Chapter 7: Making Amends

After returning from the auction house, Shang Si headed straight back to the Residence Hall, where she bathed amid curls of incense smoke.

Tonight, as always, she planned to use a secret technique to repair Lu Shiyuan’s spiritual root. But for some reason, Lu Shiyuan had yet to arrive on time.

Shang Si waited patiently for quite some time, showing no inclination to send a message inquiring after her. Instead, to pass the hours, she drew a stack of unread reports from her Spirit Ring and began reviewing them.

Candlelight flickered in the inner hall, and before she realized it, more than half the candles had burned low.

Lu Shiyuan had left the auction house a step ahead of Shang Si, yet something must have delayed her along the way. By the time she passed through the gates of Supreme Splendor Palace, it was nearly three in the morning.

Liuzhu, who was on night duty that evening, kindly offered a word of caution before she entered. “The Female Lord is in a foul mood tonight, miss. Do be careful.”

Lu Shiyuan brushed it off, assuming Shang Si had simply encountered another of her absurd predicaments.

—The tangled mess left behind by the Underworld was no easy task to sort out, with resentful spirits dispatched to Yedu in droves every day.

She ran her fingertip gently over the brocade box concealed in her sleeve as she stepped lightly across the threshold. The jade pendant at her waist swayed with each movement. Long before she drew near, the familiar scent of agarwood incense wafted through the air. Moments later, she parted the beaded curtain and spotted a graceful silhouette rising fluidly from the table, gliding directly toward the bedchamber.

“You’re late. Let’s begin.” The air grew thick with tension. Shang Si issued the order without so much as a glance in her direction.

Her voice was even and devoid of inflection, a far cry from her usual smiling warmth. It carried an unmistakable chill of distance.

“Ah, right.” Lu Shiyuan’s fingers tightened around the box in her sleeve. Liuzhu’s warning echoed in her mind, and she clamped her lips shut, deciding to hold off on presenting the gift for now.

She approached the bed obediently and settled in beside Shang Si to commence the evening’s ritual.

By now, they were intimately attuned to one another’s auras. Though they had never crossed into true physical intimacy, the threads of their divine senses wove together in bonds far deeper still.

Shang Si circulated her spiritual power as usual, guiding it slowly along the spirit veins within Lu Shiyuan’s body, nurturing them with meticulous care.

Everything should have proceeded without a hitch. But then Shang Si detected a trace of unfamiliar aura lingering on Lu Shiyuan’s spirit veins. Her focus shattered in an instant, teetering on the brink of backlash. The two entwined streams of energy churned into chaos, and the secret technique broke off abruptly.

Shang Si’s shoulders quivered faintly as her eyes snapped open. Rage blazed in their beautiful depths. “Lu Shiyuan!”

It was rare for her to address Lu Shiyuan by her full name.

“Hm?” The source of the trouble blinked in mild bewilderment and opened her own eyes, gazing at the woman before her. “Why did it stop so suddenly?”

Shang Si offered no explanation. She merely furrowed her delicate brows and rose from the bed. Their proximity was such that her arm swept the gauzy hem of her skirt across Lu Shiyuan’s face as she moved, carrying with it an enigmatic, intoxicating fragrance.

She had meant to storm off in a fit of pique, but second thoughts stayed her. Leaving without a word would hardly align with the poised image she maintained in Lu Shiyuan’s eyes. Restraining her impatience, Shang Si turned back and circled around to face her once more. “Tell me—after the auction ended tonight, where did you go?”

“I…”

“What is it?”

The words died on Lu Shiyuan’s tongue. She responded with a question of her own.

“Where did you go?” Shang Si repeated, enunciating each syllable. The light in her eyes dimmed.

She bit her full lower lip, her pearly teeth lending an even more vivid allure to its scarlet hue.

Faced with such gravity, Lu Shiyuan dared not withhold the truth. “The East City Guesthouse.”

“Aside from me, you sought someone else to heal your wounds?” Shang Si pressed, though her tone lacked the prior severity. A thread of petulance laced it now.

“I didn’t… Wait, you mean Senior Brother Shen?” Midway through her denial, realization dawned, and forgotten details resurfaced. Lu Shiyuan blinked, noting Shang Si’s silence, and hurried to elaborate. “He did examine my injuries, but how did you—”

Her voice trailed off, growing softer until her lips pressed into a thin line and she fell silent altogether.

A sidelong glance had caught the warmth draining from Shang Si’s eyes, cooling into an icy, boundless sea.

Shang Si could shift from scorching sun to winter frost in the blink of an eye.

Their relationship had always rested on equal footing. Yet tonight, Lu Shiyuan inexplicably felt diminished in her presence, gripped by a vague sense of guilt.

Perhaps it stemmed from her own tardiness?

Shang Si needed no elaborate words to convey her displeasure. Her attitude made it plain: she took grave offense to the matter, enough to shatter the healing session moments before.

In truth, however, Lu Shiyuan had handed the Pine Cloud Sword to Shen Guang the moment they left the auction house. With that, the exchange was complete, and the three of them had prepared to part ways.

Shen Guang couldn’t rest easy knowing his junior sister trusted Shang Si so completely. Worried about Lu Shiyuan’s injuries, he insisted on examining them himself before letting her leave. As a result, Lu Shiyuan followed him back to the East City Guesthouse one more time.

Back when they were at the sect, Shen Guang had often helped her heal, and the two of them got along like brother and sister. They even shared the occasional confidence. So Lu Shiyuan didn’t mind this time either and let him check her old wounds.

The only issue was that this unnecessary detour wasted nearly an hour, leaving her late for her meeting with Shang Si.

Lu Shiyuan had planned to present the gift hidden in her sleeve as soon as she arrived, offer a few kind words, and properly explain why she was tardy. But Shang Si was in a terrible mood tonight and didn’t give her any chance to speak.

Unable to figure out what was wrong, Lu Shiyuan wondered if she’d done something offensive. “Shang Si, does this cause you any trouble?”

“Or does it interfere with your healing me?”

Shang Si said nothing.

Lu Shiyuan furrowed her delicate brows. “Shang Si…”

“You have someone else’s scent on you. I don’t like it.” The bell’s chime came out of nowhere, as startling as Shang Si’s blunt words, leaving no time for mental preparation.

The gold bell swayed without rhythm, as if proclaiming its master’s turbulent, irritable mood.

Shang Si’s lovely face turned icy as she delivered those slightly absurd words in her most solemn and serious tone. She met Lu Shiyuan’s gaze with utter conviction, as if Lu Shiyuan had wronged her somehow.

Stripped of the Ye Capital Female Sovereign’s dignity and poise, she came across as nothing more than spoiled and petulant.

—Did I hear that right?

Lu Shiyuan was momentarily speechless. Her red lips parted slightly, and even her breathing grew shallower. An awkward silence settled over them.

It took her a moment to grasp what Shang Si really meant.

This probably had nothing to do with romance, as she’d first assumed. Shang Si was simply voicing her displeasure—like her personal belonging or possession had been touched by an outsider without permission.

It was a typical flaw of a pampered child of heaven. Someone perched so long in a position of power developed an intense possessiveness toward anything she considered hers.

That explained the special treatment Lu Shiyuan had received lately.

Suddenly it clicked. She hadn’t realized when Shang Si had imprinted her as something exclusive.

But that hardly mattered now. What did matter was that Shang Si was angry.

After a moment’s thought, Lu Shiyuan drew up her knees, turned to face her, and let her fair legs dangle from the low couch directly in front of Shang Si, who stood before her.

Now they were face-to-face. Shang Si’s beautiful eyes drifted down to Lu Shiyuan’s breathtakingly lovely features, which at this moment seemed almost guilelessly pure.

With a flourish like a magician pulling a trick from her sleeve, Lu Shiyuan produced a small brocade box. “Then let me make it up to you, Female Lord.”

In the soft glow of the candlelight, her brows and eyes took on a gentle, tender beauty. “Tonight at the auction, I spotted a golden step-shake and thought you’d like it. I meant to buy it for you, but I didn’t have enough spirit stones.”

“By some lucky coincidence, though, it ended up in my hands anyway. Take a look—do you like it?”

The box looked familiar, and Shang Si’s expression softened just a touch.

How could it not? It was the very one she’d bid on and had Hua Qiu deliver personally.

So she’d bought it to give to her?

The realization instantly eased the irritation in Shang Si’s heart. Her gaze shifted sideways to the brocade box in Lu Shiyuan’s hand and lingered there.

Still, she had to keep up appearances.

Feigning ignorance, she let Lu Shiyuan open the box and even played along by asking, “What is it?”

“It’s a golden step-shake called Luo Shen.” Named for the goddess of the Luo River—with her charming smile and longing gaze—it was both a tribute and high praise, suited only to a beauty of unparalleled allure.

With that, Lu Shiyuan lifted the step-shake from its box and held it delicately between her fingers.

As she did, the fine golden tassels swayed lightly, and the precisely cut red gems embedded within caught the light and shimmered.

Emboldened by who knew what, Lu Shiyuan rose slowly to her feet. Her eyes met Shang Si’s on the same level, then she drew closer, tilted her head to the side, and—under the other’s faintly surprised gaze—gently inserted the step-shake into her glossy black hair.

At such close range, a generous expanse of the woman’s pale shoulder and neck lay exposed before her. Lu Shiyuan caught that faint, clear fragrance on Shang Si’s skin once more.

Her hand lingered for a beat before she finally stepped back into place.

“How does it look?” Only after Lu Shiyuan had settled back did Shang Si tilt her head slightly. She touched the tassels with her fingertip, her expression a little awkward, though she clearly awaited the verdict.

“It’s beautiful,” Lu Shiyuan said, her starry eyes lighting up as a smile rippled through her gaze.

With that, she raised her slender hand and pointed her index finger into the empty air. Ripples spread outward like shimmering water waves, one circle after another, until a water mirror materialized before Shang Si. The woman reflected in its surface was breathtakingly beautiful. The Golden Step-Shake that Lu Shiyuan had just inserted into her hair seemed tailor-made for her, blending perfectly with her elegant temperament.

Such a lovely sight made it impossible to look away.

Lu Shiyuan made no effort to hide the admiration shining in her eyes. Instead, she tugged at the corners of her lips, a dimple appearing as she flashed a genuine smile. “Shang Si, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life.”