Su Feifei clutched the small stack of clothes to her chest as hard as she could, trying to cover as much as possible of what was on display. At that moment, apart from a pair of very short hot pants, the white slippers on her feet, and a string of gemstones around her neck, she had not a stitch on her — her snow-white skin and her figure entirely bare, and Ye Tianxie had accidentally seen the whole of it. Her arms were full of the clothes she meant to change into, and although she was doing everything she could to shield her chest, in the flurry she had no idea that one side of her was still completely exposed.

Su Feifei’s skin was white and lustrous, so clear it seemed one might see through it. The gemstone chain hanging at her pale neck set off skin that shamed frost and snow, and with her figure, tall and willowy, and the narrow waist joining the curve above to the curve below, from whatever angle one looked the line of her was extraordinarily affecting. If ever there were a woman to move a mortal man, it was her.

By the time Su Feifei finally realized she ought to turn around, Ye Tianxie had already seen everything he should have seen and everything he shouldn’t. Su Feifei hugged the clothes tight against her chest, put her back to him, and said with an audible tremor in her voice, “You… you… you… who told you to come out!”

“That… ought to be my question. What are you doing running around undressed in broad daylight? You can’t be doing it deliberately so I’d look?” His gaze traveled from her back down her legs; even with only her back left to him, she was temptation itself. Su Feifei had not only extraordinary looks but a figure of very nearly flawless proportion, astonishing enough to seem dreamed up… and today, that perfect line of hers was exposed before a man for the first time, and taken in without the least restraint.

“You… you never come out this early… I wanted a bath… I thought… Ah!! Get back inside!!”

Dinner was at seven, and Ye Tianxie never came out of the game before seven either; every day was the same. Having come out early, the first thing on Su Feifei’s mind had been to go and wash, and since it had never occurred to her that Ye Tianxie might emerge this early, she had changed out of her clothes quite freely in her own room and then walked to the bathroom carrying the change of clothes with nothing on… and run headlong into a Ye Tianxie who had happened to come out at that exact moment.

Ye Tianxie rubbed his forehead, at a loss for words, gave Su Feifei’s back one last look, and very much like a gentleman walked back into his own room and pulled the door shut.

Immediately, the sound of Su Feifei’s slippers came hurrying away down the hall.

A very beautiful body… Ye Tianxie leaned against the door, the picture that had so struck him replaying in his mind, refusing for a long while to go away.

A dangerous feeling rose in him… that restlessness inside left him faintly uneasy. If he went on living alongside Su Feifei for long enough, would he… actually end up doing something he shouldn’t?

At the same time, in another place.

Sunlight came in through a tall, half-translucent gauze window and fell across her entirely bare body, soft light running back and forth along the snow of her shoulders like the halo of the moon, tracing two lustrous half-arcs at her collarbones. A pair of slender arms stirred the surface of the water slowly, sending droplets scattering, running down her delicate fingers onto skin like ice and snow.

The water was a shade warmer than the fierce sunlight. She lay in it idly, her right leg drawn up, her long white left leg propped carelessly on the edge of the tub, one exquisitely shaped foot pointed downward, the sole of it glowing with a gentle sheen, the instep so fine it might have been tended with creams and oils — the smoothness of jade, the softness of satin…

Her hands moved gently over her own body; the skin, steeped in hot water, was slowly flushing peach. Her lustrous hair had spread out like dark cloud, veiling the deeply affecting line of her body beneath the water, and a face of the kind that topples cities was clear and translucent as a piece of fine jade. Disordered long hair, eyes like silk, cherry lips slightly parted, a body crystalline in the water, long legs, rounded ankles, and a manner that stirred the blood — beauty beyond compare.

And it was not as though this vision had no audience.

Beside the tub of blue jade stood a girl in a goose-yellow T-shirt and a pale blue skirt. Her eyes did not stray; she looked straight at the floor, and her expression held a composure and a gravity untouched by any flicker of feeling. She had already said everything she had come to say, and now waited in silence for a reply.

“So her father really is Ran Qingsheng…”

Even with another woman standing beside her, Liu Qiyue behaved as though nothing else existed, lifting water in her slender hand and letting it pour lightly over her body, as though there were nothing in this world more comfortable or more enjoyable. Her limpid phoenix eyes were narrowed slightly, a natural bewitchment hidden in their depths, a mischievous smile playing on her lips, as though she were admiring the fine line of her own leg.

“Yes. Absolutely certain,” the girl answered in a low voice. On the surface she was as still as water; but in fact… only she knew that her legs had already begun to weaken and her breathing had quickened a little. Liu Qiyue was a natural-born enchantress; a single expression of hers was enough to strip a man of his wits and leave a woman intoxicated as well… all the more so bathing openly like this.

Sluice…

A rush of water, and Liu Qiyue rose to her feet out of the tub. As she stood, a body so beautiful it had no business existing in the human world was revealed to the air without the least concealment — willow brows, apricot eyes, a fine nose, cherry lips, a line at once delicate and exquisite, skin smooth as satin, slender arms and rounded shoulders.

She walked out of the tub on bare feet like snow lotuses, over to the girl whose breathing had visibly quickened, and put out one slim finger to touch her chin, tilting up a face already faintly flushed.

“Nightingale — now, you can answer another question for me…” Liu Qiyue’s lips barely moved; her voice came soft and threadlike, her hair at the temples slightly disordered, her breath light, her lovely eyes moving with a brilliant light, a few strands of hair still clinging at the corner of her mouth.

“Yes… Master.” This time the girl’s voice too had begun to shake.

Liu Qiyue lowered a pair of moist, beautiful eyes, a strange pink rising in her face, and parted her lips; a fragrance like orchid and musk came drifting straight into the girl’s nose. “Tell me — is my body beautiful…”

“Master’s body… is the most beautiful there is.”

“Then why is it… that the man I like doesn’t want to look at me every day, keep me company, play with my body…”

Walking out of the bathroom, the smile that appeared at the corner of her mouth again was one to bring the whole world down…

Ran Qingsheng…

Little Brother Tianxie, that girl you helped — you really didn’t help the wrong one at all.

The time Ye Tianxie had come closest to death — the man who had dug him out of the snowdrift after a day and a night buried under heavy snow, and given him three full meals — was called Ran Qingsheng. That had truly been the saving of his life, and a great debt Ye Tianxie had never been able to repay.

Because by the time he finally had the ability to repay it, and found him, the man was already dead.

Affinity is always such a strange thing.

(End of Chapter 193)