Wasn’t that right? The poem’s content indicated he originally didn’t know of Shen Lingzhen’s feelings for him. So if the two of them now even consummated their marriage, wouldn’t that be completely different—a hundred thousand miles apart—from that line “When will dawn come, my heart yearns deeply”?

This logic left Huo Liuxing momentarily unable to refute, and he felt dizzy.

Seeing him clearly shaken in spirit yet sitting rigidly motionless, Shen Lingzhen guessed his concerns: “Young master, rest assured. This afternoon I specifically asked Divine Physician Luo. He said the medicine regulating the cold syndrome in my body conflicts somewhat with fertility. With my current physical condition, even if I wanted to conceive, I couldn’t become pregnant. I’d have to wait at least half a year after stopping the medicine…”

This pardon nearly demolished Huo Liuxing’s last line of defense.

His throat was dry as if scorched by fire. The strange incense burning in the censer drifted in wisps to his nose. Combined with the scene before his eyes, it truly made him somewhat intoxicated, the veins at his temples throbbing visibly.

He pointed at the incenser, his eyes questioning.

“Jianjia found that. She said… said it could embolden courage.” Shen Lingzhen murmured softly.

Huo Liuxing saw this wasn’t for courage—it was an aphrodisiac.

His Adam’s apple rolled twice. He grabbed the bedding and wrapped her up again, then turned back to extinguish the incenser, standing before the bed with his back to her, trying to ease his taut nerves.

“Young master…” Shen Lingzhen called to him in a muffled voice.

“Don’t call me yet.” Huo Liuxing raised his palm behind him in a stopping gesture, continuing to breathe deeply. After a short while, he finally returned to sit on the edge of the bed. “It’s too late today. We should still rest. In any case, I already know your feelings, so it counts as different from what the poem says. Put your clothes on properly so you don’t catch cold.”

“Alright then.” Shen Lingzhen pouted. Seeing him actively turn his back, she emerged from the bedding and rustled about putting on her inner garments.

But Huo Liuxing’s eyes were truly too sharp. Of all places to look, he happened to see a bronze mirror on the vanity across from him that reflected her current appearance perfectly.

Moreover, the hazy effect brought by the mirror surface somehow made his heart itch and stir even more than when he had looked directly at her earlier.

He quickly averted his eyes. But Shen Lingzhen didn’t know, and still moved slowly, adjusting here, fiddling there.

So before long, his willpower, weakened by the incense, was on the verge of collapse. He couldn’t help but cast his gaze toward the bronze mirror again.

Precisely because of this, after she finished dressing, before she could even say “I’m done,” he had already turned around quite punctually.

Shen Lingzhen was startled by his supernatural ability to seemingly have eyes in the back of his head. With a glance, she saw that bronze mirror: “Oh my, young master, how could you…!”

“I didn’t look.” Huo Liuxing instinctively denied it, only realizing after speaking that he had just made his guilt obvious.

Shen Lingzhen felt both embarrassed and angry, muttering in exasperation: “Young master really! I clearly told you to be open and aboveboard, but you refused. Fine, you refused, but then you turn around and act sneakily.”

“I was…” Huo Liuxing sighed. “I was afraid you’d suffer.”

“Girls from every household go through this. Why can’t I? My body has been nourished quite well recently. Young master underestimates me too much.”

“It’s not your fault, it’s my that…”

“Which?”

Huo Liuxing couldn’t say it out loud. Irritated, he waved his hand and said fiercely: “Stop asking. Hurry and sleep.”

Shen Lingzhen turned around dejectedly, her back to him, shrinking into the corner of the bed.

Seeing her expression, Huo Liuxing wanted to say something. He opened his mouth but couldn’t get it out, so he could only silently extinguish the candle and get on the bed, lying down on the outer side.

After lying there for a moment with no sleep at all, hearing Shen Lingzhen’s breathing that was obviously pretend sleep, perhaps emboldened by the darkness, after deliberating a while, he patted her shoulder and explained: “Don’t be angry anymore. Let me tell you…”

Shen Lingzhen turned around.

Huo Liuxing lowered his voice and whispered something in her ear.

Before Shen Lingzhen’s face could even turn red, he grabbed her hand and guided it downward: “Don’t believe me? ‘Feel’ for yourself?”

She was frightened and alarmed by that massive outline, but her mouth worked hard to say the opposite: “Not at all, it’s just this tiny bit!”

Huo Liuxing’s face darkened. He turned over, caging her beneath him: “Fine. ‘Knowledge gained from touch alone is always shallow—I’ll give you some hands-on practice.'”

Half an hour later, Shen Lingzhen, the newborn calf unafraid of tigers, personally experienced what Huo Liuxing had told her: “It’s not that I underestimate you, but rather that my member is much larger than ordinary men’s.”

Naturally it ended with one drenched in sweat and the other tearful as pear blossoms in rain.

Although Huo Liuxing had already used every bit of his strength to restrain himself, slowing the pace to a crawl, Shen Lingzhen still cried out in distress. After the storm passed, she was exhausted and soft as mud, unable to lift even a finger.

The room filled with panting breath, accompanied by the dripping water clock, stretched this night especially long.

Huo Liuxing buried himself in Shen Lingzhen’s shoulder hollow for a long time before finally descending from her body. Propping himself on his elbow, he touched her damp forehead, staring at her in the dimness: “Knowing you’d suffer, why did you deliberately provoke me?”

Of course, when Shen Lingzhen had first felt with her hand and experienced his “abnormality,” she chose to forge ahead anyway. Just like how she had specially prepared incense tonight and actively removed her clothes—in truth, she had made up her mind to accomplish this matter before he set out on campaign.

Only after a long while did she catch her breath. In a hoarse voice, she asked Huo Liuxing in return: “Then why did young master knowingly fall for the provocation?”

Neither answered the other’s question.

Huo Liuxing gently placed a kiss on her forehead, wordlessly rising to light a candle and fetch clean water to wipe her body.

Shen Lingzhen seemed to have resolved a weight on her mind. Finally breathing a sigh of relief, before he could return, she had already sunk deeply into slumber.

——

Over the next three days, neither of them mentioned those two poems or the campaign again.

Early on the morning of the third day, Huo Liuxing gave no notice. Before dawn broke, he dressed in armor and helmet, took up his sword, and left the Huo residence, just as if going out ordinarily.

Shen Lingzhen woke the moment he left the bed but pretended to sleep, not saying a word to him.

The two seemed to tacitly avoid this farewell scene, avoiding that image of “the general on horseback strikes his sword and departs.”

As if by doing so, what followed wouldn’t happen.

After Huo Liuxing left, Shen Lingzhen sat up from the bed, hugging her knees with vacant eyes.

That night, the answer she hadn’t spoken aloud was—in truth, she was also very afraid, afraid this parting in life would truly become a parting in death. So before he left, she wanted to truly be husband and wife with him once.

And when she provoked him, Huo Liuxing had seen through her fear. That’s why he changed his mind—knowing she would definitely suffer, he still steeled himself to fulfill her wish.

Of course, it was his wish too.

Shen Lingzhen looked at the sky outside the window, brightening but not yet bright. She put on her robe, descended from the bed, and rummaged through the heated cabinet for that sky-blue silk handkerchief, gently rubbing the two lines Huo Liuxing had written.

How heartbroken he must have been then to desperately save her when he later returned to Peach Blossom Valley.

If the tragedy repeated itself again…

Shen Lingzhen’s hand holding the handkerchief tightened. Suddenly forming some notion, she opened the door and asked the maid waiting outside: “Jianjia, has young master left the city?”

“Calculating by the time, he should be about ready to depart.”

“Then if I chase after him now, would I make it in ti—”

Before the word “time” could leave her mouth, a clear clinking of armor suddenly came from the end of the corridor. Shen Lingzhen abruptly raised her head and saw Huo Liuxing striding purposefully toward her.

“Young master…” She stared at him blankly, momentarily forgetting to ask why he had returned.

Huo Liuxing walked step by step before her, gently cupping her face and looking down at her: “Come with me. We won’t be separated. Is that alright?”