Chapter 4. Lingering Dreams, The Young Man’s Face Must Be Saved…

The night he climbed over the courtyard wall, Shen Yuan had a dream.

In the dream, it was sunset in the deep mountains.

He stood alone in front of a house, not knowing why.

Until the yellowing candlelight shone through the window frames, casting a soft glow on the ground.

Only then did Shen Yuan seem to come to his senses. Looking around, apart from the pervasive clouds and mist, the only source of light was this house before him.

“Excuse me, is anyone there?” He tentatively reached out his hand, not yet knocking.

Creak-

The half-closed wooden door opened in response, as if it had been waiting for a long time.

Shen Yuan curiously peeked inside, looking around, and couldn’t help but mutter to himself that the furnishings in this room were all too familiar.

The bamboo screen, the desk by the window, and that canopy bed with gauze curtains – he felt he had seen them somewhere before. Even the silhouette wrapped in brocade bedding behind the gauze, and that strand of black hair, all seemed inexplicably familiar.

But who could it be? Shen Yuan couldn’t be sure.

“Excuse me, are you the owner of this house?”

Since he was disturbing someone’s sleep, he didn’t look directly at them, only standing sideways and asking politely. But after waiting for a while, there was no response.

Could something be wrong?

He secretly guessed. His jade-white boots lifted, taking a few steps to the bedside. His slender fingers passed through the gauze, tying up the hanging bed curtains.

His gaze examined from bottom to top.

The auspicious cloud pattern on the brocade quilt, the gold-inlaid openwork incense ball clamped in the jade pillow.

Hmm, very familiar, like items from the mansion. He was slightly puzzled, his gaze moving up an inch.

He caught a glimpse of the shoulder exposed beneath the black hair and above the brocade quilt, like a fine piece of jade, white and lustrous.

Shoulder, shoulder?!

Shen Yuan was stunned, never imagining this person would sleep so uninhibitedly. Just as he was about to retreat.

The person who had been facing away from Shen Yuan suddenly turned over, causing the well-tucked brocade quilt to slip down to their waist. Now, not only the faintly visible shoulder, but even the bamboo leaves embroidered on the person’s cyan-colored dudou, every stitch and thread, were all imprinted in Shen Yuan’s eyes.

What should be seen, and what shouldn’t be seen, he saw everything clearly.

Not to mention the face revealed under the black hair, with its dark eyebrows and vermilion lips, which was clearly…

Whoosh-

His face seemed to be scorched by a raging fire, a burning heat flushing him with panic and confusion in an instant. He dared not look anymore. Flustered, he tried to cover her again with the brocade quilt, to hide that spring scene that sparked boundless imagination.

As a result, he missed the brocade quilt but touched the exposed shoulder of that person instead. It was smooth and soft, truly three degrees finer than the best silk, unexpectedly comfortable.

Shen Yuan’s body stiffened, but his fingers seemed reluctant to leave, unconsciously tapping that icy flesh and jade bones again.

The softness at his fingertips suddenly reminded Shen Yuan of those story books hidden by Huai An. He had only glanced at the words in them briefly, and had almost forgotten most of it.

Now, however, it was as if the memories were forcibly pulled back, each word mixing with her, becoming increasingly clear.

Each word he recalled made him increasingly thirsty, unconsciously drawing closer to her.

The ink-black hair fell from behind her ear, and Shen Yuan stared at the sleeping face just inches away, his throat moving slightly.

He seemed to be bewitched.

If he just lowered a bit more…

“Young master, are you awake?”

Huai An’s voice had never been so noisy. Shen Yuan frowned.

A beam of faint light surged from the darkness, and everything in the room scattered with the clouds and mist.

Shen Yuan opened his eyes slightly, looking at Huai An waiting outside the gauze curtain, taking a long while to come to his senses.

“Young master?”

Huai An secretly peeked inside the gauze curtain a few times. Usually at this hour, Shen Yuan would have already gotten up and gone to the main husband’s room to pay his respects. Today, for some reason, he had unprecedentedly stayed in bed.

After a long while, there was finally movement inside the gauze curtain. Shen Yuan, just waking up, spoke in a lazy tone, “Go prepare water, I want to wash up.”

“Yes.”

His fingertips secretly curled into his palm. Shen Yuan suddenly breathed a sigh of relief – fortunately, it was just a dream. Perhaps his eyes had been polluted yesterday, he silently grumbled to himself, otherwise he wouldn’t have had such a strange dream.

But since it was a dream, there was no need to worry about it. After all, it was just a fleeting fantasy.