Ying Lan cried herself out and lifted her head from Jiang Chenbi’s embrace. Red marks still lingered on her face as she pulled away. “Palace Lord, Luozhou has been suffering from a severe drought these past few days. The Luo River has dried up by more than half, and the disaster victims are starting to riot. Old Qian says you should head to the chamber of commerce.”
Jiang Chenbi narrowed her eyes. “I’ll go tomorrow. For now, have the chamber distribute the relief grain, and tell Old Qian to calculate how much silver is left in the accounts that can be used.”
Ying Lan was displeased. “Palace Lord, we distribute grain every year, but they don’t show any gratitude. Whenever something happens, they blame us for not providing relief in time. These people aren’t worth saving—they’re too selfish!”
The corners of Jiang Chenbi’s lips curved into an icy smile. “A peck of rice breeds kindness, but a bushel breeds enmity. That’s human nature. Money is just money—compared to the value they can bring us, it’s insignificant. Go on.”
Ying Lan lowered her gaze and pouted, then turned and left.
She truly couldn’t understand what those foolish commoners could possibly offer the Palace Lord. Lazy and gluttonous, they leeched like blood-sucking leeches. With hands and feet to work with, they refused to fend for themselves and just waited for the fixed amount of grain Yellow Path Palace distributed each year.
But the moment there was even a slight disruption, they immediately jumped out to accuse Yellow Path Palace of indifference. Wasn’t that raising tigers to invite calamity?
Yet she could only follow orders; she had no sway over the Palace Lord’s decisions.
After Ying Lan left, a familiar wave of restlessness surged through Jiang Chenbi’s body again, stirring up the Love Gu that had only just been extracted.
Jiang Chenbi bit her lip. It’s starting again…
She rose and left the room. In the Bath Palace, she shed her clothes and soaked into the pool, washing away the stickiness clinging to her skin.
Her injured arm draped over the edge. Jiang Chenbi stared at the flower petals floating in the pool and recalled the night Cui Wangshu had suffered a Love Gu outbreak after returning to the capital.
That gaze, filled with desire yet teetering on the edge of rationality.
She had realized the truth about the Love Gu back in the Bath Palace, yet still coaxed her into examining those “red spots on the imperial mausoleum.”
This woman had clearly harbored ulterior motives from the start.
But when had it begun?
Was it that inexplicable kiss in the ice chamber, or the deliberate touch underwater?
Jiang Chenbi let out a self-deprecating laugh. She had called Cui Wangshu a clueless blockhead, but now she realized she herself had been just as oblivious in her first experiences with such matters.
She had thought it was the Love Gu combined with her own deliberate temptations that finally broke the restraint of this Little Cui who claimed “I’m not interested in women.” She hadn’t realized that some people had long harbored intentions, merely feigning indifference.
During the incident at Great Wind Inn, and the city gate inspection in Tongzhou, Cui Wangshu had never hidden her oversteps in action. It was just that her brows and eyes were so coldly aloof that people overlooked the amusement in her gaze, mistaking it for emotional detachment.
But beneath those coldly aloof brows and eyes, those starry black pupils held more than mere amusement when they looked at her—not detachment at all.
In countless nights, those cold-star-like black eyes clung to her body, laced with desire.
Jiang Chenbi lifted her gaze to the portrait hanging on the wall, her eyes gradually growing entranced. A flush crept up her cheeks, and her breathing quickened.
The person in the painting was aloof and otherworldly, turning her head in profile. Clad in azure robes like a sturdy pine or bamboo, her emotionless eyes regarded all things as mere grass dogs. The faint cold smile at her lips made one want to prostrate on the ground and gaze up in awe.
Jiang Chenbi closed her eyes. Her lower lip turned white under the bite of her sharp teeth, and her elegant neck, dotted with water droplets, arched back with her slow exhalations.
Lost in turmoil and desire, she squinted at the figure in the painting. Ripples spread chaotically across the water’s surface, as if the person in the portrait had stepped down from the wall and approached her.
Those distinctly jointed hands gripped the back of her neck, both soothing and warning, the voice laced with malicious amusement. “Miss Jiang, you’re quite the wanton, aren’t you…?”
Jiang Chenbi shyly turned her head away, her body trembling lightly as she softened against the pool’s edge.
Her eyes still held unquenched desire. Jiang Chenbi leaned over the pool’s edge and looked toward the wall. The figure in the painting remained lofty and aloof, coldly distant, while the one lost in chaos here was always just her—day and night, year after year.
Jiang Chenbi’s fingers on the edge twitched. She lowered her gaze and hooked the corners of her mouth in self-mockery, steadying her breathing before washing herself once more.
She had just extracted the Gu worm, and now she had suppressed this bout of restlessness too. It should hold steady for a good while this time.
Jiang Chenbi rose from the pool, grabbed a nearby undergarment, and draped it over herself before returning to her room.
She lay on the recliner, spacing out for a long time. Inevitably, her gaze fell on the painting on the wall again. Recalling the sensations from before, irritation welled up in her heart. She stood abruptly and yanked the painting down.
That evening, she had someone warm a few pots of wine and send them to her room. Jiang Chenbi downed cup after cup, drinking herself into a stupor.
A rare moment of clarity pierced through, and her peripheral vision caught the painting crumpled on the floor. The irritation she had barely suppressed instantly turned to grievance.
She could play the flirt in front of Cui Wangshu, putting on a show to lure her step by step into her trap.
But when she was alone, all she faced were endless nights, those cold paintings, and fantasies she couldn’t distinguish from reality.
She knew full well that in reality, Cui Wangshu wasn’t that coldly aloof toward her. Yet after four long years of fantasies, she could no longer tell, in her solitude, what was fantasy and what was real.
One voice told her Cui Wangshu was gradually drawing closer, while another hysterically retorted that the intimacy was mere illusion—without the Love Gu, Cui Wangshu would be as coldly indifferent as the figure in the painting.
On countless nights of Love Gu outbreaks, how she longed to open her eyes to eyes filled with pity. But what always faced her was cold detachment, superiority from on high.
Jiang Chenbi’s nose stung, a lump lodged in her throat. She didn’t notice the faint black lines creeping up her neck.
The stitched wound on her arm burned and itched. Jiang Chenbi scratched at it frantically, unable to relieve the urge to tear her skin off inch by inch.
A sudden knock at the door yanked her from her drunken haze toward partial sobriety. Only then did she notice the dense black lines spreading across her body. She took a deep breath, fury twitching between her brows.
Twice in one day.
With alcohol fueling her, Jiang Chenbi could no longer hear the knocking. She staggered toward the vanity, groping for the dagger in the box.
But her vision swam; she couldn’t see clearly.
The rage from the Love Gu flaring twice mingled with her earlier grievances and irritation, muddling her thoughts into chaos.
Bang—
She swept everything off the table onto the floor. Jiang Chenbi clawed bloody trails across her skin while crawling on the ground, searching for the dagger.
Ying Lan, who had been waiting patiently outside, panicked at the noises from within. Before she could act, someone beside her kicked the door open and burst inside.
Cui Wangshu carried a chill on her, the mist from entering Qingcang Mountain. Her pupils contracted at the sight of Jiang Chenbi, and she rushed forward to seize those flailing hands.
“Jiang Chenbi! Snap out of it!”
Jiang Chenbi’s hands were grabbed. She looked up, her tone icy. “Who let you in? Get out!”
Cui Wangshu frowned at the bloody marks on her body and the black lines beneath her skin. “Is it the Love Gu?”
Jiang Chenbi didn’t answer, struggling to break free from Cui Wangshu’s grip.
Her head throbbed excruciatingly now, her wound and body itching unbearably. She had no time to argue with this figment of her imagination.
Ying Lan said anxiously, “It’s the Love Gu acting up again. The Palace Lord isn’t very clear-headed right now, but it’s only just started. You…”
Cui Wangshu cut her off. “I understand. You can go.”
Ying Lan glanced worriedly at Jiang Chenbi but knew this was the best time to intervene—any longer, and it would be too late. Catching sight of the painting on the floor with her peripheral vision, she swiftly tucked it into her bosom and left with her things.
Cui Wangshu didn’t notice Ying Lan’s actions. She focused intently on Jiang Chenbi, whose arm wound had been torn open and was now oozing blood. The sticky blood stained her own hands.
The woman before her glared furiously, struggling and shoving her to leave. Cui Wangshu’s face turned icy. One hand clamped down firmly on the injured wrist to stop further damage, while the other yanked the sash from Jiang Chenbi’s waist.
She wrapped it around the stitched wound several times to staunch the bleeding, then brought over the other hand, crossing the wrists and binding them with the remaining sash.
Cui Wangshu said coldly, “Do you not want your hands anymore?”
The wound was deep to the bone, freshly stitched, and now she’d been drinking and tearing at it. It was a miracle if her hands weren’t ruined.
Hearing that familiar voice again, Jiang Chenbi froze for a moment, seemingly recognizing the person before her. She frowned. “Cui Wangshu?”
Cui Wangshu sneered, anger suppressed between her brows. “You still recognize me? Why not just drink yourself to death?”
A vein throbbed fiercely at Jiang Chenbi’s temple. She snapped harshly, “Let me go and give me the dagger.”
Seeing no intent from her to accept help, Cui Wangshu laughed in fury, her voice squeezing through gritted teeth, cold and low. “What. Did. You. Say?”
Enduring the agony wracking her body, Jiang Chenbi slammed Cui Wangshu to the ground. She knelt, turning to continue searching for the dagger.
“You don’t understand—this Love Gu is different from yours. I—mmph—!”
Before Jiang Chenbi could finish, someone pinched her neck and yanked her back. Her back pressed against a cold embrace as she was pulled onto the woman’s lap, chin gripped and forced backward. Cui Wangshu’s kiss, laced with fury, bit down on her lips.
Cui Wangshu folded both of Jiang Chenbi’s hands across her chest with one hand to prevent further tearing of the wound, her other hand purposeful.
With no preparation, it was intensely uncomfortable. Jiang Chenbi struggled to rise and escape, but Cui Wangshu pinned her firmly in place. Amid the motions, her legs shifted, widening the gap between Jiang Chenbi’s thighs and suspending her in an awkward position—neither able to sit fully nor straighten up.
This only facilitated Cui Wangshu’s deep thrusts.
Soon, the pained whimpers turned to soft moans. Jiang Chenbi leaned her full weight into Cui Wangshu’s embrace, lost in the storm of desire.
Cui Wangshu left a bite mark on her slender shoulder and rasped, “Didn’t you say you didn’t want my help?”
She lifted Jiang Chenbi and turned her around to face her.
Plummeting from ecstasy to torment, Jiang Chenbi opened her eyes in distress. Her reason fully consumed by the Love Gu, she pleaded, “I need…”
Cui Wangshu narrowed her eyes dangerously, brimming with desire, and murmured lowly, “Then do it yourself.”
Jiang Chenbi’s mind was still clouded, unable to comprehend. “What?”
Cui Wangshu leaned in and bit her lower lip, mumbling, “I said, if you want it, get it yourself.”
Jiang Chenbi furrowed her brows, staring blankly at her, her gaze falling to the hand hanging downward. Hesitating, she slowly lowered herself.
Cui Wangshu’s lips curved. She stared fixedly at Jiang Chenbi’s face. The hand that had restrained hers now gripped her waist and yanked her down hard.
Jiang Chenbi’s unspoken cry of shock was swallowed into her mouth.
