In a moment of impulse, I forcibly kissed my brother's best friend.

"Yige, shall I take you away?"

When Cui Yutang said, "Let's go somewhere no one knows us," his voice was so low and hoarse it almost sounded unlike his own.

Xie Yige looked up at him, her big eyes instantly lighting up.

"Will Your Highness let me go?"

Looking into her pure and expectant eyes, Cui Yutang nodded gently.

That wildly beating heart, however, sank in that instant.

No.

We can't let his Yige bear these burdens. She should always live in the sunlight, walking proudly on the streets of Chang'an, instead of following him on the run and becoming the subject of gossip.

He forcefully suppressed those crazy thoughts, leaving only a gentle calm on his face.

Cui Yutang gently covered her face with his cloak, picked her up horizontally, and steadily walked towards the gate of the princess's residence.

An inconspicuous carriage was parked outside. He carefully carried her into the carriage, and before getting in, he took a special look at Baoyu.

Baoyu had followed him for many years, and she understood her master's meaning with just a glance. He sighed slightly in his heart, gently flicked his whip, and rode away from the princess's residence at an extremely steady and 'slow' speed.

After getting on the bus, Cui Yutang didn't put her in a seat, but instead laid her horizontally on his lap and pulled her into his arms.

Xie Yige's heart was pounding, and she gripped his collar tightly. This way of sitting was utterly inappropriate, yet faced with his overstepping behavior, she couldn't bring herself to utter a word of refusal.

She actually liked being held by him like this.

She quickly lowered her head, afraid that he would see the shame in her heart.

"Why...why did Her Highness agree to let me go?"

She desperately tried to break the suffocatingly ambiguous atmosphere by starting a conversation, "Have you two known each other before?"

"Hmm." Cui Yutang's voice came from above her head, with a deep echo, "The monk Xuanji is my good friend."

"The renowned Buddhist monk Master Xuanji?" Xie Yige was taken aback. "What does this have to do with anything?"

Cui Yutang's ears turned slightly red as he carefully considered his words.

"He is the monk you saw today... on Princess Yuzhen."

"Huh?" Xie Yige exclaimed in surprise, looking up abruptly.

Their eyes met in mid-air, as if sparks were flying. She sat on his lap, skin to skin, discussing the topic with a strange sense of taboo.

"Is this appropriate given their identities?" she asked softly.

"What is suitable, and what is unsuitable?" Cui Yutang's voice carried a hint of bitterness.

This was a difficult question to answer. Xie Yige thought about it for a moment, then decided to continue her thoughtless attempt to change the subject: "How long... have they been doing this?"

"More than two years." Cui Yutang glanced at her meaningfully, his eyes filled with suppressed emotions.

Has this relationship been going on for over two years? Xie Yige recalled what she saw outside the meditation room window today—those entangled figures, those suppressed groans, those scenes she shouldn't have seen but had seen anyway.

Her cheeks were burning hot, and her heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to jump out of her chest.

Belatedly, a rebellious thought popped into her mind: Princess Yuzhen is eating so well.

She was enveloped by Cui Yutang's pleasant scent, and her heart was pounding. She shifted her body restlessly, as if she had bumped into something.

Her face flushed red.

"Yi Ge," Cui Yutang's voice was terribly hoarse, carrying an extreme sense of suppressed emotion, "Don't move."

Xie Yige looked up in a panic, and their eyes accidentally met again.

For a moment, the air seemed to freeze.

The taboo images they had just discussed were like a spark falling into dry tinder.

Those long-suppressed desires, those unspoken longings, those fantasies that could only be indulged in the quiet of midnight—all burst into flames within the confines of this narrow carriage.

They don't know who started it.

Perhaps it was her face that tilted up first, or perhaps it was his head that lowered first. But the moment their lips touched, all restraint crumbled.

This kiss was unlike any other before.

It was no longer a gentle, tentative kiss; it was a forbidden, long-suppressed, scalding, and frenzied one.

Like a long-planned downpour that has finally found its outlet, his tongue pried open her lips and teeth with an almost predatory force, as if he wanted to devour her completely. She responded defiantly, her fingers slipping inside his collar, pressing him even closer to her.

The carriage moved slowly through the streets of Chang'an, its curtains drawn low to block out the outside noise. In this cramped space, they clung to each other like two drowning people, greedily absorbing each other's essence, as if trying to meld them into their very bones.

My heart feels like it's going to break down.

Xie Yige had only this thought left in her mind.

Then, everything went white before her eyes, and her consciousness faded into darkness.

—She actually fainted from his kiss.

What a shame.

When Xie Yige woke up again, it was already midnight.

She found a hard object in her hand, and when she raised it, the character "Cui" came into view—it was the mutton-fat jade pendant that had saved her life.

It was his jade pendant.

How did it end up back in my hands?

She stared blankly at the jade pendant, her fingertips gently tracing the strokes of the character "崔" in the dim night. A beautiful smile unconsciously appeared on her lips.

She slowly curled up in the blanket and quietly pressed the jade pendant against her heart.

This time it was given to her by him; now it belongs to her.

She closed her eyes, a smile on her lips, and drifted off to sleep once more.

The next morning, when Xie Yige woke up, she found that it was Xie Wanrou who had come to help her wash up.

Xie Wanrou's eyes were red, and when she saw Xie Yige wake up, tears streamed down her face again.

"Yige, it's all my fault," Xie Wanrou said, her voice choked with emotion, as she held her hand. "That's why you were in such danger."

"Sister-in-law..." Xie Yige reached out and wiped away the tears on her cheeks.

"Zhiwei said that Princess Yuzhen's temperament is unpredictable, especially in the last two years, she kills people without blinking an eye." Xie Wanrou desperately held back the tears that were about to fall, her voice still trembling.

"They couldn't get into the princess's residence yesterday, we were all frantic, but we dared not make a fuss, afraid that if it got out of hand, it would harm you..."

"Thank goodness Cui Langjun saved you." She held Xie Yige's hand tightly, "otherwise, you would have been in grave danger this time."

"Sister-in-law, I'm sorry, I made you worry." Xie Yige lowered her head, a wave of guilt washing over her.

Recalling her experience at the princess's residence the previous day, that near-death fear surged back into her heart, and her face turned deathly pale. That was the first time she had truly encountered that powerful class.

The lives of ordinary people are as worthless as ants in their eyes; they can kill them without batting an eye.

She belatedly realized that Cui Yutang had actually taken a great risk by going to save her.

At this moment, Bichun walked in: "Miss, Seventeenth Sister has come and says she wants to see you."

Xie Yige was somewhat surprised: "Quickly, please invite her in."