Chapter 22: Tiny Waist

Fang Rui told Rong Tai to have his men search for the antidote to the chronic poison in his body, the antidote to the Heart Lock. The name of this poison, Heart Lock, was known by very few, and even the widely experienced Rong Tai didn’t really know what it was.

Fang Rui hadn’t told Rong Tai that the person poisoned by the Heart Lock was himself.

After giving those instructions, Fang Rui rushed out of the palace that night and headed for the Court of Judicial Review. The bruises and fist wounds on his body couldn’t possibly be half healed yet, but while the palace had no medicines that could bring someone back from the dead, there were many effective elixirs. So although he wasn’t half recovered, he was about a third better.

Aside from Shen Yu, no one at the Court of Judicial Review knew he wasn’t there. He couldn’t return openly during the day, so he could only sneak in under cover of night.

By the time he reached the Court of Judicial Review it was already midnight. He left his horse far from the temple, and when he arrived he listened by the wall for a while and then climbed over.

He exchanged the signal with the secret guards, just a few overlapping, suddenly low cicada calls. In summer, the sound of cicadas was perfectly normal.

A few cicada calls posed no difficulty for Fang Rui, and the guards who heard them instinctively stepped back and yielded.

He quietly opened a window that barely made a sound, jumped down, and then tiptoed to close it, not waking Shen Yu, who was always a light sleeper.

Fang Rui glanced over. Even in the dim light he could see that the corner of the quilt exposed from the canopy was completely different from the quilt that had been there before he left.

So… Shen Yu really did hate the idea that someone else had slept in her bed before, Fang Rui thought with a silent smile. He realized he still didn’t know her well enough and hadn’t noticed earlier she was obsessive about cleanliness.

He walked to the bedside, lifted the canopy, and with his excellent eyesight unaffected by the low light, sat on the edge of the bed and quietly watched Shen Yu.

Sleeping, Shen Yu had a tranquility she didn’t usually show. Her skin was fair to begin with, and lying so quietly she looked like a porcelain doll, so fragile it felt like she would shatter at a touch.

Because it was hot, Shen Yu’s quilt only reached her waist. Fang Rui’s gaze traveled from her forehead to her delicate nose, to her rather rosy mouth, then down her pale neck, and continued downward.

His eyes stopped at Shen Yu’s chest.

Fang Rui frowned, his gaze unmoving, thoughtful.

Even though she was lying flat, judging by the curve it didn’t look like the shape of someone who had loosened a chest binding band.

He had not only seen but felt what a chest looks like when the binding is removed. Based on the crash course he’d given himself on female anatomy lately, Shen Yu lying like this should mean…

For a moment Fang Rui couldn’t find the right comparison, then he seemed to realize something. He looked down at his own chest, and thought, right*, *that’s the feeling.

When Shen Yu was lying down, she should be similar to when he stuck his chest out. Looking back at her…this looked much flatter even than his own.

Wasn’t she worried about breathing difficulties by sleeping with the binding on?

Silently he reached out, touched Shen Yu’s shoulder, and patted it.

Shen Yu made a small sound, opened a sliver of an eye, and when she saw a dark figure at her bedside she suddenly opened her eyes wide and was about to scream when a hand covered her mouth even faster.

“Don’t scream, it’s me.”

Hearing the familiar voice, Shen Yu’s eyes widened even more, as if saying: I’m more afraid of you!

The moment Fang Rui released her mouth, Shen Yu yanked the quilt up and covered her chest, on full guard as if the man before her might turn savage in the dead of night.

Fang Rui’s mouth twitched. He shouldn’t have woken her. Rather than waking her, he actually wanted to do it himself: personally loosen her chest binding. But to do that without waking her would be impossible without pressing on an acupoint to knock her out.

The thought of pressing Shen Yu’s sleep point, then taking off her clothes and untying the binding… such ideas drifted through his mind, and he thought himself a pervert.

After all, if any woman, aside from Shen Yu, of course, dared to remove his undergarments while he was asleep, he felt that if he didn’t kill her, then being emperor would have been for nothing.

“What are you doing here?!” Shen Yu’s guard didn’t lower an inch and she pulled the quilt up tighter.

“I’m back, so of course I’m here, where else would I go?” Fang Rui’s tone seemed to say: Are you stupid? I belong here.

His self-righteous tone made the startled Shen Yu furious. She pointed toward the door and hissed in a low voice, “Get out!”

No amount of Shen Yu’s fury could scare off the thick-skinned Fang Rui. He didn’t budge and looking at her earnestly he said, “Don’t bind your chest when you sleep. It’s hard to breathe and you’ll have bad dreams.”

At that, Shen Yu’s face darkened. She grabbed a pillow and flung it at him. “Out!”

Fang Rui raised his hand and blocked the pillow, resting it on his lap. Not taking her order to leave seriously, he continued to advise, “If you’re worried someone might suddenly break in, you don’t need to worry with me here.”

Shen Yu glared at him angrily. “I’m not worried about others, I worry about you! You’re the one who barges into my room at any time!

Take just now for example: she had opened her eyes and seen someone sitting at her bedside. He didn’t look like he intended to kill her, and for a moment she even thought her deceased father had come back to see her…

But it was only that one moment, and that single moment had nearly scared her to death. Even if her father, dead for twenty years, had returned, she would still be frightened, let alone someone she had never even seen.

She wasn’t afraid of ruffians or wolves and tigers. She feared these uncanny things, and almost doubted whether she was dreaming.

Now knowing she had been frightened by this person, how could she not be angry!

Shen Yu had a short temper when waking up, though even she didn’t realize it.

When Shen Yu usually woke up she would sit on the bed in a daze for a while to clear her head. When she finally got up she always wore a stern face and didn’t like to talk.

Seeing she couldn’t drive him off, Shen Yu pulled back the quilt, stepped over Fang Rui, got out of bed and put on her shoes, and said angrily, “If you won’t leave, I will.”

The room was too dark for everyone to see its layout the way Fang Rui could.

Fang Rui watched Shen Yu angrily get out of bed. His eyes followed her, and seeing the stool in front of her hadn’t been pushed under the table, he had a mischievous idea. He stood up, and relying on his ability to see the room clearly, quickly stepped in front of Shen Yu. As she tripped over the stool and cried out, she fell straight into Fang Rui’s arms, which were already outstretched, waiting.

“You’re so forward, I’m at a loss,” he said, though there was no real loss in his tone, only smug delight, which infuriated Shen Yu.

“Let go!” Shen Yu’s face changed. She flushed red because his shameless hand had actually landed on her waist!

From the previous time at the Grand Guardian’s residence, Fang Rui already knew Shen Yu had a slender waist. The last time in the water the feeling hadn’t been clear, but this time it was much clearer.

Now… he was probably the only one besides Shen Yu herself who knew it so well. Not just the size but even the feel was crystal clear to him.

Her waist was slim, but when he touched it it wasn’t skin-and-bones. There was some softness and flesh to it.

“Tsk,” he said, “your waist is so thin you look like you came out of a refugee camp. Didn’t you even get a full meal at the Grand Guardian’s residence?” This was classic behavior: taking advantage and then acting coy.

As he spoke he pinched the soft flesh at Shen Yu’s waist again, almost reluctant to let go.

“Y-you! Let go!” Shen Yu, being pinched on her soft flesh, grew even redder in the face.

“Let go… ha, haha…” Shen Yu never knew she was so ticklish. No one had ever had the nerve to pinch the ticklish flesh at her waist!

Shen Yu’s reaction stunned Fang Rui for a moment. His restless heart immediately grew more restless, and his hand on her little slim waist fidgeted with it as well. “You’re laughing so happily. That doesn’t look like you’re asking me to let go.”

“Let… ha, haha… let go!” Shen Yu felt like tears of laughter were welling up, but she felt extremely aggrieved.

Feeling the commotion had gone on enough, Fang Rui let go of Shen Yu. She laughed until her stomach hurt, clapped a hand over her belly, glared at him and snorted, then turned away from Fang Rui, closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

Don’t get angry, don’t get angry, she told herself. This guy still holds her leverage so she mustn’t provoke him…

But the problem was he kept provoking her!

Shen Yu prided herself on having a good temper, but ever since she met such a shameless man, she had no temper left to speak of!

Fang Rui walked up to Shen Yu with a smile and asked, “Already angry?”

Shen Yu turned her head to the other side. If she couldn’t anger him, then she simply wouldn’t speak to him.

Little did she know that this sulking look looked unbearably cute to Fang Rui.