Chapter 14 Soft Pretenses
Since our marriage, I had seen him poised and proper, sharp and distant.
Never once had he put on this pitiful act.
I finally understood.
Pei Du might look like clear wind and bright moon on the surface, but inside he was a glutinous rice dumpling—soft, sticky, and secretly wicked.
“Since that’s the case…”
I thought for a moment and pulled my hand back.
“Then let’s sleep in separate rooms for a few days. Let me calm down.”
Finally, a few nights of proper rest!
I let out a quiet breath of relief.
The hand I had just withdrawn was caught again.
Pei Du lifted his eyes.
“We haven’t even been married half a year. The servants will laugh at me.”
He drew me through the door, voice low and coaxing.
“I’ll make a pallet on the floor. Sleep at your feet. Is that alright?”
In the twelfth month’s freezing cold—he actually wanted to sleep on the floor?
Pei Du must have known I wouldn’t have the heart to let him do it.
Back inside the room, I ordered someone to bring the medicinal salve.
There was a faint bruise at the corner of his eye.
I had already figured it out.
When Pei Zhao came barging in, Pei Du—as the elder—had countless ways to discipline him.
The injury was deliberate. Nothing more than a bid for my sympathy.
While applying the ointment, I sighed.
Who told me to be fooled by his outward appearance and miss that he was secretly this cunning dumpling?
Suddenly I spoke.
“Actually… you don’t need to feel uncertain.”
Thinking back carefully—
The Pei Zhao I once thought was not my betrothed… rumor said he also had a fiancée from the countryside.
How could the world be so full of coincidences?
But I preferred to believe he really was the one I had been promised to.
“I probably… felt the same as you.”
The very first time I saw him, my heart had already been captured.
Pei Du’s eyes brightened slightly at my words.
He lowered his head and pressed the gentlest kiss to the corner of my lips.
“Then that really couldn’t be better.”
(Complete)