Gu Yunxi entered Leng Qingtang's room and found him lying on the side, weaving a red string.

The bright red string freely danced between his slender fingers.

His jade-white fingers stood out against the red string and, together with his peerless face, formed a beautiful scene that encouraged people's imagination and accelerated their heartbeats.

Candlelight filtered through the valance onto him and bathed him in dreamlike and tempting golden light.

He heard the knock at the door. His eyelashes lifted as he looked up, and something shining flashed in his dark eyes.

The girl in white was standing in his front with her hair filleted high. She looked natural and unrestrained in men's clothes.

"You are here."

Leng Qingtang curled his lips to give her a gentle smile in which she saw thousands of stars.

"Have a seat."

He lowered his head a bit and tried to move inward to make room for her to sit.

For fear that this slight movement would drag his wound, Gu Yunxi hurried to the bed, stretching out her hands to help.

Their eyes met each other, and they fell into silence.

With his dark eyes rippled, he smiled at her gently for he was touched by her care and considerateness.

Gazing at his face, she had thousands of words to tell him, but they all blocked in her throat at this moment.

She let him took her hand and sat down at the edge of the bed.

He looked down again and went on weaving the red string in silence.

He stopped weaving after he strung a pair of gold beads on the end of the string.

Then he held her hand and carefully wound the red string around her thin wrist.

"Master..."

She murmured, and then gasped. She hesitated but finally didn't refuse him. Gazing at his fingers making a butterfly knot with the string, she thought the shaking beads under the wings of the knot symbolized his heart.

She couldn't tell the feelings in her heart but looked at the string on her wrist, letting her sight dominated by bright red.

Leng Qingtang smiled at Gu Yunxi, charming,

"'On the jade-like arm laces a red string, a dot of cinnabar lights up her peerless face.' No wonder they say, 'The red string on the wrist, the love in the heart.'"

Then he held her little hand in his palm and pulled it hard to lean it against his chest.

He said, "Yunxi, I know you've had a hard time these days..."

Like he was speaking from above the sky, Gu Yunxi felt his voice was full of magic. She was totally enchanted and wrong-footed.

She looked up to him without saying anything.

His dark eyes reflected her sad complexion, lit by a hazy halo, and disentangle emotions on her face.

Gu Yunxi's eye-rims turned red. She was on the verge of tears. Leng Qingtang's heart trembled, and he said,

"Girl, we have shared life and death together. You are the love in my heart that no one can replace you!"

His warm finger pulp stroked between her eyebrows and wiped the cold tears on her cheeks. He moved closer, forehead leaning against hers, and swore,

"Trust me. I will deal with Yanwan. I won't let you down. You'll see it in a few days. Trust me."

"Okay!"

Gu Yunxi nodded hard and answered with a quivering voice because she finally got his reply.

Happiness, jealousy, bitterness, and sorrow mixed in her heart. However, when she heard his gentle voice and saw his handsome face, she was relieved. She could release the grievance and sorrow that had long been repressed in her heart. The light of hope burned again in the dark abyss, and she grew confident and brave!

Leng Qingtang seemed to be too excited. He held Gu Yunxi's thin chin and put his lips close to hers, which made her blushed.

She was very cautious for fear that someone suddenly burst in, so she restrained her expectation and kept moving backward.

He tried hard to catch her, so his upper body lost balance and fell, pressing her onto the bed.

"Master, we can't..."

Before she could refuse her, he occupied her lips. His kiss, so touching and passionate, wouldn't give her any chance to escape.

Her head was blank in a few minutes. Finally, she surrendered. Her insistence and refuse were washed away by his passionate pursuit.

Emotions grew strong that they struggled out of the cage and were no longer in control.

She devoted herself to responding to him when she lifted her arms onto his neck.

They embraced intertwined with each other, willing to integrate with each other at this moment, and finally separated, out of breath, after using up all the energies.

"Master, Uncle Cheng and I got the damsels roster who danced on the Spring Banquet. Tomorrow I'll let painters draw their portraits and begin to search them. I'll look into every detail. I will find them no matter they are alive or not."

Gu Yunxi said when her breath was still uneven. She lay under Leng Qingtang, hot and sweaty. Her bright eyes shone like a temptation.

"Thank you...Yunxi, you've really grown up. You can share the burdens of mine and the Eastern Depot..."

He caressed her cheek with his warm palm, looking at her with love and affection.

These days, when Cheng Wanli talked with Leng Qingtang in his room, he praised Gu Yunxi a lot. A person praised by someone as serious as Cheng Wanli was a really excellent person.

Gu Yunxi grinned. Her ears flushed with shyness.

Leng Qingtang was touched. He bent down to kiss her when an effeminate voice came from the outside,

"Master, the medicine is done."

The two on the bed paused and got up, dispirited. Gu Yunxi did up with her clothes with a red face and said embarrassedly,

"Let the servant help you with the medicine. I'll go back."

He gazed at her gently and repeated,

"Do you remember everything I said just now?"

"Yes, I do."

Gu Yunxi nodded with shyness. Of course she knew what he was referring to.

She opened the door and ran into the yard happily like a merry little bird.

She dropped by the study and saw the light there was on, so she went over.

"Yanwan, what are you doing?"

That graceful woman was bending to mop something in front of the desk. She heard Gu Yunxi asking her, hurriedly stood straight to salute Gu Yunxi outside the door, refolded the mop, and said in a soft voice.

"I noticed that no one has been cleaning the study for a long time, and the furniture is covered with dust, so I came to clean it up since I'm free."

Gu Yunxi looked directly into her eyes and nodded,

"This place is in a special charge. We'd better not enter without permission."

"Yes, I know..."

Yanwan put on an obedient face. She suddenly added as if she had just remembered something,

"Lord Yun, just then, I accidentally knocked down a book. Could you tell me where it used to be?"

"Don't worry. Let me have a look and put it back seriously."

Gu Yunxi was kind. She saw Yanwan was really worried, so she guessed Yanwan can't read.

She went over to take this blue-covered book.

It was a thread-bound handwriting copy. Judging from the color of the cover, it must be an old book.

The Exquisite Collection of Delicacies. Was it a book of recipes?

Gu Yunxi's curiosity arose out of the characters on the bookmark. She liked cooking. Now that she had encountered a secret book of recipes, she was delighted to find such a treasure and couldn't help having a look at the content.

She opened the cover and saw that line of tidy handwriting,

"The mountain has trees, and the trees have branches."

It was like falling into a cold lake from over the warm clouds. Gu Yunxi stared at the characters, feeling nothing.

She was educated, so she knew clearly the meaning of "The mountain has trees and the trees have branches".

Aside, Yanwan's voice was vague, like coming from another world,

"Lord Yun, what's on the book? Lord Yun..."

Gu Yunxi staggered. Yanwan quickly drew her hands back and showed a guilty but delicate face,

"Sorry! I, I saw you were frozen for a long time, so..."

"Oh, I'm alright."

Gu Yunxi said, absent-minded. She calmed herself down and looked at the sign.

She didn't know it until now that Pei Rushi was Master's lover in the Palace when he was young.

Rushi, what a beautiful name! She must be a beautiful, gentle, and graceful woman, just like her name.

She casually turned over a few pages.

On the top of every page was written a dish name that Gu Yunxi had never heard of, and below was the detailed cooking process. The process was complex, and food ingredients were precious and exquisite. At the end of the page was drawn an elaborate-style painting of the cooked dish with color ink.

She had never seen Pei Rushi before, but according to her calligraphy and drawing, she could imagine how talented and how elegant the woman was.

So, this handwritten book of recipes was a woman's token to her lover.

Her heart, which was full just then, soon became empty. All the emotions were swept nowhere by the wind like feathers.

A cold sneer flashed on Yanwan's face. She looked at downcast Gu Yunxi coldly and finally rested her eyes on Gu Yunxi's swollen lips.

"Lord Yun, what's in the book? Please tell me!"

Yanwan stabbed Gu Yunxi in her heart. She secretly observed her bleeding heart and acted as if she didn't do anything, asking Gu Yunxi with an innocent face.

"Where does it come from?"

Gu Yunxi blinked her eyes, asked absent-mindedly.

"On this drawer..."

Yanwan twisted her waist to point Gu Yunxi the drawer in the back and said,

"Maybe it was put in one of these drawers. Master took it out to read and forgot to put it back."

She pulled out the first drawer and revealed the carefully folded handkerchief, which was put in a conspicuous place.

On the handkerchief embroidered a few branches of tender green willow leaves, so vivid as if they were just picked off from the tree and put on the handkerchief.

Gu Yunxi's eyes were hurt. The handkerchief was like a scorpion that had just stung her with its toxic tail.

She knew that Leng Qingtang is used to use white handkerchiefs without embroidery, so this one in the drawer must be hers. A token of this perfect Pei Rushi.

"Stop cleaning up!" Gu Yunxi suddenly burst.

Yanwan stopped when she was going to pull the last drawer and looked at apathetic Gu Yunxi, confused.

"It was on the cabinet. You should put it back where it was..."

Gu Yunxi gave the recipes to Yanwan and trotted away like she was escaping from something.

Yanwan fixed her eyes on her fleeing back and smiled viciously.

Gu Yunxi went back to her room and sat blank at the table, looking at the string on her wrist in silence.

Qinger was busy cleaning up Gu Yunxi's room and putting her dresses in order. She noticed Gu Yunxi's absent-mind and taunted her,

"There are many treasures in this Master's Mansion, so why are you easy to be satisfied with a red string? Why are you so easy to content?"

"If a man hides his ex-lover's token in his room for many years even she had already married another man, it means... he still loves that woman, isn't it?"

Sitting on the chair, Gu Yunxi asked in an empty voice.

Qinger looked back at her, not knowing she was talking to herself or not. Qinger sighed and said,

"I wonder what are you talking about? Have a good rest today. Tomorrow I will accompany you to the atelier on the street."

Gu Yunxi had no energy to move. She kept playing with the gold bead on the red string, lonely and upset.

“The red string on the wrist, the love in the heart." But her heart was cold and tired.

...

Gu Yunxi came to the street early with Qinger and Cheng Wanli.

It was unusual that the ateliers on the streets nearby closed overnight. Some of them pasted notices on the door that the painter left on an extended vacation because of ancestor worship or private emergency.

That was strange! Although it was around Tomb-Sweeping Day, it was still weird that more than a dozen ateliers on the street closed at the same time.

Gu Yunxi wouldn't reconcile. She got horses with Cheng Wanli and searched almost half of the capital city, but they didn't find an open atelier.

It was getting late. They returned Leng's Mansion, spiritless.

They had just entered the mansion when Kang Hai, the eunuch who served Leng Qingtang, ran over and saluted Gu Yunxi,

"Lord Yun, Master asked you to serve him with dinner."

She paused, "It's the job of the maid from the Palace. Where is she?"

Kang Hai answered as he walked along with Gu Yunxi,

"Master sent her back to the Palace before noon, together with those two nannies."

"Why?" Gu Yunxi was confused, while Qinger was animated and ran to Master's yard with Gu Yunxi, shouting excitedly,

"Master drove that mean woman away! Let's have a look!"

They entered the Master's room and saw Leng Qingtang lying on the side alone.

He saw Gu Yunxi and raised his brows to show her a warm smile. His smile touched her with love.

"Why are you coming back so late? Come and serve me."

He said in a deep voice, but there was no reproach in his tone. However, his voice, a little hoarse though, sounded like aged wine and intoxicated her.

"Master, you kicked that mean skank out?"

All excited, Qinger asked directly with her shining eyes.

Gu Yunxi pulled her hard as she asked such a blunt question, but Qinger shook off her hand and went closer to Leng Qingtang and said with delight,

"It is agreed that you shall not keep anyone with you except my Lady!"

"Qinger!"

Gu Yunxi cried out in shyness, and Leng Qingtang also rolled his eyes. He held back his laugh and ordered the talkative maid,

"Then tell your Lady to serve me with dinner!"

"Got it! Help yourself, Master and Lady. Now excuse me."

Qinger saluted and ran away.

Gu Yunxi didn't move. She looked around and asked in low spirits,

"Where is your maid? She just left?"

“Not really. She left with a hundred tales of gold as her salary.”

Leng Qingtang answered indifferently. When he finished, he looked up at Gu Yunxi's travel-stained face, trying to find a sally port.

So she relaxed thoroughly. She went to the washstand to wash her hands with soap and sat at the bed to feed Leng Qingtang with dinner.

When Yanwan was growing mad in Kunning Palace's side room, in Master's Mansion, Leng Qingtang swallowed a dumpling that Gu Yunxi fed him and bit on the top of chopsticks, smiling at her attractively.

In her complaints, he let go of the chopsticks and began to chew the dumpling.

He suddenly stopped and said in surprise, "Wow, I bit a coin!"