THE BLUE WHISPER 驭鲛记

Chapter 66: Give It A Try

       Ji Yunhe observed Kongming for a couple of days and confirmed that he had no intention of telling Changyi what he knew.

        She eased her tension. But after a few days living under the same roof with Changyi, Ji Yunhe found something else to stress over.

        Changyi... did not sleep.

        Ji Yunhe could not see the sun, so she slept during the day and was up at night. She thought Changyi would go back and sleep after watching her eat her meals.

        But Ji Yunhe found that when she ate, Changyi read reports. When she played with the fire in the charcoal pot, Changyi read reports. When the sun rose and she washed up for bed, Changyi still read reports.

        And during the day, wave after wave of people came to deliver documents and paperwork.

       Ji Yunhe would occasionally see him rest a bit after lunch, then he would be back to work again in the afternoon. In the evening he would rest a bit after she ate her meal. His total time of inactivity did not exceed an hour or two a day.

        Ji Yunhe held back her concern for a few days, then finally asked him during dinner.

        "Are you competing with me to see who will die first in a month?"

        Changyi lifted his eyes from his paper and said, "You won't die."

        "Right," Ji Yunhe nodded. "But you will."

        Changyi put down the paper in his hand and gave her a look. "Shouldn't you be happy if I die early?"

        Ji Yunhe smiled. She put down her bowl, stood up, brushed the dishes aside, and leaned half of her body over the table with her cheeks resting on her hands. Then she stared at Changyi an inch away from his face. "I changed my mind."

        Changyi did not avoid or dodge her. He stared back and quietly waited for her to go on.

        "Obviously you are not going to die before me, so..." Ji Yunhe said softly, "I should be nice to you, so… you can be nice to me too, right?"

        Changyi's face was still as cold as ever. "No." He flat out refused.

        But looking at his stiff refusal, Ji Yunhe suppressed a smile.

        She stretched out her finger and touched the bridge of Changyi's nose, he still did not dodge her. "Changyi, that is because you've never experienced how nice a woman can be..." Her fingertip stopped at the tip of his nose. Changyi's skin was as smooth as a baby, Ji Yunhe could not help but rub it a few times. "How would you know if you've never tried it?"

        The jiaoren only ever accepted one partner for life. They were far more conservative than humans when it came to the opposite gender. From her interactions with him six years ago, Ji Yunhe knew he was shy and knew nothing of the matters between men and women. Her actions right now were intended to overwhelm him and make him forget about her concern for his well-being.

        Before the idea had a chance to materialize in her mind, he suddenly grabbed her hand that was touching his nose, startling her.

        He said, "Ok."

        "Hm?" Ji Yunhe was a little confused.

        "Then let's give it a try."

        "Huh?"

        Ji Yunhe's eyes opened wide as her wrist was pulled and her whole body lost its support and flopped forward. In the next moment, a hand caught her shoulder and a pair of slightly cool lips pressed onto hers.

        The distance was so close that she could not see his face clearly, but the contact between their lips made it impossible for Ji Yunhe to ignore the situation she was in.

        Wh... what?

        What was this fish doing?!

        He was supposed to only take one partner for life!

        He had changed...

        He had completely changed!

        When the cool lips left, Ji Yunhe felt as if her mouth and tongue had been burned by fire, numb and dead.

        She stayed frozen in shock with half of her body still sprawled out across the table.

        "Tried it." Changyi stood up. His silver hair draped down and shielded his face, and his voice remained cold. "Still no."

        Still no to what?

        Still not going to be nice to her?

        But... did that question still matter...

        Changyi pulled out the paperwork from under her elbow, walked around the screen and sat down at his desk. Ji Yunhe still did not come back to her senses.

        She slowly turned her head and looked at Changyi's shadow projected onto the screen by the candlelight. He was sitting diagonally on the chair, motionless like a statue. He held the paperwork in one hand while the other one either covered his face or propped it up.

        Ji Yunhe was also a sculpture on the table.

        Her body was stiff, but her mind was chaotic.

        After her limbs started to grow numb, she finally moved her arm and got up. But she accidentally pressed into the uneaten dishes and spilled food everywhere.

        Then she sat down… but missed her chair. She landed bottom first onto the floor and her hands pulled all the food onto her body.

        She struggled for a while before finally climbing her way back into the chair, then she peeked at the shadow on the screen. With all of her banging and clashing back here, the person sitting in front did not move a muscle. He did not even call for servants to come clean up.

        The room was now so silent that only the burning charcoal in the pot could be heard.

        Then someone's approaching footsteps broke the silence. The person in front of the screen moved, and Ji Yunhe also moved. She did not know what Changyi was doing, but she began to clean the food that covered her. However, the grains of rice were very sticky, and they flattened against her dress like glue under her haste.

        "I have found a new medicine today that can maybe help enhance..." Kongming came carrying a box, but his voice paused briefly when he walked in. "What happened to you? Your eye color... Hey! Where are you going?"

        Changyi's shadow disappeared, and Kongming walked around the screen with a puzzled face. When he saw Ji Yunhe, his footsteps paused again.

        "And what happened to you?"

        Ji Yunhe cleared her throat and in a rare moment for her clever tongue, she stuttered.

        "I… I fell..."

        The monk narrowed his eyes and looked at her with suspicion. "Rice can also fall flat onto you?"

        "Umm... fell hard…"

        Ji Yunhe patted her dress, rolled up her sleeves, and took the initiative to cooperate with Kongming. "Take the pulse and tell me about the new medicine you just mentioned. As for the rest, don't ask..."

        Kongming: "..."