Dawn and Dusk
Chapter 16
The two walked along the temple’s red walls, dappled shadows from the swaying bamboo falling across their path.
At first, Rong Ci was still mindful of keeping her distance. But as they chatted, instinct took over, and she unconsciously edged closer to the man beside her. “Brother, if you turn left when you leave, there’s an auntie selling coconut milk pulu da near the observation deck. I heard it’s absolutely delicious. I’ll treat you later.”
Truthfully, she was the one who wanted to eat it.
“How many times have you had it?” Xie Xunzhao asked calmly.
Rong Ci hadn’t expected him to skip the usual question—Have you tried it before?
Instead, he’d gone straight to “how many times.”
Caught completely off guard, she blurted out, “Fiv—none.”
“Not even once.” She hurriedly corrected herself. “I just heard about it.”
Xie Xunzhao usually forbade her from eating food bought from roadside stalls, not out of disdain, but there were too many unpredictable risks.
For example, Rong Ci was allergic to mangoes. If a vendor accidentally used a spoon that had previously scooped mango to serve her something else, it could trigger an allergic reaction.
Rong Ci lowered her lashes, not quite daring to look at him. She had no idea whether he believed her.
The next moment, Xie Xunzhao suddenly took her hand. “Alright.”
So, he believed her?!
Rong Ci breathed a sigh of relief. Her bright eyes filled with laughter, and the smile at the corners of her lips had barely begun to fade when his next words reached her ears.
“I’ll put the five thousand words on your tab. You can write them when we get back to Beicheng.”
???
A few minutes later, Rong Ci swallowed her grievance and asked, “Can I still have some today?”
“For every serving you eat, you owe me another thousand words.”
Rong Ci waved her hand grandly. “Put me down for ten servings!” Worst case, she could always refuse to pay up.
Xie Xunzhao let out a low chuckle. “Miss Rong’s credit limit is too low. I can only put down one serving.”
Rong Ci: “…”
She wasn’t greedy.
The observation deck was crowded with tourists. It was Saturday, after all.
Her treasured auntie had been discovered, too – a long queue had formed in front of the little stall.
Rong Ci glanced at Xie Xunzhao. “Brother.”
Xie Xunzhao had always been strict about his time and never wasted it standing in queues. After a few seconds of eye contact, she relented. “Forget it. Let’s not eat it.”
Xie Xunzhao scanned the observation deck and spotted an empty stone bench beneath a tree not far away. “Go sit over there. I’ll queue.”
A minute later, Rong Ci sat in the shade, resting her chin in her hand on the stone table as she watched the familiar figure at the back of the line.
Xie Xunzhao was tall, with excellent proportions and impeccable posture. Standing beside the fabric sign advertising glutinous rice cakes, he was almost distractingly conspicuous in the crowd.
She wasn’t the only one who’d noticed how conspicuous he was.
Before long, a young woman approached him and held out her phone.
Xie Xunzhao was a gentleman, courteous and considerate. He would never deliberately embarrass an innocent person, but he was also rational, heartless, and would never give anyone hope they shouldn’t have.
The ample afternoon sunlight fell across his face, accentuating the deep-set arch of his brows and the straight bridge of his nose. As he stood quietly in line, his expression calm and composed, he looked as though he belonged in some classical art-house film.
People were drawn to the light.
Xie Xunzhao was meant to be a blazing sun hanging high in the sky, not someone who would be dragged into the depths by a firefly, only to burn out alongside it.
Suddenly, a strong gust of wind swept through.
Just as Rong Ci was lost in thought, she abruptly heard Xie Xunzhao’s voice.
“Rong Ci, hold your breath and close your eyes.”
She had always obeyed Xie Xunzhao instinctively, because she knew he would never hurt her. He would only ever save her.
The next moment, a suit jacket carrying his familiar cool fragrance descended from above, covering her completely.
Rong Ci’s first instinct wasn’t to push it away. Instead, she clutched the smooth, silky fabric tightly.
In the instant before her vision was blocked, she saw one fluffy willow catkin after another drifting toward her.
To other people, they looked like tiny white flowers.
To Rong Ci, they were death itself.
She was severely allergic to willow catkins.
Xie Xunzhao hurried over, wrapped her up securely, and lifted her into his arms.
Rong Ci buried her entire face against his chest, her forehead pressed to his heart. She could hear his heartbeat clearly. It was beating very fast.
“Brother, I’m fine. I didn’t breathe any in, and none got into my eyes.”
“…” It took Xie Xunzhao several seconds before a single syllable finally escaped his throat.
Their actions had attracted far too much attention. Voices of speculation rose from every direction.
“It’s already August. Why are there still willow catkins?”
“The climate here is different.”
“Is that pretty young woman allergic to them?”
“Looks like it.”
“Wow! Is that her boyfriend or are they filming something? They’re both ridiculously good-looking!”
The mountain path wasn’t particularly narrow, but there were too many tourists, with more people continuing to make their way uphill. Xie Xunzhao’s expression tightened slightly, and five or six bodyguards who had been hiding nearby appeared and cleared a path.
Before long, Xie Xunzhao’s retreating figure, carrying Rong Ci in his arms, disappeared up the mountain path.
To the onlookers, the young man no longer had the ordinary, approachable air he’d displayed while standing in line. Now he radiated an imposing aura, his bearing noble and aloof.
This was the real Xie Xunzhao.
Someone had been livestreaming and captured the entire scene.
“Could they actually be filming a drama?”
“Filming? She nearly lost her life!”
After undergoing a full medical examination and taking another shower, Rong Ci could finally curl up on the soft sofa with her phone.
Wen Jin and Pei Yitong, both of whom seemed to live online all day, were the first to send her links to the Weibo posts.
Even the group chat for Beicheng’s second-generation social circle had come alive. Everyone was tagging her, asking whether the girl Xie Xunzhao had carried in his arms was her.
Rong Ci tapped on a link and discovered that she and Xie Xunzhao had made the trending topics.
[Possible Film Shoot? Stunning Newcomers Spotted at a Filming Location]
The incident had happened too suddenly, and with the livestream, there had been no time to stop the footage from spreading.
“Help, what kind of CGI face is this?! If he were really a new actor, there’s no way I wouldn’t have heard of him!”
“Doesn’t look like a film set. There’s no production crew, and the place is full of tourists. Do film crews even shoot without clearing the area?”
“!!! Look here! That’s Xie Xunzhao! Attached: photo from an international news interview.”
“That’s right! The Xie Group’s Xie Xunzhao! The current CEO! Born into one of the most powerful families, exceptionally capable in his own right, and now at the helm of the Xie family. He only returned to the public eye at twenty-four, and he’s incredibly, incredibly low-key. He’s given almost no interviews. This streamer really caught a big shot on camera, and in private, no less!”
The photograph showed Xie Xunzhao carrying her in his arms.
Since Rong Ci’s face was blocked by his suit jacket, only Xie Xunzhao’s face was clearly visible in high definition.
But anyone who knew them would recognize that, aside from Rong Ci, who else could be so delicate that even willow catkins were a threat?
The bathroom door was half open. Xie Xunzhao stood in front of the sink, drying his hair. He was wearing silk pajamas, fastened neatly with not a gap out of place.
Rong Ci nodded in approval. Very conservative.
Sure enough, last night must have been Brother’s hidden personality. He didn’t come out often.
Holding her phone, Rong Ci squeezed her way over to him and tilted her head up to show him the screen. “Brother, you’ve been photographed!”
In the bathroom, their figures were reflected in the ornate vintage mirror.
Xie Xunzhao switched off the hair dryer. His gaze lingered on the screen for a second. “The photo turned out all right. Send it to me.”
Xie Xunzhao: Couple photo +1.
“Eh?” Rong Ci stared at him. “Why do you never do what people expect?”
“What am I supposed to do instead?”
Xie Xunzhao leaned down slightly, bracing both arms against the sink behind her. His hair was half dry, now hanging black at his temples, tangling with his thick lashes when he lowered his eyes.
Rong Ci was momentarily speechless because she could see everything clearly in the mirror.
His pajamas were perfectly ordinary, yet as he leaned forward, the clearly defined lines of his chest were fully on display, with a few droplets of water still clinging there, fallen from his hair.
As if in slow-motion replay, extremely slowly sinking below his collar. The droplets crept downward, ever so slowly, disappearing beneath his collar and leaving behind a faint, damp trail.
Rong Ci’s gaze was involuntarily drawn to one of them. She swallowed unconsciously.
Xie Xunzhao rested his chin on the top of her head and wrapped his arms around her, letting out a low chuckle. “Admiring my body?”
“N-No, no!” Rong Ci panicked.
!!!
Ah! Someone save her!
Why has Brother suddenly started getting handsy?!
She’d only been admiring the view before!
Now his chest muscles were pressed directly against her back. That was the downside of thin silk pajamas: when you hugged someone, it was practically like wearing nothing at all!
His chest is so broad, so firm.
Ah! No, no!
Rong Ci’s head was a mess. She stood frozen on the spot, not moving at all, like a human-shaped doll.
Xie Xunzhao drawled lazily, “Enjoying it?”
“I am not!” Rong Ci snapped out of it and shook her head repeatedly.
Without realizing it, she had become completely trapped in his embrace. She was wearing a milky-white headband with drooping rabbit ears. As she shook her head, the ears flopped wildly from side to side, making her look lively and full of energy.
Xie Xunzhao suddenly reached out and caught one of the rabbit ears in his hand. His gaze fell on the smooth, fair skin along the side of her neck. There were no patches of red marks there, but he recalled the first time Rong Ci had suffered an allergic reaction to willow catkins, when she was four years old and had been admitted to the ICU, with critical condition notices issued one after another.
That was also when Xie Xunzhao first learned the word “life.” And for the first time, he had clearly understood just how fragile the little treasure of the Rong family was.
Every spring, those fluffy little “cotton balls” floating weightlessly along the roads, seemingly harmless and incapable of hurting anyone, could take her life.
Later, Xie Xunzhao had secretly sought out Master Yici and begged for that string of Buddhist prayer beads.
Xie Xunzhao lowered his eyes and chuckled softly. “Brother would never make fun of you.”
For one fleeting moment, Rong Ci met his gaze in the mirror, and she felt as though she were drowned by the tide.
As if the seawater had scalded her, she hurriedly shifted her gaze in every direction. “Brother, you saved me again today. Just like a knight appearing out of nowhere to rescue me.”
Xie Xunzhao’s fingers, which had been playing with the rabbit ear, moved downward unhurriedly. “Serving the princess is a knight’s duty.”
From the fluffy texture of the headband to the smoothness of her skin.
Rong Ci had been born with a small birthmark on her left earlobe. A red lotus pattern stood out vividly against her porcelain-white skin. Usually, it remained hidden beneath her long, cascading hair, rarely exposed to the light.
Xie Xunzhao’s cool fingertips rested against her small earlobe. “Has the color become redder?”
Down, down…
Her fingertips were cool, yet her ear was unconsciously growing hot as though streams of electricity flowed from his fingertips, passed through her earlobe, and eventually reached her heart.
Rong Ci shrank back slightly. “That’s just your imagination. It’s always been like this. Stop pinching it.”
“Does it hurt?” When Xie Xunzhao held her, he no longer deliberately kept the distance he always used to, making sure she wouldn’t notice the difference.
She ought to understand and carve their relationship into her bones. People only respond that way to someone they love, and different again from his chest.
Rong Ci stiffened again and stole a glance at Xie Xunzhao from the corner of her eye, then spoke with utmost seriousness. “Brother is platonic.”
Xie Xunzhao handled it easily. “Your husband isn’t.”
“We grew up together since we were small, like a biological brother and sister. Do you not have any psychological barrier at all about saying things like that?”
“Psychological barrier? What’s that?”
“It means… it means if Rong Qingtiao—”
“At a time like this, could we not bring up irrelevant people?” Xie Xunzhao wasn’t asking. His tone was closer to an unquestionable command.
“Oh.” Rong Ci answered meekly.
Seeing her looking so cautious and timid—although ninety percent of it was probably an act—Xie Xunzhao let out a soft sigh and changed his form of address. “Mumu.”
Then, “Wife, we’re legally married. Do you know what that means?”
“What?”
“It means that whenever I do anything intimate with you, you should be thinking: We were always meant to be this close.”
“After all, there’s no book that teaches me I have to keep my distance from my own lawful spouse.”
The doorbell rang outside.
“All right. Go answer the door.” Xie Xunzhao ushered her out of the bathroom.
At the door, Rong Ci accepted the coconut milk pulu da from the bodyguard. Every ingredient in it was something she could safely eat. One look and it was clear Xie Xunzhao had given instructions.
She slowly returned to the sofa, scooped up a spoonful, then paused and touched her still-burning earlobe. It didn’t feel like anything special, unlike when Xie Xunzhao touched it.
Her eyes remained fixed on the glass partition.
Xie Xunzhao’s words kept echoing in her mind. Were we always meant to be this close?
But they were—
They weren’t siblings.
So, no matter how intimate they became, it was entirely proper, lawful, and reasonable.
If Xie Xunzhao asked her to fulfill the obligations of a spouse, she wouldn’t even have a reason to refuse.
Xie Xunzhao washed his face with cold water. To give Rong Ci some space, he didn’t leave the bathroom immediately, instead watching her blurred silhouette through the glass. After all, her little head was probably overflowing with thoughts by now.
Xie Xunzhao casually browsed the trending topics about himself and Rong Ci for a while. He liked the posts saying they looked good together. In the end, his gaze settled on the photo.
Rong Ci was wrapped in his suit jacket, while several clumps of willow catkins brushed past the fabric, leaving behind fine, threadlike particles that might have been invisible to the naked eye.
May the wind pass without stirring up a single drifting wisp.
The mirror reflected Xie Xunzhao’s cold expression. The Buddha at Hanchan Temple wasn’t effective.
It didn’t matter. He would make it effective.
When Su Qingyan received the call, he assumed President Xie wanted him to take down the trending topic. To his surprise, Xie Xunzhao didn’t mention it at all.
The next second, Secretary Su was stunned. “Willow trees?”
Xie Xunzhao’s voice was indifferent. “Can you do it?”
Su Qingyan felt his back tighten. “Understood!”
From that tone, if he dared say it was impossible, President Xie would probably have him fired and looking for a new job within the next second.
Early the following morning, Rong Ci rummaged through the room looking for something before heading out.
Normally, Xie Xunzhao would have prepared all these things for her in advance. She glanced at the man still lying in bed and experienced the bitterness of married life firsthand.
“Where are my mask and protective goggles? I need to go out to work!” Rong Ci emphasized, “You don’t even work. I have to support you.”
So, get up quickly and manage the housework.
Do what a house-husband should be doing.
Xie Xunzhao propped himself halfway up, lazily resting his temple against one hand as he looked at her. “It’s fine. You don’t need to wear them.”
“Are you sure?”
Xie Xunzhao was always the most concerned about her allergies. Rong Ci tilted her head slightly. “Then I’m leaving.”
“Go ahead.”
Rong Ci opened the bedroom door and took a tiny step outside before turning back again. “I’m really leaving!”
Xie Xunzhao laughed at her. “Go without worrying. There won’t be any more willow catkins.”
From that day until the inspection was completed, Rong Ci truly never saw another willow catkin.
~~
By mid-August, the temperature in Beicheng had begun to gradually drop.
Rong Ci kept feeling that her left ear was warm. At first, she assumed it was a lingering effect of Xie Xunzhao pinching it. It wasn’t until Rong Qingtiao came to Beicheng on a business trip and stopped by Mirror Lake Manor to see her.
Rong Ci was sitting at the coffee table, arranging a fresh delivery of flowers whose blossoms covered nearly the entire surface.
A lily fell to the floor. She bent down to pick it up, her smooth, jet-black hair spilling forward. Without thinking, she tucked it behind her ear. The lotus birthmark on her earlobe was now a deep, vivid red, like a lotus flower blazing into flame against snow.
Rong Qingtiao suddenly leaned forward. Although they hadn’t seen each other in a while, he immediately noticed something was wrong. “Why is it so much redder than the last time I saw you?”
Rong Ci glanced at him calmly. “You’re imagining things.”
“How could a birthmark possibly become redder?”
“Let me see the purple jade plaque.”
Unlike her, Rong Qingtiao wasn’t so relaxed about it.
Rong Ci had been carrying it with her constantly these past few days. She took it off and handed it to him.
“What’s wrong? Why are you suddenly so serious?”
“A little redness is normal, isn’t it? I’ve been rubbing this spot a lot lately.”
Rong Qingtiao held the jade plaque in his palm, examining it over and over. When Rong Ci had first started wearing it, the plaque hadn’t looked like this.
Back then, the carvings on the side bearing the lotus pattern had been elaborate and intricate. Even their father, a man whose knowledge spanned history and the world, hadn’t been able to identify the pattern. Then, as Rong Ci grew older, the red lotus birthmark on her earlobe became increasingly pronounced, and the pattern at the center of the jade plaque had gradually grown clearer. The two lotus designs seemed to overlap, forming a deep, uncanny purple.
But now… That uncanny purple was beginning to turn red.
Rong Qingtiao’s heart suddenly lurched.
Something was very wrong.
Only he and their parents knew the secret of the purple jade pendant. Even Xie Xunzhao believed it was merely a protective charm Rong Ci had worn since childhood.
In truth, it wasn’t a protective charm for Rong Ci, but it was Rong Ci herself.
“Brother, why do you keep spinning around? You’re making me dizzy.”
Rong Qingtiao froze in shock. “I haven’t moved.”
The next moment, a faint crack sounded.
The bunch of lilies in Rong Ci’s hands suddenly fell, scattering across the floor.
Author’s Note:
Let’s review the story description once again: Zhao Mu is a cosmic-grade sweet romance! Don’t speculate about the upcoming plot in a negative direction. [Dog-head emoji]