Chapter 061: Making Mistakes

Their eyes met.

Jiang Xuening was surprisingly calm.

She was not a person with a good temper. Once her patience and resentment reached a certain threshold, and especially after being provoked by a harsh word from Xie Wei, it was like a spark igniting a heavy explosion, making her do something she had always wanted to do but never dared to.

This was a form of revenge. And only a form of revenge.

Xie Wei appeared equally calm.

However, this calmness was only a facade for him.

Jiang Xuening’s expressionless face was reflected in his eyes, instantly shattering into dark clouds, rising and falling in a dangerous tide, rolling out a storm of impending anger.

Even though he hadn’t touched the cat, at this moment, he felt a chilling sensation climbing up his wide sleeve, where he had touched the cat, crawling up his arm, reaching his fingertips, leaving a shuddering tremor.

The excessive tension made his stiff fingers numb.

Xie Wei tried hard to dispel this feeling and to suppress the anger surging in his chest because his reason always told him that anger was the most useless emotion for a person.

But the more he tried to suppress it, the more the tide surged in his heart.

In the end, he couldn’t hold back, looking at her, he slowly said, word by word, “Ning’er, do you think I’m too soft-hearted, too easy to talk to?”

It wasn’t the “Miss Jiang” he would call her in front of others, nor the “Miss Ning” he used privately, but the direct, harsh “Ning’er”!

Jiang Xuening sensed the unmistakable danger.

She was also tense, and as soon as he spoke, a chill ran up her spine, almost instinctively making her take a step back.

But she forgot that she was standing on the steps of this side hall.

As she stepped back, she tripped over the upper step.

Jiang Xuening lost her balance and was about to fall, but at that moment, a hand reached out, grabbing her arm forcefully. The fingers, usually only holding a pen, were long and slender, but now they held a fierce strength, pulling her towards him!

The distance closed rapidly.

She almost stumbled, forced to lean towards him.

The hand gripping her arm was like an iron clamp, even causing her a faint pain. When she looked up in lingering fear, she saw Xie Wei’s neck with hidden veins, his motionless Adam’s apple, the taut lines of his throat, and the thin lips pressed into a line, and…

A pair of cold, sinister eyes!

This was a stark contrast to the Xie Wei who usually appeared in front of people.

Jiang Xuening’s scalp tingled.

Even in her previous life, when she saw him holding a longbow and leading people to seal the palace gates, coldly watching the rebels slaughter the royal family, he had never looked so terrifying!

She wanted to retreat, but was tightly restrained by him;

She should have screamed, but no sound came from her throat.

He looked down at her almost condescendingly, his figure standing like a towering mountain, with a heavy and solemn presence, and said, “You are very smart and very spoiled. Since you entered the palace last time, I warned you not to make me angry.”

Jiang Xuening sneered, “I am spoiled, as Master Xie said, stubborn and unrepentant. I didn’t know that Master Xie has been so tolerant of me.”

Xie Wei said, “Shouldn’t I discipline you?”

Jiang Xuening looked up at him, “Respecting teachers and valuing their teachings, naturally, whatever the teacher teaches, the student learns; whatever the teacher says, the student is. If Master Xie suppresses, scolds, and misunderstands me, it is all as it should be.”

Xie Wei looked at her without speaking.

Jiang Xuening felt that the hostility not only did not dissipate but grew wildly in her heart, making her words sharper, “I just didn’t expect that the dignified Master Xie would be afraid of cats, truly rare.”

Xie Wei’s face darkened.

She continued without moving, “Yesterday, I saw Master Xie avoiding that little cat, and I had this suspicion in my heart. But how could the wise Master Xie be afraid of a mere little cat? This suspicion was too absurd to believe, even for myself. Unexpectedly, today’s casual test proved this absurd suspicion to be true. It turns out that even perfect people have fears, even saints have fears.”

Before today, Xie Wei was a perfect person in everyone’s eyes, even half a saint. There were few things in the world that could change his expression. The reborn Jiang Xuening was even more terrified because she knew his background; however, after today, she realized that the Xie Wei, whom all the civil and military officials feared in her previous life, was actually afraid of a small, soft, and pitiful cat in this world. Thus, she understood—there are no perfect people in the world.

Even saints are just flesh and blood!

This made her shed her old fears and apprehensions, confronting him with an unprecedented sharpness.

Xie Wei’s eyes flickered with changing emotions.

If he wanted, in this turbulent time within the palace, it would be extremely easy to take the opportunity to get rid of a young girl who had entered the palace as a companion reader; however, he was not someone who vented his anger indiscriminately. He slowly released his hand, loosening the fingers that tightly gripped her arm.

“Perfect people indeed have fears, and saints indeed have fears. However, I am neither a perfect person nor a saint.”

His wide sleeve fell down.

His fingertips still tingled with a spasm-like numbness.

His voice was steady and slow, but his gaze on her seemed to carry weight: “Jiang Xuening, you should remember, some people avoid certain things not entirely out of fear, but because they hate and loathe them to the extreme.”

Hate and loathe to the extreme.

That weight pressed down like mountains and seas.

Jiang Xuening suddenly felt a bit breathless, looking up at him.

Xie Wei’s flawless face, in the eyes of the world, was covered with a layer of shadow. His lowered eyelids hid a dark and obscure look, like a statue of a god standing high in a temple, with a kind of almost numb perfection.

She suddenly felt she had made a mistake.

Xie Wei, however, had already turned away, saying plainly, “You don’t need to come to learn the qin anymore.”