General, please lay down your armor

Chu Mingxi inherited her father’s legacy and took charge of the Imperial Medicine Hall. While procuring medicinal herbs in the Northern Region, she happened to save a young man. Only after taking the youth’s pulse did she realize the delicate youth was actually a girl. As a healer, she never asked about a patient’s past, so she saved her without a single question.

A year passed and she had long forgotten the incident. One day, upon returning home, her mother informed her that the Marquis of Jingyuan had personally visited the mansion to propose a match for the family’s little Heir. The Heir claimed to be an old acquaintance from the Northern Region.

Chu Mingxi: “It was only a casual act. I don’t expect repayment.”

Wei Qingchen: “But I do! I can offer myself in marriage!”

Chu Mingxi: “……”

On a certain hurried evening.

Chu Mingxi pressed her lips together and gave her a light kiss on the cheek.

Wei Qingchen’s eyes narrowed, yet she still murmured, “Not enough.”

A smile touched Chu Mingxi’s eyes, though her voice remained cool and clear. “Then what do you want?”

Wei Qingchen’s heart skipped a beat. Color flooded her face as she leaned close, her red lips brushing Chu Mingxi’s ear, and whispered in the smallest voice, “Tonight… I want to go to the carriage…”

She never finished. Chu Mingxi raised a hand and pinched her arm hard.

“You. Bastard.” Chu Mingxi ground the words out through clenched teeth—the exact same words she had spoken that day inside the carriage.

“Mm-hmm. I’m a bastard.” Wei Qingchen answered at once, turning to press a kiss against the fair, cool curve of her neck. Sticky and coaxing, she added, “All right. Tonight we’ll go to the carriage.”

Chu Mingxi: “……”