Gu Xiqiao knew that Jiang Shuxuan had gone out, and could also guess what the heck he had gone to do.

He had been angry at the wedding banquet, and according to his attitude, Gu Xiqiao thought that he would definitely make some sort of move. So when Shu Chen was talking to her and she noticed him slip out of the house, she didn’t say anything.

Shu Chen didn’t stay for long, leaving after not even twenty minutes.

Gu Xiqiao toweled her hair as she looked at the bracelet on her wrist.

The bracelet was creamy white, a smooth and flawless texture all around. Gu Xiqiao could naturally recognize the jade to be extremely high quality. Its toughness and wear resistance were the strongest among the categories of jade, even the details on it were delicate.

The jade in her hands at least had a thousand years’ worth of history in it.

Gu Xiqiao raised her right hand, then her left, a jade bracelet on each wrist.

Both her hands had a jade bracelet, and while some might think it strange for a person to wear two jade bracelets like that, Gu Xiqiao could only feel that the two bracelets had been customized specially for her. The white sheep-fat jade stood out against her milky white skin, sparkling beautifully.

One was a pale, light blue, while the other was white. Under the light, both bracelets glowed softly with a pale green glow, but what Gu Xiqiao was looking at, was not the appearance of the bracelets, but the energy contained within. She squinted her eyes as she stared at them, a thoughtful look in her eyes.

Just when she was in her own world, the door opened with a click.

It was about time Jiang Shuxuan returned, and Gu Xiqiao looked up casually to see Jiang Shuxuan standing at the door.

“Brother Jiang,” Gu Xiqiao greeted, flashing him a smile. Then she walked to the bed, sitting down. She continued to dry her hair while on the bed.

There had been a lot of mixed smells in the banquet hall today, and Gu Xiqiao felt the scent sticking to her dress, and that was the reason she went ahead and took a shower first.

After toweling her hair for a while more, she found it strange that Jiang Shuxuan had yet to say anything since he came in.

She couldn’t help but stop what she was doing, turning to look at him. When her eyes met his deep, dark ones, she paused.

Jiang Shuxuan’s eyes slowly slid downwards from her face, watching the water drip from her hair, sliding down her face and onto her neck, then down her delicate collarbone.

The water droplet sparkled slightly under the light on her collarbone, and Jiang Shuxuan’s eyes narrowed slightly at the sight.

After he had stopped in his steps, he closed the door, turning the lock with a click.

Outside the door, Yu Ning, who had just reached the top of the stairs, saw the door closed and locked. He held the computer in his hands. “…”

“Alright, come on down.” Luo Wenlang called up to him from the bottom of the stairs. “Come and play cards with us. Butler Jiang has informed us that they have arranged rooms for us, so let’s bring some life into the Jiang residence tonight.”

“Yeah.” Yu Ning sighed, then trudged downstairs reluctantly.

He had always been fascinated by network technology. There was a code that he couldn’t figure out, which had only taken Gu Xiqiao two minutes to do it previously, so he wanted to ask her. Unfortunately, when he reached, Jiang Shuxuan was just closing the door!

Yu Ning was feeling laden with grief as he trudged back down.

Then, recalling the battlefield of blood that Jiang Shuxuan had been standing in just now, Yu Ning shrank into himself for a moment, his footsteps picking up as he hurried down to follow Luo Wenlang.

***

Inside the room, Jiang Shuxuan narrowed his eyes, looking at the direction of the door before turning around and walking towards Gu Xiqiao in an unhurried manner. “I’ll help you dry your hair.”

He reached out to take the towel from Gu Xiqiao’s hands. The bones of his knuckles stood out prominently, and he didn’t wait for her reply before taking the towel, his fingers brushing against hers. He had always been diligent in his care for her, but today felt different, and Gu Xiqiao could still feel the lingering warmth where he had brushed against her.

He was bent over slightly, his lips at her ear as he spoke into it. His voice was deep, a little hoarse and hypnotic. When he spoke, his breath was warm in her ears.

The room was quiet save for the rustling of the towel, and it magnified Gu Xiqiao’s feelings multiple times.

She wanted to turn her neck, but before she could move, Jiang Shuxuan pressed a hand to her neck. “Don’t move, I’m not done yet.”

He was really taking his time, almost as though he was toweling her hair strand by strand, meticulously combing through each strand with the towel.

Gu Xiqiao blinked, her long eyelashes trembled slightly with the movement. A faint blush was seeping into her usually pale, white face, the pupils of her eyes gaining a slightly pink hue as the time went on. Her body was also feeling unusually hot, and she tried to ignore it, but ultimately couldn’t. She bit her lower lip, then opened her mouth to ask, “Just now, you went and resolved the problem of those mutated beasts, right?”

“Yeah,” Jiang Shuxuan replied distractedly, his eyes dark with something that wasn’t anger that she couldn’t see as she was looking somewhere else. “There shouldn’t be any problems in the short term.”

“That’s good.” Gu Xiqiao’s mind was working quickly. She had always been smart, and even at this time, there were a lot of topics that she could pull out to talk about. She was trying hard to dispel the strange atmosphere that was in the room at this moment.

“You…”

Just as she opened her mouth to start again, Jiang Shuxuan chose this moment to become impatient, throwing the towel to one side and placing his hand on top of her head directly.

A layer of white mist covered the top of her head after a tick, and Gu Xiqiao’s wet dripping hair instantly dried.

Gu Xiqiao couldn’t say anything at his actions, an exasperated look on her face after she realized what he had done.

The next second, her chin was lifted up gently.

Their eyes met, and Gu Xiqiao saw his eyes, which were usually cold and distant, holding an unknown emotion in them. The breath was knocked out of her instantly.

She could feel his breath on her face, as he had leaned in closer to her after he had dried her hair.

Jiang Shuxuan took his time studying the face in front of him. The slender arch of her eyebrows, her long, delicate eyelashes, the clear and shining pair of eyes, the straight, sharp nose, and thin lips that resembled the color of cherry blossoms… He liked every single feature he saw on this person, to the point that he knew that his current affection toward her was overflowing.

She didn’t know this, but when he woke up every morning, he would observe her face for a long time in the morning, as if he would never see enough of it in his lifetime.

Gu Xiqiao had just taken a shower, and he could smell the milky scent wafting from her skin. He remembered the shower gel in the bathroom was a milk smell, which was pleasant.

He had been enduring for a long time now, and today, he finally didn’t need to hold back anymore. He didn’t say anything as he leaned in, his lips on her eyelashes, eyelids, nose, and it seemed that he had kissed her entire face before finally landing on her lips.

As soon as their lips touched, he felt his body stiffened, his hands sliding down from her chin, all the way down to her hands.

He undid the white bathrobe, continuing to pepper her face with kisses when his hand touched the smooth surface of the jade bracelets on her wrists. His eyes were clouded as he rasped out, “This… did Mom give this to you?”

“Hmm…” Gu Xiqiao’s mind was a jumbled mess from the affection she was showered in, and she felt as though her brains were exploding.

These feelings had never been so vivid before. Although they lived together these days, Jiang Shuxuan was restrained, and almost a perfect image of a gentleman. Even in the caves that one time, they didn’t go all the way, and after that he took seven days to purify the poison from her body.

“Brother Jiang…” She couldn’t handle the overload of touch she could feel on her body, her hands coming up to rest on his collarbone area.

Her eyes were half lidded, a clouded look in her usually clear eyes, and at a glance, she looked extremely confused.

Jiang Shuxuan reached up to intertwine their fingers slowly, leaning in closer to her as he whispered into her ears, “Say my name.”

His voice was deeper than usual, slightly muffled and unusually erotic. His breath tickled her ears when he breathed, and she shivered.

She had been biting her bottom lip, and it took a while before her brain processed the words he had said, and she stuttered slightly once she had a moment of lucidity through the haze that was clouding her mind. “Jiang Shuxuan… Shuxuan…”

His hands on hers tightened unconsciously the moment his name spilled from her lips, as though he was hearing her say his name for the first time. He lowered his head without hesitation, sealing her lips with his, swallowing up any other words that she was going to say.

***

Gu Xiqiao opened her eyes after the night, and beside her, Jiang Shuxuan was already awake. His eyes turned to her when he noted she was awake, and there was no hint of the usual coldness in his eyes when he looked at her, but rather a hint of a smile in it.

“Ugh… what time is it?” She felt a headache pounding behind her head, then remembered that she needed to serve Shu Chen and the others tea this morning1.

Then there were the matters to settle at Delxun Forest.

As she spoke, she pulled herself out of bed with little difficulty.

“Mom has dropped by before this, and she said to let you rest a bit more. She’s gone out to play cards with her friends…” Jiang Shuxuan stopped her, pressing a hand to hers.

She’s been here? Then she went out because they hadn’t got up yet? There was a deafening roar in Gu Xiqiao’s mind at that, but before she could feel embarrassed, she was pulled down next to the warm body.

Gu XIqiao hadn’t even woken up fully, then she gave in to the slumber that overtook her once again.

When she woke up again, Jiang Shuxuan was once again up, shifting through some papers on the bed beside her. “You’re awake?”

He lowered his head to look at her, a soft expression on his face and a rare smile on his lips.

Gu Xiqiao could only stare at him unblinkingly, because she didn’t have anything to say. She looked at the sunlight that was streaming into the room that even the curtains couldn’t block, and knew that it wasn’t early in the day anymore.

She picked up the phone from the bedside table, and checked the time. It was already past three in the afternoon…

“The meal is still hot.” Jiang Shuxuan cleared away the papers that were on the bed, getting out of bed and bringing her a change of clothes. “Put on your clothes first, I’ll bring breakfast up.”

Gu Xiqiao accepted the clothes without much change in expression, then got down from bed and headed to the bathroom, washing up and changing her clothes.

Her body didn’t feel sticky anymore, and after her bath, there wasn’t any trace of the night’s activity left on her body at all. As she dried herself off and put on her clothes, she thought about it.

Although her physique was good, it didn’t mean that it could ignore indulgence and excessive desires of a normal body.

She sighed and went to brush her teeth. After she was done, Jiang Shuxuan had already returned with a meal for her. She sat on the small sofa in the room, and Jiang Shuxuan also sat beside her, watching her eat, his hand on her back as he rubbed soothing circles.

When the great elders and the others gathered in the study, it was a similar scene they came upon.

Gu Xiqiao was sitting down on the chair, with Young Master Jiang standing behind her, massaging her shoulders.

She looked up to look at the great elder and asked, “What’s happened?”

1 the tea ceremony is a Chinese custom practiced when entering a new family through marriage