Chapter 370: Chapter 368 Lu Jingwei, You’re Not Here to Be the Boss
Lu Ying pulled Shen Yinning into his arms, flipping her onto the couch and pinning her down.
Shen Yinning gritted her teeth, using all her strength to pound, pinch, and scratch at his skin. "Let me go! You let me go!"
Lu Ying’s vision blurred intermittently, cold sweat soaking his lashes, and even his thin lips were tinged with an abnormal flush of blood-red hue.
The girl’s feeble resistance was little more than a tickle to him. He sealed her lips with his own, silencing all her protests.
The bed curtains hung low.
The golden bells jingled, sometimes slow, sometimes urgent.
"Mmm..."
A soft, coquettish moan escaped, tender and sweet.
The girl’s snow-white, delicate feet dangled mid-air against the young man’s muscular, bowstring-taut back. She seemed to melt into a puddle of pliant spring water, her entire body taking on a faint peach-blossom hue.
Her golden hairpin and gauzy dress had been discarded outside the canopy. Her raven-black, voluminous hair lay disheveled against the pillow, starkly contrasting her creamy, delicate complexion, like the meticulously painted fox spirits from a ghostly folktale artist’s brush.
Again and again.
Their breaths interwove, and the young man seemed as if he wished to embed her entirely into his body.
Shen Yinning gasped through tears, sinking her teeth into Lu Ying’s broad, firm shoulder.
She couldn’t fathom where this bastard found the stamina—he had clearly already slept with Shen Xinya, yet he still managed to act so...
Fierce.
Was it Lu Ying’s own ability, or was it the aphrodisiac she carried taking effect?
She began to question her very existence.
Lu Ying ignored the superficial pain from her bite, his focus unwavering.
The night stretched into infinity.
The candles in the room burned out, the moon outside sank, and the stars faded into dawn.
At first, Shen Yinning still had the strength to curse and yell, but her cries gradually turned into helpless whimpers of plea. In the end, she didn’t make a sound.
Only the rhythmic splashing echoed like laundry being beaten clean in a thousand households.
It wasn’t until the break of dawn that the venomous passion burning through Lu Ying finally subsided.
Bare-chested, he glanced down at the crisscrossed claw marks on his chest before looking toward the girl curled up on the inside of the bed.
In the dim spring canopy, the girl’s slender calves bore intricate marks, and teardrops clung to the corners of her red-rimmed eyes. Even in sleep, her brows knitted slightly as she raspily murmured snippets of dream-speech.
He listened for a while, and the content included, but was not limited to, "son of a turtle" and "you bastard."
All curses aimed at him.
He raised an eyebrow but acted as though he hadn’t heard a thing, lying back down coolly to sleep.
The next day.
Having skipped dinner, Shen Yinning woke up hungry by noon.
She opened her tired, phoenix-shaped eyes and immediately noticed her back pressed against a warm, firm chest.
She glanced back to find Lu Ying clutching her waist tightly from behind, his face buried in the crook of her neck as he slept deeply.
The madness of the previous night flashed through her mind. Like a startled cat, Shen Yinning shot up and slapped Lu Ying across the face.
Lu Ying’s eyes snapped open.
Just as Shen Yinning’s second slap was about to land, he caught her wrist mid-air. His narrow eyes carried a crystalline coldness, his voice hoarse with the drowsiness of just waking. "Have you become addicted to hitting me?"
In all his life, no one besides Shen Yinning had dared to slap him.
And she had done it more than once.
Shen Yinning’s chest heaved with rage, her rosy, radiant face clouded by fury. "Lu Jingwei, you came here to serve as my Forbidden Fruit, not to act like a lord! Did I give you permission for what happened last night? You just..."
The words "used me and tossed me aside" caught in her throat. Her face soured, and she couldn’t bring herself to say them out loud.
Lu Ying ignored her outburst and calmly began getting dressed.
Standing on the edge of the canopy bed with his back to her, the iron chains restraining his wrists clinked with his movements.
From Shen Yinning’s perspective, his broad shoulders, narrow waist, and long legs came into full view. His taut physique, honed by years of mounted archery and sword practice, was covered in a thin layer of muscle. The memory of his domineering stance from the previous night, pinning her against the bed corner despite her tearful pleas, made her cheeks flush involuntarily.
Her gaze landed on the chaotic mess of scratch marks crisscrossing his back.
She instinctively glanced at her hands.
Indeed, her ten fingernails were caked with flakes of skin and dried blood.
The chaos of the previous night had been so intense that her fingernail on her left pinky had even snapped off.
She touched the jagged edge of her nail, gritting her teeth, suddenly struck by the urge to slap him again.
Out of sheer anger, Shen Yinning forbid Lu Ying to have lunch.
Sitting beneath the eaves, she coldly watched the young man kneeling in the courtyard as she toyed with a soft whip in her hands, a faint smirk on her face. "I asked Lu Zhengliu for you so you could serve me, not so you could do as you please under my roof. Today, I’m punishing you with twenty lashes. Whether you’re willing to accept it or not, you must."
The man kneeling in the courtyard was none other than Lu Ying.
Stripped of his shirt, Yu Feng stood behind him with a horsewhip in hand. At Shen Yinning’s signal, Yu Feng began striking Lu Ying’s back without hesitation.
Lu Ying kept his head bowed, his jet-black hair loosely tied back with a dark ribbon. A few disheveled strands fell over his forehead, emphasizing the sharp angles of his nose and the refined structure of his face. Long, sweeping lashes half-shielded his deep, chillingly dark eyes.
He endured the lashes silently, his muscles tense, fists clenched. Though drenched in cold sweat, his lips remained firmly sealed without a single sound of complaint.
Haitang approached with a tray of refreshments.
At the sight of the young man being punished in the courtyard, she nearly dropped the tray in shock.
Good heavens!
What had she just witnessed?!
The Commandery Princess was punishing the Crown Prince!
Didn’t the Princess fear that one day, the Crown Prince might regain his status and take revenge on her first?!
She hastily placed the tray on a small flower table, her face pale as she knelt down in terror. "Your Highness may have been deposed, but he is still a member of the Imperial Family. Commandery Princess, please show mercy!"
"A member of the Imperial Family?" Shen Yinning lifted her tea cup, gracefully skimming the floating tea leaves off the surface. "Once deposed, he is but a commoner. What Imperial Family? He enraged me last night—why shouldn’t I punish him with lashes?"
When she had first returned to the capital from Gan State, Lu Ying had punished her countless times.
Now that the tables had turned, why shouldn’t she punish him?
"Cousin!"
Shen Xinya rushed in, having caught wind of the situation from somewhere, stumbling over herself in haste.
She knelt beside Lu Ying, crying as she pleaded, "What happened last night was entirely my doing—it has nothing to do with His Highness! Cousin, if you must vent your anger, direct it at me! Why do this to him?! It’s said, ’A gentleman would rather die than be humiliated.’ Cousin, you’re a woman of scholarly refinement—surely you’ve heard that phrase?"
Her presence only made things worse.
Her very appearance reminded Shen Yinning of the sordid events between the two of them last night.
Narrowing her eyes slightly, a faint smile curved her crimson lips. "Since childhood, I have never liked others touching what belongs to me. Shen Xinya, you dared to lay hands on my Forbidden Fruit and now have the nerve to stand before me?"
Beneath the eaves, a golden-flowered Haitang tree swayed vividly in the breeze.
The girl, adorned in a golden hairpin, red dress, and framed by a face as delicate as a hibiscus, carried herself with an imperious air that, rather than repelling, commanded submission and admiration.
It was as if she was born to reign, destined to stand tall as a radiant aristocratic lady.