Ch.197 Jing Er (1)
Xie Xuanchen exhausted all his self-control and turned around. He thought that he was mentally prepared, but when he witnessed the scene behind him, his brain was congested and he almost lost control. Mu Mingtang had unbuttoned her shirt, leaving only her tube top on, as she lay prone on the bed. However, her tube top did not cover her back, that is to say, now her back was entirely exposed before Xie Xuanchen's eyes, as she laid weakly on the bed.
Xie Xuanchen cursed in his heart. Ever since Mu Mingtang stayed by his side, Xie Xuanchen had tried his best to restrain the vulgar side of him. Of course, he couldn’t speak the vulgarities he had learned in the barracks in front of Mu Mingtang. But at this moment, Xie Xuanchen really couldn't help but had the urge to swear. He was married, and the person before him was his concubine. Why did he suffer through this?
Mu Mingtang waited for a while, and saw as Xie Xuanchen was still, she looked back at him questioningly: "What's the matter?"
Xie Xuanchen's expression was stiff, and his gaze seemed off. Seeing as she had looked back at him, Xie Xuanchen seemed to have made an extremely difficult decision, and said stiffly: "It’s nothing."
Mu Mingtang then nodded and retracted her gaze. She pressed the side of her face on the brocade and thought, Xie Xuanchen was truly reluctant to have close contact with people, he was already this uncomfortable under this situation.
Mu Mingtang sighed in her heart.
Xie Xuanchen stiffly applied the ointment and spreaded it thinly on the palm of his hand, he tried his best to look away, and not to look at Mu Mingtang's back, which was as smooth as mutton fat jade, but Xie Xuanchen still regretted his decision the moment his palm touched Mu Mingtang's back.
He really overestimated himself, he already had to restrain himself just by looking at it, and now he had to get his hands on it. The fact that he could feel her and not see anything made it even easier for his thoughts to run wild.
But he didn't dare to place his gaze on her, as he was afraid of the things that he would do. Mu Mingtang always said that he was her lifesaver, the world’s hero. Although Xie Xuanchen felt numb upon hearing this, after some time, he actually felt that he had to upkeep such an image.
If the little girl knew that her savior was not how she imagined him to be, and actually did something that bad…...Xie Xuanchen didn't dare to think on.
Mu Mingtang had never been this intimate with an outsider. She had begun sleeping alone since she was six years old, she was not even this intimate with her mother, let alone a man. Mu Mingtang could feel his slender and strong hands on her shoulder. Direct skin to skin contact was different from having contact with a layer of clothing. For example, Mu Mingtang could feel the rough calluses on his hands even if they looked silky white. Hands that had rough calluses belonged to a pair of hands that held blades and shot arrows.
Mu Mingtang's head was buried under the quilt, with her face flushed red. She found the scene rather awkward if she didn’t speak, but she was too embarrassed to look up, so she still hid herself under the quilt and asked in a dull tone, "So how did you find out about it?"
Xie Xuanchen was trying his best to restrain his thoughts, this was when he heard Mu Mingtang's question and was startled: "What?"
"That maid from this afternoon." Mu Mingtang added, "The post-mortem examiner said that she had drowned, but I don’t believe him. Did you discover something about this?"
Xie Xuanchen's mood was a whole rollercoaster ride, and in the end, he gritted his teeth. He was startled, he thought Mu Mingtang had realised that he…... but was she too oblivious, at this moment, she even had the mood to think about the maid?
Xie Xuanchen didn't know whether to be angry with himself or to be angry at Mu Mingtang, so he targeted all his anger at the emperor. In the case where he discovers that the emperor was indeed behind all this, just wait and see how he deals with this hypocritical bastard!
"Why aren’t you talking?"
Xie Xuanchen sighed and accepted his fate. He has to control the force he exertes from his fingers, while restraining his gaze so it doesn’t drift elsewhere, and at the same time he has to clarify matters to his concubine: "What do you want to hear about first?"
"About the maid. Did she really drown to death?"
"Definitely not." Xie Xuanchen said, "She was killed and dumped into the lake."
"Why?"
"If one really slipped and fell into the water, there will definitely be traces of struggling. There will be mud and sand on one’s head, hair, hands and feet, and the corpse shouldn't look that way." Xie Xuanchen paused after speaking and hesitated, "Do you really want to listen on?”