Chapter 16 Toes

Due to it being an upper room, the environment inside the inn was quite good.

All necessary items were complete in the room. A folding screen divided the space, and upon closer inspection, there was a half-person-high bathtub placed behind the screen.

A round-topped red lacquered wooden bed was placed against the inner wall, with long gauze curtains hanging down, and the bedding neatly folded.

In the center of the room, an eight-immortals table was placed, with celadon tea sets properly arranged on top.

A gust of wind blew in from the open window, causing Liu Changning’s furrowed brows to relax. Her body felt a bit cooler, making her feel much better.

She brushed aside the sweat-dampened hair on her forehead and supported the person beside her, slowly walking to the bedside.

Originally planning to do a good deed to the end, she intended to settle him by the bed.

However, unexpectedly, the person who had been silent all along suddenly moved, slapping away her descending hand.

Liu Changning was dumbfounded and looked up.

She saw him lowering his head, his black eyes staring at the wooden bed in front of him with complexity. His thin lips were pressed into a straight line. Seeing her direct gaze, he angrily said, “You licentious woman, I thought you were kind to me… I didn’t expect you to bring me here… a lone woman and a solitary man, taking advantage of the situation.”

Liu Changning’s eyebrows, which had just relaxed, furrowed again. She irritatedly narrowed her eyes.

She had intended to do a good deed, but underestimated how difficult the recipient of her kindness would be.

She glanced at the wound on his abdomen, her eyes deepening.

An ordinary green tea boy who liked to cling to the powerful and wealthy, actually suffering a sword wound in the street.

The wound was bleeding incessantly. Given his usual frivolous behavior, when seriously injured, encountering a lustful woman like Liu Wangcai, he should have used all his charm to seduce that fat woman to help him seek treatment.

In fact, inside the alley, there was only coldness and disgust in his eyes.

It was understandable that a cheap husband would despise poverty and love wealth, looking down on the original owner. But why would he despise Liu Wangcai, who was clearly a landowner’s daughter adorned with gold and silver?

There was only one explanation: he was pretending. His previous flirtatious or dissolute behavior might have all been a facade.

Having lived three lifetimes, if Liu Changning hadn’t noticed the clues from the cheap husband’s behavior in the alley just now, combined with the details of their interactions these past few days, she would have lived these years in vain.

She joined her five fingers, intertwining them with her little finger, and rubbed them for a while.

She had only briefly skimmed through the first third of that female-dominant novel Wei San had brought her initially. Now it seemed that the plot of the novel, including the original owner’s memories, couldn’t be fully trusted. The cheap husband was far from being as simple as imagined. If he were just an ordinary Pan Jinlian-type man, divorcing him would suffice. That was her original plan, but who knew she couldn’t divorce him, and it seemed it might even bring endless trouble.

Thinking of this, Liu Changning’s tightly furrowed brows looked as if they could pinch a fly to death.

Setting aside this person’s mysterious whereabouts, just his unpredictable and unfathomable temperament at this moment was enough to give her a headache.

She must have been stupid earlier to step forward and want to apply this plan of doing a good deed to him.

Liu Changning was an old monster who had lived three lifetimes. In her first life, on the day she was shattered by the lightning tribulation, during the heart-questioning of crossing tribulation, the Heavenly Dao asked her, “What is the Way?”

She answered, “Emotionlessness is the Way.”

Then she was struck by the Three-Nine Profound Thunder, turning into black ash.

To resist the lightning tribulation, she had spent five hundred years suppressing her cultivation to prepare, originally thinking it would be foolproof. Yet during the heart-questioning, she attracted the Three-Nine Profound Thunder, most feared by Tribulation Crossing Period ancestors.

No matter how hard she racked her brains, she couldn’t figure out why she had failed, bringing divine punishment upon herself for the single sentence “Emotionlessness is the Way.”

It was laughable that she had originally cultivated the Way of Emotionlessness, so what was wrong with that?

Later, in her second life in the modern mortal world, she experienced the cold and warm aspects of human relationships and worldly affairs. Having witnessed all the seven emotions and six desires of the mortal realm, and the seven apertures of the human heart, she finally understood the reason for her disintegration back then. Among the three thousand great ways, even emotionlessness has emotion. How could those who kill, rob, are cold-blooded and emotionless, and disregard human life attain the Way and ascend?

In this life, hating evil is not a great evil; maintaining a shred of kindness is true goodness.

Because of the heart-piercing, bone-gnawing pain when her soul was struck that day, after awakening in her second life, she set two bottom lines for being human.

That’s why earlier at the alley entrance, although she could have left with a wave of her sleeve, she still stood out, not for any other reason, but to be clear in conscience.

Unfortunately, the cheap husband not only didn’t appreciate it, but constantly included her among those with filthy thoughts. Let alone that she had no interest in men whatsoever, even if she did, it certainly wouldn’t be him.

His deliberately seductive, coquettish voice and affected manner from the past few days were nauseating.

Recalling that scene, Liu Changning shook off the goosebumps that suddenly appeared on her body.

When she looked up again, her face showed clear impatience. She sneered, “Hmm? Someone like you isn’t worthy of me.”

“You!!!” Pei Yuanshao’s fingers slightly curled, his palms sweaty and sticky.

He thought she had brought him here to take advantage of the situation, but unexpectedly, the person before him remained unmoved, her mocking words particularly harsh. The contempt in her eyes seemed entirely genuine, without a trace of pretense.

He should have been thanking heaven and earth that she no longer harbored such filthy thoughts towards him.

But at this moment, anger surged in his heart, his chest filled with indescribable bitterness.

What right did she have to look down on him?

Pei Yuanshao, the Golden Phoenix Dynasty’s Long Diqing, once galloped proudly on horseback, his delicate hands supporting an entire imperial court. When his carriage passed through the streets of Jinling City, half the women on the street would crane their necks just to catch a glimpse of him.

Even after his reputation was completely ruined, women still couldn’t keep their legs closed in front of him.

Only her!

Those tea-colored eyes, all expressions faint and indifferent.

At this moment, he could see his own furious appearance reflected in those pure pupils.

Pei Yuanshao stepped forward, reaching out to grab her collar. His thin lips parted slightly, his fierce eyes sweeping over, hatefully saying, “You dare look down on me?”

His chest heaved up and down. Perhaps due to the large movement, it pulled at his wound. Without his hand to press on it, fresh blood gushed from the wound, quickly pooling at his feet, a shocking puddle of blood.

Liu Changning: …

She frowned, at a loss for words. The man before her was too difficult to deal with. When she was kind and pleasant to him, he accused her of having ulterior motives. When she was cold and mocking, he began to question why she looked down on him.

Damn… What kind of personality did this man have, and where did his mysterious self-confidence come from? His sense of superiority was not ordinary.

Liu Changning pursed her lips, looking down to see the fresh pool of blood on the ground.

Her eyes flickered slightly, hesitating for a moment before removing his hand from her collar. She turned her head, her tea-colored eyes steadily meeting his gaze.

She said crisply, “If you don’t want me to look down on you, you need to have qualities that I find good. And right now… you’re worthless in my eyes.”

She grabbed his hand and used a bit of force to make him sit on the edge of the wooden bed.

Her eyes moved slightly, her tone softening a bit as she explained, “The inn only had one upper room left, as the young lady at the front desk already explained. Staying with you is not my intention. If you feel insulted, you’re free to leave, I won’t stop you.”

Pei Yuanshao suddenly felt a pang in his heart, hearing her once again coldly drive him away.

He stared blankly, covering his sour and bitter chest, biting his lip to shake off the chaotic emotions in his heart, struggling to stand up and leave.

What she said was right, he needed to have qualities that people would like. Now, he carried the weight of family and country, calculated meticulously, killed decisively, his hands stained with blood. What was there about him to like?

A proper gentleman should assist his wife and teach his children, be virtuous and moral.

Even if there were such strong men who could make their wife-masters willing to be together for life, they must be talented, virtuous, and have an unblemished reputation.

But he had schemed everything based on his appearance.

Yet he was infamous, his reputation completely ruined.

If he were to say that no woman had ever touched even a corner of his clothes until now, probably no one in this world would believe him.

He was dirty.

Pei Yuanshao smiled self-mockingly, and when he came back to his senses, he had completely hidden the sudden melancholy that had appeared on his face.

His expression changed, the corners of his lips curving slightly, once again becoming that bewitching yet not seductive, proud and arrogant Long Diqing.

He tried hard to break free from the restrained arm, but instead was firmly pressed against the corner of the bed by her.

Her crisp voice came from above his head, still matter-of-fact, but her tone had softened somewhat: “Alright, I admit defeat. You’ve always been clever. Since you’re unwilling to go to the medical hall, just stay put obediently. Otherwise, the wound will tear open even more, and you’ll be the one to suffer.”

Pei Yuanshao narrowed his eyes, unable to bear her pity. He turned his head away awkwardly and said coldly, “Are you threatening me?”

This time, Liu Changning didn’t bother to respond to him. She pushed him down onto the bed with one hand, lifted his straight legs, and quickly removed his silk shoes.

After doing this, she turned back to see his eyes almost popping out, looking as if she had violated him.

Is it really necessary? It’s just taking off shoes.

Liu Changning pursed her lips, just about to speak when he chopped forward with one hand.

She glanced at his wound, cursing inwardly that a good woman doesn’t fight with a man. She quickly slipped out the door.

With half her body out the door, she seemed to think of something and paused, calling back to him: “I’m going to the medical hall to get medicine for you. Stay put.”

Pei Yuanshao’s eyes blazed with anger, but unfortunately, the wooden door was tightly shut.

He belatedly stared at his own fair, jade-like, round toes.

The redness of his earlobes was hidden among his black hair, his heart pounding like drumbeats, irritatingly.

In his eyes, besides anger, there was also a trace of barely discernible embarrassment.

He still remembered when he was seven years old, he sprained his ankle, and his wife-father personally applied the imperial medicine for him.

In the Yongning Palace

Father-husband coaxed lovingly, “Does it hurt, Shao’er?”

The seven-year-old boy shook his head, his face serious as he said, “It doesn’t hurt. Mother-Emperor said that as I was born to be the heir, I must be strong and endure, to live up to the identity of the imperial family’s Long Diqing.”

Father-husband wiped away tears from the corner of his eyes with a silk handkerchief, turning his gaze away to stare at the exposed toes, and after a while said, “Shao’er has grown up. You can’t let women see your toes casually anymore. If there’s a woman you like who sees my Shao’er’s toes, you must bring her in as your wife-master.”

The seven-year-old boy pursed his lips: “Wife-master? I don’t want a wife-master. Don’t worry, Father-husband, in the future, I definitely won’t expose my toes in front of any woman.”

Peals of laughter came from Father-husband in the bedchamber: “You… you’re still young.”

***

Why She Is Still Unmoved (Female-dominant)

One-line summary: He uses various methods to seek her affection, but she remains unmoved.

Synopsis:

Si Qingyu is a doctor who has saved countless lives and enjoys tranquility.

Luo Shaoxuan is ruthless, deeply scheming, and the top young master in the capital. He admires Si Qingyu.

Luo Shaoxuan: I want to be the only one in your eyes and heart.

Features a cold and calm female lead vs A noble and scheming male lead.

There will be both sweetness and torture towards the male after their marriage.