September thirteenth, Fengyi River.
The morning sun rose slowly, spilling sunlight over the shimmering Inner River.
Dressed in a black skirt, Nangong Ye sat upright beside a small table, holding a plaque. His face was frosty, once again showing that old sharpness that kept others a thousand miles away.
The reason was that, ever since returning from the Directorate of Celestial Observation yesterday, she had been on tenterhooks. The slightest noise in the street made her whole body tense.
Yet the boy really knew how to torment people. Last night, he actually hadn't come!
As for why he hadn't come, she understood perfectly well-the Adding Oil to the Fire Pills had run out, and he couldn't refine more that same day. If he came again at night, wouldn't that be visiting a mistress to seek pleasure? How offensive that would be to her...
But couldn't he at least have told her?
Nangong Ye knew Xie Jinhuan had done nothing wrong. Without Detoxification Pills, she shouldn't have expected the boy to come.
She ought to have been angry if he really had come.
Yet she felt an irritation she couldn't put into words...
It seemed her Dao heart truly was no longer pure...
If she was displeased, that meant the heart demon had already bewitched her and she had fallen completely.
So she had to calm herself and praise the boy for not coming over to eat his fill and take his share. With that thought, Nangong Ye placed the two medicine bottles in a small wooden box and carved into its lid:
ZhengzhengT
Each bottle contained twelve pills. Every stroke represented one detoxification, and also one instance of Body-Burning Torment that Xie Jinhuan had endured.
There had been no pills last night. Her not pushing the boy away had been