She clutched her chest and took a deep breath.
Slowly, she looked up.
In the morning light, she was regarding him with eyes that were enchantingly lucent. Her gaze was especially somber and distant.
Her strange look caused Wang Hong to tilt his head, so that his hair was falling across his face. “What is it?”
Chen Rong’s mouth opened only to close again. She was looking at him with a luminous smile that was both childlike and earnest. “Heaven is teasing me, I’m sure. I don’t think I’ll ever find happiness in this life.”
Wang Hong lifted his head. His right hand involuntarily propped on the seat as he nimbly sat up.
He stared at Chen Rong with an unhurried smile. “What do you mean, Ah Rong?”
Chen Rong looked at him with a fervor in her eyes. The kind of fervor with which someone would engrave another in his heart. She derived contentment from merely looking at him; she was filled with love by merely being next to him.
She was besotted, but she merely smiled: “Nothing.”
Wang Hong continued to study her.
He should know what Chen Rong meant, smart as he was. She was obviously telling him that even if she loved him with all of her soul, even if she was madly in love with him, she was sober enough to know he was beyond her reach and that she would never have him… They were never to be, and so she would never find happiness.
How could there be a girl like her? So young and passionate, yet always possessing a sage’s composure, sophistication, and even jadedness.
How could she contemplate with such a terrifying sobriety when she was so very clearly stirred?
Wang Hong faintly smiled. Translated by the ham ster master.
He dropped his gaze and leaned against the carriage’s left shaft, his dark hair spilling against his pristine robe.
He was basking in the morning sun and mild breeze. Behind him was only a mountain that couldn’t be any more ordinary; he was only sitting in a horse carriage; and yet he remained as poised and refined as he would in a resplendent courtyard.
His thin and fair hand slowly stroked the wine vessel on the table while he unhurriedly said to her: “Are you trying to tell me that once we return to Nan’yang, you’ll go back to being you and I’ll go back to being me? That what happened here was no more than a dream?”
He spoke slowly, and his voice was soothing and pleasant as he looked at her.
For whatever reason, Chen Rong’s heart constricted to see Wang Hong this way.
She looked down, at which time Wang Hong placed his hand on hers.
His fingers gently grazed her palm. Translated by the ham ster master.
Instantly, a numbing sensation sent Chen Rong’s heart aflutter.
But Wang Hong only took a fruit from her hand.
He played with it in the palm of his hand. “You can be heartless sometimes,” he said, sounding rather insouciant.
Chen Rong bowed her head and quietly explained, “Life doesn’t come easily. If we keep asking for things that don’t belong to us, we will only fall to our demise.”
Wang Hong smiled, his voice light and cold: “That being the case, why are you leaning so close to me?” He picked up a wild fruit and played with it in his palm, faintly smiling all the while: “If people see us, wouldn’t they think that we are engaged in some dirty affair?”
He used “dirty” (1), a term that was generally used to described adulterers, it was vulgar and had always been meant as an insult.
He really said 苟且 “careless” as in loose or improper, but it doesn’t have the same slighting connotation in English, so I opted for dirty.
The noble and untainted Wang Qilang had used such a word with her!
Chen Rong’s face blanched as she lowered her head and said, “It is a wondrous thing to be by your side… I know now what it feels like to ‘not be able to contain one’s feelings’.” This was a lie, of course. In her previous life, she had known what it feels like to not be able to contain her feelings, she had known she could not let go.
Wang Hong slowly looked up at her, staring at her beautiful face, the face that was stunningly exquisite even after yesterday’s shock and being washed in only water, glowing cheeks and shapely eyebrows.
“Come here,” he beckoned, extending his hand.
Chen Rong dazedly looked up and approached him.
She placed her small hand into his.
Wang Hong closed his hand.
With his right hand holding her trembling left hand, his left hand enveloped her waist.
She didn’t resist his affection. She even leaned against him, unable to keep herself from trembling in his arms.
Wang Hong held her.
He stroked her long dark hair and softly asked, “Was last night frightful?”
Only when he asked did Chen Rong remember she still had many unanswered questions. She closed her eyes, her face flushed from wine, and murmured, “Aye, extremely. I had thought that fate had come for me.”
“Fate?” Wang Hong whispered.
“It was really fate.”
They both understood what she meant.
Chen Rong lay still in his arms