Un cœur pur dans un pot de jade

Chapitre 36

Even when I fell into his arms, he would just hold me and tremble.

I was no better off than him. My hands and feet were tingling, and my heart was pounding like a wound-up toy, as if it was about to burst out of my chest. In the end, I couldn't even open my eyes, let alone tell the savage that all I needed was a plastic bag.

Now that I think about it, my lovely travel bag was filled with plastic bags, brown paper bags... I stuffed them everywhere, so why didn't I bring any of them with me? I had absolutely no sense of crisis.

But if the savage is lucid enough, I still have a chance to get him to find a way to generate some carbon dioxide for me.

Or he should relax first; only then can I gradually relax.

But it was all nonsense. In the end, all I knew was that the world under the sun was colorful, warm, and vibrant... but I couldn't see it anymore, and I would soon have to say goodbye... I could only desperately grab onto the savage's clothes, with a last vestige of clarity remaining in my mind.

At that very last moment, I suddenly heard the cry of a savage.

A mute's cry, so weak and desperate, that I was unfamiliar with, and could not describe.

It was nothing more than a series of monotonous and strange "ah ah..." For a moment, I felt as if I was really about to die because of some kind of atmosphere—if it were true, I hoped to hear the savage call me "Sun Qingshan" instead of the hoarse, heart-wrenching, desperate cry... that way I could die in peace.

Of course, I still pushed myself to my limits, keeping my mind clear until someone else took over. By then, the savage had stopped calling out.

So I never heard him call me "Sun Qingshan," but I had no choice but to faint first.

...

When I woke up again, I was at Xu Yi's house, and I was right, the savage could not leave the Nangong residence.

These past few days, I've been treated like a state guest. Yan Chaohong has been coming to my door every day, kicking it open to see me, and instructing Mingming to stew chicken and cook pigeon for me, treating me like I'm in postpartum confinement.

Even Xu Jinwan has stopped giving me attitude. It seems that since her marriage to the Zhuang family's son has been arranged, she's no longer home and doesn't care about her godfather anymore.

However, Xiao Chenchen, the beauty, would occasionally come to comfort me, saying that it's not easy being a woman, and that all men are no good.

I settled down and rested, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I was quite pleased with being the center of attention, but I still felt like I couldn't quite recover.

I'm too lazy to even question how Xu Yi got involved with the savages in the first place.

The water in the bucket had cooled down, so I reached out and splashed a puddle of water. I put my hand on the edge of the bucket, and with a push from my lower body and buttocks, I stood up from the water.

After changing the water and rinsing off the medicinal herbs, I casually threw on a t-shirt and shorts and escaped from the steam room that was suffocating me.

The newspaper reported that a certain wealthy man smoked sixty cigarettes a day, drank alcohol without restraint, and never exercised in his entire life. He was living a perfectly good life, but he died of a heart attack after entering a steam room once.

It's not worth it at all.

As I dried my hair, my cheeks must have been flushed. I couldn't stand still outside the yard; it was getting dark, and with so many flowers and plants, there were bound to be swarms of mosquitoes.

I bounced around a few times, and suddenly a dark figure flashed in front of me. Before I could react, Mingming rushed forward with his sword and shouted, "Don't touch her!"

The man in black snorted and reached out to remove the full mask from his face. "Who wants to touch her!" It was indeed Song Guan.

"How come it's you?" I frowned. "Those martial arts masters are too useless; they actually let you escape."

"Hmph!" Song Guan snorted coldly. "I don't even consider them a threat!"

"That's good." I said, trying to go back inside, but this person grabbed my wrist hard. "Ouch!" I cried out. I glanced at Mingming and saw that he had pulled out a small stool and started picking edamame, completely disregarding my safety.

"Let's talk this out..." I grinned, "What are you doing, hero?"

Song Guan glared at me with a fierce expression before letting go and asking, "You told the Master that you would visit him in two days, but three days have passed. Why are you still here?!"

"The Master of the Manor?" I rubbed my wrist. "Which Master of the Manor?"

"I think you're going to refuse a toast only to suffer a penalty shot!" Song Guan came to grab me again in an instant. I dodged him, jumped three times to chase away mosquitoes, and then glared back at him.

"Who said I was going to see him in two days?!" she shouted. "I said in two days, two days, do you understand? It's an approximation; anything under ten days is two days!!"

"Ten days?!" This man seized on the flaw in my words and wouldn't let me off the hook. "You might as well say, after another ten days, his body will be completely cold, and then you can roll up a small mat and go collect his corpse!!"

"Collect the corpse?!" I was shocked, my heart sinking. "Collect the corpse?! The savage is dead?!"

"Just one more breath!" The man in black, Song Guan, ignored him.

"You—!" I breathed a sigh of relief, but was so frightened by him that I almost exploded. "You—you—how can you talk like that?! Who would curse their own master to death for no reason—you heartless bastard, you've lost your mind!!"

"So you knew too!" Song Guan suddenly grabbed my fingertips, which were pointing at him randomly, and said coldly, "If you really cared about him, you shouldn't have made him wait for you to see him for so long without sleep. You clearly said two days, but now it's become ten days!"

"I already told you two days is just an approximation!" I pulled my hand back, almost driven mad by this man's stubbornness, but worried about the savage, so I stepped forward and asked, "Is your master alright? Why isn't he sleeping? He used to be a heavy sleeper!"

"You—!!" Song Guan was furious, unable to find the words to curse me, so he turned his face ashen. "You make it sound so easy. The master has not only been sleepless and restless for the past three days, but he has also been refusing to eat or drink, and his heart is filled with pent-up emotions. If you don't go now, you won't need to go at all in the future!"

"You haven't had water for three days?!" I jumped up. "I'm coming right now, right now!! Wait for me, wait for me—" I turned and ran back to the guest room. "I'll come with you after I change into something that doesn't show any skin, don't run away, please don't run away!!"

Solution

It's not that I don't want to see Yeren; I just want to calm myself down, swallow all my grievances and unhappiness like eating a steamed bun, and then see him properly again. I don't want what happened in the past to affect what's about to happen between us. I can't bear to see him sad and upset, and I don't want to regret it in the future.

It's not that I'm magnanimous, nor that I'm afraid to love or hate. Considering this whole situation, the savage is neither a saint nor a good person. If he really did, as Yan Zhaohong said, deliberately give me the opportunity to cheat, and then easily forgive me, even treating me with meticulous care, to balance his own guilt, then he is not only selfish, but downright despicable.

But when a mute man called out like that in the Nangong family garden, I was finally certain that the savage really couldn't speak. He could only make those tiny, chilling cries, like those of a newborn wildcat, so eerie and pitiful that they immediately softened my heart.

Therefore, I decided to give him a chance to explain himself, and if I was satisfied, I would forgive him.

So in order to improve the satisfaction rate, I deliberately avoided going to the Nangong family to find him, so that I would have enough time to calmly face him.

But now that their men have come knocking, I've seen how the savages ignore us and refuse to eat or drink, so I can't help but believe it.

However, when I rushed back to my room and burst through the door, I found that there were two people, one sitting and one standing, in the room, which hadn't even lit a single candle.

This is my house!

Xu Yi and Yan Chaohong, however, were quite content.

I turned around and sent Song Guan back, telling him to first inform the savages to drink water, and then I would go.

He went back into the room, closed the door, and stood up from the table.

Yan Chaohong lit the lamp and said to me, "Sun Qingshan!"

I kept my eyes down, contemplating the situation. "Are there flies buzzing around? How annoying!"

"Sun Qingshan, stop making a scene!" Yan Chaohong said anxiously. "I'm here to help you. If you want to rescue Shao Yanhe from the Nangong Mansion, stop throwing a tantrum and talk to me properly!"

"Who's throwing a tantrum at you?!" I glared at him. "I'm breaking off all ties with you—nothing's owed to me now, so why would I need your help? You might just push me into some cesspool!"

"You—!!" Yan Chaohong was speechless with anger.

“Sun Qingshan,” Xu Yi spoke up at this moment, “don’t you have anything you want to ask me?”

"Yes, I asked you that on the very first day: how do I get my memories back?"

“There’s nothing I can do about it,” he said, turning his eyes to the side, his voice hoarse and low, “but I will try my best.”

"Bullshit!" I rolled my eyes. "If you have nothing else to do, get out. I need to take my clothes off!"

"Sun Qingshan, why won't you listen to me!" Yan Chaohong walked towards me. "It's rare that I, this young master, feel guilty and want to defy the world to save your husband. Even if you don't like me, you should think about your savage. If he is really taken back to Tokyo, do you think he will still have a chance to live?!"

My heart skipped a beat, and I turned back. "Yan Chaohong, are you serious this time? You dare swear on your ancestors for eighteen generations? If you're lying to me, I'll make sure your whole family suffers a terrible death, dies without a burial place, and is skinned alive and had their tendons pulled out in the underworld!!"

"You're really ruthless!" Yan Chaohong teased. "Fine, I swear."

"Okay!" I lowered my head, slapped my thigh with a "smack," then straightened up and opened my palm.

Right in the center of my palm was a bloody, mangled dead mosquito, completely flattened and blackened. The tender skin on my leg where it had sucked my blood was already itching and rapidly swelling. "Yan Chaohong," I said through gritted teeth, holding my palm out to his eyes, "if you dare to use me to harm the savages again, I'll make you look like this mosquito, torn to pieces!"

Yan Chaohong pressed my hand down and sighed, "You'd better go wash your hands quickly." Then she turned to Xu Yi and said, "If you have something to say, you should tell her first."

I was washing my hands in the basin when I turned to look at Xu Yi. Xu Yi was unwell; he gasped for breath a couple of times and then sat back down on the stool.

“Since you’re going to ask me sooner or later,” he said, “I might as well tell you now.”

I wiped my wet hands on my clothes. Yan Chaohong grimaced in disgust, while Xu Yi seemed to think it was perfectly reasonable. He calmly looked at me and said, "The reason I'm willing to help Shao Yanhe is because I owed him a favor in the past. Besides, if you really resent him... there's something you should understand first. When I met you in Chengdu, he had no idea that he was the leader of the martial arts alliance. Otherwise, he wouldn't have caused all this trouble today..." He then looked directly at Yan Chaohong, who gave an awkward, bitter smile.

Xu Yi's expression was rather helpless. He paused, then continued, "There are many things where the same action can be taken for a thousand different reasons... Although I don't know the details between you and him, when he asked me for medicine, he said he hoped you would stay away from trouble. That statement is absolutely true..."

“I know…” I stammered, “He would never hurt me…”

Xu Yi nodded, "As for those who say they condoned you first so that they could feel better about themselves..." This was specifically referring to Yan Chaohong.

Actually, when Xu Yi wasn't so dull, he could be quite sarcastic. "I treated his illness," he said. "The time you brought him to our door, if it weren't for his mental exhaustion and the aggravation of his old injuries, the remaining poison in his body wouldn't have flared up so uncontrollably, and he wouldn't have been in mortal danger... In fact, part of the poison he was given was a secret drug used in the torture chamber to extract confessions, which would cause mental breakdown, but he has remained clear-headed until now, so it's not surprising that his mind is biased..."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

Xu Yi stood up and came to my side. "I'll stop here for today. There are some things I can't say, but perhaps he'll tell you himself someday."

After Xu Yi left, I realized that he and Yan Chaohong were not on the same side. They just happened to choose the same time and happened to run into Song Guan, the man in black, who came to find me.

"What brilliant plan do you have?" I asked Yan Chaohong, reaching for a glass of water, but he snatched it away.

"Thank you." He gulped down the drink, put down the cup, and started to follow the lead.

"Yan Chaohong!" I glared at him. "I don't have time to waste with you now. Tell me how to save the savage!"

"Alright." He said seriously, "I can save him, but you must promise me that if I rescue him this time, you will persuade him to find a secluded place to live in seclusion and never set foot in the martial world again!"

"It's like you think you can make your way in the underworld!" I said dismissively. "Fine, I agree."

"Hmm." He nodded. "That makes things much easier... To be honest, Xiao Qingshan, I truly love you from the bottom of my heart, as for that one time—"

"Stop!" I raised my hand. "Who told you about that time? You better tell me about the savages right now!"

"I understand..." Yan Chaohong sighed, then leaned closer again, "Little Qingshan, I didn't mean to frame your wild husband, it's just that other people had a plan and it was supposed to go that way. I was just possessed that day, and I wanted to expose all of your husband's good deeds—actually, I was just jealous, you should understand me..."

"I'll forgive you, you little mushroom tomato!" She slapped him away fiercely. "If you don't get to the point, I'll—"

"Get to the point, get to the point!" Yan Chaohong muttered with a mournful face, "We can't even have people say what's on our minds, the world and people's hearts... sigh..."

"Are you ever going to stop?!" I snapped. "This is your chance to make amends. If you keep spouting nonsense, I—"

"We must get out of the Nangong residence first." He suddenly became serious. "Just like retrieving the knife, if a person remains in the Nangong residence, there is absolutely no way to escape. Even the so-called number one assassin in the world," Yan Zhaohong raised an eyebrow, "is only because no one bothers with him. Otherwise, how could he come and go so freely?"

"Alright, alright!" I waved my hand. "Can't you get to the point? What did the world's number one assassin do to you? Is it fun to keep picking on him and making fun of him? We're discussing the wild man leaving the Nangong residence. Make it clear, how exactly is he going to leave?"

“It’s very simple.” Yan Chaohong glanced at me. “Actually, whether he confesses or not, Constable Mi and the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Personnel cannot settle the case here. They will inevitably escort your husband to Tokyo. The problem is that your wild husband refuses to leave this place no matter what. As for the reason, Little Green Mountain, you should know very well—”

"You, Yan Chaohong!!" I jumped up and slammed my fist on the table. "So, all you wanted to do was persuade the savages to obey you and follow you to Tokyo, where they'd be at your mercy, wasn't it?!"

Reunited after a short separation

Yan Chaohong persuaded me to come back, and assured me, with the promise of the Yan family ancestors for eighteen generations and the ancestors of Liangshan Village for eighteen generations, that as long as the savage had a chance to leave the Nangong family, he would deliberately cause trouble during the escort and let the savage go.

As compensation for my repeated exploitation and seduction.

With a heavy heart, I entered the side courtyard of the Nangong family. It was late at night, and the shadows of the trees and people were flickering.

Although I saw no guards and only servants along the way, I still knew that the figures fluttering in the sky were martial arts masters scattered like stars, spreading out a huge barbed wire net in every corner of the Nangong Mansion, so that any bird that flew up would be electrocuted.

From the moment I entered, I was treated with courtesy and even led around to give directions.

But I always felt like there was a weight on my heart. I came here in high spirits, but Yan Chaohong had recently given me a critique of current affairs and concluded that there was only one way to go.