Chapter 26 – If A Boy Closes His Eyes, That Means He Wants You To Kiss Him (3)
“With the vileness of the things they partake in, they may only walk in the shadows. Right now, we are both at Hanzhong, far away from the Lin family’s sphere of influence. Even those bandits would not dare to capture me so openly. But your words ring true as well, being cautious is never wrong.” Yu Xingzhi took over in stoking the flames and continued, “I am just sorry that I have involved a girl like you, that you have to end up suffering such poor living conditions with me. Let me do it, you can take a rest.”
Zhou Xiaoxiao smiled and passed the work of cooking to Yu Xingzhi. Since someone is feeling bad, she should just take the opportunity to rest. Zhou Xiaoxiao found herself a comfortable position to lay back and picked up a blackened branch, drawing a cuckoo bird on the stone at her feet.
With a few strokes, a lively and cute little bird emerged.
Unfortunately, she had taken up sketching when she was still in school. If she had known she would transmigrate, then she would have taken traditional Chinese painting, so Zhou Xiaoxiao thought as she admired her work narcissistically.
“A good drawing, I can almost hear it breathing,” Yu Xingzhi praised from the side. He picked up another branch and with a wave of his hand, wrote down a line of words. The strokes of his writing was both charming and filled with life.
What he wrote was a short poem from the poet Li Shangyin’s collection: Emperor Wang’s Spring Heart and the Cuckoo
“Such well-written words.”
“The legends say that Emperor Wang’s courtesy name was that of the cuckoo bird, Zigui.”
“Hm?”
“My courtesy name is Zigui as well.”(The story is: Emperor Wang turns into a cuckoo bird after he abdicates the throne and he cries in spring, which is a metaphor for love/lust, for his lover.)
Is this old-fashioned flirting?
The way ancient people expressed their romantic thoughts were very vague, but Zhou Xiaoxiao also expresses that she likes this very much.
And so, the two of them enjoyed their graffiti side by side.
“I can see that your movements are coming more and more smoothly these days. The doctor said today that as long as you took good care of yourself, you will have no troubles. Does it really not hurt anymore?”
“When you mention it, it is still a little…uncomfortable.” Yu Xingzhi’s ears were tinged with a light shade of red.
Yu Xingzhi had always been a very restrained person, so he would not easily mention it even if he were severely injured. It was this sentence that stunned Zhou Xiaoxiao for a moment before she came to her senses.
“Sigh, you’ve become naughty.” Zhou Xiaoxiao nudged him and said, “If you want to listen to a story, you can just tell me. There is no need to urge me in this way.”
The gentleman who wanted to listen to her stories but was too embarrassed to say it just smiled.
“Fine then, where did we leave off last time? I think we stopped at the cherry blossom island, where the owner was picking a son-in-law…”
The wilderness was beginning to grow cold but the flames still hummed warmly. The two of them enjoyed their tasteful chicken soup and had their roasted sweet potatoes.
Under the starry sky, he listened as Zhou Xiaoxiao mentioned of songs about green tides within the sword-testing pavilion.
The sounds of the nights grew louder, and Zhou Xiaoxiao began to feel a little sleepy.
In her daze, a soft voice sighed, “I just don’t know why the island owner Huang disliked Guo Jing so much.”
“They were of differing ideologies and standing, they had never been a good match to begin with.” Zhou Xiaoxiao’s eyes were struggling to stay open, and even her speech began to slur. “He is a scholarly and graceful man from a noble family, of course he would not be able to stand someone unsophisticated like him who grew up in the savage wildlands…”
But before she could finish speaking, her body leaned over to Yu Xingzhi’s, and she fell asleep.
During her sleep, she had no idea that Yu Xingzhi had gently covered her with a blanket and set her head on his lap, sitting by himself in front of the flames for a long time.
There is no need for you to think about such things.
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