Wu Li stared unblinkingly at the girl before him. "Will you stay with me forever? Never leave, not even a single step."
"I..."
She paused.
Swallowing the bitterness in her heart, she forced a sweet smile.
"I will always be with you." Until the very last page of the original novel.
He looked at her silently for a long time.
It took so long that Chai Xiaomi thought he had fallen asleep with his eyes open, until finally he moved his lips, forming a faint smile that revealed no emotion.
His gaze roamed over her face.
The girl's clear pupils were bright and round, her gaze shifting like the first thaw of spring water—pure and crystalline.
Having waited for him too long in the room, she had already undone her hair bun, and her jet-black hair cascaded down like silk satin.
When it spread over her body, it was like a thin layer of soft, cool silk. He particularly loved her long hair, especially when it was damp with sweat, sticking to her skin like tangled, seductive seaweed.
Now, her snow-like skin was tinged with crimson, made even more enchanting by the wedding dress.
Her cheeks, neck, collarbones, and even the tips of her ears were flushed from deep within, the redness so intense it seemed ready to seep out.
All of it was because he had kissed her from her toes all the way up, leaving marks that still hadn't faded.
Strange.
Before, when he had nuzzled and kissed her face, earlobes, neck, and collarbones, the blush had also spread, but never as intensely as it did now.
Especially when he had nearly kissed the inside of her thigh, her slender waist trembling uncontrollably like a willow in the wind, trying to escape as if in torment. That was why she had kicked him away, her face flushed both in haste and anger.
Her kick was strong—though not anything serious to him.
But usually, when she hit or pounded on him, she only pretended, unable to bring herself to put any real force into it.
This time, she was clearly pushed to the edge.
Wu Li suddenly reached out and grabbed the newly changed red gauze bed canopy. With a sharp "rip," he tore off a long strip.
"What are you doing?" Chai Xiaomi asked in surprise.
Before she could react, a hazy red veil covered her vision, though her sight wasn't completely blocked. Everything she looked at was now wrapped in a mist of red, making even the candlelight in the room seem more intimate.
Wu Li tied the red strip into a loose knot behind her head, then stepped back a few paces.
In the moment she was stunned, she looked up again to see his tall figure approaching the bedside once more.
But something was different from before.
Even through the red gauze, she could see dark tattoos spreading silently across the young man's long, pale neck, tracing eerie patterns on his cool white skin—sharp and glaring.
Chai Xiaomi's heart skipped a beat.
Her vision blurred, but her other senses grew sharper.
She could feel his heavy breathing falling upon her, landing on a place she dared not imagine.
"Li Li..."
She opened her mouth in disbelief, curling her toes in panic, wanting both to flee and to shove him away. But her legs were held fast by him, and he clung to her like he was stuck, impossible to push off.
Her slender fingers dug desperately into the quilt, clenching it into a crumpled ball.
The bed canopy swayed faintly with the trembling of the girl's body.
Wu Li lifted his eyelashes slightly and saw her skin around her face turning visibly red, her breathing growing ragged and out of control.
Under the red gauze strip, the corners of her apricot-like eyes glistened with tears.
Already crying?
He had only teased her lightly... if he were to...
The darkness in the young man's eyes stirred, but the corners of his mouth curved upward, as if he had discovered some extraordinary secret.
So he grew even more excessive.
He deliberately made the tears gather into droplets and roll down from beneath the red gauze.
The delicate girl completely came undone.
She scattered into pieces, into threads, into something that his fingertips could not hold but stubbornly tried to gather anyway.
"...Li Li, you scoundrel."
"Mm, I am," he replied with a low, hoarse voice, unabashedly brazen. He deepened the tease like intentional punishment, savoring her reaction.
Like teasing a lantern flame on the verge of going out, afraid it might die, yet unable to stop drawing near.
The candlewick trembled gently; the shadows flickered.
All the red candles in the room dimmed at once—not going out, but the glow softening, softening as if about to melt into the darkness.
Something was quietly dissolving.
Was it the wax dripping slowly down the candle's body, or something else? Impossible to tell.
Only heavy and shallow breathing sounds were heard, intertwining in the light and shadow, rising and falling.
The next time Chai Xiaomi saw Ouyang Rui, she was startled.
That once energetic, carefree young master now had a layer of gray stubble on his chin and dark bags under his eyes that wouldn't fade.
Though he still wore his embroidered robes, they couldn't hide the bone-deep desolation inside him. He looked quite bedraggled.
He glanced down at the emerald hairpin in the wooden box Chai Xiaomi held and forced a bitter smile. "Mi'er..."
"Please just call me Xiaomi," Chai Xiaomi quickly interrupted him. She clearly felt a chilling gaze creeping up from some corner, slithering like a snake's tongue across her back.
She knew Wu Li was hidden somewhere in the shadows watching.
Ouyang Rui paused briefly, the bitterness deepening in his smile. "Xiaomi, keep the hairpin. You don't have to return it."
Chai Xiaomi pushed the wooden box forward. "No. We agreed back then—this was only a deposit. I'd return it once your nightmares were gone. Now that you've recovered, this thing should go back to its owner."
Wu Li had deliberately retrieved this hairpin from Luoxing Plains so she wouldn't owe Ouyang Rui any favor, leaving no thread of entanglement between them.
Ouyang Rui's gaze fell on the silver fish tassel earring dangling from the hairpin she wore.
It was just a makeshift piece, not even a proper hairpin—
Yet she wore it on her head every day, cherishing it deeply. And the other matching earring, he remembered clearly, hung from Wu Li's left ear.
He could never understand where he had failed.
In terms of family background, education, or charm, how was he not outstanding? That boy from the Miao borderlands only had his looks to boast about. Sometimes he wished he could believe that Wu Li had used some forbidden love charm to win Xiaomi's love—that thought was easier to accept than the idea that she truly loved him.
But now, thinking about all this was pointless. He heard they would soon leave Qianwu Town.
No matter how much he liked Xiaomi, he couldn't abandon his home and family to follow her to the ends of the earth. What he had once planned was to marry her with great fanfare and make her stay in Qianwu Town, living with him through the years.
But unexpectedly, a grand wedding did take place—though someone else arranged it.
Ouyang Rui lowered his gaze. "I heard that you and Wu Li got married a few days ago. Sorry, I was busy taking care of my father and didn't manage to come and congratulate you. Consider this hairpin my wedding gift to you both, from a friend."
He paused, unable to hold back, and finally asked, "Xiaomi, I only want to know one thing: compared to him, tell me—what am I lacking?"
Chai Xiaomi didn’t originally intend to wound him, but since he had taken the initiative to ask, she decided not to gloss over it.
She said calmly, “Ouyang Rui, you might feel a flicker of attraction toward me, but what drives you more is the thrill of the chase.”
“It’s because you’ve never lacked anything since childhood—you always get whatever you want. Take this hairpin, for instance. To an ordinary family, it’s a rare treasure, but in your household storehouse, you could dig up something like it without any trouble. To you, I’m probably just like an object that’s hard to obtain. The harder it is to have, the more intoxicating it seems. If you actually managed to possess me, once the novelty wore off, you’d likely relegate me to a dusty corner.”
She paused, lifting her eyes to meet his. Her tone wasn’t harsh—she was merely stating a fact.
“But my husband is different.”
“He never had much in his life, so anything he manages to hold on to, he clings to like his very life, guarding it fearfully, afraid of losing it or letting it be damaged. He values me more than anything else in this world.”
As her words trailed off, she didn’t bother to examine the look on Ouyang Rui’s face. She simply pressed the wooden box against his chest.
“Keep the hairpin. We don’t need your gift—we’ll accept your blessings in spirit.”
