Post-Event Chat, Lu Xueqi Is Shy!

The morning sunlight poured in through the window, illuminating the entire room.

The two people on the bed were still asleep.

The quilt had been kicked halfway off, revealing two bodies tangled together.

Long hair was scattered across the pillows, dark strands intertwined so thoroughly that it was impossible to tell whose was whose.

The air was filled with an ambiguous scent—not the deep, lingering fragrance of Jin Ping'er, but something lighter, like a bamboo forest after the rain, steaming with the warmth of human skin.

Lu Xueqi was curled up in his arms, her face pressed against his chest, her breathing light, shallow, and steady.

Her eyelashes cast faint shadows in the morning light, and the corners of her mouth were slightly curved, as if she were having a pleasant dream.

Her fingers were still resting on his waist, refusing to let go, as if she were afraid he might run away even in her sleep.

"Husband..." Lu Xueqi's soft, cherry-colored lips moved, emitting a vague murmur, "The Slime... is going to be broken..."

Lu Jiuyuan opened his eyes.

He looked down at the person in his arms, watching the curve of her lips and listening to her garbled dream talk, and he froze for a moment.

A Slime?

The corners of his mouth slowly curled up into an irrepressible smile.

He remembered that morning at Xiaozhu Peak, when she lay beside him, his hand pressing somewhere it shouldn't have been, and he had spun a lie about a Slime.

She had blushed and said, "Don't rub it anymore," her tone a mix of shame and annoyance—a memory he had kept for a long time.

He hadn't expected her to remember the term, and even less did he expect her to say it in this context.

The smile on Lu Jiuyuan's face spread from his lips to his eyes, and from his eyes to his entire face.

He resisted and resisted, but in the end, he couldn't help but laugh out loud. It was very soft, but the vibration of his chest traveled to the person in his arms.

Lu Xueqi's eyelashes fluttered, and she slowly opened her eyes.

The morning light made her squint. As her vision shifted from blurry to clear, his smiling face came into view. She froze for a moment, and the memories of last night rushed back like a tide: the inn, the room, her pushing him down onto the bed.

She had been on top of him, saying, "I'm on top today," and then, time and time again, over and over.

Her face began to flush from her neck, burning all the way up to her forehead, red enough to drip blood.

She abruptly lowered her head, burying her face in his chest, refusing to look up.

"How long have you been awake?" Lu Xueqi's voice was muffled.

"Just woke up." Lu Jiuyuan's hands wandered over her body, his voice impossibly gentle.

"Were you laughing just now?" Lu Xueqi's fingers traced circles on his chest.

"No."

"You did laugh, I heard it." Lu Xueqi's voice was soft, tinged with a hint of languor.

Lu Jiuyuan looked down at the head buried in his chest, watching her reddened ear tips, his fingers threading through her hair to gently stroke her scalp.

"Did you have a nightmare?" His voice carried a smile.

Lu Xueqi's body stiffened for a moment. "...No."

"Then you were talking in your sleep."

Lu Xueqi's body stiffened even more. "...What did I say?"

"You said—!" Lu Jiuyuan deliberately drew out the words, "The Slime is going to be broken."

Lu Xueqi jerked her head up from his chest, staring at him with wide eyes.

In the morning light, her face was as red as the sunset clouds behind Xiaozhu Peak, her lips slightly parting and closing, parting and closing, like a fish pulled onto the shore.

Her eyes held shock, shame, and an incredulous sense of "How could I possibly say something like that?"

"I did not," Lu Xueqi retorted.

"You did."

"I did not!"

"You really did."

Lu Xueqi stared at him for several seconds, then snatched the quilt to cover her face, shrinking into it like an ostrich burying its head in the sand.

A muffled voice came from beneath the covers: "Lu Jiuyuan, you jerk."

Lu Jiuyuan laughed and pulled her, quilt and all, into his arms.

She struggled twice inside the bedding, but couldn't break free, so she resignedly curled up in his embrace like a silkworm wrapped in a cocoon.

"Xueqi."

"Don't call me."

"Xueqi."

"I said don't call me."

"Wife."

There was a moment of silence beneath the quilt.

Then, the quilt was slowly pulled down, and Lu Xueqi revealed only her eyes.

Those eyes were red—not from crying, but from shyness.

She glared at him, a look filled with shame and annoyance, but more than that, a hidden, bone-deep tenderness that she couldn't conceal.

"Say it again," Lu Xueqi whispered.

"Wife."

Lu Xueqi's eyelashes fluttered, the corners of her mouth curved upward, and she pulled the quilt back up to cover her face.

Her voice drifted from beneath the covers, as light as the wind.

"Mm."

Lu Jiuyuan smiled, pulled the quilt down, cupped her face, and planted a kiss on her forehead.

Lu Xueqi did not dodge; she closed her eyes, her lashes trembling gently like two startled butterflies.

"No more talking in your sleep from now on," Lu Jiuyuan said, gently stroking her snow-white peaks, his voice tender and doting. "Otherwise, I will punish you!"

"You think I wanted to?" Lu Xueqi opened her eyes and glared at him. "It's all your fault."

"How is it my fault?"

"You..." Lu Xueqi opened her mouth, then closed it again, turning her face away so she wouldn't have to look at him. "Never mind."

Lu Jiuyuan smiled and pulled her closer into his embrace.

A long while later.

Lu Xueqi propped herself up from Lu Jiuyuan's arms, her long hair sliding off her shoulders and shimmering with a soft luster in the morning light.

She reached out to push away the hand he had wrapped around her waist, her movements light and filled with a lazy hesitation—the reluctance to get up, yet the necessity of doing so.

Sunlight poured in through the window, illuminating her bare shoulders, which were marked with a few faint red traces left from the night before.

Lu Xueqi's fingers brushed against those marks, her fingertips pausing slightly as a thin flush rose to her cheeks.

She turned to the side, looking for her clothes to put on.

Then, she saw the fragments on the floor.

That moon-white long dress had been torn into several pieces, scattered by the bedside like fallen petals.

And that intimate undergarment.

The one so thin it was translucent, the one she had worn underneath last night, was now hanging off the edge of the bed, one strap snapped and the fabric stretched out of shape.

Lu Xueqi stared at the debris on the floor, stunned. These were the masterpieces of last night.

He had torn them, and she had played a part, but it was mostly him.

Lu Xueqi bit her pink lip and reached out an arm to grab the outer robe that could still barely cover her, but the moment she stretched out, a soreness spread from her waist to her limbs, as if she had been soaked in warm water for too long, leaving every muscle softened.

That tingling sensation seeped out from the gaps in her bones, making her unable to help but let out a soft hum.

It was light, short, and carried an unexpected, soft sweetness.

Lu Xueqi's face turned even redder, as if scorched by fire. She bit her lip, swallowing the rest of the sound, and retracted her arm, not daring to move again.

Lu Jiuyuan leaned against the headboard, watching her.

The morning light shone from behind her, gilding her entire silhouette with a golden-white rim.

Her long hair cascaded over her shoulders and waist like a spill of black silk.

From her shoulders to her waist, and from her waist to the curves partially hidden by her long hair, every inch looked as if it had been meticulously carved by the Creator over a long period of time.

Lu Jiuyuan's gaze slid from her shoulders to her waist, from her waist to the calf exposed outside the quilt, and then it stopped.