Because although the general said nothing, she knew he had changed since returning from the borderlands.
His gaze no longer stayed only on her; it would occasionally, uncontrollably, drift toward Bai Xinyi.
He was being drawn to his original wife and was about to forget the promises he had once made to her.
Those mountain-and-sea vows, promises never to betray.
How could Chu Chu not hate? Fortunately, Bai Xinyi was stupid and jealous, easily provoked by a few words into such a vicious act against her.
Even if Xiao Cheng Ce was interested in Bai Xinyi, he should not continue keeping her.
Chu Chu had thought this way right up until she woke from her coma.
But the result greatly disappointed her.
The other woman had not been driven out of the general’s mansion at all. Even though Xiao Cheng Ce had written her a divorce decree, he still allowed her to temporarily stay in the mansion, with no punishment measures against her—not even kneeling or whipping—just some reductions in her food, clothing, and daily needs.
The sunlight was mild, casting the shadows of the purple wisteria tree by the window.
Chu Chu’s fingertips dug into her palm, her downcast gaze unable to conceal her resentment: She had to find another chance to thoroughly drive Bai Xinyi out of the general’s mansion!
The next day at noon, Xiang Lan packed brushes, ink, paper, and inkstone for Xin Yi, hugging a pile and slowly placing them into the box.
As she packed, she hesitated and asked, “Miss, are you really going to be Xie Shuo’s tutor? This servant saw he does not like you much. What if he deliberately puts some vicious gu on you, making you obey him or your guts rot out?”
Xin Yi paused in mid-yawn and glanced at her. “Can’t you wish me a little good? If my guts rot out, on the night my soul returns, the first thing I’ll do is crawl back to bite you.”
Thinking of something, she hurriedly shook her head, adopting a tone of lingering fear. “No, you absolutely cannot come with me. Wouldn’t that just give Xie Shuo ideas and material for tormenting me? Even if he originally had no intention of doing anything to me, sooner or later you’d egg him on until he got ideas.”
Xiang Lan pouted aggrievedly. “Miss…”
Xin Yi urged her, “Have you packed up yet? Hurry, hurry! Today is the first day your young miss is serving as a tutor for someone. We can’t be too late.”
Though she said that, they had actually been late for a long time already.
The sunlight had gone from the faint glow of early morning to the intense blaze of late morning, and now to the scorching midday heat.
Xie Shuo sat in the pavilion and waited for Bai Xinyi for an entire morning, until the sun was high in the sky, yet the person who had said she would come teach him to write still had not appeared.
The youth’s face grew increasingly grim, dark as if water could drip from it. Just as he was about to stand up, faint footsteps finally sounded in the courtyard.
He raised his eyes to look and saw that “tutor” rubbing her eyes and yawning as she leisurely carried over the brush and ink.
Her clothes were not even properly fastened, and her dark hair was sloppily braided, but that face was still breathtakingly beautiful.
Xin Yi naturally noticed that icy gaze as well.
In the pavilion not far away, the youth stared at her with a sullen face, as if the words “you’re deliberately toying with me” were written across it.
When she saw the youth’s expression, she couldn’t hold back and burst out laughing with a puff.
Thus, Xie Shuo’s expression worsened even more.
But you don’t hit a smiling face, and especially since Xin Yi could bend and stretch, the first thing she did upon arriving was apologize. “Sorry, I overslept today. I skipped breakfast and came straight to find you.”
As she spoke, her charming eyes blinked innocently, her tone soft and fluffy, poking right at the heart.
Breakfast?
Xie Shuo looked at her with extreme coldness: What breakfast at this hour? It was more like lunch. Hadn’t she noticed the sun was already high in the sky?
Xin Yi knew she was in the wrong, so she quickly spread out the paper and ink, soon grinding the inkstone ready for use.
She demonstratively wrote a few characters and showed them to the youth beside her. They were all very simple, everyday words, not hard to write at all.
Who knew that the youth would look at the wolf-hair brush she handed over, then at her face, utterly indifferent and unmoved.
He showed no intention of reaching out to take it.
Xin Yi wasn’t annoyed and kept smiling brightly.
But with a turn of her eyes, she deliberately used an exaggerated tone to ask, “You wouldn’t be thinking of having me personally hold your hand and teach you stroke by stroke, would you? I’m afraid that won’t do. The general would get jealous.”
The youth was slightly stunned, as if he hadn’t expected her to be so brazenly shameless, saying such flirtatious words without batting an eye.
But the next second, that handsome face turned pitch black like the bottom of a pot. He snatched the wolf-hair brush from her hand with a sinister glare, as if he didn’t want to hear another word from her.
Xin Yi thought, ‘That’s more like it.’
If he had been that obedient from the start, she wouldn’t have provoked him.
They wrote characters in the pavilion for several days.
Aside from that first day, Xin Yi never arrived excessively late again. She always finished breakfast early and came over.
But her so-called teaching Xie Shuo to write wasn’t about sitting quietly to the side doing nothing—that would be a huge loss for her, wouldn’t it?
She wasn’t really fond of being a tutor; she just wanted a suitable excuse to build their relationship.
So while Xie Shuo held the brush and wrote to the side, every time he seriously finished two pages of paper, Xin Yi would reach out and rub his face.
Seeing the youth’s face turn deathly black, she would laugh uncontrollably.
And taking advantage of the fact that Xie Shuo couldn’t speak, she deliberately twisted his meaning. “A Shuo likes it a lot? This is your reward. Don’t be shy. There will be one every time from now on. If you learn quickly, the reward can even be upgraded…”
She never specified what the upgrade was, stopping just short of saying it with a feigned blush, then throwing him a flirtatious glance.
It made the youth’s handsome face grow even darker.
Even the system felt uneasy in its heart, because Xie Shuo’s favorability was dropping too harshly, like a bottomless pit.
So it reminded Xin Yi, “Host, don’t you want to check the favorability and calm down? I told you to capture Xie Shuo, not piss him to death.”
Xin Yi heard it but laughed carelessly.
Then she continued courting death, continued teasing. “Have you heard that it takes 21 days to form a habit? Don’t look at how annoyed he is with me now. Maybe later he’ll love me to death. Wouldn’t that be great?”
The system: “……”
We’ll talk about it when he really loves you to death.
In just a few short days, Xie Shuo was utterly fed up.
Because the gaze of the woman beside him was too scorching, and she loved saying sweet, cloying words to him. Often, while he was writing, Bai Xinyi would cup her face and praise how handsome he was—this was pretty, that was pretty, his eyes were the prettiest.
He had barely written half a page, and she had a whole basket of nonsense.
Otherwise, she would sit there munching on candied snacks, eating and eating until he couldn’t help pausing his brush to look.
But she seemed to misunderstand his meaning, suddenly smiling so hard her eyes curved. She leaned in closer and offered him the pastry. “You want some too?”
She was too close, her body carrying a thick, sweet scent that instinctively stirred up violent irritation.
But the Bamboo Leaf Green snake he had raised for years with his blood in his sleeve seemed to adore Bai Xinyi’s scent immensely.
It always tried to approach her, wrapping around her wrist and fingertips, even wanting to burrow into her sleeve.
Xie Shuo often watched that scene, a flash of disgust in his eyes—deep, irrepressible disgust.
He thought: Snakes are lustful and base, nothing more.
It was another sunny morning, and Xin Yi taught him to write as usual. She first wrote two characters on the rice paper.
Then added a third to make three.
She said these were the three most beautiful characters in all of Central Plains writing and that he must practice them repeatedly until they were perfect.
To that end, she used both soft and hard tactics, forcing him to write a full four or five pages.
By the end, Xie Shuo could clearly feel she was doing it on purpose, his brows furrowed in an untieable knot.
He threw down the wolf-hair brush and silently stared at her, his eyes full of sinister ferocity, as if asking: What do these three characters mean?
Xin Yi sat crookedly on the table watching him, bursting into laughter with a puff, her brows and eyes blooming like flowers, full of seductive charm.
She leaned in close, her rippling red lips brushing his ear, her breath warm like an orchid. “These three characters mean ‘love Xin Yi.’ A Shuo, you’ve written so much ‘love Xin Yi.’”
Thunder boomed endlessly through the night, rain poured down in sheets, the pattering water seeping through the gaps in the leaky roof tiles.
It wet the quilt by Xin Yi’s bed, some even splashing onto her forehead.
Xin Yi sat up in utter frustration. First she cursed Xiao Cheng Ce, then his entire family.
Then she slipped on her embroidered shoes, got out of bed, hastily wrapped her clothes, grabbed the oiled paper umbrella by the door, and headed out.
The system asked puzzledly, “Host, what are you doing in the middle of the night?”
Was she planning to fix the roof herself?
Xin Yi: “Going to find Xie Shuo and beg him to take me in.”
After hearing that, the system couldn’t help falling silent.
Because given Xie Shuo’s coldness and disgust toward her, she would probably hit a wall and slink back dejectedly.
It was right; Xin Yi did hit a wall.
But she didn’t come back. She fully demonstrated what it meant to be silver-tongued and utterly shameless. Even shut out in the cold, she remained calm and composed.
Separated by a door, she said to the youth inside, “Even if I go back now, I’ll be soaked through and catch a cold. If this rain lasts a few more days, I might burn with fever and die.”
As she spoke, sorrow welled up, her voice carrying a touch of frail, pitiful choking. “So tonight, let me fulfill the last bit of my duty as a tutor: transmit the Way, impart knowledge, resolve doubts for A Shuo.”
Then the system heard its host start reciting love poems.
All sorts of love poems from ancient times to the present, explicit ones and subtle ones, even mixing in some romantic histories recorded in wild tales.
After just a moment, the door suddenly opened.
The youth gritted his teeth, his fingers gripping the door white-knuckled, his face twisted as if he wanted to devour her.
Yet Xin Yi went from tears to smiles, slipping through the open door crack with practiced ease. “I knew you’d go soft on me. You definitely couldn’t bear to watch me die of illness like this.”
The arc of her trailing skirt was even elegantly graceful.
Xie Shuo: “……”
In the end, Xin Yi obediently made a floor bed, while Xie Shuo continued sleeping on his bed.
Though their moods were polar opposites, they managed to get through to the latter half of the night without incident.
Until Xin Yi, in her sleep, heard the sound of a cup shattering on the ground. She drowsily sat up and opened her eyes, only to discover it seemed Xie Shuo had accidentally knocked it over.
So she lifted her quilt and, by the dim moonlight, walked to his bedside to check on him.
The youth still had his eyes closed, but his brows were tightly furrowed with fine sweat beading, his breathing erratic and rapid.
He looked very unwell.
Xin Yi froze, then hurriedly reached out to touch his forehead: so hot!
Before she could react, her fair wrist was gripped tightly by the youth’s scorching palm, with force nearly crushing her bones.
She couldn’t hold back a pained hiss.
The youth on the bed abruptly opened his eyes—cruel, dangerous, his pitch-black pupils turning to pale vertical slits. In his eyes, Xin Yi saw overwhelming, towering lust.
The system stammered a reminder beside her: “Host, h-he like this… seems like he’s entered his mating period.”