any of this, Yan Chaohong grabbed me and left, muttering, "What are you waiting for!" without giving me a chance to argue.

My room, or rather Yan Chaohong's room, is the room I just came out of. The door was still open, and there were candles lit inside. Candles were expensive these days, but since they were both bandits and assassins, they were naturally not short of money.

The two of them stepped into the room hand in hand. Yan Chaohong's head was still rubbing against my ear. I felt ticklish and tried to dodge and avoid him. I was also anxious. I really didn't want this to go on and on. But the few moves I made to escape his embrace seemed like a coy rejection in the eyes of this assassin.

I still remember the saying, "If you piss off a killer, you'll suffer the consequences."

However, when I looked up again, I was stunned.

Beside the candlelight in the room, in the seat I had sat before, I could even see my own defeated expression from back then—right there, now sat a savage, holding what appeared to be my travel bag, his body slightly hunched over at the round table, his eyes fixed on me. Our eyes met, or perhaps Yan Chaohong's should be added as well; in any case, three people, six pairs of eyes, five steps apart, with no obstruction between them. Whether it was their gaze or their shock, everything was laid bare.

The savage seemed somewhat dazed. Unlike me, he wasn't startled and jumped up, but he was slower to recover from his shock. I couldn't see anything that could be called emotion on his face. His pupils were large, and the firelight made his eyes appear warm and lustrous, a solidified brown that disguised itself as black.

"Let go of me!" I nudged Yan Chaohong hard with my elbow. Yan Chaohong wasn't stupid; she awkwardly let go, turned around and left without saying a word, and even kindly closed the door behind her as she left.

Actually, compared to me, he was just playing around. Before everything started, I think the two of us had already reached a consensus. Fortunately, this consensus didn't need to be communicated verbally at this point, otherwise, I really wouldn't know how to face this wild man who suddenly appeared in my house.

As he approached the savage, he turned his head to the side, his eyes looking in another direction. In his arms was a large, bulging pink travel bag, which he held tightly, as if someone was about to snatch it from him. The way he held the travel bag was like a frightened bird, holding his lost and found son.

"Don't misunderstand." I put my hand on his shoulder, but he trembled violently as if he had been electrocuted. He then slightly turned his body away from my hand.

"I told you not to misunderstand!" I squatted down in front of him, lifted his head to look into his eyes, "Listen to me, my relationship with that man isn't what you think. I wanted to explain things to him, but I didn't have a chance yet, we—"

Suddenly, I couldn't continue. The wild man was waiting for me, his eyes wide open, his pupils looking like they were wearing magnifying lenses, even taking up space in the whites of his eyes. He was very focused, patiently waiting for me. I remained silent, and he kept waiting, but I really couldn't say anything more. Looking at his face, I felt my heart pounding with anguish, each beat a sharp pain, each beat a sharp pain, each beat a sharp pain…

until--

The savage bent down and carefully placed the travel bag into my arms. I was squatting, and he took my hands and made me hold the travel bag, which was the point of support on the ground, around my arms. Then he stood up and walked towards the door.

I immediately sensed something was wrong and reacted extremely quickly. Fortunately, I wasn't as slow-witted as many characters in romance dramas. Before the savage even stepped out the door, I stood up despite my dizziness and ran after him.

However, I was wrong again. He wasn't leaving. I think that given his character, unless I asked him to leave, he probably wouldn't leave on his own.

Even though I don't know where this confidence comes from, I know that I have faith in him.

He went out to boil water in the kitchen—I stood at the kitchen door and watched him skillfully use a lighter that didn't belong to this century to light the fire, squatted by the stove, and added dry firewood to the stove little by little. Every step he took was methodical. He was very patient and extremely focused on everything he did.

"Why are you boiling water?" I asked him, standing by the door.

He turned around, the fire burning fiercely on his face. He slowly reached out and pointed to the wooden tub placed in the corner, intending to heat up bathwater.

Once I understood, I felt relieved. "Then I'll go back to my room and wait for you." As if it were natural, my first words were to order him around.

He turned around again and nodded to me by the door.

Bathing services

I paced back and forth in my room because I was thinking about a problem.

If a savage is heating bathwater, is he heating it for me or for himself?

From an economic perspective, it would be best for the two of them to share a pot of water, but I just chased Yan Zhaohong away and then immediately started bathing with a savage. Isn't that a bit too frivolous?

It wasn't just a matter of being fickle—in the end, I thought helplessly, it was simply promiscuous!

The savage returned with the boiled water, set out the wooden buckets, and carried hot and cold water back and forth five or six times before finally getting everything done.

As for me, I sat on the edge of the bed, my hands involuntarily gripping my collar, like a pitiful woman about to be forced into a bathtub by a bully.

The savage stood in front of me, and I looked down at his feet. Then, unfortunately, I froze again.

Because his foot was badly injured.

How tragic—I complained that the shoe merchants in the Northern Song Dynasty only cared about making money and didn't pay attention to the quality of the shoes. The white cloth shoes on the savage's feet were completely torn at the front, exposing his toes. What was worse, his toes were also torn, bleeding an unknown amount of blood, staining the white cloth shoes a completely unknown color. They were dirty, terrifying, and unsightly.

"Does your foot hurt?" I grabbed the savage's hand and looked up to ask him.

He quietly shook his head, then turned and pointed to the large wooden tub in the center of the room. It turned out he really was boiling water for me to bathe in.

Unable to think of anything to say, I stood up and started taking off my clothes.

The savage turned his head to the side, thought for a moment, and then walked towards the travel bag placed on the chair in the corner.

He took a clean set of underwear out of his bag, and I was shocked—it really was mine!

Looking at the wild man again, one has to admire his skill in rummaging through his travel bag – he's a master! From toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo... facial cleanser, shower gel... to toner, serum, eye cream, face cream... the whole set, all arranged one by one on the chair next to the wooden tub, in the order I usually use them.

Of course, I'm also very fast. I'm the fastest at taking off my clothes. I'm currently down to just my underwear, but this underwear has put me in a complete dilemma.

Speaking of these underwear, should I take them off or not?

If I take my clothes off, should I leave them aside to wash myself later, or should I throw them to him and let him wash them all for me?

What did I do before? After the savage left, I no longer doubted that the person with amnesia was me, not that he had mistaken me for someone else. For a long time, we were together, and our relationship reached the level of a romantic one.

When the savage finished setting everything up, he turned around and saw that I was truly naked. He froze for a second before immediately turning back.

He doesn't want to look at me! This thought made me very uncomfortable. I walked towards him, passed by him, and saw that he still had his back to me and refused to turn around. I felt incredibly defeated again.

I buried myself in the bath tub, and the wild man moved a chair behind me and sat down to wash my hair.

His fingers weren't actually soft; his fingertips had calluses and various scabs from injuries. But when he ran his hands through my hair, he genuinely didn't hurt my scalp. He washed my hair twice, and instead of using conditioner, he used a hair mask.

He changed the water for me once during the process and rinsed off all the shower gel bubbles from my body.

Throughout all of this, he tried his best not to look at me or communicate with me at all.

As I was getting out of the bath, he handed me a body scrub. I really admired him; he actually turned it upside down to remind me to use the scrub. Sitting back in the tub, I sighed. He took one of my hands and used the scrub to massage my fingers. Luckily, I hadn't brought the foot scrub with me, or he would definitely have scrubbed both my feet at the same time.

When I thought of this, I was surprised to realize that I hadn't forgotten some of the little details.

The savage's fingertips circled around my nails, from my thumb to my little finger. I knew I hadn't misjudged him; he was incredibly focused.

"Savage..."

His hand paused for a moment, but he didn't stop to pay attention to me.

“Savage!” I grabbed his hand in return, the oily exfoliating gel slipping and flowing between our fingers.

"Say something to me," I demanded loudly.

He turned his head, opened his mouth, and slowly asked me, "What?"

“No!” I frowned. “Not with words, I want a complete sentence—from beginning to end, you’ve only asked me one ‘why’—don’t you have anything else to say?!” I released his hand and held my palm out to him. “Now you can write on my hand. Write down what you want to say.”

The savage lowered his eyes and looked at my palm, which was shiny with oil and covered with abrasive particles.

"Write it!" I urged.

The savage raised his eyes again. "Sun, Qing, Shan," he said slowly, "the water's cold. Come out."

I felt all my strength drain away, and with a thud, I sat back down in the wooden tub, splashing water everywhere, soaking the savage all over, even his hair, with water dripping down his face.

The savage bent down, scooped water to wash my hands clean, then stood up straight and walked to the bedside to get a clean bath towel.

I got out of the wooden tub, and the man draped a towel over my body. He still didn't look at me and remained cautious.

I honestly can't remember how I used to get along with him, and I don't dare to be too willful. I don't know if I've already gone too far.

Distracted, I reached for the eye cream and applied it directly as if it were face cream. Only after I finished did I berate myself: "What a social parasite! What a waste! Money is so precious! It really hurts!"

Then, wearing slippers, she walked back to the bed, put on her underwear, but didn't wear a shirt. She crawled into the covers, turned over, and faced the wall with her hair wet. It was unclear who she was sulking with.

The savage's footsteps stopped behind him, and he followed.

I listened patiently, but to my surprise, he sat down by the bed, rolled up his sleeves, and reached out. I saw that his wrist was so thin that the bones were protruding; it was beyond just skin and bones.