Shen Qingwu walked past the stalls with a relaxed expression. The shouts of "selling tea" and "buying flowers" behind her swept past her head without acknowledgment.
The tip of her martial boot stopped in front of a straw-shed medicine stove. The decoction boy looked up. The dazzling sunlight burned his eyes, and through the glare, he saw the young woman standing straight under the warm winter sun. He was slightly startled.
Shen Qingwu undoubtedly possessed a good appearance, but it was very different from the tenderness and delicacy fashionable among young ladies today. Her bright eyebrows and high nose, combined with her tall figure, gave her a heroic air.
The coldness emanating from her bones made the medicine boy shiver even more.
This was a martial arts lady who was not to be trifled with.
The medicine boy got up diligently to prepare her medicine and enthusiastically made his promise. "Lady Shen, the medicine is ready. As long as you have three doses a day, your husband will be cured of his illness within a month."
Shen Qingwu said lightly, "My husband is weak and can't withstand medicine of tigers and wolves. Remove another twenty percent of the dosage."
The medicine boy muttered, "Why can't he stand it......"
He had followed his master to see the gentleman. Although he was very sick, he wasn't so weak......
An old voice sounded hoarse behind the medicine boy. "Listen to this lady. Reduce the medicine by another twenty percent. Since it is for your husband, won't your wife know your husband's body best?"
When Shen Qingwu heard this, she raised her eyes slightly and glanced at the old man with a bowed back huddled behind the medicine furnace.
The old man smiled flatteringly at her—a small business, I dare not offend someone important like you. Please show mercy.
Shen Qingwu was expressionless and took the medicine wrapped by the medicine boy.
"Creak." The wooden door was pushed open and closed again.
The footsteps landed on the ground—unhurried, without a trace.
Just like the usual torture these days.
The curtain flew slightly to one corner. The person in the tent did not say a word.
Shen Qingwu lifted the curtain and admired the quiet young man on the bed.
His eyes were injured, so they were covered with white cloth. There were injuries everywhere on his body, and his hands and feet were tied tightly with cloth, bound in dead knots. His long hair was messily scattered across the pillow, and his snow-white robe was in folds. The blindfolded young man only exposed his high nose and red lips.
He lay here like melting moonlight immersed in the deep sea. Although he was in an embarrassing state, the moonlight was still clear and warm.
The smile in Shen Qingwu's eyes deepened.
The person on the bed heard the sound and turned half of his face outward, frowning slightly. "Shen Qingwu?"
His voice was also so pleasant.
If he doesn't get into trouble, who will?
The young man in the room was called Zhang Xingjian.
Her relationship with him was that he was her cousin's fiancé.
Unfortunately, Zhang Xingjian's luck was not good. Just before he was about to marry her cousin, something happened to the Zhang family and the entire family was exiled. The cousin broke off the marriage with the Zhang family, and Zhang Xingjian was taken to Lingnan for exile.
After hearing about it, Shen Qingwu, who was far away in the Yizhou Administrative Army at the time, took leave and returned to the capital non-stop to find Zhang Xingjian.
But she didn't go to save him. She went to take advantage of his misfortune.
When Zhang Xingjian hung like the moon in the sky, Shen Qingwu couldn't reach him. Now the moon had fallen into the sea, just within reach, falling into her arms.
He leaned against the bedpost, his face slightly drooping. The blindfold cloth and the cloth that bound him were tangled with a few strands of black hair. His exposed wrists were thin and white, like a handful of snow. Hearing footsteps, he turned his face.
Zhang Xingjian's voice was gentle. "Shen Qingwu."
The two were speechless.
Naturally, they were not familiar with each other. They had never exchanged more than a few words.
Zhang Xingjian slowly thought through the chaos—what had he done to make Shen Qingwu treat him like this?
What was her purpose?
The only famous female general of the Great Zhou Dynasty—why did she save him, a prisoner, only to place him under house arrest in an even stranger way?
Over all these years......
Zhang Xingjian asked softly, "Have you had a bad time in the past few years?"
Shen Qingwu casually replied, "It's been good."
Zhang Xingjian was silent for a moment. "If you don't want to go to the army, you back then......"
Shen Qingwu said, "I really wanted to go."
Zhang Xingjian frowned slightly.
He really couldn't find anything to say to her. He only felt embarrassed to be in the same room with her, not to mention that his eyes were injured and his hands and feet were bound. He couldn't see her at all and didn't know what kind of eyes the female general was observing him with.
Zhang Xingjian had always been very casual about everything, but at this time, he felt a little puzzled and worried.
The young man lying there, his voice like a warm moon, finally asked the question he had always wanted to ask. "...... Ah Wu, why are you doing this?"
Shen Qingwu leaned down and mocked word by word. "Because I'm crazy."
She picked up his silk black hair and gently wrapped it between her fingers.
Torture was approaching inch by inch.
Shen Qingwu pinched the gentleman's slender neck with one hand.
She leaned over and bit Zhang Xingjian's neck. The young man's hand slammed against her shoulder.
The confrontation between man and woman was like fighting on the battlefield—war drums noisy, coming and going without bloodshed. Shen Qingwu's eyes burned with madness as she replied to him indifferently and softly:
"Since the nineteenth year of the Heavenly Dragon, I have been crazy."
Before the darkness was swallowed up by the fire, Zhang Xingjian's chaotic thinking drifted to the nineteenth year of the Heavenly Dragon—
That year, he had just met her.
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