"Come in. The young miss has just finished washing up. She's waiting for you."
At the hour of the Dragon the next morning, the carved wooden door to the Listening to Rain Pavilion's inner courtyard creaked open from within.
The senior maid Qiu Yue stepped over the threshold carrying a copper basin. Seeing Chen Xuan already dressed in a crisp green guard's uniform and standing straight beneath the veranda, a flicker of approval crossed her eyes, and she nodded gently.
"Yes. Sorry for the trouble, Sister Qiu Yue."
Chen Xuan answered with his gaze lowered, then followed her around the screen in the outer room, its cicada-wing gauze embroidered with a hundred birds paying homage to a phoenix.
The moment he entered the inner chamber, an orchid-like fragrance mingled with rose petals and a young woman's natural scent wafted straight into his nose.
On the chaise longue beside the window, Xiao Ling'er reclined lazily against soft cushions. She had just bathed, and her long black hair, still slightly damp, lay loosely over her shoulders. She wore only an extremely thin white gauze lounge dress.
Morning light slanted through the propped-open carved window onto her, illuminating her two translucent collarbones like white mutton-fat jade. Her loose neckline hung slightly open, half concealing a deep curve of snowy white.
Below her slender waist, small enough to encircle with a hand, the gauzy skirt did not fully cover her legs. A length of straight, shapely calf lay exposed to the air, its skin as fine as sweet-white porcelain warmed by the sun, dazzling enough to make one's eyes swim.
Chen Xuan barely stole half a glance from the corner of his eye before immediately fixing his gaze firmly on the floor three inches in front of his toes.
He dropped neatly to one knee, his voice steady yet carrying just the right measure of reverence:
"Your subordinate Chen Xuan pays his respects to Third Miss!"
"Mm."
Xiao Ling'er gave a delicate hum through her nose, her voice still husky and soft from having only recently woken.
She braced herself against the cushions to sit up straight, but her delicate brows suddenly knitted together, and she sucked in a sharp breath:
"Ow-Qiu Yue, why are my legs so sore and swollen today? They feel as if they're filled with lead!"
"Miss, it must be because Treading Snow was startled and went wild the day before yesterday. You clamped your legs around the horse's belly and held on too long, straining your sinews, bones, and meridians. I'll massage them for you right away."
Qiu Yue hurriedly set down what she was holding and stepped forward.
"Oh, spare me. That little strength in your hands is like a kitten scratching an itch. Half an hour of your pressing wouldn't do any good."
Xiao Ling'er waved her off disdainfully. Her eyes rolled, and her gaze suddenly landed on Chen Xuan, kneeling a short distance from the chaise longue.
She tapped her slender fingertips twice against its edge:
"Chen Xuan."
"Here!"
"You're a martial artist who has reached early-stage Bright Force now. Your hands have far more blood Qi than the maids'. Get over here and massage my calves."
Xiao Ling'er raised her chin slightly, her tone as matter-of-fact as if she were ordering a drink of water.
Qiu Yue started in alarm beside her and hurriedly lowered her voice to protest:
"Miss, this... men and women shouldn't touch. Having a male guard massage your legs would hardly be proper, would it?"
"What's improper about it? He's a personal household servant I promoted from the stables. Here in the Listening to Rain Pavilion, he does whatever I tell him to!"
Xiao Ling'er glared at Qiu Yue, then turned to look down her nose at Chen Xuan and snorted:
"What, Chen Xuan? I'm honoring you by letting you serve me up close, and you dare make excuses?"
"I wouldn't dare! I'm only afraid these rough, clumsy horse-feeder's hands of mine might sully your precious person, Miss!"
Chen Xuan bowed his head even lower, but his mind was clear as a mirror.
Was this willful Third Miss really just suffering from sore legs with no one to massage them? Clearly, seeing that he had only broken through to early-stage Bright Force yesterday, she was finding ways to test whether this blade of hers would obey, and whether he would dare entertain improper thoughts in his master's presence!
"Enough nonsense! I don't even mind your dirt, yet you're putting on airs? Get over here already!"
"Yes!"
Chen Xuan drew a deep breath, shuffled forward two steps on his knees, and came to a steady stop before the chaise longue.
Up close, the impact was practically enough to kill a man.
A pair of long, fair, beautiful legs lay right beneath his eyes. Their flesh outshone frost and snow, without so much as a visible pore, and the delicate ankle bones bore a faint pink tint, as though the slightest pressure could pinch two red marks into them. The elegant orchid fragrance of a young woman mingled with warmth and forced its way into his nose.
"What are you still staring for? Waiting for me to invite you to put your hands on me?!"
"As you command. Please bear with it, Third Miss."
Chen Xuan's Adam's apple shifted almost imperceptibly as he extended both hands. A second before touching her skin, he deliberately let his fingers tremble twice, assuming the terrified, walking-on-thin-ice posture of a servant, then gently laid his hands over Xiao Ling'er's right calf.
The instant his palms made contact, astonishing smoothness, warmth, and softness burst across his fingertips.
Chen Xuan silently recited the Heart-Clearing Mantra twice. Outwardly, he acted as though he dared not even breathe, while secretly stirring a wisp of blood Qi from his major-accomplishment Boulder Art within his body.
In this world, martial artists had always used their blood Qi to shatter stone tablets and rocks and kill on the battlefield. No one had ever considered using it to wait on someone.
But Chen Xuan, who had endured countless days and nights of torment from all kinds of difficult clients at an advertising agency in his previous life, understood all too well-sometimes, making your master comfortable worked better than knocking your head against the floor a hundred times before them!
Hiss.
A wisp of Qi force, deliberately controlled until it was as mild as spring water, slowly flowed from the Laogong points in his palms, penetrating with unerring precision into the tense Chengshan point and meridians in Xiao Ling'er's calf.
"Mm..."
As that blood Qi, carrying a slightly scalding current of warmth, began coursing through her sore, swollen muscle fibers, Xiao Ling'er's entire body abruptly stiffened against the chaise longue!
A tingling heat unlike anything she had ever experienced exploded from beneath Chen Xuan's broad palms, shooting from her tailbone straight to the crown of her head. The soreness lodged deep in her fascia from her fall off the horse the day before yesterday actually melted inch by inch beneath that forceful yet gentle warmth, like lingering snow meeting the blazing sun!
It felt so good!
That comfort burrowed straight into the cracks between her bones. Xiao Ling'er, who had never experienced anything like it, could not withstand it at all. Her red lips parted slightly, and an utterly unguarded, soft, seductive moan escaped through her nose.
In the silent inner chamber of her boudoir, that delicate sound rang out as clearly as thunder from a clear sky.
Standing beside the screen, Qiu Yue flushed bright red in an instant. She hastily turned away, pretending to lower her head and arrange the jeweled hairpins on the dressing table.
Xiao Ling'er herself was utterly stunned.
A burning flush spread from her fair cheeks to the base of her neck in an instant, while her delicate ears, so thin they were almost translucent, turned red enough to drip blood. Humiliated and furious, she widened her almond-shaped eyes, her chest heaving violently and even her breathing falling into disarray:
"You... you damned servant! Where do you think you're pressing? Aren't you using too much strength?!"
"Forgive me, Third Miss! I deserve death!"