Fondness

"Yes, I can hear you." Standing before the window lattice, the man answered crisp and clear, a faint glimmer of gold flickering in his moon-shadowed eyes. The world held all manner of voice transmission techniques, and eavesdropping arts had naturally arisen alongside them, though each came with severe flaws. Some demanded tedious preparation, some were easily detected, and others yielded only broken, intermittent snippets of sound. The secret technique Xu Yuan used was probably the latter. Li Junwu drew her slender hand away from her lower belly and pinched the porcelain cup on the table, a trace of disdain in her eyes. "What vile taste. How much did you hear?" "Every single word." Xu Yuan walked over to the table and chuckled softly. "Something about how rather than letting some stranger take advantage of you, you'd rather let me do it... Tsk, tsk. Who would have guessed, Li Junwu, that you actually want to sleep with me?" "......" Li Junwu's pulse gradually quickened. Her thin lips curved, her beautiful eyes arching as she looked up at Xu Yuan, her tone teasing: "I told you long ago to marry into my Zhenxi Manor. Well, how about it? Want to reconsider now? You don't even need to marry in. We can just cook the rice, and even if my old man finds out later, he won't make his only daughter abort the baby, will he?" As she spoke, she winked at him, then brought the porcelain cup to her lips. It was the height of summer, yet the night breeze of the Great Desert still blew cool against bare skin. Jiayi's delicate brows furrowed slightly. She glared with resentment at Li Junwu's profile, but from the corner of her eye, she suddenly realized the porcelain cup in Li Junwu's hand had long since run out of tea. The night outside was so quiet—so quiet one could almost hear a heartbeat. Xu Yuan raised a hand to scratch his furrowed brow, an inexplicable smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "So, did you dress like this tonight to pull off a honey trap?" As he spoke, his gaze lingered on the soft swell revealed beneath her sheer robe, at the center of her chest wrap. Noticing where his eyes fell, Li Junwu considered it for a moment. With a playful smirk, she hooked her index finger over the middle of the cloth and tugged it down slightly, asking with a smile: "Hardly. It just feels comfortable." "Really?" Xu Yuan kept his gaze fixed ahead. "Why would I lie to you?" "Why do I feel like—" "If she wanted to seduce you, she wouldn't be wearing just this set of undergarments." Beside them, Jiayi suddenly cut in, pulling out a pair of white silk stockings from who knows where and tossing them onto the table. Her crisp voice carried a faint, trembling edge. "We have plenty of clothes like this here. "Isn't that right, Junwu?" With that, she stared intently at Li Junwu. Staring at her, Jiayi remembered her bizarre behavior right before this man had arrived. Threads of grievance unfurled through her heart. *"What have you been holding those silk stockings for?"* *"Hmm..."* *"Li Junwu, I'm talking to you." Jiayi had tugged at her sleeve.* *"Ah... what?"* *"I asked why you've been staring blankly at that pair of white silk stockings this whole time."* *"Uh, it's nothing."* *"Do you want me to wear them? You have that sort of preference?"* *"Could you flatter yourself a little less? I'm just considering whether I should try wearing them."* *"......"* *Hearing that, Jiayi had leaned across the bed and stroked Li Junwu's long, straight thigh, her emerald eyes glittering with amusement.* *"Oh? You'd probably look great in them."* *Li Junwu had instinctively lowered her eyes with a faint smile, but after a long silence, she had ultimately shaken her head with a soft chuckle.* *"Better... not. There's no need."* After that, the smile between Li Junwu's brows had vanished, and she had silently poured and sipped her tartary buckwheat tea with a blank expression. The Great Desert Divine Maiden's face had turned frosty cold. Watching the atmosphere between the two women grow increasingly peculiar, the corner of Xu Yuan's mouth curled in an amused grin, ready for the drama. The Great Desert Divine Maiden was jealous—intensely jealous—and aimed squarely at him. It wasn't surprising. After all, between two women who shared an intimate bond, hearing the person she fancied say right to her face that she wanted to have a child with someone else without immediately throwing a fit proved Jiayi possessed considerable restraint. But what his bosom buddy had said earlier truly surprised him. Before this, although Xu Yuan had always assumed Li Junwu's talk of him marrying into her family was a joke, he had also considered the possibility that she was speaking the truth under the guise of jest. In the end, though, he had dismissed it. Because Li Junwu seemed to be naturally attracted to women. From the tender age when they first visited pleasure houses, both he and she had fancied women. Experiences from his past life made one thing abundantly clear to Xu Yuan: Trying to turn someone who was born gay straight was an impossible task. Any attempt would only end in self-humiliation. Now that Li Junwu had voiced her reasoning today, Xu Yuan finally realized that this bosom buddy of his shouldered the responsibility of continuing the Zhenxi Manor's bloodline. Bloodline succession was of paramount importance to every faction in Great Yan, and Zhenxi Manor was naturally no exception. Still... Xu Yuan felt as if he had missed something. A habit of thought from his previous life had blinded him to some crucial details. Amid the silence, Xu Yuan abruptly broke the awkward tension and said, "Hey, why are you using my cup?" Li Junwu glanced at the porcelain cup in her hand and huffed irritably, "You came to my room, and you're claiming my cup is yours?" "Once I've used it, it's mine. If you're going to use it, at least wipe it down first." "Fussy." "Hey—" Xu Yuan chuckled, casually glanced at Jiayi, and sent a subtle voice transmission: *Aren't you going to coax her a little?* Li Junwu took a sip of the sweet-aftertaste buckwheat tea and replied via transmission: *Not in the mood. If someone's going to coax her, you do it.* Xu Yuan rolled his eyes and replied with amused exasperation: *Wait, she likes you, not me. How am I supposed to coax her?* *All the tricks I used on her were learned from you. Coax her however you coax people.* *If I steal her away from you, don't get mad~* *Couldn't care less.* *Couldn't care less? What a coldhearted woman.* *Likewise. It's not like she's the one I like anyway.* *Huh?* Hearing this, Xu Yuan straightened up slightly. Though the Four Young Masters of the Imperial Capital had long since drifted apart, they had originally banded together since they were eleven or twelve. Back then, the three boys fell in love with someone new every few months, while this bosom buddy alone stayed true to her original purpose. She only frequented pleasure houses, never caught feelings, and pulled up her trousers to leave the moment it was done. With that thought, Xu Yuan's narrow, phoenix eyes betrayed a hint of curiosity. *Does that mean you actually fancy someone? We've known each other for so long, and I've never heard you speak of your love life. Which family's fairy maiden is it? Tell me.* "......" Gazing into his pitch-black eyes, Li Junwu suppressed her quickening heartbeat and abruptly kicked his shin under the table with her bare, long leg. Very hard. Caught off guard, Xu Yuan bared his teeth in pain and snatched her ankle with one hand. "Li Junwu, are you fucking crazy?" Li Junwu let him hold her ankle, tilting her chin up to reveal a slender, fair neck like a swan's. "Why should I have to tell you?" "Then why the hell did you kick me?" "Because I like to." "......" Xu Yuan's eye twitched. He glared at her with a chilling smirk. Li Junwu frowned slightly, sensing that things were taking a turn for the worse. "Xu Changtian, what are you trying to do?" "Guess." With those words, habitually bending his fingers and channeling his energy, Xu Yuan's mind instinctively flashed with the face of a certain washboard-flat girl before he jabbed straight into the tickle acupoint on his bosom buddy's bare foot. "Ah, ngh~" A soft, breathy cry escaped her lips, and Li Junwu hurriedly clamped a hand over her mouth. A tingling, numb itch shot up from her foot, goosebumps instantly rising across her fair skin. Gripping the corner of the square table, she scolded in exasperation, "You... you... let go of me!" As she spoke, she lashed out with her other leg toward Xu Yuan across the table. Unfortunately, as someone who cultivated military arrays, how could she be a match for Xu Yuan, a Body Integration realm expert invincible within his tier? Without even looking, Xu Yuan clamped her leg between his own knees, keeping her from pulling away while applying more force with his fingertips. "Mgh, ah..." A flush of crimson rose on Li Junwu's handsome, fair face. The square table shuddered, one of its legs dented under her grip with a distinct finger mark. "Ah, hah... Xu... Xu Yuan... hah... you... you just wait..." *Bang!* Before the words finished falling, a muffled crash sounded. The square table between them was shattered into splinters by a single palm strike from the third person in the guest room. Jiayi cast a glance at the euphoric flush on Li Junwu's face and the hand with which he held her, her voice as frigid as an iceberg: "Are you two done fooling around?" "......" Xu Yuan. "......" Li Junwu. "*Awoo...*" The big yellow dog. Jiayi withdrew her gaze, turned back to sit on the window ledge, and spoke in a measured tone: "If you're done fooling around, can we get down to business?"