V2C39

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She took off the mask, why is he so happy? Xuanji remembered the incident four years ago when his mask fell off, at that time he was so frustrated that he was even chastised by that terrible palace master of theirs for it.

When she moved a little, Yu Sifeng immediately let her go, wiped a hand on his face and smiled, “Sorry, I was excited for a moment.”

Xuanji looked at his pale face with puzzlement, his eyes as clear as autumn water were even brighter than four years ago, and looked at her attentively. She was so surprised, it took her a moment to think of what she wanted to say.

“I took off your mask without permission, is your palace master going to blame you again? Last time ……. did he punish you? Why don’t you put it back on and I’ll pretend I didn’t see anything?”

She blindfolded her eyes and acted like she was hiding her ears, causing him to laugh out loud.

Xuanji put down her hand in confusion and looked at him in a daze. He slowly stopped laughing and bent his eyes slightly, then raised his hand and stroked her messy hair.

“I’m fine, he won’t punish me again. From now on… I don’t have to wear a mask anymore,” he said.

And why is that? Xuanji couldn’t figure it out. That mask of his was too strange, as if it could change by itself. She had a feeling that it had a bad meaning, but she didn’t say anything.

Yu Sifeng picked up the mask and rubbed it in his hand, feeling a bit reluctant to part with it, as if he was going to discard an old friend. “This mask is made from the bark of the immortal tree from Kunlun Mountain, it has sufficient spiritual power, once it has been put on, normal people cannot remove it. Now is the time to take it off…”

He flipped the mask over, pointed at it, and said, “Look, is it smiling?

Xuanji stared at it for a moment and shook his head, “No, it’s crying.”

Yu Sifeng smiled, “It was crying before, but now that you’ve removed it, it’s naturally laughing.”

The mask clearly had a bitter expression that it looked like it was crying, where is the smile.

Yu Sifeng was groggy and looked down carefully, and sure enough, that mask of immortal bark looked sad and tearful, with both corners of his mouth hanging down and his eyebrows locked tightly, without the slightest intention of smiling.

He himself could not figure it out, but just kept touching the drooping corners of the mouth with his hand, as if to stroke it up, so that it becomes a smiling face.

“…strange…,” he whispered, “…nothing like this has ever happened before. How can this be…how can this be…”

When Xuanji saw that he was in a state of confusion, he said, “Sifeng… If it wants to cry, just let it cry… Don’t mind it, it’s just a mask anyway.”

Yu Sifeng turned pale and whispered, “It’s not just a mask… Why did you take it off yourself and it’s still crying?”

“Sifeng?” She doesn’t know how to comfort him.

Yu Sifeng was stunned for a moment. Finally, he sighed in a decadent way, pursed his lips, and said softly, “This mask is for those who have reneged on the Thirteenth Commandment of the Palace of the Rising Sun. Once you put it on, only certain people will be able to take it off, except for yourself. It will slowly turn into a weeping face, and unless that person removes it, it will continue to cry until…”

Until what? Xuanji looked at him nervously.

But he did not say anything. He turned the mask over and over, and looked at it for a long time. Only then did he wrap it up carefully in a cloth and tuck it into his sleeve, smiling up at her and saying softly, “It’s nothing, just a small punishment from the Lize Palace. Now that the mask has been removed, there is no need to think too much about it. You can rest assured.”

This person is like this from the past, If he doesn’t want to talk about it, he won’t. No one will be able to find out the result. He didn’t tell us what the Thirteenth Commandment was, nor did he tell us what the mask meant by crying and laughing.

He took out a bandage from the gold-colored leather pouch behind his waist and spread it out on the ground. He picked the two straightest branches and beckoned to Xuanji, “Come here, I’ll bandage your bones.”

Xuanji obediently gave her right hand to him, giggled, and asked, “How did you know my right hand was broken?”

He hung his head and carefully aligned her broken bones, his long eyelashes trembled and when he heard her cry out in pain, he said, “Bear with it, it will be over soon.”

After a while he said, “You were injured, I know I can not deal with those demons, so I forced you to jump into the lake with me. As the current at the bottom of the lake went down, I didn’t pay attention when I came ashore and stepped into this hole, so I fell. Your arm hit the ground, and can not move, must be broken.”

In the midst of the conversation, he was already nimbly bandaging the bone and tying it up with two branches to make sure it wouldn’t fall down, before he let go with a sweat on his face.

His own ribs were also broken, and he still managed to hold on until now. Xuanji looked at him helplessly, but he didn’t let her move to fix his ribs, so she should just dawdle and watched? She picked up the handkerchief and wiped his sweat. When she saw him smiling up at her from time to time, she couldn’t help but say, “I thought we were going to die, but we are still alive.”

It took Yu Sifeng a great deal of effort to fix his broken ribs, and he was in pain and tired, sweating all over. He lay back, looked at the distant cave entrance above him, and whispered, “As long as we live, there is hope. There is still water in the water bag, enough to last for a few days.”

There was nothing for Xuanji to do, and her back was hurting so badly that she lay down beside him and they stared at the bright cave entrance together without doing anything. Suddenly, she felt that someone was looking at her, so she turned her head and saw Yu Sifeng’s smiling eyes.

“Is there anything wrong with my face?” she said. She touched it subconsciously, all girls are concerned about their appearance and she is no exception.

He smiled and shook his head, and probably because he was hurting, the pain was making him sweat. She has always seemed light-hearted, with a clean look. White clothes and dark hair, skin like snow, as if not touched by the fire of the sun. Now it is as if a fairy fell to the ground, covered in mud, hair like a bird’s nest, there is even mud on the face, honestly the first time he saw her, he was really startled.

Not sure why, but he suddenly felt closer to her, and he is happy to think that he’s the first person to see her so unkempt.

Someone once said, that being well-dressed impresses strangers, but being unkempt is a sign of intimacy. He unconsciously took a step closer to her, and the illusory figure that had once been on the tip of his tongue and in the bottom of his heart finally became flesh.

“Xuanji.” He barely moved towards her and the two heads almost collided, “Are you hungry?”

She was hungry but hadn’t said anything. She covered her empty stomach, looked down at him and nodded. “I’m hungry but there’s nothing to eat here.”

He narrowed his eyes and smiled, reaching into his leather bag and pulling out a watery bun and stuffing it into her hand.

“Here, nothing good, just a bun left over from the day before yesterday. You can eat it.”

She put the bun in front of her eyes and stared at it as if it were not a bun, but a flower.

Finally, she ripped it in half and gave him the first half and put the other half in her mouth.

“You eat it too,” she said vaguely, even when I’m hungry, a bun dripping with water is incredibly sweet.

But he wouldn’t eat it, he just looked at her with his head resting on his hands, his gaze was soft like water, when he saw her looking over at him, he grinned and smiled fussily, “I can’t eat such coarse stuff. I only eat buns from Yong Fang Pavilion.”

He is such a young master……that he wouldn’t eat buns from a shitty place that wasn’t Yong Fang Pavilion.

Xuanji, in a fit of pique, snatched the buns and ate them all herself, choking and hiccupping, but when she finally managed to straighten her neck, she suddenly stretched out a finger and said to him seriously, “Do you know what I want to eat now?”

“What?”

“Last time, Linglong and the others went down the mountain and bought some duck feet from Qing Xiang House, it was so delicious I couldn’t eat anything else for three days. Now I really want to eat it. My mouth is watering.”

“You know the Lotus Seeds and Osmanthus Soup at the Six Phoenix Restaurant? It’s so sweet and sticky, you’ll be hungry no matter how much you eat.”

“Oh, I also want diced chicken with peach nuts.”

“Then I’ll have the eight treasures duck.”

“I’d like… roast venison.”

“And I’ll have the beef noodle.”

In such a deserted place, they suddenly talked about the delicacies of different places with great enthusiasm, and their mouths watered and their stomachs screamed even more.

Xuanji sighed, closed her eyes and mumbled, “Now… even if I only have soy milk and fritters, it’s still good…”

Yu Sifeng waited for a long time, and when he saw that she didn’t say anything anymore, he turned around and saw that she was already asleep, breathing slowly. He lowered his eyes, not knowing what was going on in his heart, and finally couldn’t help himself, he leaned in and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

“Xuanji…” he gently called. The sound echoed in the empty cave and spread in circles on the bottom of his tongue and heart.

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[1]: Eight Treasures Duck – is a traditional Chinese dish that’s first marinated, fried, stuffed with 8 different ingredients (hence, the “treasures” or “jewels” of the dish) before it’s steamed or braised till soft and falling off the bone.

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