In the blink of an eye, a week had passed since Mu Wanwan last returned from the market.
In Mr. Dragon’s former side-hall study, she had found a little leftover brush and ink. Every day, she marked the passing days on time. Now there were seven neat marks on the paper, representing the passage of time.
The rain fell for three days in a row, followed by two more overcast days. Just as Mu Wanwan was beginning to suspect that if the weather did not clear soon, the quilts and clothes would start growing mould, the long-awaited sunlight finally arrived.
These past few days, Mu Wanwan and Mr. Dragon’s life could be considered rather peaceful. As long as she did not take the initiative to step out of the palace, no one would come into the courtyard to trouble her. Mu Wanwan’s body and mind, which had been extremely exhausted ever since she transmigrated here, finally received a brief rest.
During this period, aside from the first and second days, when she had been experimenting with cultivation and therefore did not cultivate many seeds, Mu Wanwan maintained a pace of cultivating fifteen Burning Grass seeds and three Blue Star Grass seeds every day.
By now, she had successfully cultivated one hundred Burning Grass seeds and eighteen Blue Star Grass seeds.
She did not know whether her spiritual energy was special, but over these past few days, she had not failed many times in total. She still had forty-five Burning Grass seeds and eight Blue Star Grass seeds left in her hands. If she worked a little harder, perhaps she could finish cultivating all of them before setting out.
Under the infusion of wood-type spiritual energy, Burning Grass could basically be harvested every two days. But Blue Star Grass had a longer growth cycle than Burning Grass and absorbed more spiritual energy, requiring five days before a batch could be harvested. Now she already had quite a lot of mature Burning Grass and Blue Star Grass on hand. However, Mu Wanwan did not pick the mature Burning Grass and Blue Star Grass yet. If she picked them now, their appearance might no longer seem fresh. It would be better to organise and harvest everything together the day before she left.
The sunlight yesterday and today had both been quite good. The quilt was almost dry. Mu Wanwan moved the Burning Grass and Blue Star Grass seedlings into the courtyard and found a spot with decent sunlight. Then she began planning to sleep separately from Mr. Dragon tonight.
After all, whenever they had slept together these past few days, she had worried every night about whether she might press down on Mr. Dragon’s tail. She slept very cautiously and stiffly. Now that she could finally sleep separately from Mr. Dragon, Mu Wanwan was still very happy.
But while some people were happy, one dragon was worried. In fact, as early as the first day the rain stopped, Mr. Dragon had begun praying that the sky would not clear.
Although thinking this was rather bad, right now, he relied entirely on the short period of time he could be awake every night to sweetly and lovingly hold Madam’s little hand.
The heavens had naively granted his wish. It stayed overcast for several days, extending his happy time a little.
But only a little.
“Mr. Dragon, tonight you won’t have to squeeze together with me anymore. Are you happy?” Mu Wanwan said, unable to help herself as she carried the sun-dried quilt inside and looked at Mr. Dragon lying on the jade bed.
What she was thinking was that although Mr. Dragon was a vegetable dragon, she had heard that many vegetative people still had some awareness. She did not know what was wrong with her, but every morning these past few days, she had woken up to find herself holding his hand.
The first few days had still been alright. It was only their hands overlapping. But these past two days, she had become even more outrageous, directly grabbing Mr. Dragon’s hand and intertwining her fingers with his. Mu Wanwan felt extremely embarrassed every morning when she woke up.
Fortunately, Mr. Dragon had no way of waking up. Otherwise, she would probably shut down on the spot.
After all, no matter how one looked at it, she was the one in the wrong. Although Mr. Dragon had once been one of the top powerhouses on the continent, he was now pitifully miserable and unable to move. Aside from a strangely handsome face and a beautiful figure, he was completely useless. Mu Wanwan, on the other hand, was different. She was strong and healthy—not—and she held absolute initiative…
So being able to sleep separately could be considered a small kind of liberation for Mu Wanwan.
Otherwise, she was afraid that one day she might wake up in Mr. Dragon’s arms, and that would not be good.
But he was not happy at all.
Mr. Dragon thought this, his long, curled lashes trembling slightly, representing the resistance in his heart. Even the fingers hidden beneath the quilt moved restlessly.
Only Mu Wanwan could not see it. She was even less aware that a certain scheming dragon had grown more and more brazen recently—
How could it be that she was taking advantage of Mr. Dragon while sleeping in a daze? Clearly, it was Mr. Dragon who, relying on the abundant spiritual energy these days, had recovered enough movement in his right hand that, aside from his ring finger and little finger, his index finger could also move. Every night, he would blush and spend a great deal of effort trying to grasp her hand.
“Mr. Dragon, let me wash your hair.” Mu Wanwan looked at Mr. Dragon’s loose long hair and discussed it with him.
During this time, she had already washed her own hair several times, but Mr. Dragon had not washed his even once. However, Mr. Dragon did not need to do any work, so his hair got dirty more slowly. Also, she had been worried that washing his hair on rainy days might worsen his injuries, so she had kept delaying it. Today, the sunlight was good, and she had rarely found herself with some free time, so this thought arose.
When a certain dragon enduring the curse inside his body heard that she wanted to wash his hair, the trace of unhappiness in his heart over sleeping separately gradually faded. His blood even seemed to heat a little.
If she washed his hair, she would definitely touch his horns.
A dragon’s horns could only be touched by their partner.
She should know that, right? After all, this was an unwritten rule across the continent.
Mr. Dragon’s ears grew a little hot. He remembered that she had also touched his tail before. Judging from how clean his scales were, it seemed she had even taken advantage of his unconsciousness to wipe and wash his reverse scale and a certain place that could not be touched.
A dragon’s reverse scale and that place could not be casually touched either.
Since she had touched them, she had to take responsibility for him.
Mr. Dragon’s train of thought began heading in a strange direction again. In truth, from the moment Mu Wanwan had taken care of him without disgust, she had begun, in a way she herself could never imagine, to burrow bit by bit into the dark depths of his heart that had never seen sunlight.
Perhaps she had not entered very deeply yet, but she had already touched his soft and fragile side. She had even made him become unlike himself, making him begin to long for light.
If anyone in the territory were told now that the tyrant who had once terrified the entire continent would carefully touch a girl’s hand at night, probably not only would no one believe it, they would curse the speaker as insane.
He really had become a little strange.
As Mu Wanwan’s warm fingers passed through his hair, Mr. Dragon thought this dizzily.
…
While Mu Wanwan’s days here were gradually becoming more flavourful and hopeful, Bai Shuiyao, who had been punished last time, was having a very difficult time.
Back then, under the influence of the female lead’s halo, Ao Qin had not directly beaten her to death. He had merely punished her by sending her to the cold palace beside the forbidden area to do hard labour. She had originally wanted that unlucky wretch Mu Wanwan to suffer in her place, but who would have thought that her cheap elder sister, who was usually cowardly to death, had actually changed her nature?
Qingye had also been crippled. At that time, Bai Shuiyao had not managed to gain even the slightest benefit from Mu Wanwan. Added to Fuliu and Hongye’s hostility, she, a mere first-rank water-type little maidservant, had no backer at all.
From the moment she was punished and sent here until now, she had truly lived several days of hardship.
“Hey! Bai Shuiyao, you little slut, what are you standing there daydreaming for?” A broad-shouldered, thick-waisted middle-aged female steward stood with her hands on her hips. With one lash of the whip, she struck Bai Shuiyao’s dusty hem directly, causing the bucket in her hand to tip over at once.
“Ah, Steward Zou, I was wrong.” After being struck, Bai Shuiyao’s eyes filled with tears from the pain, and she hurriedly begged for mercy.
Unfortunately, only men fell for this trick. Women—especially a middle-aged steward like Steward Zou, whose personality was twisted and who was jealous of young girls—particularly hated people like Bai Shuiyao. Not only did she not stop the whip in her hand, she instead struck her again, saying fiercely, “You take half a day just to fetch water. Are you dead? Do you not want dinner?”
Bai Shuiyao could only hold back her tears. Her beautiful peach-blossom eyes were filled with resentment.
She hated this Steward Zou in front of her, thinking every day about how she could get her killed. On the other hand, she hated Mu Wanwan even more for not swapping places with her back then.
Why had she had to appear in public as a maid since childhood? If her mother had not died early, how could there have been any place for Mu Wanwan and her mother? Mu Wanwan had owed her from the beginning. Not only had she occupied the identity of the eldest young miss of the Mu residence for so many years for nothing, but now that the Mu residence had fallen and there was no father to support her, Mu Wanwan had actually climbed over her head. It truly infuriated her.
Whenever she thought that Mu Wanwan must now be living a wealthy and glorious life as the Lord’s wife, she became so angry smoke nearly came out of all seven orifices. Bai Shuiyao worked with tears in her eyes, mentally imagining a hundred ways for Mu Wanwan to die. She completely forgot how much she herself had once despised Mr. Dragon, and she also forgot the days when she had eaten well and slept well at Qingye’s place while Mu Wanwan drank porridge every day and slept on a table.
By the time she finally finished her work, Mu Wanwan had already died hundreds of times in Bai Shuiyao’s heart.
As the sky was about to darken, these hard-labour maidservants finally had a brief period of free movement and rest.
Bai Shuiyao saw that the steward women were all gathered together talking, and the other hard-labour maidservants had not noticed her either, so she quietly edged toward the outside of the courtyard.
She had observed over the past few days that every night at this time, several young men dressed as guards would pass in front of this cold palace carrying food boxes or other things. Then they would open the barrier of the forbidden area and enter it, only coming out the next day to change shifts with a few other guards.
Bai Shuiyao actually did not know what secret was hidden inside the forbidden area. But she only knew that right now, every day, she was only doing miscellaneous chores and suffering unbearably. Earlier, when she had overheard a few steward women chatting, she had learned that even the weakest of these guards who could enter and leave the forbidden area had strength close to the fourth rank, at least third rank.
If she could hook up with one of them, would leaving this cold palace not be easy? And if she used that man to continue climbing upward and hook up with Lord Ao Qin, then would taking Mu Wanwan’s life not be simple?
Bai Shuiyao’s wishful calculations clattered loudly in her mind, and her beautiful face became even more bright and moving.
Unfortunately, before she even had the chance to go out and speak to those guards, a steward woman slapped her across the face. “What are you looking at, you shameless little hussy? Dragon clan guards are not people you can look at or fantasise about. Go back to work!”
Bai Shuiyao felt both wronged and unwilling. Bearing a bright red handprint on her face, she did not dare talk back to Steward Zou. In extreme frustration, she continued working.
**Author’s note:**
Mr. Dragon: “I! Don’t! Want! To! Sleep! Apart! From! Madam!”
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