Chapter 487: Extra 4: The Wind Stirs to Scatter Red Silk; Graceful Steps Rise to Crush Cold Bones (Part 2)

Chapter 487: Chapter 485: Extra 4: The Wind Stirs to Scatter Red Silk; Graceful Steps Rise to Crush Cold Bones (Part 2)

Mi Zhenchuan sucked in a sharp breath. “Miss, you really…”

Wei Tongyou glared at him, her sanpaku eyes fierce. “Can’t you see how I’m dressed? Don’t call me ‘Miss.’ Call me ‘Sir’!”

Mo Lingling quietly turned her head and saw Wei Tongyou, clad head-to-toe in the uniform of the Black-clothed Guards, standing together with Duan Mingfeng. They looked like a perfect match.

Mi Zhenchuan hadn’t just brought golden sore medicine; he also had the medical hall’s burn ointment.

He walked back to Mo Lingling’s table and said, “Little Mo, put some of this on, or it’ll blister. It’s all my fault for pouring you that hot water.”

Seeing Manager Mi blaming himself, Mo Lingling said, “It’s alright. I was just being careless.”

As Wei Tongyou applied her medicine, her gaze shifted between the two of them. When she turned her head again, she saw that Duan Mingfeng had already started to walk away.

Wei Tongyou deftly wrapped her wrist guard and shouted after him, “Weren’t you the one who insisted on bringing me to the medical hall for my injury? What’s the rush!”

Mo Lingling grabbed the burn ointment and ran back upstairs, staying in her room until evening.

She lay on her bed, her eyes vacant, and thought, ‘I’m sick.’

‘And it’s a sickness that’s seeped into my very core, one with no cure.’

Before, when she had misplaced her affections and Li Chengxun had wronged her, she hadn’t felt this heartache. It was more a sense of grief and indignation.

But now, learning that Duan Mingfeng was getting married—to Miss Wei of the Wei Family, no less—felt as if a part of her soul had been torn away. She should have been happy for her benefactor.

When they appeared before her together, Mo Lingling’s heart ached terribly.

‘I can’t let myself spiral like this any longer.’

Mo Lingling took a deep breath and sat up. Having been cooped up in her room all afternoon, she pushed open the window to get some fresh air.

But she was met with the sudden sight of a cold, upside-down face.

Mo Lingling’s pupils contracted in fright. Her scream was muffled by a large hand.

The room was unlit. In the moonlight, Mo Lingling’s face was unnervingly pale.

“You look pale. Are you sick?” Duan Mingfeng asked with a frown.

‘Anyone who saw an upside-down face in their window wouldn’t look too good either,’ Mo Lingling thought. ‘It’s a testament to my fortitude that I didn’t faint on the spot.’

Her bed was right by the window. As Duan Mingfeng leaped inside, he collided with Mo Lingling, who was trying to back away.

“Ah!”

Knocked off balance, Mo Lingling was about to fall off the bed when he grabbed her hand and pulled her back.

Like she was grasping at a life-saving straw, she wrapped her arms and legs around him.

The Duan Envoy, who had always been renowned for his exceptional agility and Qinggong, found his legs falter for a moment and was pushed back onto the bed by Mo Lingling.

In the dark room, they had to be close enough to make out each other’s features.

Mo Lingling’s eyes were wide as she mumbled, “If it were like this earlier, I wouldn’t have mistaken you.”

Duan Mingfeng’s thick, dark brows twitched. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he averted his gaze to the burn ointment on the headboard.

“Where are you burned?”

She wiggled the hand he was holding.

Frowning, Duan Mingfeng let go.

The burn on Mo Lingling’s hand had felt better after the ointment was applied, but where he had held it, it began to feel hot and searing again.

Just then, a cool night breeze blew into the room.

Mo Lingling was suddenly wide awake.

She knew Duan Mingfeng often appeared around the medical hall, and this wasn’t the first time he’d been outside her room. Once or twice could be a coincidence, but this many times had to be intentional.

Mo Lingling got off Duan Mingfeng, her expression shifting repeatedly.

She was no longer as timid and hesitant as before. Clenching her fists, she stared at him and said, “I may be the daughter of a disgraced official, of low birth. I may have been an official prostitute and even had a miscarriage. But ever since I came to the medical hall, my life has been different.”

“Mr. Duan, you saved me, and I will never forget your kindness. I know you’re surely not the type of person to demand repayment for a favor.”

“I am.”

Duan Mingfeng lay on her bed, his tone calm, as if he were talking about someone else.

Mo Lingling froze, her mouth falling open.

Duan Mingfeng thought she hadn’t heard him clearly and said, “I am the type of person to demand repayment for a favor.”

“So, be with me.”

Mortified, Mo Lingling shouted, “Get out!”

Duan Mingfeng’s expression turned grim, like the heaviest sky over the desert, just before a furious gale.

He propped himself up, his head tilted back slightly to look at her standing on the floor. “You want to marry that old fatty?” he asked darkly.

Mo Lingling glared at him. “Marrying an old fatty is still better than being someone’s concubine, someone’s mistress!”

Duan Mingfeng’s eyes sharpened. “What concubine? What mistress?”

Mo Lingling said, “You… you’re about to marry Miss Wei, and you still come here…”

When she saw Duan Mingfeng pull something out from under her pillow, she looked away in a panic, not daring to meet his eyes.

Duan Mingfeng held up a dagger engraved with the Duan family crest and said, word by word, “This is the dagger my father passed down to me. It’s meant for his daughter-in-law. You keep it by your pillow day and night, yet you refuse to acknowledge it.”