[Alternate t.i.tle: Soft
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The wind is strong, drifting Jiahui"s boat further away. She held onto the sail for dear life, the many bloodstains on her face fusing with her tears, making large and intricate patterns.
“Help me! Save me! Mom! Dad! Grandma! Zhongli! Cousins! Aunt! Uncle! Where are you?! Save me!” She shouted herself hoa.r.s.e as she cried.
What poor luck she has. Any route she takes equals misfortune. This is a wide lake and she"s a non-swimming, dry duck, simply not a mallard at all. As for rowing, she can"t say that she has no strength, but she doesn"t see a paddle anywhere, so how could she row it…?
She can only hold onto this shabby boat right now, living or dying with it. But even if it can float to sh.o.r.e eventually, what is she going to do when she gets there?
She doesn"t want all these disheartening thoughts. She stood for so long that her legs went numb, then decided it would be better to take a rest before taking up the delight of survival again. She supports herself on the sail, trying to crouch down for a moment, but her feet slip out from under her legs…
When it rains, it pours. A slow ship meeting the wind is everything, but in Jiahui"s current opinion, it"s not worth anything at all. She flopped into the water, saw the boat wasn"t too far, and did everything she could to reach out, grab it, and climb back up. As bad luck would have, her hard work ended up with her throwing herself at nothing.
There"s only one thought in her mind right now, and it"s that now, she"s really done for…
She should have looked at the Yellow Calendar when she left. This time, she really is going to die abroad, far away from her hometown. She isn"t much afraid of death – it"s not like she hasn"t died before – but she just misses Zhongli Luo a bit. Apart from that, she doesn"t feel much. No regrets, no despair. If she must say something, then she still has some lack of resignation; in her last life, she muddled through a bad existence depending entirely on that Liu family, and in this one, she was killed by her own over-acting brain.
It"s all Zhongli Luo"s fault! Always staying out here, not coming back to see her, and never sending letters. She just misses him! Thinking about him during the day, then thinking about him all night, thinking about him all day long! In her world, it"s as if she"s lonely even in her loneliness. She saw each of her friends get married and have kids and her heart got stopped up.
Wen Anying"s saying to kidnap him back was exactly what she wanted, and in order to meet the one in her heart in person, she"ll travel however many li away. That"s how she is by nature. When she said she"d make the preemptive strike, she turned around and tried to curry Zhongli Luo"s favor at every point, and this time was the same; she said she"d go so she"s gone, not a shred of hesitation! Would she really have to wait until Zhongli Luo returns in glory at age twenty-seven?!
Zhongli Luo… she really missed him!
She knows she won"t be living on. In a very short instant, past events go by like a , replaying over and over again in her mind. The Zhongli Luo of her last life and the Zhongli Luo of this life are superimposing on each other, flashing between the two before her eyes, dazing her until she can no longer comprehend them…
“Jiahui!”
Hm? Is someone calling for her? Seems like… Zhongli Luo"s voice. Ah… she really is dying, and quick, for this moment of auditory hallucination. He"s still on the Northwestern battlefield. How could he show up in this area?
“Jiahui!”
Accompanying this sound was Jiahui, who was rapidly losing consciousness, getting pulled into a warm embrace, and her head was once more above the surface of the lake.
She spurted out a good deal of water, then her whole body sat paralyzed in this warm embrace. She stared in shock, mumbling, “Zhong… li… Luo…”
Her head leaned powerlessly against him, saying this with a pause between each syllable, every character seeming to use up all the energy in her body.
“I"m here.” Zhongli Luo spoke softly, right into her ear.
Those two, simple words nearly had Jiahui wailing bitterly upon hearing them. She choked with sobs as she spoke, “Why are you here?!”
She had almost thought– that she"d never see him again in her life! That was how it went the last time; Zhongli Luo left, and when she could finally see him, she died.
“It"s okay, Jiahui, I"m here now. Don"t be scared, don"t be scared,” he placated her, hugging her tight.
Jiahui nodded amenably, holding firmly onto him, fingers clenched tight as if she feared she"d lose him. With him now at her side, this will have been worth it even if she drowns and gets eaten by fish.
She has no idea how big this lake is, nor did she know if they"d end up dying. She only knows that, at this moment in time, there"s more than the sound of the wind and water; there"s Zhongli Luo"s heartbeat, and it"s a beat that puts her at absolute ease.
Zhongli Luo embraced the dizzy Jiahui, and without a word, she paddled through the water with all her might, simultaneously making sure not to let Jiahui"s head go under the water.
She was actually exhausted, the injury on her back still hurting, being inflicted from a slash by a Xirong half a month prior. She had received a letter from the capital a few days ago while the wound was being treated, and her worry was endless, spurring her horse on day and night without rest to catch up with them, taking no consideration for rest and searching as she went. Rong Chen went out of his mind for his daughter; along with releasing twenty carrier pigeons, he also had people waste no time riding in on a speedy horse to send to word to her, fearing that it wouldn"t get to her.
She actually hadn"t known that Jiahui was aboard that boat, merely acting according to her morals; water bandits" ways disgust her. Who could have predicted that when she planned on returning from the boat and continuing on her hasty journey, she would hear Jiahui"s voice pleading for help?
She thought without thinking and jumped into the water. That"s how she"s always been; if something concerns Rong Jiahui, she loses her wits.
Jiahui is small and really isn"t heavy, but in Zhongli Luo"s present situation, dragging her is still a bit too strenuous. She can only keep a firm hold as she pulls Jiahui on, fearing that if her hand slips, the girl will be gone. The sky is now very dark and she"s unable to make out a thing, nor does she know where the sh.o.r.e is. All she can do is swim on forever.
Gradually, she began to feel foggy. She bit on her tongue, traces of a b.l.o.o.d.y taste spreading throughout her mouth, the pain clearing up her mind by a lot.
Rong Jiahui cannot die! Even if she dies, Jiahui must continue to live! That"s all Zhongli Luo could think of.
When Jiahui came to once more, the sky had since brightened from the seldom-seen sun. She lay upon a sh.o.r.e, hurting all over as if she"d been run over by a carriage. There isn"t a bit of strength in her and she doesn"t want to move at all. She might have been in the sun for a long time, as the surface of her clothes were dry, but with the thick layers, the innermost ones were as soaking wet as before and seeped with water.
Right! She abruptly remembers that she"d come across Zhongli Luo unwittingly. What about him? Don"t tell her that she"s dreaming again?
She fought to turn her head, and saw that not far away was Zhongli Luo"s deathly pale face as he laid on the lakeside, steeping in the extremely shallow water.
She sighs in relief. That"s good.
Dragging her aching body, she crawled over bit by bit, apprehensively putting her head to his chest. By great fortune, his heart is still beating; he"s alive!
As he was laying in the water, she pulled at his hand, wanting to drag him to an area that didn"t have any. She"d only towed him a bit when she saw the water under his back slowly turn red.
Jiahui"s expression twisted, promptly taking him into her arms and turning his body over. Upon seeing his back, Jiahui covered her mouth, biting her lip and she nearly started crying.
Zhongli Luo"s back is oozing blood. It isn"t a small injury, and anyone could tell it isn"t new.
The cut had surely split open; as far as this stuff goes, Jiahui understands nothing. All she does understand is that she mustn"t let him keep bleeding, and she has to re-wrap it.
She pulled Zhongli Luo onto the sh.o.r.e, looked at her own layers and layers of clothing, and callously raised up a dried piece of her skirts and bit it. After biting it through, she used force to tear it, making a strip of cloth.
Now"s not the time to be bashful. After some mental self-preparation and a reddening of her face, she carefully undid Zhongli Luo"s clothes. After squinting in concentration, she carefully moved a piece back a bit, then stared blankly.
He was bandaged up a bit too meticulously before this. In addition to the wound on his back, his chest is also wrapped up tight. What does that mean? Is there actually more than one injury?
She internally panicked, rushing to undo them to get to the bottom of it, but she"d only torn them half open when something seemed amiss…
She watched the area around the wide cloth that she"d loosed start to swell up slightly and was struck dumb at once, because this, this, this–! What"s going on here?!?!
She gulped, going to great lengths to make herself come back to her sense. Then she seemed to think of something, and sullenly, using the courage of wrist-breaking warrior, reached out, and pressed down…
It"s soft…
Great G.o.ds above!
She throws her face towards the sky and shouts! The Heavens are messing with her!
What is this?! In her last life she was married off by order of her parents and the words of a matchmaker to a son of a b.i.t.c.h who was only thinking about her cousin! In this life she finally finds someone she genuinely likes, and the result! The result is that he"s actually a woman! Woman! Woman!
No wonder this person had no wife at twenty-seven, and can"t ‘know" anyone, and can"t have any heirs! Was just flat-out telling her she was a girl no good? Is it that she doesn"t trust her to not just blurt it out at random?
This is just vile and despicable to the utmost! She really wants to kick this unconscious lady in the leg!
It"s a shame that she was furious for all of three seconds, changing direction to cursing Zhongli Luo out as she ferociously re-wrapped her bound chest. This Zhongli b.a.s.t.a.r.d is still a young woman; even if there"s no one here, what would her having her clothes peeled off in broad daylight look like?
Furthermore, she looked at Zhongli Luo"s oozing bandages, and her nose hurt with tears, the feeling of injustice at being deceived receding a bit from the bottom of her heart. At least this person is sincerely good to her. Though she"s a bit of a fool, it"s not so bad that she can"t recognize her heart"s own hypocrisy. She just finds it hard to deal with; a proper and ideal husband turning into a woman would make anyone upset!
She breathed in through her nose, upset. After tearing open the bandage as quick as a flash and not daring to look more, she hurriedly used the cloth torn from her skirt to help bind her up tight.
Helping Zhongli Luo to once again don her soaking clothes, she turned and looked the area up and down. It looks like some kind of wild, barren mountain area, there might be someone here. There has to be someone here! With them like this, if no one rescues them, they"re definitely not going to be able to survive.
Clenching her jaw and supporting the unconscious Zhongli Luo on her shoulder, she walked onwards, stumbling as she put all of her energy into tearing shouts from her throat. “Help! Is anyone there? Help! Help us!”
If anyone she was familiar with saw her now, they probably wouldn"t dare recognize her. A mad old lady with an unkempt appearance wailing like a ghost and howling like a wolf; where"d all the aristocratic woman go?
Fortunately, effort doesn"t fail resolute people. She didn"t know how long they walked until she finally heard the scattered sounds of footsteps.
Jiahui isn"t afraid of it being any sort of hoodlum anymore. It"s slightly better than stay here and waiting for death anyways.
She busily wiped her face with her sleeve, then managed her somewhat disheveled hair, making her look a bit more like a person. She"s aware that her looks aren"t bad at all, so they should be exploited at this point in time.
By the time a few hunters rushed over carrying bows, arrows, and prey, what they saw was a filthy yet beautiful seventeen or eighteen-year-old young lady supporting a twenty-something slim and delicate man.
Upon seeing that people had come, a few big tears slipped out of Jiahui"s eyes. A pretty young girl weeping will make anyone feel pity, no matter who it is.
One among them saw her tear-stained face, lovely and pitiful, and can"t help but ask, “Miss, you two… what"s happened here?”
Jiahui wiped her tears, half-crying, half-making up a story. “This… this lowly one and her husband were returning home when we came across these wretched water bandits…”
“Water bandits?!” A few of them were shocked. Though the bandits in this area had only shown up in recent years, they were very vicious, murdering without blinking an eye. Coming across them was equivalent to eight generations of misfortune. The locals all know not to go by water, but the young woman and husband before them are clearly foreigners, so it"s no wonder.
Jiahui nodded, weeping in the interim. “Yes. This one"s husband is serving as a soldier in the Northwest and fighting the Xirong. Hearing that his parents were gravely ill, he hurried to bring us back to his hometown of Hunan to visit. How… how could we have known that we"d run into those horrible bandits yesterday… they slashed my husband, stole our belongings, then threw us off the boat…”
Saying that, she covered her face and wept bitterly. She"d made all that up, yet it"s truly a reasonable explanation for everything, and it"s hard to pick out any flaws in it.
Regarding her and Zhongli Luo"s ident.i.ty… it was the three ideas of big brother and little sister, big sister and little sister, and husband and wife. Following a period of effort and turning them all around in her brain, she ultimately felt that a married couple would be the best to use, and the most convenient. She"s really worried that they"d have all kinds of questions, otherwise.
These several hunters are naive, and seeing Rong Jiahui speaking so pitifully, they don"t doubt her, and can"t help but sympathize for a moment.
The hunter at the forefront saw her struggling to carry him and hurriedly stepped forward. “Little lady, you and your husband can come stay at my home, there"s a vacant room. Come, I"ll carry your man for you.”
“Okay!” As the other wants to help lighten her own burden, Jiahui naturally has nothing to not be happy about. She"s also light-bodied and her condition is bad, yet she was still dragging Zhongli Luo. Ah, so tiring.
Jiahui beamed as she prepared to hand the one at her side over, but she found that a certain still-unconscious person was grabbing tight onto her, as if death wouldn"t even convince her to let go.
The translator says: Surprise! The t.i.tle was referring to both TENDER FEELINGS and TIDDY