Brother-in-law? Beautiful Moonlight serenade? (2)

By the time I realized it, I had taken two quick steps to hold his outstretched hand. 

I was tugged by him and fell into his arms. 

I heard Song Xiyuan sigh overhead. “In this world nowadays, girls are getting harder and harder to cheat.” 

I was about to raise my head and bite him in no uncertain terms, telling him to let me go, but Song Xiyuan let go of me before I could as if he knew what I was thinking and helped me sit down on the boulder while he sat beside me, but his paw refused to let go and held on to one of my hands. I struggled around but instead of letting me go, he leaned in on me, and the scent of Hua Diao wine filled the air.

Song Xiyuan slowly stretched out his left arm and presented the palm of his left hand in the moonlight, showing me the deep lines in his palm, which did not suit someone of his handsome and elegant appearance. 

“When I was young, my mother told me that the marks on everyone’s palm were the marks left by the tangled hair of their beloved in the past. If you love someone very much, you will try your best to grab her, even if it’s just a strand of hair. If you grab it, it will last a lifetime… How deep do you think you have to love someone to hold her hair until it’s engraved into your palm?”

Song Xiyuan looked at me seriously while slowly stroking the tips of my hair.

I wanted to say how unlucky his loved one must’ve been, if she could even make marks on his hands, her hair must have been pulled bald as well! However, given that Song Xiyuan rarely expressed his feelings after drinking, I couldn’t let him down, so I agreed, “It’s very deep, it must be much deeper than my father’s silver vault!”

Song Xiyuan looked at me and smiled, turning his head to look for the wine jar on the ground and gently hooking it with his foot, the jar leaped into his palm.

Song Xiyuan put down the flower carving, wiped the corner of his mouth carelessly, recklessly opening the front of his lapel slightly, grinned, and asked me, “Miao Miao, do you want to drink some? This wine is sweet and fragrant, and not too strong.”

It’s hard to look at Song Xiyuan and think that he was a child who had grown up without a mother, but he was also a child without a mother, just like me. Before the birth of Song Xiyuan, a magician gave Mrs. Song a face-reading, saying that if the firstborn was a son, he would not live to see the full moon. The Song family called Song Xiyuan “Song Third”, hoping to deceive the Buddha and the gods and just assume that the Song family had already lost two sons before then, so they would let the boy go. Song Xiyuan lived under the name of the third son until he became a dominant figure today.

Although they were also concubines, unlike the Shen family, none of them in the Song family were vegetarians, and they were all very shrewd and difficult to deal with. They all saw him as a thorn in their side, and they had used many tricks to observe him, both explicitly and implicitly.

Thinking about this, and looking at Song Xiyuan’s bright smile under the moonlight, she somehow sighed, and leaned down to pick up the white jade cup on the ground, saying, “Fill up a cup for me too.” 

He had already forgotten about his disgraceful consumption and poor taste in wine.

The two of them sat at the edge of the pool and drank a cup of wine, not knowing what time it was, not knowing how many cups they had drunk, only to feel that they were drifting to the moon palace when they were wetly nibbled by the jade rabbit of Chang’e1Chang’e (嫦娥) is the Chinese goddess of the moon, best known for stealing an elixir of immortality from her husband, Hou Yi.. 

All of a sudden, I heard someone say in a deep voice, “Let her go!”

I turned around and saw Lord Qu, dressed in green, standing by with a somber and solemn look on his face, reaching up and taking away the jade hare in front of me and then taking me away without any explanation. I couldn’t help but wonder, how could Lord Qu be able to come and go from the Guang Han Palace at will? How dare he! The Jade Emperor didn’t regulate him?

Half asleep, half awake, and it seemed like something was biting me. At first, my mouth was rubbed hard for a while, then it slowly moved to my cheeks, then my ear was sucked, and finally, all the way down to my collarbone, my shoulders, and down to my heart. I couldn’t help but giggle, pushing the furry thing on my chest.

I struggled, and in my haze, casually mumbled, “Xiyuan, stop it…”

The furry ball on my heart seemed to pause, and then it stopped pressuring me.

After climbing for a long time, I was about to see sister Chang’e, but unexpectedly my feet fell out of the air and I calmed back to the mortal realm.

I was about to breathe a sigh of relief when I looked down and saw a frowning face with closed eyes. The man slowly opened his wet, clear eyes. He was wearing only a plain blouse, and I was pressed against him in an extremely indecent position with my belly half-open…

I was so confused, so remorseful, how could I not remember? I wanted to bury him on the spot and pretend that nothing had ever happened!

I carefully got up and grabbed the quilt and covered him with it. After a long time of thinking, I lifted the corner of the quilt with trembling hands and asked him in a timid voice, “Did…that…did I bully you again?”