Li Qiao lost her senses, staring into the depths of his eyes, and subconsciously murmured, "Why don’t you just say it’s your lawn that’s too slippery..."
Shang Yu squinted his cold eyes, inching his handsome face closer, the breath of the two mingling, their proximity no more than a whisker away.
After a few seconds of silence, he teased, "From what you’re saying, should I dig up that patch of grass then?"
Li Qiao pursed her lips, remaining silent.
Perhaps it was the low temperature in the mountains that made her feel the man’s palm getting hotter and hotter; even through the fabric, it burned her skin, making her whole body heat up.
With her throat dry and tongue parched, Li Qiao was about to speak when Shang Yu slowly withdrew his hand and let her go.
The unexpected embrace wasn’t too long or too short, but Li Qiao’s heart struggled to calm down.
She continued to walk forward with her head down, unintentionally touching her warm cheeks with the back of her hand, her lips curving into a faint smile.
It was only at that close distance did she notice that Shang Yu had a very subtle mole by the corner of his left eye, hidden among the eyelashes and the corner of the eye, which was distinct and attractive.
However, no sooner had Li Qiao taken a step forward than her wrist was abruptly tightened. She pauses in mild surprise, looking back to meet Shang Yu’s lowered gaze, his expression seemingly... showing signs of anger.
Following his gaze to the ground, Li Qiao noticed a small abrasion where the upper of her shoe met her foot, where the skin had been scraped.
She must have cut it on a sharp grass blade when she slipped.
Li Qiao rubbed her shoe against the ground, casually remarking, "It’s nothing, just a small scratch."
If it hadn’t been for Shang Yu, she wouldn’t have even noticed it.
Still, there was no sign of his expression softening.
The next second, without waiting for Li Qiao to speak again, he pressed his lips tightly together, turned, and pulled her back toward the mansion urgently.
He moved briskly, at quite a pace.
Li Qiao was taken aback.
When the two returned to the mansion’s living room, as soon as they were seated, Liuyun brought over a medical kit.
Without a word, Shang Yu took the kit from him, deftly removed the iodine and antiseptic cotton, and turned to see Li Qiao holding out her hand to him, "Master Yan, I’ll do it myself."
To be honest, such a minor injury was, in her eyes, no different from a mosquito bite.
But Shang Yu’s approach, intangibly laced with significance and care, didn’t allow her to disregard his kindness.
At that moment, the man seemed not to hear her words. His long fingers holding the tweezers, he slowly squatted in front of the couch, his tone icy, "Put it up here."
Li Qiao bit her lip, took a deep breath, and acquiesced.
Thus, from a short distance away, Liuyun and Luoyu personally witnessed their lord, decisive in slaughter, kneeling on one knee, placing Li Qiao’s calf on his own, while he meticulously cleansed her wound with tweezers.
Liuyun thought that the little wound was at most a scraped surface that would probably... heal by tomorrow if left untreated.
It was also in that moment that Luoyu recognized a fact: to Shang Shaoyan, the South Sea merchant, Li Qiao was unmatched and irreplaceable.
The leader of the Secret Hall, the underground Overlord of the South Sea, in front of his subordinates, bent his back and his knee for Li Qiao.
A few minutes later, after Shang Yu finished treating Li Qiao’s wound, he tossed the tweezers back into the kit and looked up at Li Qiao with a gloomy gaze, his eyes as deep as a cold pool and in a commanding tone told Liuyun, "Dig up all the grass on the hillside lawn, replace it with new turf."
It was that day that Li Qiao learned something: Shang Yu valued her, valued her to the extent that she couldn’t have the slightest harm come to her.
Should there be any, he would become dark and tyrannical, stern and cold.