Zongzheng Heng -- Slapped

Qiao Shuyi stepped into Jinglan Garden with light footsteps and a smile on her lips.

Fuzhi stood beneath the covered walkway. Seeing her like this from afar, she finally felt the worry that had weighed on her all day settle back into her stomach.

Miss was in a good mood.

She went to meet her and dipped into a curtsy:

"Miss, you're back?"

Qiao Shuyi did not stop walking and merely asked in passing:

"What did Zhigui do today?"

Fuzhi followed behind her and reported everything in turn:

"Young Master Zhigui has been recuperating in your room. This morning, he practiced a set of punches and loosened up his limbs. In the afternoon, he walked around the courtyard for about half an hour. From what I saw, he was in much better spirits than he was the previous two days. He just finished dinner and has gone back to your room now."

Qiao Shuyi nodded and asked no more.

With her away, that man would naturally turn her Jinglan Garden inside out.

That was only to be expected.

She headed for the main room, but the instant she pushed open the door, the sight before her brought her to an abrupt halt.

In the next instant, her smiling face darkened completely.

On the couch.

Zongzheng Heng sat reclining, his inner robe half open, revealing the lean muscles of his chest.

An older female attendant knelt beside the couch, applying ointment to the whip wounds on his back.

Zongzheng Heng caught sight of someone entering out of the corner of his eye. He looked up, saw it was her, and was about to speak-

Smack!

A resounding slap landed hard across his face.

The force knocked his face to one side, and a red mark instantly rose across his cheek.

Zongzheng Heng's gaze froze.

He slowly turned his face back and looked at Qiao Shuyi with those dark eyes.

The attendant at his side was scared out of her wits. She fell to her knees on the floor with a thud, her forehead pressed to the ground and her voice trembling:

"Miss..."

Qiao Shuyi looked down at her:

"Get out."

The attendant scrambled and crawled out, not daring to linger another moment.

Only the two of them remained in the room.

Zongzheng Heng stood up, his gaze sinister.

What was wrong with this young miss now?

Had he done something to offend her, or had someone upset her outside, and she was taking it out on him?

Before this, he had almost truly believed that this madwoman liked him, that she had at least a little genuine feeling for him.

Heh.

Who liked someone and beat and berated them at every turn?

"Zhigui, I was gone for only half a day, and you've already learned to attract bees and butterflies? You even let another woman touch you!"

Zhigui froze.

Another... woman?

He gritted his teeth. "Shushu... she's an attendant in her forties or fifties."

"So what! Zhigui, I'll get jealous! I can't bear it, can't bear the slightest bit of intimacy between you and anyone else-you're mine!"

The corner of Zongzheng Heng's mouth twitched slightly.

He truly... could not understand how this woman's mind worked.

Was she truly unable to tolerate him having contact with others, or was she merely making an issue of it to pick a fight on purpose?

If a maid had applied the medicine for him and she got angry, he could barely understand that.

After all, maids were young. If she got jealous, that was at least plausible.

But the attendant he had found was over forty, her hands as rough as tree bark, and she was old enough to be his mother-

Even so, she could still go mad over it?

He opened his mouth, a bellyful of retorts rising to his lips.

He wanted to say-

You left me here all day. The wounds on my back still hurt. What's wrong with applying medicine?

The attendant is from your own courtyard, not someone I found outside. What are you going mad for?

Can't you be reasonable?

But when the words reached his lips and he met her reddened eyes, he swallowed them back down.

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they were completely calm.

"Shushu... I was wrong. It won't happen again."

As soon as he admitted fault, Zongzheng Heng saw the madness churning in her eyes recede little by little.

Those eyes became clear again, innocent, even... aggrieved.

He breathed a sigh of relief inwardly, even forgetting the slap he had just received and the burning pain in his cheek.

Qiao Shuyi brushed her fingertips over his slapped left cheek:

"Zhigui, does it hurt?"

"Zhigui, you're mine. Don't be intimate with anyone else, all right? When I came in just now and saw her applying medicine for you, I suddenly... lost my senses."

"I like your face so much, yet I slapped it. You can imagine... how heartbroken and miserable your behavior just now made me."

Absurd!

She had hit him, yet she still wanted him to coax her.

She had gone mad, yet she still wanted him to admit fault.

But what could he say?

He could only lower his eyes and speak in a quiet voice:

"It doesn't hurt."

After a pause, he added:

"I was wrong."

Hearing that, Qiao Shuyi slowly broke into a smile.

She threw herself into his arms, wrapped her arms around his waist, and buried her face in his chest. Her voice came out muffled:

"Zhigui, you're so good."

Zongzheng Heng looked down at the head buried in his chest, at the black hair trembling slightly, and remained motionless.

He did not know what to say.

They embraced for a while, with only the soft crackle of the candle flame remaining in the room.

At last, Qiao Shuyi drew back from his arms, took his hand, and sat down on the couch with him again.

She looked at him, her gaze luminous, as though it held a pool of spring water:

"Zhigui, let me apply the medicine for you again, all right? But it makes me uncomfortable that the medicine someone else applied is on your back, so let me wash it clean first, then apply it again, all right?"

Zongzheng Heng: "..."

"All right."

He turned around, presenting his back to her and exposing the crisscrossing whip wounds across it.

A handkerchief soaked in cool water rubbed against the wounds.

Every rub brought pain.

Zongzheng Heng clenched his back teeth.

Is this madwoman torturing me?

He silently counted his breaths, swallowing the pain little by little.

Only when Qiao Shuyi finally put down the handkerchief did his taut back relax.

Then warm fingers dipped in ointment touched his wounds.

Now she was treating him with careful tenderness; compared with the ordeal he had just suffered, one was in heaven and the other on earth.

He relaxed and closed his eyes, enjoying the moment of gentleness.