The boats ferrying people were empty. In fact, at this moment, most of the boats engaged in the daytime were quietly moored by the lake.
"Miss, are you crazy?! The lake is so deep, how can you possibly fish up a tiny earring!"
Not far away, on a small boat about to dock, there arose a dispute. He slightly turned his head towards the direction of the voices.
On the bow of the boat, a slightly shorter girl in a green robe tightly held onto the lady in white who kept peering into the lake, her anxious voice rising intermittently.
"Let's go over and see what's happening. We can take action only when they leave."
He was right. Looking around, the vast lake was now silent and deserted, with all the lake-visitors long gone, leaving only these two women.
Following him to the spot nearest to the boat, there was a faint fragrance in the wind, like the scent of orchids growing in the valleys of Mount Fulong; a fragrance that would vanish with a wave of the hand, yet quietly return to your side when you weren't paying attention.
The girl in green stood sideways, with a round face and a round mouth, her hair arranged in the most ordinary of maidservant's buns, chattering incessantly. My gaze remained fixed on the woman in white standing with her back to us, even though she was motionless and silent.
"Are you two young ladies in trouble?" he raised his voice slightly.
The girl in green turned her head and froze in place. I understood very well why she was in a daze.
However, the next second, I found myself in the same situation as the girl in green.
The woman in white turned around. I couldn't find words to describe this fascinating person.
She was enchanting even when not smiling. How devastatingly beautiful would she be when she smiled?
As I stared in awe, a feeling arose in my heart, a feeling that my features bore some resemblance to hers.
Yes, it was just a resemblance. I had countless times looked at my own reflection in clear water, wanting to remember my own appearance firmly, because he gave it to me. I had thought myself pretty, but after seeing the woman before me, my opinion wavered a little.
Although there's a resemblance, I don't look as good as her.
When my gaze inadvertently crossed Zimiao's eyes, my heart suddenly skipped a beat.
He was looking at her, his eyes calm as usual, behaving very much like he was looking at an insignificant passerby.
However, just as he could see through my thoughts at a glance, after spending so much time by his side, I had also learned to capture what others couldn't see in his gaze.
A glimmer of brightness that lasted less than a millisecond, so fast that it was practically imperceptible.
It was a pleasant surprise that didn't fit his usual style.
He never hesitated to give me warm looks and smiles, but I had never seen such a look. Was it because it didn't exist, or... because it was never directed at me?!
"Oh..." The girl in green finally regained her composure and hastily said to him, "It's like this, my mistress's earring accidentally fell into the lake, and she wants to go into the water to retrieve it herself. This is simply..."
"Hehe, a trivial matter," he interrupted the incessant jabbering of the girl with a smile and said, "Let me take care of this matter. The two young ladies should go ashore first."
The beauty hesitated for a moment, then lowered her head and smiled, raised her head and said to him, "This item was left by my mother. I acted rashly in my haste, and caused such a scene, letting mister see a joke."
With that, she gracefully extended her right hand to his palm.
He once told me that there has always been a saying in the mortal world that "men and women should not touch hands when they give or receive things[1]," so why was this woman able to hand her hand over to a strange man without any hesitation and do it so openly and naturally?
Of course, I didn't mind that at all. What I minded was that the warm hand that had always only held mine was now holding another woman…
That moment of unhappiness was like sand getting into my eyes—not painful, but uncomfortable.
Just as their hands were about to touch, the lake water under the boat that knew its place suddenly began churning.
A sudden huge whirlpool effortlessly overturned the boat, and the beauty's hand that had been just a hair away from falling into his palm, ultimately failed to touch him.
Both the master and servant screamed in surprise and fell into the lake, which had started emitting wisps of white smoke.
"Ah, the water is so hot! Help!"
The maid flapped around in the water, screaming like a duck thrown into a boiling pot.
The beauty furrowed her brow tightly, paddling desperately with her hands. Her beautiful lips were almost pursed into a line, yet she never uttered a single cry for help.
Before I could say anything, he had already plunged into the lake.
His movements were hurried, even a bit panicked.
They hadn't fallen far from us in the water. He rushed towards them, but it was just a stone's throw away. But suddenly, a thought crossed my mind—
With this jump, the closeness between us had changed into an insurmountable distance.
With a loud rumble, a patch of mud on the shore sank abruptly. My feet sank beneath me, and amid the intense tremors akin to an earthquake, like the swiftly flowing mud, I plunged into the water.
It's natural[2] for wood to float on water, so I wasn't worried about drowning. It was the scalding temperature of the water that was unbearable, nearly suffocating me.
"Help! Zimiao, help... help me!"
Although uncomfortable, it wasn't that bad, but I shouted at the top of my lungs and called his name, as if I was going to drown and die the next moment.
At the other side, he had just cast a spell to ward off the increasingly scalding lake water, and was holding the beauty's waist to carry her ashore.
Hearing my shouts, he turned back sharply, but never let go of the hand in his grip.
A moment of hesitation flashed in his eyes. He furrowed his brow slightly, then leaped out of the lake with the woman in his arms and headed towards the shore.
I felt dumbfounded.
When I and others were in danger, up until just now, I had so firmly believed that he would put me first and would do whatever it took to ensure my safety.
The surging lake water choked me, and unwilling to accept what happened, I turned to look to the shore, my vision blurred by water vapor.
Putting down the beauty, he rushed again to rescue the maid, leaving me alone to struggle in the water.
I tried to swim to the shore, but there seemed to be vines wrapping around my feet underwater. Apart from floating in place, I couldn't move in any direction.
At that moment, a surge of air that made my heart palpitate burst out from the depths of the water, almost covering half of the lake's surface, instantly churning up huge bubbles the size of large bowls, accompanied by incessant gurgling sounds.
As he emerged from the lake with the barely conscious maid, the entire Dongting Lake suddenly exploded, with dense waves splashing up to half the sky.
A gigantic dark purple shadow violently rushed out from the lake, and its ferocious momentum seemed to overturn the heavens.
"Evil..." I cried out in fear, but before I could say the word "dragon," my mouth was filled with the overpowering smell of blood as the rushing lake water enveloped me.
In a panic, I suddenly felt a tightness on my shoulder, followed by excruciating pain, as if a sharp blade had pierced my flesh.
Glancing sideways, I saw that the ugly, scaly claws had firmly seized me.
Now, I was truly panicked.
Before I could blink, my entire body was lifted from the water into the air. The tearing pain from my shoulder made me cry out in agony.
Dark purple mist seeped out of nowhere, obstructing my vision and cutting off my voice. A sharp light, shaped like lightning, flashed before my eyes, accompanied by a rumbling sound in my ears.
A burst of acute pain gushed out from my shoulder to the core of my being. Unable to hold on any longer, I gradually lost consciousness. In that moment of fainting, I seemed to hear the long-awaited call, filled with anguish and urgency—
"Shaluo..."
"Thump!" A dull sound echoed in my ears.
It was my body that fell heavily on the hard ground.
Struggling to open my eyes, I laboriously lifted my head while lying on the ground. Just as I attempted to push myself up with my arms, my body was pushed back down by a weight on my back.
Holding back the real pain in my chin, I turned my head and was astonished to find an arm lying across my back, encased in a dark purple sleeve, with the slightly curved fingers at the end clasping my right shoulder weakly.
My surprised gaze moved along the arm to its owner — a man lying on the ground with his face obscured by disheveled black hair.
Not breathing, not moving, still as if dead.
Black hair stuffed with a dark purple glow, clad in a dark purple robe, hand detaining me... I was stunned for a moment, my head that had not yet been knocked confused suddenly overlapped the person beside me with the hateful ugly monster.
Could it be... this guy transformed into human form?!
I blinked, and my brow furrowed. What was I thinking about him so much for? The prudent thing was to escape quickly while he was in this state.
Carefully turning my body over, I exerted all my strength to push several times, finally managing to move away the long arm pinning me down. Heaving a breath, I sat up, only to realize that I was in a wide cave, with the entrance right in front of me.
I scrambled to my feet and limped towards the cave entrance. I must leave this place, I must return to Zimiao's side right away.
But just as I took my first step, a strong hand tightly gripped my ankle.
"No leaving..." The deep, slow voice came from the figure on the ground, sounding somewhat lazy but containing an unmistakable dominance that brooked no defiance.
I sucked in a breath of cold air. The hand that grabbed me was as cold as ice. It only touched a small area, but it was enough to freeze my whole body.
He... woke up?!
The guy slowly rose to his feet and positioned himself in front of me, aggressively blocking the cave entrance with his tall figure.
In all these years, I had never seen someone with a skin color as dark as wheat. His sharply defined facial features seemed as if each line had been carved with a knife, exuding an intimidating sharpness. However, his eyes, which should have been wide open, were lazily half-closed, with a long strand of tousled hair hanging in front, unable to conceal the sharp light shining from his eyes.
"Who... who are you..." I instinctively took a step back, feeling both alert and fearful, and at the same time asked the dumbest question possible.
"When you kept calling me Ugly, weren't you speaking smoothly?!" He looked down at me, his tone devoid of any emotion.
My suspicion turned out to be true.
"Wasn't your tongue quite sharp before?!" His large hand unscrupulously gripped my chin. "Why, are you mute now?"
Ow! I had never endured such rough treatment before. In my memory, there was only the gentle face of another man, filled with tender affection.
"Speak!" His iron pincers-like five fingers applied even more pressure.
The person before me clearly wanted me to submit, clearly wanted to see me beg for mercy.
But I refused to beg for mercy. Even if it hurt so much that the pain reached my bones, I wouldn't let him have his way.
Anger was enough to drive away all fear.
I looked him straight in the eye and stopped dodging. The eyes of the two of us—one ruthless, one stubborn—met in the air, almost sparking flames.
After a long stalemate, he suddenly released his grip.
"Interesting woman, oh, no, interesting demon," he looked me up and down as if taking my measure. "It would be a shame to kill you now. The future is long, we have plenty of time."
"He will come to save me!" Suddenly, I lifted my head. I wanted to remind this arrogant fellow, who had forgotten the pain once the scar healed,[3] that there was someone in the world who was superior to him, both in character and ability. He was just a slovenly defeated opponent.
"Him?" Uncontrollable anger swept away the laziness in his eyes. Subconsciously, he reached behind his back, then spread his hand before him, his palm stained with crimson blood.
Was his wound still bleeding? The formidable power of Zimiao's arrow once again gave me the confidence to look down on this guy.
"I will make him pay twice over for the revenge of gouging out my scales!" His words were filled not only with the murderous spirit to do what he said, but also with resentment and unwillingness from his defeat.
"You are no match for him, never will be! He will come to save me soon. You'd better be smart and run for your life!"
I smiled, smiling triumphantly, and the angrier he got, the wider I smiled.
The two sharp-as-knives eyes suddenly focused on my face.
"The beauty is in his arms, he won't come." His smile was full of ridicule.
Footnotes:
[1] 男女授受不亲 from Mencius.
[2] 天理: Heaven's law; the natural order of things.
[3] 好了伤疤忘了疼: forgetting the hard days of the past after living a comfortable life, instead of learning from the experience to avoid the same mistakes.
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