Chapter 3: Undergarments
These words struck like a boulder crashing into water, stirring up a towering wave.
It also let Song Hemei see, for the first time, the cold and stern face of Yu Yeqing take on other colors from sheer astonishment.
When she'd given him money in his youth, he'd thanked her with neither humility nor arrogance. When she'd invited him to the Song residence as a companion reader, he hadn't fawned or flattered. Even the night before, when she'd sought him out and asked him to let her pass through the back gate, he hadn't teased or joked.
He seemed trapped in this barren place, and now, because of a single sentence from her, his expression changed drastically.
Song Hemei stood up. She removed her earrings and the gold bangles from her wrists, setting them before him. "Take these for now. I'll add more for you later."
Yu Yeqing lifted his eyes to look at her, his Adam's apple bobbing. "I beg Second Miss not to amuse herself with me."
"Amuse myself?" Song Hemei gave a small smile. "You could say that. But don't you need silver?"
Yu Yeqing fell silent. He didn't continue, but his eyes still held resistance and reluctance. His well-defined hand gripped the corner of the table, the tendons standing out visibly.
"Better not do it in this room. After all, it's your little sister's place. Doing something like this here isn't good—"
"Second Miss Song." He cut her off, his sword-like brows drawing tightly together, as if mortally offended and unable to bear hearing such words.
But since Song Hemei had already spoken, she left herself no room to retreat.
The alcohol rose to her head, lending her a bit of reckless courage. She dropped her gaze to fix on the man before her, muttering as if speaking both to him and to herself.
"Learn a skill… if he could learn it, then so can I."
"Do you look down on the base status of maidservants…"
Song Hemei's thoughts grew chaotic. She recalled one time in the past when she had met Shao Wen'ang in private. Coincidentally, Yu Yeqing was leaving the residence at that moment. She had greeted him, and Yu Yeqing, maintaining propriety, nodded back but didn't smile. That had annoyed Shao Wen'ang.
Shao Wen'ang said, displeased, "A base farming household, and yet he puts on airs of lofty innocence. Mei'er, you're still too kind-hearted to bring such an ignorant man into the residence."
At the time, she'd been upset by Shao Wen'ang's casual disparagement of others and retorted angrily, "Then I'm the daughter of a merchant family. Should I have to smile and fawn over you, the son of a prefect, now?"
Shao Wen'ang had immediately softened his attitude, grinning at her. "How would I dare? It's this humble student who wishes to win a smile from you. I should be the one smiling at you every day."
The memory surfaced with remarkable clarity.
Song Hemei also recalled that when those words were spoken, Lingchun was pouring tea for them. Yet she hadn't sensed the illicit relationship between them at all.
She looked at the clean, handsome face before her. "Base person? Then I'll find a base person too, and properly learn a skill."
Song Hemei directly grabbed his lapel and kissed the corner of his mouth.
Yu Yeqing's breath suddenly caught. The soft, warm, moist touch of her lips made his whole body tense. Under her clumsy advance, he was stunned for a long moment. By the time he came to his senses, he pushed her away.
He stood up, putting distance between them. Song Hemei bit her lower lip. "What are you dodging?"
She picked up the gold bangles from the table. "I'll ask you one last time: do you want them or not? If you really see gold and silver as dirt, then you won't need to continue as companion reader from now on. Tomorrow I'll have the steward settle all your pay, and after today, don't ever set foot in the Song residence again."
This was a threat using his younger sister: cutting off his livelihood meant cutting off his sister's medicine.
Song Hemei curled her lips maliciously, as if all her ill will had found an outlet.
As expected, she saw Yu Yeqing's Adam's apple bob, his gaze gradually darken, his long lashes drowning the expression in his eyes. His voice was hoarse. "Not here."
He had relented. After that, everything fell into place.
Song Hemei followed him to his room. His room was even more spartan and plain than his younger sister's, but it had many more books.
She already planned in her mind what she would use to compensate him later.
But for now, she didn't want to waste time. She reached up and pressed down on the tall man.
"Do you know what to do?"
Her hand rested on his Adam's apple, her palm feeling him swallow. Was he nervous?
No matter—her sister-in-law had dragged her aside the night before and made her study for a long time.
But fighting on paper only taught so much. Only when the long sword entered its sheath did one truly recognize the unstoppable cold gleam of the blade.
It hurt—a strange, indescribable pain. Yet even at such a moment, she found herself still having the presence of mind to observe his reaction.
But Yu Yeqing seemed to be in pain too. She clearly saw the veins on his temples, his slender hands gripping the edge of the bed frame, stubbornly refusing to rest on her.
None of that mattered. The nuptial wine hadn't been drunk for nothing. The tide rises and falls, and eventually, when the boat sails freely, everything changes.
Yu Yeqing seemed to be forcing himself to stay lucid. His Adam's apple bobbed more violently, his breathing no longer steady. She could feel the tautness of his narrow waist beneath her hand. To her surprise, he wasn't as thin and frail as she had imagined a scholar would be.
From the initial restraint, there were even a few moments later when his responses nearly overwhelmed her.
Meeting Yu Yeqing's gradually dazed eyes, Song Hemei's thoughts slowly drifted away.
So this was what it meant to learn a skill. An inexpressible sensation spread through every limb and bone. No wonder it made the lofty Young Master Shao break his vows even during the mourning period.
So, was this how it had been between him and Cao Lingchun too?
To venture and to receive, to expose oneself completely and without cover before the other.
No—they must have been even more intimate than she and Yu Yeqing were now.
When she first heard about that matter, she had found it disgusting—a betrayal, a concealment, a loathsome defilement of the mourning period. But only when she experienced it herself did she understand the truly nauseating nature of the matter.
Once, when her elder brother had returned from accompanying their father on business, he brought back two identical daggers. One was given to her, the other to her third younger brother.
Her dagger she kept carefully in her dressing case. Her third brother's was different: he used it to split peaches, pick his teeth, trim his nails, and dig in the mud. Later, the sheath of his dagger somehow went missing, and he actually found her sheath and tried to insert his blade into it.
That was exactly how she had felt back then—disgusted.
A dagger that had been inserted into another sheath, stained with the stickiness of peaches, and he wanted to push it into her sheath?
After that indescribable tension, Song Hemei gasped for air. Looking down, she saw that Yu Yeqing's narrow waist was already marked with several red scratches from her fingers.
And his once-restrained hands, in the last few breaths, at her urging plea for help, had finally come to rest on her waist.
Yu Yeqing's Adam's apple bobbed again, as if he'd touched something scorching hot. He hurriedly withdrew his hand. Whether from nervous bewilderment or disgust, he instinctively sat up straight, causing Song Hemei, who hadn't yet recovered, to lurch backward.
The unexpected movement made her voice tremble as she exhaled. "Don't move—"
Yu Yeqing's body stiffened again. He reached out and circled her waist, letting her arms loop naturally around his neck.
At this point, their closeness was pure instinct. She held him tightly, and as he tightened his arm around her waist in response, she waited for the lingering sensations to fade.
Her voice hoarse, she said, "I'm thirsty."
Whether it was her imagination, she thought she heard Yu Yeqing sigh softly by her ear. "Alright."
They separated reluctantly, like lotus roots still connected by their fibers. She glanced down and could clearly see the lingering reluctance he didn't want to admit or face.
Yu Yeqing rose and draped his clothes over himself. His calm, composed demeanor gave Song Hemei an almost irreverent feeling—as if she had defiled a deity. Moments before, they had been locked in a life-or-death struggle, but now that reason had returned, all that remained was an inescapable awkwardness.
But when he returned, he was fully dressed, holding a pot of hot tea. Song Hemei still had her clothes loosely covering her.
He didn't look up at her, only said coolly, "This is hot tea. The only food in the house is coarse flatbread. The kettle is boiling water on the stove; I'll fetch some for Miss shortly."
He rarely spoke so much. Somehow, Song Hemei felt he had a way of making guests feel at home.
But she couldn't say that. It would be too offensive.
The belated awkwardness dyed her face red, but she tried to keep her voice normal. "No need to boil water. It's not cold this time of year. Cold water will do."
"No." He refused flatly.
Song Hemei didn't take it seriously. "Why not?"
Yu Yeqing was silent. Song Hemei got up, poured herself a cup of hot tea, and said carelessly, "I'm not as delicate as you think."
"That's not it," Yu Yeqing said, word by word. "Indulging in cold things can bring on sudden collapse in bed."
Song Hemei choked on her tea. "…Cough, cough!"
Yu Yeqing, somehow, moved to her side in a flash and raised his hand to pat her back. After that thorough intimacy, this ordinary closeness felt natural and automatic.
With the coughing as cover, it was impossible to tell why her face was red.
"Young Master Yu, 'sudden collapse in bed' doesn't mean that—it means—"
She started to explain but couldn't finish. Yu Yeqing's expression remained unchanged. "The symptoms differ, but both harm the body. They can kill."
Song Hemei said nothing more. Slowly, she turned her back to him, sipped her hot tea, and waited for the water to boil. After a simple wash, she went to his younger sister's room.
Given their current state, it was better to part quickly.
Exhausted to the extreme, she fell asleep unusually fast.
She had expected to be troubled by nightmares, but instead slept very soundly.
However, the next morning, before she had fully woken, she heard her elder brother's voice from outside.
"Alone, a man and a woman—what were you thinking? You didn't even think to send word to the Song residence!"
Song Hemei immediately opened her eyes. She didn't need to look to know what was happening. She rose from the bed and walked out. The moment she opened the door, she saw her brother glaring at Yu Yeqing, as if taking out all the anger he couldn't vent on her onto Yu Yeqing.
"I told him not to. If my big brother has any complaints, just say them to me directly."
Song Yunyao abruptly fell silent. Turning to Song Hemei, he smiled awkwardly. "Mei'er, you're awake. Did you sleep well last night? No one offended you, I hope?"
Song Hemei glanced at Yu Yeqing. His ink-black eyes were also looking at her.
Intimacy changed things. Now she could clearly see her own reflection in those dark pupils.
Song Hemei smiled, raising an eyebrow at her brother. "Of course not. If I'd really been taken advantage of, how could I fetch a good price at the Shao residence?"
Song Yunyao choked. "Mei'er, that's unfair to your brother. I'm doing this for your own good—"
She cut him off directly. "If my big brother came only to say these things, then you can stop now."
Song Yunyao stammered for a long while, then finally slapped his forehead. "Ah, fine, fine! I won't say another word, alright?"
He called for two maidservants. "Hurry and help Miss change her clothes. What does she look like wearing a wedding dress still!"
Song Hemei sneered coldly, turned, and went back into the room, letting the two maids follow to attend her.
But as she shed her outer garments, the personal maid attending her murmured in surprise, "Where is the undergarment that Miss was wearing yesterday morning…"
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