Chapter 40.2 - Scorching (2/4)

Song Mo had to return to the surface.

It was dark all around, and there was only the sound of flowing water in his ears.

Chilliness seeped into his body through the lake water, reaching to the bottom of his heart.

Looking around at a loss, Song Mo suddenly felt unprecedented loneliness, as if he was the only person left in this world.

Why?

He had only just tasted the feeling of being liked by her and liking her back. Before he could grasp and savour the feeling, she already…

Shui Xian, did you sink in the bottom of the lake where he couldn’t see, or were you washed away by the current?

It didn’t matter. If I can’t see the bottom of the lake, I will light a torch and walk down the river bank. Even if I can only find your corpse, I’ll still bring you home and marry you. You don’t have to wait for the next life. I will marry you in this lifetime.

After quickly swimming to the shore, Song Mo didn’t bother to change into dry clothes. Song Mo looked around to see if there was anything nearby that could make a fire.

When his eyes fell across the mouth of the river, he paused.

There was someone there!

With his heart pounding, Song Mo strode over.

The river water hit the embankment, and the person’s long hair was brought to the back of her head by the current, revealing her snow-white arms and pale cheeks. It was the person he was looking for!

“Shui Xian!”

As if he had come back to life, Song Mo hurriedly carried the person to the shore. He had grown up by the river since he was a child, so he knew how to rescue a drowning person. Regardless of the fact that her clothes had been washed away by the current and only thing left on her was a dudou , he pressed both hands on her chest, trying to squeeze out the water she had sucked into her stomach.

There wasn’t any water in Tang Huan’s stomach!

Being pressed so hard by him, she almost vomited blood!

In order not to be pressed to death by the man, she coughed twice in time and slowly woke up. But the moment she opened her eyes, before she could see the man clearly, her body had been pulled into a pair of strong arms. He hugged her so tightly that Tang Huan’s shoulder was hurt by him, but she didn’t say a word. She quietly listened to him calling her name again and again, until he started to sob.

Tang Huan continued to endure it for a while, but she couldn’t stand it any longer.

She was wet, and so was he. It was really uncomfortable to hug like this! Besides, the wind in the valley was quite strong. It was only March now, and it was very cold without clothes on!

She shivered uncontrollably.

“Are you cold? Wait, I’ll get you some clothes!” Song Mo noticed that she was freezing, so he calmed down and planned to put her down.

Tang Huan hugged his waist and didn’t let go. She buried her face in his arms, her tone tinged with disbelief, “Song Mo, I-I’m not dead?”

Song Mo hugged her tighter, lowered his head, put his right hand on her face, and wiped the water off her face. His voice was softer than ever before, “No, you are not dead. You are still alive and well. Shui Xian, from now on, you’re mine. I’ll marry you immediately when we go back, but you have to promise me that you will never do such foolish things again. Understand?”

“But, Young Master Lin treated me like that…”

“I don’t mind. Let alone just touching your chest, even if he had tainted your body, I don’t mind either.”

Song Mo looked into her eyes and wrung the water from her hair while continuing to promise her, “Shui Xian, let’s be together. I will support the family, and you will no longer have to go out and work. Don’t worry that you broke Young Master Lin’s jade pendant. I’ll help you pay it back. I have three or four hundred taels of silver of savings at home. If it’s not enough, I’ll sell the house, and we’ll move to the village.”

Tang Huan burst into tears, straightened up, and hugged his neck. “Enough! Just listening to your words is enough! Song Mo, you don’t have to help me pay it back. You didn’t want me before, and I didn’t have that much money in my hands, so in order to survive, I had to deal with him. Now that you are willing to marry me, I will sell the Mei family house and pay him back. You don’t have to pay.”

She cried like a child, but her voice was filled with contentment and joy. Song Mo also became relaxed and patted her on the back soothingly. “That’s fine. You can just move in with me. As for the maids in your house-”

“I don’t want them anymore. I’ll return their indenture to them and let them go. I want just the two of us together. No one else should get in our way!” Tang Huan clung to him domineeringly, as if she was afraid that the maids would snatch him away.

Hearing her revealing her domineering nature, Song Mo couldn’t help laughing. He carried her. “Okay, it’s getting dark. Wear my jacket first and let’s find a place to rest for the night. We’ll go back tomorrow.”

Tang Huan leaned on his chest obediently. “Okay, I’ll listen to you.”

Seeing her being so obedient and relying on him so wholeheartedly, Song Mo’s heart was filled with unprecedented satisfaction.

With the help of the full moonlight, Song Mo quickly found a shallow cave and placed her down. He went outside and brought a pile of dry leaves to spread on the ground, and then went out to find branches and piled them at the entrance of the cave. After a while, fire was lit. When he turned around, he saw that she was spreading his shirt on the leaves. She lay on her side facing the hole, pulling the other corner of the shirt from behind with one hand and turning it over, wrapping herself like a baby silkworm, with only her head and thin fair calves exposed.

Her clothes were still hanging outside, and she was wearing nothing inside. While he was wearing trousers below, and his chest was naked.

Song Mo consciously sat close to the entrance of the cave, turned to her side, and spoke to her, “You must be hungry, right? It’s a pity that I can’t hunt now since it’s dark already, and I can’t even see the fish in the water.”

Tang Huan looked at him with a smile. “I’m not hungry. When I’m with you, I’ll be full just by looking at you.”

Was she flirting with him?

Song Mo’s face heated up, and he didn’t answer her.

He had been so happy just now that he expressed his love to her without thinking. He didn’t regret it, but now that the two of them were alone together, he was still not used to it. It was like, two people who were originally incompatible with each other were suddenly linked together. Things had happened too fast for him to adapt.

While she was the thick-skinned one. Now that he couldn’t scold her, be cold-faced to her, and his feelings were also known to her, he had no way to resist.