Wasn’t he a bit too much thick skin? Mu Rong An thought as she surveyed the suddenly timid child. She had, yes, invited him but he came so unabashedly, he really didn’t fear many things.

Little Yan Mi was quite clean and way more docile than she remembered him to be. He was quite humble too as he expressed all his truths stating that he indeed didn’t have a mother anymore. He actually laid down his life to her, appealing to her pity and maybe because she already knew about it or just that she didn't feel like being used that much, there wasn't in her the intended emotion he wanted her to have. In there really was, his keen eyes couldn't really see it as her smile although welcoming didn't seem to pity him enough to the point of gifting him clothes and money. She actually just said some comforting words and then asked how he was living now to which he replied with his some prepared lies. Nodding, the woman digging dig much before then ordering a servant to fetch her painting box. 

Mu Rong An was really intending of using the little child as a model mostly because he was that easy on the eye -and she was bored-, she would think of his relationship with Feng Xi later.

Opening the box brought to her, she took out brushes and coloring powders which a servant then mixed with water by the side.

In some of the drawers of the box, laid the different sizes papers. She firstly carefully ranged the sketches of Ru Shan Yong which were at the top of the pile back to the end, before taking a handful of unused ones.

Those sketches of Ru Shan Yong, she had done them by memory quite sure that she wouldn’t really be given the approbation if she asked of him to stay put for her to draw. They were quite simple ones, nothing complicated and nothing outrageous. Him sitting with eyes closed and folded legs or him swinging his sword. In some sketches, she surprised herself by how much she knew of the sword, drawing it almost identically to the original by memory, which let her know she had actually been paying attention to the deadly weapon he liked to carry wherever he went with him.

Others kind of sketches too came to her mind when she was sitting beside her painting tools with a brush in hands reading to pen down what her mind was conjuring. However, it was the kind that couldn’t bear being showed to anyone and most definitely should not be laid down on a paper. She would squash fiercely the aspiration to draw such and would inevitably draw other things she could remember, quite insignificant ones like beautiful trees, lingering landscapes in her memories still, flowers or the empress’s personal garden, roses, chrysanthemum or whatever could lay her flourishing imagination to rest. Mostly inanimate things.

Beside the drawings of the general, there were also those of his horse. Between the two it was the most difficult one to draw for she couldn’t remember its traits never really paying attention to it before thus she had to sit and observed to be able to come with something; but the blasted thing was unwilling for her to stare at it and would, most of the time, changed position. And in the end, all those sketches were quite unfinished drawing.

She had the servant changed the little boy before she led him to sit on the upper step of the two-steps stairs leading to the courtyard’s entrance. Behind them, the sun was glaring and Yan Mi was quite happy to not be under its burning heat for once.

A couple of drawings and change in place and positions later, Mu Rong An was ordering for tea and snacks to be brought. The little boy devoured it quite unceremoniously,

“Where’s your savior?” she asked, tools and papers put aside now.

“I… I don’t really know him” the little boy had the decency to blush at the memory of the woman he had tried to take advantage of. There had been disappointment in Feng Xi’s voice as she reprimanded him; yet, despite what he had done, she still insisted on taking care of him to which he responded by fleeing.  

“Oh, she didn’t welcome you?”

Yan Mi stopped eating and ever so slightly narrowed his eyes at the smiling woman in front of him debating if he should reaffirm the idea that Feng Xi was a man as per what she wanted everyone to believe, suddenly feeling a sense of loyalty for the person who took care of him these past few days... He didn’t… couldn’t guess as to what the one in front of him was trying to get, so he said,

“I don’t know where he is.”

Mu Rong An nodded at him and had the servant bring some coins for the boy and he was suddenly very eager to go, him who was before hinting as to stay here and work permanently. And since he didn’t feel like working here anymore despite her trying to persuade otherwise, she didn't persist,

“Feel free to come back any time. There are some more sketches I would like to try.”

And he really took her words for it. Being back here almost every day. Mu Rong An wasn’t always drawing him of course, actually, at one point she stopped drawing him but he stayed as a sort of companion. Being all inside this mansion wasn’t really pleasant and quite boring –not that she ever wanted to go back to being busy cleaning-. There were no invitation cards that she would receive, no tea parties she would organize for she didn’t even know the officials residing here. Little Yan Mi became somewhat of her personal gossiper through whom she would learn other people’s lives and through whom she actually learned others identity.

Some days later, she decided that her own company for so long wasn't enough anymore nor was that little boy's one. 

The carriage, although not a dreamy one, had received many modifications that she personally ordered so that she would stop being terribly jolted on the roads. Following the little boy’s advice and even howling him up with her, she was out and for lack of better entertainment, she went to a tea house. There she could hear stories while sipping new quality teas.

When they arrived, the little boy asked to be excused for the day and ran away immediately as soon as his feet left the carriage for the ground. Following him with her eyes, Mu Rong An saw him going in the direction of the back of the tea house he brought her to. There was an alley and two persons were conversing there. Yan Mi tapped the hand of one of them to draw his attention. Turning around, the person seemed to be… Feng Xi. Still in male clothes too. She was smiling and chatting with him now, patting his head to which he responded by swatting away her hands. 

It seemed that during these days they actually made up and even became friends, they shouldn't be that far to become sworn brothers.

Mu Rong An had a wry smile as she entered the tea house with one of her servant, her mood a little sour.

***

Mu Rong An came back to that tea house once every other day. She didn’t even know why herself. From the room she usually was, she would look at Feng Xi. The person seemed quite amiable, a big silly smile on her face. Her sword was missing but at its place, she had the cloth of a waiter.

Really, it wasn’t anything interesting to see someone work but knowing that the person was working here in this tea house instead of already having links with military situations, there was still a bit of joy in Mu Rong An; and maybe it was to confirm that those two people’s path was diverging without her needing to do anything that she found herself coming back to this tea house which wasn’t all that good compared to the one she was used to.

That aside, there was in this gesture of taking tea made by a tea master a sense of coming home. Her real home, back at the capital. A yearning, a somewhat sense of longing, longing for her friends back there, her mother, her brother, her father. Those shared moments behind finest tea and inconsequent conversations. 

She felt oh so terribly lonely.

***

Once when coming, there were no more empty single rooms thus she had to share the first floor with everyone else. The two servants who always accompanied her there first thought that she would go back rather than staying on the ground floor but to their surprise, she hadn't been difficult at all and accepted. Thus, she sat on an empty table in a corner with her servants not far away. 

Scanning the room, Mu Rong An didn’t see Feng Xi today and was somewhat disappointed. Waiting for the tea to be brought, she wondered a bit if she should go back to the market and paid for some jewelry before returning home. It just appeared to her that the one she was wearing most of the time, so accustomed to it was she that she forgot, housed poison.

Lifting her head, a familiar face appeared in front of her. For once since coming here, the one who was serving her was Feng Xi.

“We meet again.” She smiled at the person.

“D…Did we?” asked Feng Xi pleasantly, “Ah!” she exclaimed suddenly remembering, after all, in this little village there weren’t many who fancied walking with veils on and certainly not under this kind of weather, “You're the one from the market!”

“Yes” acknowledged Mu Rong An, “Care to join me? I could do with a company” she proposed in a smile.

But as soon as the words left, someone was already shouting across the room,

“Little Xi, what are you doing, come and help me, ah”. 

It was a young woman’s voice coming from the inner room's,

“I’m sorry,” Feng Xi smiled sheepishly, putting down her command.

“A pity,” Mu Rong An pleasantly smiled as the other rushed to answer to the still shouting person.

“We could keep you company if you so want!” exclaimed an elder voice near her, and before Mu Rong An could politely decline, three women had already pulled chairs and sat by her table. Her eyes curved, but she declined on commenting.

Villagers weren't quite fond of strangers in troubled times and rather stay far away from unknown faces, she had thought previously. But it seemed Mu Rong An intrigued people as everyone here was very friendly but she, she talked to no one and always howled herself in a room all by herself. 

Whispers of incoming disasters were brewing and frightening people. Some came here to hear more about them while others were trying to distract themselves from them. The latter kinds would found people to converse with and share stories or whatnots, so long as the conversation was ongoing. It was that kind of tea house after all. The prices weren't high but it provided entertainment and a certain warmth.

Mu Rong An, whose peace was suddenly broken had quite bitter words for them. However, they were said in quite roundabout manner that obviously, neither of this straight women understood. Another waitress came with the women's commands, her voice like that of the one who just called Feng Xi. She was glaring at Mu Rong An, seemingly she, she had understood the sarcasm between the lines.

Well, thought the general’s wife, you may as well tell them then for I can’t seem to shake them off with whatever I say. However, the waitress didn’t inform the others of her the true meaning of her words and just left after she was done, flashing for everyone a smile which turned quite stiff when she looked at Mu Rong An who returned to her a wide smile under her veil.

Ah, it took Mu Rong An all her etiquettes to grudgingly end up participating in the conversation the women were forcing on her.

They were straightforward and crude in their words. To call a cat a cat they said. They started with small gossips that escalated. They didn’t, remarked Mu Rong An, talk about the increase in military men in the village as though afraid to call doom upon them almost as if, if no one denied it then peace would reign forever.

They grew quite interested in her then after sharing some pieces of information about themselves. They weren’t that much old, between late thirties to early forties and seemingly more bored than her or maybe more scared thus turning around to rambling to forget the dreadful feeling of something wrong.

She complied and shared some information. And she somehow, their discussion even came to her giving back that advise her mother once gave her when she was small. ‘In anger, don’t fight, smashing expensive things is more satisfying’.

“It’s as if the anger go inside that piece and you physically destroyed it, that anger. The greater the annoyance, the more expensive must be the piece you choose to destroy. Actually, even the knowledge that you can afford it helps in dealing with the resilient anger.”

There was silence around the previously chatty table. These women were affiliated with some officials and weren't really in need, actually in this village despite the gloomy atmosphere, they could be considered quite well off, however, they were quite different from people in the capital and attached more importance to their possession. Destroying things without rhyme or reason just because you’re angry was still something a bit hard to do.

“And does the anger go?” one of them asked after a moment.

“Sometimes” confided Mu Rong An trustfully in a gleeful smile towards the shocked women. Other times it was quite good to know that what you were smashing down wasn’t your property but someone else’s! Who knew how much of her father's vases or her half-sisters' things did she destroy?

The more the conversation was going on, the more likable she found it to be, and even though there were moments they had a bit of difficulty in understanding Mu Rong An or her understanding them, they could round it without that much trouble. Just like that, minutes turned to hours. 

As the chat was going on though, the ever calm and collected Mu Rong An found herself choking on her tea in public at what was being said to her so bluntly! The woman who talked laughed at her ‘innocence’ she called it. ‘A shy woman from the capital’. Another was patting her back, laughing too, while telling her that there was nothing to be ashamed of.

Mu Rong An would never dare call herself ‘innocent’ but really there were some things she wouldn’t do too. She didn’t mind talking about bedroom matters whether with her husband or maybe some of her friends back at the capital, however, where had it ever been seen that those things were discussed with strangers. The only thing she did was acknowledged that yes she was married before they went on and forth about their weird pieces of advice!

One, looking at her chest talked about how to ‘use those assets’. The other was whispering to her about ‘tips so that her husband wouldn’t stray!’

The blush that crept on her face was very much genuine. Talking about or doing these things with her husband was still alright but why come and comment? She now almost missed the daughter of the grand teacher with her forever preaching about etiquettes. If such a stiff person was by her side today she would have prevented her from such a weird afternoon!

***

As she departed and extricated herself from her strange company, Mu Rong An caught Feng Xi's voice not too far from her carriage. Rounding it a bit, she saw, hidden by the restaurant wall between the restaurant and a horse, Feng Xi and another young woman. It was the waitress who glared at her previously.

That woman, Ah Mei apparently caught her staring at Feng Xi more than once previously and was warning her friends.

“Maybe she was mesmerized by my charms” joked Feng Xi trying to make the agitated Ah Mei smiled a bit. Who knew what the stubborn was already thinking about in that dramatic mind of hers?

“What if she’s a spy?” she whispered, “What if she knew?”

'Here,' Feng Xi thought, 'Didn't I say it?'. “Shh" warned her friend before sighing when she saw how much the other had blanched. "Now, now, calm down,” pacified Feng Xi, “didn’t the general said he was taking care of that? Remembered, that handsome and very capable general" she boosted shamelessly, "who made your nose bled and in whose presence you whispered ‘I now know what beauty is’ to his face?”

The mortified Ah Mei slapped her hands while whispered-screaming 'shameless'.

"Those were your words!" laughed Feng Xi.

“Aye, aye, let's forget about that! The glare he had given me, aya, I'm still too scared to dare think about it!”

Feng Xi burst out laughing and despite wanting to be angry Ah Mei was smiling too. Ah, really, she made an embarrassment out of herself but it was good too, since that day she met with Feng Xi who saved her life and with whom she was friends since then.

Feng Xi's laughs suddenly died and she narrowed her eyes. She made a gesture to her waist but to her disappointment, her sword wasn't by her side. It had been taken by the master of the restaurant when Ah Mei helped her get a job here.

Undeterred though, with a firm voice she warned,

“You’ve listened for so long, come out now.”

Mu Rong An didn't shy away and advanced with her two servants by her side, looking at one woman and the other.

"What do you want" asked the cross-dresser with authority.

“It's her!” whispered Ah Mei, not really quietly.

Slowly, Mu Rong An took off her veil to correctly look at these two women. The anger that was building inside of her, did it really have no cause to exist? Who could be daring enough to say that to her?

Feng Xi was quite puzzled by this woman now. When Ah Mei talked she thought that the other was exaggerating but could it really be that she was being followed? Aya, if it was due to her charms then she would make another heartbroken maiden! It wasn't her fault she was blessed with such a dashing face in this life ah!

“Handsome, isn’t he?” she asked with a beautiful smile. “My husband" she added the precision." He’s truly dashing, isn't he”

And to the wind flew Feng Xi's silly thoughts.

"The general is married?" asked Ah Mei in a whisper, quite amazed by the news apparently.

How could Feng Xi know about that? She didn't really care and for now, she would just take this woman's words for it. After all, she was living in the general's manor. In remembrance of what she just said, she had the decency to blush. 

“I didn’t mean- ”

“You did," cut the woman, her voice going smoother and her smile warmer, "And I would like it to be the last of those kinds of thoughts.” It was her first time, actually, that Mu Rong An had a wish to be privy with his military affairs, to know a bit more about what was happening. An information that Feng Xi seemed to have.

It was on the tip of Feng Xi’s tongue to say that she couldn't help admiring beautiful things and would certainly inevitably voice such an admiration if her friend hadn't beaten her to it that day but Ah Mei was blushing so furiously now that she knew someone overheard that particular part of their conversation that the one who was more embarrassed by this was certainly that young timid woman. 

"A misunderstanding, this is all a misunderstanding! I'm not a cut-sleeve. I like women, ah. Don't slander me good madame!" was saying Feng Xi shamelessly, her voice suddenly going coarser. She felt Ah Mei pinched her hip but kept her face straight.

Mu Rong An just narrowed her.

***

Following that, she didn’t go back to the tea restaurant for a time. She didn’t want to meet with Feng Xi anymore to start with, and the other reason being that she rather not meet with these bored and chatty elder women. They were just… too much… too many things and that for various reasons.

However, since she had to fill her now empty hours, she finally gave in to her ridiculous ideas of scandalous drawings. 

It was more of a gradual thing that a deliberate planned one. Drawing him too sweaty and maybe because the sun was burning too much too over her head, she felt the need to lighten him as he once did himself. She took off his upper robe and just draw him with the rest. Her eyes closed, she could still remember his almost dancing figure. A quite deadly kind of dance which certainly explained why she had drawn in the background some faintly discerned corpses. The only one whose head could actually still be distinguished was Wu Wei. Ah, that one had been quite a satisfying kind of sight. She stared at it for a bit wishing the person's actual death was far gorier than what her mind was capable of thinking. And just because she was feeling rather good, she added more blood to the general's sword. Wu Wei's blood of course. How joyful! A pity though, that she couldn't remember that sword's name. She had half the mind to accompany her masterwork with an adequate poem eulogizing the swiftness of said sword.

It staid a good sight for some more moments before she decided she didn't really want something to remember that disgusting person by, not even a picture describing his death; so she burned that drawing.

Her mind drifted back though, to simply drawing the general; with each more work she was doing, she was peeling off another cloth. And when she came to nothing left, she never really draw him bluntly naked. It was always suggested. Him lying on the bed with one leg covered under the blanket or imagining him in her place back then, washing in the river on the road to these borders...

She wondered a bit how this good general would react to nude painting of him. Well, she thought, lifting her latest sketch where one could see the flushed face of Ru Shan Yong. It could be something akin to this, it would be quite good if he could blush like he did sometimes under the blanket with her.

Although she had such though, Mu Rong An She wouldn’t dare though, let her drawings anywhere near easily found. At the beginning she was destroying them the minute she finished but recently, she carefully folded them and hid them.

***

A couple of days later, the general was back once again with a handful of his men at the manor. It became almost of a regular thing, him coming back to a somewhat regular pace. He would howl himself up in the other courtyard the whole day with his men or be completely out of the manor and come back to her courtyard by the night.

He seemed… busy. He could go back to these barracks he came from that it wouldn’t be much of a difference. She couldn’t see his shadow at all. He was back when she was sleeping or else he was with his men. Only the neighing of horses would indicate his presence.

‘Who asked of me to wait?’ she thought with bitterness and a good deal of resentment in her when once again the evening meal turned cold. She really needn't someone else to tell her that. 

"Serve" she ordered.

She wasn't really angry though, just wished she could discuss maybe. Although Yan Mi was still coming from time to time to talk to her, the one she wanted to talk to was still Ru Shan Yong. However, the person, when he appeared, looked like he needed more sleep than chatting. 

It, his workload or whatever it was he was doing, regressed a bit, as for the first time since coming back, she found him still in the mansion when she woke up.

"Oh, you're here!"

"The house is mine!"

As they were being served by the morning meal by the servants, he reminded her,

“Your personal servant will be here by the next week.”

His beard that he didn’t care to shave for a while now was growing; despite the short sleeping time he managed to catch some hours every other night there were bags under his eyes and over his thick clothing, she couldn’t tell if he had lost weight or not.

“You seem…tired”. 

Oh, he seemed many more, but she settled for this one word. It was far politer than the ones she had in mind.

“And you seem…alright.”

Well, maybe he too had less nicer things in mind when saying this but she smiled at him anyway taking his words at face value.

They ate in silence while she pondered a bit.

She had, for a moment, the desire to ask when they would be going back to the capital, before burying that desire in her heart. It shouldn’t be anytime soon why waste her saliva asking? And whatever it was that was preoccupying him was certainly the only thing he had in mind.

However, he was really free this morning, for after eating he took that sword that he seemed to like more than anything and started polishing it. Mu Rong An just sat there observing without really seeing. She was so fixed on him that he had goosebumps.

And maybe because she had never once left him alone when they were just they two of them, he was somewhat wary of her thinking form,

“Do you have something to say?”

Jolted awake by his voice, for sole answer, she gave him a smile which meaning he couldn’t quite decipher. 

"Why must I do the talking? I wish to be the listener for once."

Was she snappy? Ru Shan Yong lifted the sharp-cutting sword, minutely observing its cuttingness, testing it with his thumb deciding that it was enough. He put it back on its scabbard before standing up, securing it to its waist. His own mood wasn't bad, he could accompany her for a time, she looked definitely bored. Some windy air on horseback was what he was thinking about doing anyway.

“Must we talk here?” 

She gave a wry smile, imagining this restless person too used to be on horse’s back to feel good on earth again; which turned into a lifted brow when he gave her his hand to help her up. Mu Rong An didn’t deny him and let him help her. She followed where he led and as she thought, he was really going to that picky horse’s direction.

His idea of talking and hers were obviously very different!

As soon as they were near it, it started neighing and Mu Rong An could almost traduce it by ‘go away you are polluting my air’. Such a charming beast this one!

“Little black can sense negative vibes.” Was informing the master behind her.

“Not surprising, those negative thoughts must definitely be emitted from its very being and terribly leaking!”

Ru Shan Yong didn’t seem amused to hear such things about his beloved horse.

Despite the master's urgent, the horse was quite unwilling to have a second person on its back, wouldn't even let Mu Rong An approached.

'Mutual' she was thinking, 'very much mutual.'

It was the first time in a while that little black was so stubborn when the one commending was him. The woman was smiling strangely and the horse neighing in her direction. Ru Shan Yong could almost see the oozing annoyance from them both, wondering just when they developed such a thing. The one who was most definitely reluctant was him. It was stuffy, he wanted to ride.

“We are outside under the sun,” remarked Mu Rong An with a smile that wasn’t quite one, this one this time directed at him, and Ru Shan Yong could easily guess the meaning. She made a concession in coming out under such a weather he should concede too in letting his horse behind. Very well, they could go back inside then but she didn't seem to want that as she hastily proposed,

“How about a stroll by the garden?”

The place could hardly be called a garden. It was too hot, nothing wanted to flourish, the ground was quite unwilling to grow anything. Thus there weren't many flowers, and from Mu Rong An's point of view, it was quite ugly. In one of her drawing, she imagined it with other kinds of flowers and far more worth seeing that what it was at the moment.

They walked for a time, not under the sun rather in the shadow of the mansion, by the lane near the verandah. Ru Shan Yong had crossed his arms behind his back. There was no breeze, no wafting no nothing and Mu Rong An who was slowly ventilated by one servant before felt the heat more than him who was previously merely sitting. Now she regretted a bit proposing that stroll. And since he didn't seem anytime near starting to talk, she went ahead and recounted what she did of her days wondering a bit if he would really share what he was doing with his. They didn't have that much in common it would be good if they could at least talk to each other.

As she went on, the change on her face was scarce and most of the time, Ru Shan Yong couldn’t understand that gentle smile on her face. It wasn’t one from when one remembered a pleasant thing nor was it really what he could call a sincere smile of happiness. It was just weird, too calculate and too permanent on her face. He rather, instead of smiling for decorum, someone be expressionless to boot.

“You’re difficult,” interrupted his voice suddenly.

Mu Rong An paused, not sure how to respond to that, not understanding what he meant actually.

“I can’t understand you.” He echoed her thoughts.

She felt like asking if they weren’t talking the same language but decided against it.

“You never tried.” She said instead which was, for her truthful enough.

“That,” he started, bluntly pointing at her face “ is what I mean. Are you mocking me now?”

Mu Rong An’s smile curved a bit more. Ah, she very much was!

“I don’t understand” her smooth voice replied, “it is impolite to point.”

“I never know when you mean your words. Maybe even you don’t know anymore when you mean them. That special tea you talked about in Lei village is famous for its bitterness. Did you really found it in you to like that acrid thing?”

“There was a lingering sweetness washing away the bitterness. Worth the bite.”

“It could always be ameliorated.”

She halted in her steps which caused him to halt with her. Maybe she was reading too much between the lines but she asked anyway,

“Do you mean to ameliorate me?” she asked with a warm smile which was the exact opposite of the building anger inside. 

They were becoming friends she had thought or if not friends actually two people who could talk to each other without nasty thinking. However, did he, this whole time, considered her such a terrible person that he had to curb her into someone with whom he could actually spend time with? Was she, a piece of pottery he could mold to his liking?

“No…I just want to know. To understand you.”

“…”

He proceeded to explain.

“I want to hear your thoughts. Your truthful thoughts and not those words you say to please your listener. What you think under that smile of yours, what you have to share, when you are sad or angry and want someone’s head. Especially when you’re angry, as black as those thoughts may be. And they appear to be particularly dark then.”

“…Are there many people whose thoughts are pure when angry?”

“…”

Thinking a bit, she decided to modify some of her words then. One step at a time, they could certainly become friends one of these days.

“The truth would be that I didn’t particularly like that tea house. It had a strange smell and loud people, one could hardly hear his own reflections.” She offered.

They did talk a bit with her being more truthful then and him opening his mouth some more. Not quite passionating days he was having. Meeting with advisors days on and forth.

“How do you feel about going back to the capital?” he asked at one point.

“… It is very much welcome.”

He nodded, “It can’t be done for now, but in a couple of months it would be safe to take the road back.”

“...Will you be coming back too?”

He surveyed her face as though searching for something before answering, “a decree should come by that time” was his answer.

“En”

A whistle put an end to their conversation and it seemed she had occupied his whole free time as he once again left to rejoin his men.

***

His load of works was steadily being resolved as he started coming back earlier and once again sharing her dinner. He had long stopped, she remarked, taking those bowls of medicine he once had.

Their chatting although not really profound was quite courtly, friendly almost. And maybe it was looking at him like this for consecutive days that those almost forgotten strange pieces of advice actually came back from whatever corner of her memory that she had buried them in and wouldn’t go, nagging at her from time to time. She remembered too, Feng Xi and her conversation with Ah Mei.

And since this general seemed quite fond of truth, she very much bluntly told him, without any hint of embarrassment at all, 

"You're so very handsome." Such words left her mouth in the middle of a conversation, without rhyme or reason at all or so to Ru Shan Yong's point of view.

And she wasn't lying too. He indeed was easy on the eye. Not in Hen Ru Ying's sense. Ru Shan Yong had nothing effeminate in him at all.  He was manly all thorough with sharp features, which didn't prevent those features from being exquisite. Actually, even this beard she would have found quite disgusting months ago looked quite good on him in her eyes now. 

Her husband who was actually chewing on something froze. Mu Rong An suddenly wondered a bit if Ah Mei had caught him off guard as she did now. She thought he would respond to her with a glare like he supposedly did to Ah Mei which wouldn't surprise her but instead on his tanned ears and even though she couldn't really swear to it, there seemed to be a sudden redness there.

The husband was the one embarrassed by the wife's shamelessness, something didn't seem quite right there.

If she had dared said a thing like that a year ago the glare she would have received would have her back sweating profusely but now she felt a bit giddy at his reaction. Ah, was it normal that she itched to touch him now?

He let out a sigh before coughing, not even responding to her nonsense, quite willing to continue to eat as though she didn't talk at all!

However, Mu Rong An wanted to shock him more,

“What’s there to be ashamed of? You’re my husband, isn’t it normal to want you? I want to jolt you with my hands, feel you shudder under my touch, see your face going red as you tremble and release yourself in me. The cold general who is so charmingly human in bed!”

His cheek ever so slightly went red too. He was quite speechless indeed. Hearing crude words from his rough men was one thing but hearing such words coming out from the singsong voice of a female was entirely another!

“You!” he seemed quite unable to utter a word after this one. Repeating 'you' over and over again and she laughed to his face with the pride of an accomplished duty!

And since she was quite finished with her plate and he had long posed his bowl because of her, she got up from her place to go to his, bending down to observe his face at close range.

"Go back!" he ordered, an order she joyfully ignored!

Ah, it was really a blush. Pure jade indeed, ah! So not terrifying at this moment.

With a smile, she dived in and went for a kiss. well, he didn't evade which had her smile through the exchange as he gripped at her waist. 

"And you like kissing me too," she muttered in between their kisses, not really intelligibly but she knew it to be right anyway as for once, he seemed more eager than her.

His beard was ticklish and quite strange making the experience of kissing him something of a novelty.

A whistle was heard and Ru Shan Yong broke the kiss, immediately on his feet. The making out session was over before it even properly began.

As she sat there once he left, Mu Rong An was feeling a bit sour. Seducing one’s own husband was quite hard it seemed.

***

When she went back to the tea house after not going for a while, she understood that Feng Xi wasn’t working there anymore. She didn’t really ask that Ah Mei what happened to her friend. 

Going out bothered her more than boredom would have ever done, she should have stayed in the mansion, at the very least she wouldn't have known. 

Was ignorance better? 

But then again she could have it all wrong and Feng Xi just being the restless person she always had been decided to roam somewhere else. It mustn't be though, for Yan Mi was still coming every other day and at this point seeing how friendly they were in the restaurant everytime she would look at them, Feng Xi already considered him the brother she once lost, there was no chance she could leave him behind...

“That weird smile again? Who annoyed you?” a masculine man interrupted her musing.

She was a little startled and, letting down her brush, she turned to look at Ru Shan Yong who was already looking at her, the desert she was painting long forgotten,

“You think I am angry?”

His clear expression morphed a bit as he frowned, carefully looking at her face. He wasn't really sure how to read this complicate person’s mood so he said nothing,

“You really think so?” she persisted into asking somewhat wanting to know.

“The smile is fake and quite unsettling. Almost scary.” He informed then.

She smiled wider while his frown went deeper. He never got his answer.

***

“There are pretty inventive people with wide imagination in the world!” He commented one night upon coming back, really happy, in his mind the success of the new weapon's test. 

“There are.” Mu Rong An acknowledged half asleep. 

She was readying himself to go to bed and yawned discreetly, a bit tired. Ru Shan Yong was late to come back compared to the recently previous nights but he seemed more invigorate than tired. 

Once he took his bath and came under the blanket, he seemed for once, determined to talk and Mu Rong An wanted no more than to snap at him to shut it up! Her not-a-care-in-the-world attitude she sometimes had with him seemed to be rubbing on him as, even though he was aware of her sleepy state, he still talked and wished to be responded to. She ended up following his lead and sat on the bed, to hear him ramble on about ingenuosity and world's curiosity, not understanding more than half of what was being said.

Having been in the person's company for so many months now, Mu Rong An was herself aware that Ru Shan Yong wasn't a chatty kind of person. He must be terribly happy to be this talkative and somewhere in his mind he must think her a friend for it was only with close people that he would reveal his long-windedness. And the person to whom he had felt the closest to in years had been Li Ming Qi, which certainly explained why, when he interpellated the person he was talking to, to hear what she had to say, he unconsciously blurted 'Qi'er'. Ru Shan Yong coughed at the slip and passed, repeating his question. 

Mu Rong An's eyes narrowed, and she ignored the question to voice a remark of her own,

"You never called my name,"

"Miss Mu"
“I'm hardly a miss still. Mu Rong An. Let me hear those words leaving your lips" she whispered, all sleepiness gone. 

Her tone had been so soft and strange that Ru Shan Yong who was about to call her halted again. He found it a bit weird to repeat it after the way she stressed it.

Since they weren't that far from one another on the bed, leaning, she could whisper in his ear. And she did so, ever so gently, "Call my name”. Coaxing, urging.

She suddenly very much wanted to hear the sound of his voice uttering her name. Hers. And hers alone.

Imaginative people indeed, she murmured as she thought back at the pieces of advice she had received and wondered if the one about the man begging was true. Hearing Ru Shan Yong's voice muttering her name in something akin to desperation, like she was his last saving cord sounded great and without further thinking, Mu Rong An went down the blanket.

Sleep must have gnawed at her brain for otherwise, such a thing she still wouldn't have tried.

"What are you-"

The frown didn't even get the time to form on his face that Ru Shan Yong jumped at the stab of her tongue in his navel. 

“You!” he exclaimed, trying to lift her from him body pacifically. He wasn't done talking and very much not in the mood for any extra activity today but she wiggled away and nipped the hard curve of muscle below his navel with her teeth earning a groan from him.

"I'm sorry" he willingly apologized, half not sure of what he was apologizing for.

However, Mu Rong An was a determined person with a mindset. For him to beg in her name. And Ru Shan Yong didn't feel like manhandling her. Every time he tried to get her to move she would stick to him like there was no tomorrow.

"Come out of the blanket at least."

"If you stay still."

And when he really let her, waiting for her to come out she was back once again to kissing his belly instead.

He yanked the blanket and she didn't care.

"You're not angry," he said. It wasn't a question but she answered anyway, fleetingly sharing a glance with him,

"I am not." No, I want you to beg my name. "Don't move and let me be, will you."

There was something akin to determination in her eyes, a determination Ru Shan Yong couldn't quite understand. And in the end, he let her be, may as well.

The hair on his belly was prickly, coarser than his chest hair. These last days he shaved nowhere but he had a good smell of soap on him still. She tried hard to remember what she was told, at the time she wasn't really listening. In the end, she went at it like she felt, raining kissing under his navel, across his thighs. At one point she could feel him twitching at her throat. 

By minutes he was giving restrained moans such an intonation that one could think he was being tortured but whether he didn't understand or was unwilling, his name didn't leave his lips still.

Tentatively, slowly, she reacquainted herself with his body using her lips, her tongue, and even her teeth, every bit but his member. He held still for her as best he could, trembling and sighing at times moaning and groaning. Quite enjoying it actually albeit sounding somewhat in despair. A need he himself wasn't sure what of. Still, he didn’t spell her name. Even when she turned her head to drag her lips lightly over the side of his member and he ended up jerking and sitting clumsily on the edge of the bed. He moaned again when she repeated the caress on the other side. But nothing more. Quite the fighter.

They said that then the man would beg, he would beg in soft tones the name of the person he wanted, half out of it. She wondered, would he never beg her name at all? She really wanted it to escape his lips. Her name. Her sole name.

“Aren't you finished?” he asked difficulty as though the words were wrung out of him.

“No,” she said, pulling away to smile up at him.

“What exactly are you doing?” he voiced painfully, his eyes cloudy with unsatisfied desire.

There was a mischievous glint in her eyes as she smiled without answering and he wished for the life of him that he could give a name to that sensation. His touch was tender as he cupped her cheek in his palm. She turned her head slightly to kiss the center of his hand and he could feel her smiling still beneath his skin.

“I…” he tried to say and Mu Rong An imagined that the words he found difficult to utter must be ‘I want you’. The raw emotion of need. But those weren't what she was after.

The glint in his eyes though, boost her to do what she was second-guessing, squashing the latest hesitation in her. 

The sound he made when she took him in her mouth was… unique. He was very much startled by the gesture but that sound... oh, no words could describe it. The more she tasted him, the stiller he grew, holding himself rigid with his hands fisted in the blanket at his sides. It was only when he began to tremble violently, his peak too close, that he moved, reaching down to grab her under the arms and hauled her up. He pulled her over him as he tipped back onto the bed, his mouth finding hers in a kiss as he spilled against her belly in warm pulses that dampen her clothing. Mu Rong An was a tad annoyed that he said her name at no point at all.

She separated herself from him, a frown on her face now, her hand going to cover his lips.

“My mouth... what do you think-”

But he was kissing her again and since he didn't mind his taste on her tongue, neither did she. Oh, he was very much more the one leading afterward. She didn't mind, she let it to him, she would try making him beg another night. They had plenty to come.

Her eyes had fluttered shut, her head thrown back, neck taut and throat exposed to him as he made her undone.