The second time A Mei stepped into the Inner Factory, she no longer felt the timid restraint she had experienced on her first visit.
At that moment, An Sheng was in the inner hall handling official business with a few of his most trusted subordinate officials. A Mei found the proceedings dull and did not wish to disturb her husband, so she wandered over to the outer hall. Glancing around the spacious lobby, she casually picked up a scroll from the bookshelf and flipped through it absently.
Back in the inner hall.
*Snap!*
The crisp sound of a memorial to the throne clattering to the ground carried clearly to the ears of everyone present.
The next instant.
Thud, thud.
All the men dropped to their knees before An Sheng in unison.
An Sheng had his eyes lowered, the corners of his mouth pressed thin, making his mood impossible to read at first glance. He seemed calm and unfathomable, save for his knuckles tapping lightly on the tabletop, once, twice, three times...
Yet every single one of his trusted subordinates broke out in cold sweat immediately, trembling with dread. They knew full well their master was furious.
For a moment, none of them even dared to breathe.
No one knew better than them how ruthless, cruel and capricious their master could be.
Finally, An Sheng lifted his gaze. His sharp eyes swept over the crowd like a blade, and a sardonic half-smile curled at his lips. He pointed at the towering pile of documents and memorials on his desk, his voice shrill, eerie and chilling:
"I feed you lot to do nothing useful? Even the most trivial nonsense from nobodies you can't sort out, you leave every last thing for me to decide? What, are you all blind, deaf, lame, paralyzed, or dead? Next, do you expect me to personally feed your meals to you too? It's obvious to me you all just want to work me to death!"
The leading official kneeling before An Sheng was already soaked in cold sweat down his back. He first darted a pleading look at Wu Da standing off to the side, then stammered dryly in a trembling voice, "M-Master, please see clearly, we subordinates have always been utterly loyal to you, our hearts are true! It's just... these cases are all so tangled and complicated, with so many overlapping connections. We truly dare not make arbitrary rulings on our own when you are not here, Master."
"Connections?" An Sheng gave a cold, sneering laugh, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "Hmph, use your pig brains for once! If these cases weren't complicated, they would never have ended up in the hands of the Inner Factory, much less be ours to handle! Keeping the lot of you around is less useful than raising a herd of pigs!"
An Sheng stared at the group of subordinates with icy eyes, growing more irritated by the second. Glancing at the mountain of documents on his desk, he felt a throbbing headache rise. Beneath his cool, detached tone roiled a raging magma of fury, ready to erupt and burn everything to ash at any second: "All of you, get out of here. Sort everything out again. Only cases involving officials of the third rank and above get brought to me. If the rest of you still can't get it right, then bring me your heads when you return!"
"Yes, Master!"
Seeing An Sheng's officials file out of the inner hall and leave, A Mei set down the book she had been holding and slipped quietly into the inner hall.
She looked up and saw An Sheng's face was dark with rage. A Mei blinked, stopped at a spot a comfortable distance away from him, and called out in a soft, milky voice, "Husband."
An Sheng's entire body had been radiating a thick, oppressive malice just a moment before.
At the sound of A Mei's voice, he immediately closed his eyes, afraid that the ferocity and cruelty in his gaze would startle her.
After a moment, he opened his eyes. Most of the sharp viciousness had faded away. He curved his lips into a faint smile, suppressing his remaining anger to put on a gentle demeanor, and beckoned to A Mei. "Come here, my lady, come to me."
A Mei stood her ground, her mouth slightly agape, looking confused. "Husband, what's wrong? You look so angry."
Seeing that A Mei did not move, An Sheng said nothing more. Instead, he stood up and walked toward her step by step.
He snorted coldly as he approached. "What else could it be? All these cases piled up while I was away in Lin Dong. Hmph, not a single person from the top to the bottom has been able to put my mind at ease."
As An Sheng drew near, the overwhelming sense of pressure wrapped around the petite, delicate A Mei completely.
Anyone else in that situation would have long been paralyzed with terror, but A Mei did not feel the slightest bit scared. She leaned in to him of her own accord, wrapping her arms around him and pressing herself tight against his body. She stood on tiptoe to kiss his chin, trying to soothe him. "There now, husband, don't be mad. No one can match your ability. If they could handle everything perfectly, how would anyone get to see just how extraordinary you are?"
With her soft, warm form pressed against his chest, An Sheng's heart softened at once. All the lingering malice dissipated completely. He heaved a deep, weary sigh.
He took A Mei's small hand, led her back to the desk and sat down, then glanced at her and patted his own thigh.
A Mei caught his meaning right away. She plopped down on his lap, looped her arms around his neck and began to act coquettishly. "Just now, when you were angry, you looked really scary~"
An Sheng's eyebrows twitched, and he spoke to her in a soft, soothing tone. "Did I frighten you?"
A Mei blinked, then broke into a bright, sunny grin. "Not really. A Mei would never be scared of my husband."
An Sheng's gaze settled on her glowing little face, and the light in his eyes grew deep and intense.
At first A Mei did not think much of it, but after a while of being watched so closely, her cheeks burned red. She stammered, shy and flustered, "Husband... why are you looking at me like that..."
An Sheng did not answer. His gaze only grew hotter, and unconsciously he stuck out the tip of his tongue to lick his lower lip.
A Mei: ...
A Mei's eyes went wide all of a sudden. She thought to herself, he can't possibly mean to...
Some stray thought crossed her mind, and her entire face flushed bright red. She tried to push herself up and off his lap, but his strong arms held her firmly in place.
Then she saw An Sheng lean down toward her.
A Mei shook her head so fast it looked like a spinning rattle. "Ah, husband, no, we can't!"
An Sheng's movements paused. He raised an eyebrow and narrowed his eyes. "Why not? I'm in a bad mood, so I want to do something nice with my wife. You always love this, don't you?"
A Mei felt so flustered and embarrassed at his words. She looked up with wide eyes, glancing all around, and noticed there was not even a bed in the inner hall where he handled official business. Her gaze fell on the huge desk beside them, and her mind began to run wild. If he insisted, we would have to do it right on top of that. It's so cold and hard, I don't want that at all.
The more she thought about it, the more certain she was of her assumption. A small tinge of grievance welled up in A Mei's heart. She pouted, pointed at the desk to protest, though her voice came out weak and unconvincing. "That tabletop is cold and hard. A Mei doesn't like it. Husband, don't pick on me..."
An Sheng: ...
An Sheng: ?
At A Mei's words, An Sheng froze. His narrow eyes narrowed further, and it took him a long moment to untangle the bizarre, meandering path of her thoughts. His originally calm face went dark.
His eyebrows knitted tightly together. He looked at A Mei with a speechless, knowing expression, mixed with a faint, amused quirk. "My lady, all I wanted was to give you a kiss. What on earth were you thinking?"
A Mei: ...
After a long, stunned moment, A Mei found her voice. "Ah? Just a kiss?"
An Sheng pressed a hand to his forehead, looking utterly helpless, half laughing and half sighing. "What else did you think? Do you have any idea where we are? Do you really take me for some kind of lecherous devil?"
The next moment, A Mei threw herself headlong into An Sheng's arms. No matter how he tried to coax her gently, she refused to lift her head, not even a little bit.
