Xue Lingjun felt as though someone had lashed her heart with a whip. She realized that her lies had accomplished nothing at all; Hu Xiaotian had seen through the truth long ago. Stripped of the disguise of her lies, she felt as though she had been stripped naked. An indescribable shame enveloped her heart, a feeling she had never experienced before. And Hu Xiaotian's words had struck her vulnerable spot. The smile abruptly vanished from her face. "Only today have I discovered how hardhearted you truly are."
Hu Xiaotian said with a smiling squint, "Hard when I should be, soft when I should be!"
Although his words were extremely suggestive, Xue Lingjun detected no teasing in them. She knew that her lies had lost all power before Hu Xiaotian. The more she flaunted them, the more she would invite ridicule.
A slender young woman approached them gracefully from a distance. It was Visa. "Master," she said in a soft, delicate voice, "you promised to try on your clothes. How can you be so unpunctual?"
Hu Xiaotian chuckled and told Visa, "I was chatting with Her Highness the Eldest Princess."
Visa's beautiful ice-blue eyes swept over Xue Lingjun, and she smiled sweetly. "Visa pays her respects to Your Highness!"
Hu Xiaotian cupped his hands toward Xue Lingjun. "Your little brother still has important business to attend to. I'll take my leave."
Xue Lingjun had already lost interest in speaking with him. "Please, go ahead, Your Highness," she said coolly. As she watched Hu Xiaotian and Visa leave side by side, she faintly heard Visa ask, "What were you talking about, Master?"
"She asked whether I was soft or hard..."
"You're awful..."
On the eighth day of the fifth month, the weather was fine, the blue sky washed clean, without a cloud