“I missed you so much, and you’ve finally come back.”
“Xiao Hanjin!” she snapped angrily, “Don’t you dare use liquor as an excuse to act crazy. With your tolerance, you couldn’t get drunk even if you drank yourself to death. Let go… mmph…”
Her furious voice was abruptly silenced as Di Ronghua’s pupils shrank sharply.
The lingering kiss seemed to carry the longing of a thousand days and nights, bitter yet deeply tender.
Di Ronghua was furious, struggling violently.
But before she could break free, the man suddenly released her of his own accord.
She raised her hand to strike him, but his eyes held a trace of incredulous pain. Her palm froze mid-air, and she burst into exasperated laughter, “What are you doing? Taking advantage of me and then putting on this wounded look for who to see?”
“What’s wrong with you?”
His low, hoarse voice interrupted her.
Di Ronghua’s brows furrowed slightly as the man’s dark, intense eyes locked onto her, “Your pulse—why is it like this?”
The woman’s face stiffened in his line of sight, her anger freezing in place.
He had… just been checking her pulse.
Her expression instantly turned cold and distant, “What does that have to do with you?”
Xiao Hanjin’s Adam’s apple bobbed, “You’re right, I was pretending to be drunk.”
He gazed at her unblinkingly, “You haven’t come out for days and refused the physicians. I was worried. But just now, seeing you sitting in the tree, you didn’t seem ill, and I couldn’t resist wanting to hold you.”
His raspy voice carried a hint of a smile, yet it was tinged with an unshakable bleakness, “I knew you wouldn’t let me check your pulse willingly, so I had to resort to this. Of course, I won’t deny I genuinely wanted to kiss you.”
Di Ronghua, “…”
She closed her eyes, “Get out.”
“Ronghua, why is it like this?”
“I told you to get out!”
Xiao Hanjin’s chest heaved, his gaze fixed intently on her face. His suppressed, strained voice forced out a question, “Tell me, what happened to you these past years? Why no word for four years? Why is your health in such a state?”
Weak qi, frail spleen, all five organs damaged.
How could this be the pulse of a healthy person?
Di Ronghua met his worried, pained eyes. Her gaze stung, and she suddenly laughed.
“Fine, I’ll tell you.”
She nodded, her tone sharp and mocking, “To avoid you, I jumped off a cliff. Because I accidentally got poisoned while jumping, my body ended up like this. As for no word—I went to great lengths to hide from you. Do you think I’d let you find me?”
No, she was lying.
Xiao Hanjin’s thin lips pressed into a tight line.
If she truly didn’t want him to find her, she wouldn’t have appeared so openly on the streets of Beixi’s capital.
Back then, he thought she was so indifferent that she didn’t care if he saw her. But after a few brief encounters, it was clear that wasn’t the case. Beneath her façade of calm detachment lay a deep-seated cynicism and coldness that occasionally slipped out unintentionally.
His concern had clouded his judgment, but that didn’t mean he’d overlook it forever.
From the moment he saw her, he had countless questions he wanted to ask, yet he held back, fearing he’d push her away.
But now, feeling her pulse in such a state, he couldn’t pretend nothing was wrong.
“What about Mu Qingshuang?”
Those simple words made her expression freeze once more.
Di Ronghua looked at him impassively, “What about her?”
“I don’t believe you’d lash out at her for no reason, cutting off her hand.” His sharp gaze seemed to pierce through everything, as if trying to see into her very core, “These four years—did you encounter her? Did she do something to you?”
