Zhu Zhuqing's Vitality

Inside the bedchamber, the morning light grew brighter.

"Ahem..."

Bibi Dong turned her head aside and covered her lips as she coughed softly twice. Her slender shoulder blades rose sharply beneath the thin silk robe with the motion, trembling slightly.

From the robe's wide sleeve, she drew out a deep purple silk handkerchief, her movements elegant and slow, and gently pressed it to the corner of her lips.

Through the handkerchief, her fingertips could feel a faint lingering, slightly damp stickiness.

Without changing expression, she glanced at the edge of the handkerchief. There was an extremely faint, almost invisible white trace staining it.

Then that handkerchief was quietly gathered into her palm by her slender fingers and clenched tight.

She did not look again at the messy great bed behind her, where the warmth had not yet faded. Barefoot, she stepped across the cold, smooth black marble floor and walked step by step toward the side door deep within the bedchamber that connected to the bath.

Meanwhile, Dai Chengfeng was walking along the road back to his own courtyard.

It was early morning, and a thin layer of mist shrouded the sky above Spirit City, gradually dispersing beneath the brightening sunlight.

The air carried the distinct scent of a late-autumn early morning, a blend of dew and cool vegetation. Drawn into his lungs, it was especially refreshing, and it also washed some of the tender, intimate images from his mind.

A faint smile, there and not there, rested at the corner of his lips.

He skirted the towering side wing of the Pope's Hall and passed through a forest of fallen leaves. Beneath his feet was a path covered in a thick layer of golden fallen leaves, which rustled softly when stepped on.

A little farther ahead was