Chapter 17

Sang Yao followed behind Xie Yun quietly, sneaking glances at him.

Xie Yun usually gave off a sense of slender and aloof elegance, but only up close could one feel the sharpness and power of this usually lazy official.

Then she suddenly realized that she seemed to not even reach his shoulder. She was already tall, at least among her peers, she was considered tall.

Sang Yao couldn’t help but think aimlessly, no wonder everyone always felt that Xie Yun was outstanding and stood out from the crowd. With such a height among the officials, he must stand out.

The light and shadows were mottled along the way. She lowered her head to look at her chest and noticed that after rubbing against this place for so long, the thin gauze covering her chest was almost dry.

She withdrew her hand, no longer trying to cover up here.

Xie Yun had been silent all along. In silence, Sang Yao just stared at his back and followed him. As they walked, she suddenly felt something was wrong.

Why was it so quiet?

She turned her head to look for Jing Lian, but couldn’t find his figure. Looking back, she saw Jing Lian following them from behind, but he was very far away.

Not only that, he was staring at her and Xie Yun with a strange look, excited with a hint of satisfaction, mixed with contentment. At this moment, he was smiling so widely that his lips almost reached his ears, revealing white teeth.

He… His expression was too obvious!

It’s a wonder that his master usually disguised himself so well, but Jing Lian, on the other hand, showed this expression as if he was afraid that she wouldn’t notice Xie Yun’s deep affection for her.

Sang Yao’s expression was complicated, and she could only cooperate as if she hadn’t noticed anything.

She turned her head, and then unexpectedly bumped into a warm and hard chest.

This time, she really bumped into it hard.

The prominent bump in front of her hit first, the warmth and softness were directly pressed into a different shape. Then her beautiful face was pressed against the man’s body. Ignoring the pain in her chest for now, her nose and lips were also bumped, causing tears to well up in her eyes.

Even Xie Yun took a step back. The sudden softness caught him off guard, and he felt like he had been squeezed by something elastic.

He instinctively frowned, lowered his head, and his gaze uncontrollably fell on the place he shouldn’t look at.

But he found that the light gauze had already dried

Only the faintly visible snow white, but this is all within the normal range.

This time, he didn’t give Sang Yao a chance to speak first, quickly stepped back to create some distance, and said first, “You’re really overstepping your bounds.”

Sang Yao covered her nose and rubbed it, her eyes red as she said, “Why didn’t you stop if you saw me stopping?”

“It hurts.”

Xie Yun slightly closed his eyes and looked at her, and Sang Yao, unwilling to show weakness, met his gaze.

Although she had been distracted for a moment just now, it was only a few blinks of an eye. It was imaginable that this man had stopped abruptly and then turned around quickly, deliberately not reminding her so she would bump into him.

Now he looked angry, but he was actually delighted.

The two looked at each other silently, both thinking the other was taking advantage of the situation and acting innocent.

Only Jing Lian behind them, his cheekbones rising to the sky, his mouth almost cracking from smiling.

After a while, Sang Yao was the first to look away.

She was always so good-natured. Although she was hurt from the bump, when she thought of Xie Yun helping her, she decided not to dwell on Xie Yun’s hidden intentions.

She said, “I’m going in to change clothes.”

With a stern little face, she added, “Why do you always peek at me?”

When she first saw Xie Yun just now, this man’s gaze shifted away quickly, but later on, he seemed to pay less and less attention to the boundaries between men and women, sneaking several glances at her. He thought she hadn’t noticed.

Xie Yun: “What did you say?”

Peeking at her? Was this person dreaming?

Sang Yao was too lazy to say more to him, bypassed him and pushed open the door. Then, after thinking about it, she turned back to look at Xie Yun and said seriously:

“Although you always peek at me, thank you today.”

Xie Yun was silent.

Perplexed, and somewhat ridiculous.

But before he could speak, the wooden door slammed shut from the inside with a bang.

“…”

He felt a long-lost feeling of being wrongly accused, turning from anger to laughter.

Jing Lian had seen enough, then approached with a smile and asked kindly, “Young Master, shall we wait here?”

Xie Yun’s eyes were cold, “Wait? Wait to collect your corpse?”

Jing Lian: “…”

This wasn’t the first time. This delicate idiot had been meeting him frequently lately. If he hadn’t sent someone to investigate, he would have suspected that this woman was not hiding her clumsiness at all.

Jing Lian quickly caught up with Xie Yun’s pace, keeping a distance from the annoyed Xie Yun beside him without saying a word.

It had been a long time since he had seen his master get angry. After all, the master usually retaliated on the spot.

Even if not, that person wouldn’t last long.

Just like His Highness the Fifth Prince, when he first arrived in the capital, there was one more prince and one fewer imperial…

Xie Yun didn’t care at all. After all, no matter how arrogant Lu Ting was, he couldn’t stir up any trouble.

But recently, this high-minded prince had been provoking him time and time again. If it were someone else, they might just give him a few warnings to make him back off.

But not this person beside him. Not only could he not tolerate him anymore, but he also harbored murderous intent.

Even Lu Ting hadn’t made his master so angry.

Thinking about it, Miss Sang really had some skills.

•  

Sang Yao originally thought that Xie Yun would wait for her outside.

The room she entered seemed to be a place for rest. After she went in and casually found some clothes to change into, she thought about how to face Xie Yun when she went out. But after preparing for a while, there was no one outside.

She breathed a sigh of relief and walked out of the courtyard herself.

Ran Dong came over from afar. Seeing only Sang Yao coming out alone and changed her clothes, he couldn’t help but look serious and asked, “Miss, why did you change your clothes?”

Sang Yao said, “It’s nothing.”

Ran Dong asked again, “But did they say anything to you again?”

Sang Yao remembered what happened earlier and pursed her lips, looking aggrieved.

She felt aggrieved not only because of those untimely so-called jokes but also resentful of her own unruly mouth.

When she was bullied, she would get angry. When she got angry, she would easily get excited, and then her mouth and eyes would start to disobey her. She couldn’t argue with others and didn’t understand why she always ended up in tears.

She always lost in terms of momentum, so she learned not to argue with others now. If she couldn’t provoke them, why not avoid them?

But even so, she would still feel angry.

Ran Dong sighed in frustration, “They are a bunch of lowly things. Miss, don’t mind them. We won’t attend such gatherings in the future.”

He helped Sang Yao onto the carriage and said in a low voice, “The biggest one among them is Li Yao Ge. Look at her, no matter how powerful she is, isn’t she still relentlessly pursuing Mr. Xie? She even had the audacity to frame you back then, but now she doesn’t even lower her head to look at herself.”

“Miss, in the future, don’t care about those petty people. I’ve figured it out. Socializing with them is just a waste of time. What ivory can come out of a dog’s mouth?”

“In the future, the tables may turn, and there may come a time when they apologize to you.”

Ran Dong kept talking, leaving Sang Yao stunned.

She thought Ran Dong was really good at cursing people.

She felt a little relieved in her heart and said, “I don’t need an apology.”

She clenched her fists and said, “I don’t care about them at all now!”

So why bother about what they think?

No matter how good or outstanding a person is, there will always be someone who criticizes them, let alone she’s just a very ordinary girl.

Ran Dong laughed and leaned against Sang Yao, saying, “Our Miss is right. Just be yourself.”

After returning home, Sang Yao called for water to bathe.

She had been splashed with tea all over her body today, and even though it had dried by now, she still felt uncomfortable.

After quickly taking off the ill-fitting clothes, she got into the bathtub. She curled up, her round shoulders exposed above the water, and she blew away the petals in front of her.

She felt sad again, feeling a bit concerned.

She muttered, “Ran Dong.”

Ran Dong prepared all the bathing items and placed them within Sang Yao’s reach, asking, “What’s wrong, Miss?”

“Is my figure really that bad? Am I too fat?”

“I should eat less tomorrow.”

“What are you saying, Miss? If you lose more weight, you’ll become a stick figure.”

Lies!

Sang Yao glanced at Ran Dong’s flat chest and felt extremely envious, “Ran Dong, you don’t need to comfort me.”

She recalled Xie Yun peeking at her today, feeling even more ashamed and annoyed. She couldn’t help but sigh, saying:

“Why do I have to deal with this? Why can’t I stop growing like this?”

Why did it grow larger than the biggest steamed bun she had ever eaten?

It was really annoying.

Could it be some kind of illness?

Ran Dong said, “Miss, why worry about this? Who says it’s not good? Some people like it, you know? Besides, although everyone is trying to be as thin as a stick now, you might be secretly envied by others.”

Sang Yao didn’t know what was there to envy. She felt that half of her life’s troubles came from this big steamed bun.

Ran Dong helped her put on her clothes and said, “Miss, stop thinking about it.”

Sang Yao then began to bathe seriously, scrubbing and scrubbing. Her thoughts drifted back, quietly thinking… it’s not that big of a deal, actually.

She secretly looked back at Ran Dong, who was busy behind her, and then quietly lifted her hand and placed it against her own body to feel it.

What’s going on?

Can’t grasp it.

She couldn’t believe it and looked down at her hand. She felt like the sky was falling. She thought it must be because her hands were too small.

If her hands were bigger…

It would be great.

A pair of well-defined knuckles naturally appeared in her mind. She mentally compared and thought that if it were Xie Yun’s hands, they would be very big, with long fingers that could probably bend slightly, which should be able to grasp it.

…Grasp what?!

What was she thinking, such a mess…

Oh no, she didn’t want to live anymore.

Sang Yao felt extremely ashamed for a moment, her face instantly turned red again. The immense shame made her feel like she couldn’t face the world anymore, so she slowly sank into the water with a big red face.

Only a series of bubbles remained on the water’s surface.

Sang Yao felt desperate. Her mind was becoming more and more shameless.

She wished she hadn’t read so much of that booklet.