Chapter 502: Chapter 180 Teacher_3
As soon as the voice had died away, he finally got a clear look at Pei Yunmeng’s face and immediately jumped up, shouting: "Heavens and earth, who hit you? Who? Which damned soul did this to your handsome face? This is the face of the Palace Front Office!"
Pei Yunmeng chuckled: "Didn’t you use to say that Zhizi is the face of the Palace Front Office?"
Duan Xiaoyan answered earnestly: "That’s different, you two are a man and a woman."
"..."
Lu Tong glanced up, his gaze resting on the bruise at the corner of his mouth, and his heart stirred slightly.
When they had parted in the corridor during the day, that injury hadn’t been on his face.
Duan Xiaoyan was still making a fuss: "You don’t hit a man in the face, shouldn’t serious injuries like this warrant some compensation for disfigurement? Brother, tell me, who hit you? I’ll write up a petition and sue them right now!"
Pei Yunmeng touched his slightly swollen corner of the mouth and laughed: "It is quite severe."
"Now that Doctor Lu has come," he looked toward Lu Tong, "would you please also prescribe a medicine for me?"
...
As evening arrived, the lamp inside the room was lit.
Pei Yunmeng walked over to the table and sat down, reaching to remove his waist saber: "Didn’t I say I would come find you later? How come you came over yourself."
Lu Tong closed the door: "The Medical Officer Institute is full of people and eyes, not very convenient. I thought it over, instead of you coming to find me, it would be better for me to come to you."
At least at the Palace Marshal’s Mansion, everyone was Pei Yunmeng’s own man.
He laughed upon hearing this, and said: "But if you take the initiative to come to the Palace Marshal’s Mansion, aren’t you afraid of tarnishing your reputation?"
Lu Tong also sat down at the table, "Now that the rumors about you and me are common knowledge, if I avoid it, it would seem deliberate. Outsiders would see it and claim that I am pretending, trying to cover my ears to steal the bell."
In matters of romance and rumors, for a man, it is a mark of charm and glory, yet for a woman, it is a shackle on her reputation.
Upon hearing this, Pei Yunmeng’s gaze shifted, and he looked at her deeply, saying, "I’m sorry for dragging you into this."
Lu Tong spoke indifferently: "I do not blame you."
That was the truth.
Instead of kneeling in front of a killer who had slaughtered her entire family under the watchful eyes of the public, she would rather it be this way. Her humiliation would not come from a useless women’s chastity but from bowing to her enemy.
"Besides," she looked up, staring at Pei Yunmeng’s face, "you are not having an easy time either, are you?"
Pei Yunmeng was startled.
The bruise at the corner of his mouth became even more apparent at this time, the dark purple marks particularly clear on his clean face.
"Did you go back to see Yan Xu again?"
He didn’t confirm or deny, merely bowed his head and smiled, apparently pulling at the wound at the corner of his mouth, "Hiss," he let out a sound.
Lu Tong paused briefly, placed the medical box on the table, and from it took out a jar of ointment to hand over.
"Jade Skin Ointment?"
Pei Yunmeng looked at her: "Why aren’t you using it?" Then he said, "This minor injury of mine doesn’t need it, you should keep it."
"I have another jar." Lu Tong interrupted him and handed him a bamboo spatula.
He fell silent.
After thinking it over, Pei Yunmeng reached out to take the jar, pulled out the stopper, picked up the bamboo spatula Lu Tong had handed him, dipped it in the ointment, and smeared it on the corner of his lips.
There was no mirror in the room, so he smeared it inaccurately, the greenish ointment sticking messily around his mouth.
After smearing it twice, he suddenly glanced at her and cheekily pushed the bamboo spatula towards her.
"Would you like to do it?"
Lu Tong ignored him.
He sighed as if he had expected this, and just as he was about to continue using the spatula, Lu Tong suddenly reached out, took the spatula he had passed over, and raised her hand to apply it to his face.
Pei Yunmeng paused for a moment.
She was very close to him.
The sun had completely sunk below the horizon, and the courtyard of the Palace Front Office was silent, the dim tranquility of the night encased, the lanterns hanging from the trees swaying in the wind, casting down a dim, peaceful glow.
She looked up slightly, carefully spreading the ointment on the spatula across the corner of his lips, a breeze coming through the window crack, carrying with it a faint, almost imperceptible scent of the medicine.
For some reason, at that moment, he suddenly remembered the question his teacher had asked him in the dark room.
"Do you like her that much?"
He had answered with a smile: "There’s nothing but the purest intentions between me and her, spotless and untainted."
Yan Xu sneered: "You don’t like her? Yet you hurry over to save her, taking the risk of being discovered by the Qi Family to speak up for her. You know now is not the best time."
"In all these years, I haven’t seen you take such interest in anyone else."
Pei Yunmeng lowered his gaze.
The ointment on his lips felt cooling, yet the places where the bamboo spatula had touched burned faintly, a subtle, scarcely perceptible warmth.
The room fell into a deep silence without her noticing, Lu Tong looked up, and abruptly paused.
Pei Yunmeng was gazing down at her, his brows low.
The youth’s features, bathed in the moonlight from the window, appeared soft and mellow, those dark, lustrous eyes fixed upon her, bright and clear, yet unfathomably deep.
Lu Tong’s fingertips tensed slightly.