Yang Chuxia stared at the person ahead, whose face had beco so gaunt as to be unrecognizable, the cheekbones now appeared much higher.
She had thought he would say sothing, but instead, he walked straight up to her, lifted his robe, and knelt down without hesitation, leaving Yang Chuxia startled.
"Brother An, why have you co?"
Yet Ye Zi’an didn’t answer her; he just knelt quietly, his eyes fixed on hers. In them, she saw reluctance, pain, and pity—so many emotions.
After Ye Zi’an had knelt for quite a while, the crowd realized, "Isn’t that the Lord Prefect? He must be really ill, he’s barely a shadow of himself. If there’s a sea breeze, such a person might just be blown away on the streets."
Why has the Lord Prefect also knelt down? Being so ill, why doesn’t he rest at ho?
"Who exactly knows how to treat this illness? If soone does, they should hurry up and treat it instead of tornting people."
"Exactly, this isn’t a good doctor at all, what happened to ’the physician’s parental heart’? It’s nonsense!"
"Right, I have no idea which doctor thought of this cruel idea, but we won’t go to him for dical treatnt in the future, let’s starve that beastly brat to death."
"Agreed!"
That’s how a gossiping crowd behaves—changing opinions as quickly as the wind changes direction, capricious and fickle.
However, so people empathized with Yang Chuxia and Ye Zi’an’s actions, as their families too had sick mbers.
"Lord Ye and Madam Ye, my younger brother is also afflicted with this disease. I will kneel with you, in hopes that the physician will show rcy and save the people of Shandong."
"Yes, we’ll kneel with you. If begging on our knees can prompt the doctor to treat the illness, what does sacrificing our ’knees of gold’ matter?"
"Exactly, if Lord Ye can kneel, why can’t we? Lord Ye isn’t just kneeling for himself; he’s kneeling for the lives of so many people in Shandong."
And thus, such a moving sight unfolded on the streets of Shandong Prefecture City.
Nearly thousands upon thousands of people knelt along East Main Street, with Yang Chuxia and Ye Zi’an in the center, sharing a smile.
Ti passed quietly, and finally, two hours went by.
Ye Zi’an helped Yang Chuxia to her feet. "How are you feeling?"
"How about you?"
They asked each other simultaneously.
"I’m okay," Yang Chuxia said with a smile, "and you, do you feel okay?"
"I’m okay, too," Ye Zi’an replied, taking her hand, "let’s go ho."
The journey ho was made in silence. Yang Chuxia thought Ye Zi’an might be upset with her for keeping things from him, but when they arrived ho, Ye Zi’an acted as if nothing was amiss, quietly instructing the servants to prepare food for her and to get so ointnt ready.
Once in the inner chamber, he lifted the hem of her trousers and saw her knees were bright red. He gently massaged them, then glanced at his own hands so thin they resembled chicken claws and said awkwardly, "Seems I’ve gotten too skinny, even massaging is bony and uncomfortable."
"I’m fine, it doesn’t hurt. It was just kneeling for a while," Yang Chuxia pulled him up, "but for you, having your bones directly against the ground must have been very painful."
With no flesh on his legs to cushion them, kneeling like that surely wasn’t comfortable.
"I didn’t feel pain either," Ye Zi’an said nonchalantly. When Mingcui brought the ointnt, he applied a dab on Yang Chuxia’s knees and sighed, "You have to rember to be gentle with yourself. A woman should be delicate and let a man protect and cherish her. But I fear I might not be able to do that, so you must rember to pamper yourself, to be good to yourself. Understand?"
User Comments
0 comments from readers