The candlelight flickered, casting uncertain shadows.
Duan Ling stood with his back to the red candles, bending low.
He kissed the spaces between Lin Ting’s fingers, his lips and teeth grazing her fingertips, gently nibbling and then releasing, as if to please her.
When Lin Ting sat up, she instinctively tried to pull her hand away, but Duan Ling held her wrist, caressing the slight protrusion of the bones.
The kisses that had started at her fingertips traveled up her hand, landing on the bones of her wrist, where he licked and then captured them in a tender kiss.
The warm, damp sensation traveled from her hand to her heart, like a pool of fragrant water slowly soaking and staining her skin.
She found it hard to breathe.
“Lord Duan…” Lin Ting still hadn’t gotten used to addressing him differently.
She had called him “Ziyu” once in front of Lady Feng, but in his presence, she couldn’t help but call him “Lord Duan.”
Duan Ling didn’t leave her, his lips and tongue still intimately pressed against her wrist, like a snake, sticky and coiling around her in circles.
He seemed unaware that she had been pretending to sleep:
“Are you awake?”
Lin Ting, of course, couldn’t admit that she had been pretending to sleep.
She steeled herself and said, “Yes, I was lying down waiting for you to come back. I must have fallen asleep after lying there for so long.”
He spoke softly, “Then it’s my fault. I took too long in the bath and made you wait.”
Lin Ting tried her best to ignore the burning heat that traveled across her wrist and fingers:
“No, it’s not your fault. It’s my own issue.”
Duan Ling caressed the jade bracelet on Lin Ting’s wrist, reddening her fingertips and then her wrist, his eyes lifting to look at her as he gently reminded, “Tonight is our wedding night.”
Lin Ting couldn’t forget that they had married today, that this was their wedding night.
The “double happiness” paper cuttings pasted all over the bridal chamber, the burning dragon and phoenix candles, and Duan Ling on the bed all served as reminders.
Lin Ting curled her fingers.
“Mm.”
Duan Ling separated Lin Ting’s curled fingers, using kisses to part them:
“If you like me, shouldn’t you also like this wedding night?”
Because Lin Ting was sitting up and Duan Ling was bent low, kissing her fingertips and wrist, she looked down at him.
She could see his entire face, his neck, and the faintly visible collarbones…
Lin Ting swallowed hard.
At this moment, everything about him seemed laid bare before her, yet it felt as if he willingly presented himself to her, allowing her to control him, to possess him completely.
Seeing Duan Ling like this, Lin Ting couldn’t help but recall him in his flying fish robe, with the embroidered spring knife at his waist, directing the Imperial Guards.
Back then, although Duan Ling was gentle, there was an undeniable sense of oppression about him.
Now, that sense of oppression was gone, leaving only an intoxicating tenderness.
If Duan Ling were compared to a flower, it would be a poisonous, beautiful flower growing on a cliff.
Attempting to pluck it could easily lead to a fatal fall into an abyss from which there was no return.
Lin Ting tried hard not to be beguiled.
Instead of answering, she asked, “You’ve been busy all day with the wedding and entertaining guests. You must be very tired. Why don’t we rest early tonight?”
Lin Ting had initially wanted to say that she was tired and sleepy, wanting to rest early, but remembering how Duan Ling had taken her fingers into his mouth while she was pretending to sleep, she decided it wasn’t a good excuse.
It would be better to find a reason from him, to make Duan Ling stop on his own, and it would sound like she was concerned for him.
Duan Ling: “I’m not tired.”
Lin Ting’s fingers gradually grew accustomed to his warmth, but the more they did, the more she wanted to pull away:
“You don’t have to force yourself.”
Duan Ling left a barely perceptible bite mark on Lin Ting’s hand, so faint that even she could hardly notice it.
It didn’t hurt, but it had indeed been there, though it would disappear soon.
He looked up at her: “Do you not want to consummate our marriage?”
Lin Ting denied it: “How could that be? I’m worried about you. Can’t you tell? You just returned to the capital a few days ago, and then you had to start preparing for the wedding right away. You haven’t rested for several days. It must be very tiring and uncomfortable.”
Before Duan Ling could speak, she continued:
“You said the Imperial Guards could go without rest for days. I remember, but it has been several days now.”
He laughed softly and remained silent for a moment.
Lin Ting reasoned: “Also, you still have your illness. What if overexertion triggers it? Although I still don’t know exactly what illness you have, I haven’t forgotten the pained look on your face when it flared up.”
Duan Ling gazed into her eyes and asked: “Would you mind if I had this ‘illness’?”
“The reason I brought it up is because I’m worried about your health, not because I mind that you have an illness.”
Although her public marriage proposal to him wasn’t because she liked him, but because of a system task, she truly didn’t mind.
Duan Ling’s eyes narrowed slightly as he held a strand of her hair:
“You don’t even know what kind of illness it is, and yet you say you don’t mind? Do you like me that much?”
Lin Ting ignored the second question and only replied to the first:
“Anyway, I’m not lying to you.”
His smile remained: “That’s true. If you minded, you wouldn’t have proposed to me publicly. After all, you knew I had this ‘illness’ before you proposed and had seen me ‘flare up’.”
She was curious: “However, are you willing to tell me what this illness is now?”
After seeing Duan Ling’s flare-up, Lin Ting had secretly looked up medical books and asked doctors out of curiosity, but his symptoms were not particularly unique—just discomfort, sweating, and pain.
These were too common and could apply to many illnesses, so she couldn’t determine what it was.
Duan Ling’s hand traveled up her long hair: “Do you really need to know now?”
“It’s not that I have to know now. We can talk about it when you’re ready to tell me.”
For some reason, when Lin Ting heard this, she felt an inexplicable sensation, as if something was binding her, and she didn’t press further, especially since she wasn’t the type to force people.
“Then let’s talk about it later.”
After bathing and returning to the bed, Duan Ling continued to lick and kiss her fingers while responding.
For example, when she spoke, he would kiss her, maintaining a strong presence that kept her constantly aware of him.
He would only slightly pull away when he needed to reply.
Her hand was imbued with his scent, damp and fragrant, and Lin Ting nodded, her mouth dry and parched.
Lin Ting wanted to continue stalling, unable to adapt just yet:
“Have you had any recent flare-ups?”
She referred to the period when he was sent out of the capital on a mission by Emperor Jiade.
Duan Ling seemed not to notice her attempt to delay: “I have… a few times.”
“A few times?”
She instinctively grasped his wrist, wanting to lift his sleeve to see, “You didn’t use self-harm to suppress it again, did you?”
Duan Ling, in turn, held Lin Ting’s wrist, preventing her from seeing the scars beneath his long sleeves:
“No, I no longer use self-harm to suppress it. Self-harm can no longer control my illness. Once you’ve tasted something, you can’t just stop.”
Her hand still pressed against his sleeve: “Have you found another way to suppress it? What is it?”
Duan Ling didn’t answer, leaving Lin Ting’s fingers, and tilted his head to kiss her.
His tongue slowly pressed against her still-closed lips, hovering, like gently knocking on a closed door, asking her to let him in.
Lin Ting looked down at Duan Ling, whose face was flushed, and felt dazed, as if she had been ensnared by a male ghost who kills through intimate acts, unable to move forward or back.
Suddenly, Lin Ting heard a faint bell sound, and her gaze followed the noise to Duan Ling’s hair, where she saw that he had used a jade hairpin to tie his hair after bathing.
The bell and white feather on the hairpin seemed lifelike under the candlelight.
However, Duan Ling hadn’t tied all his long hair up, leaving it half-bundled and half-loose, giving him a charming and beautiful appearance, almost making him look more like the bride than Lin Ting at first glance.
Many strands of his long hair fell in front of him, still damp from the bath, occasionally brushing against Lin Ting, making her itch.
She wanted to brush them away, yet also wanted to hold on, but in the end, she did neither.
There was no wind in the bridal chamber, but whenever Duan Ling moved, the bell on the jade hairpin would ring.
The moment she saw the bell, white feather, and jade hairpin, Lin Ting’s thoughts returned, and she unconsciously parted her lips slightly, accepting Duan Ling’s kiss for the night.
In that instant, Duan Ling became excited, but he concealed it well, so Lin Ting didn’t sense it.
All she could feel was his hot breath, spraying against her cheek and quietly enveloping her.
The dragon and phoenix candles on the table burned brighter and brighter, and on the bed, two figures intertwined.
At some point, Duan Ling lay down, but Lin Ting remained seated, bending over to kiss him, which also made it look as if she was actively kissing him.
In reality, the back of her neck was gently held by him, and her waist was embraced by his right hand.
Duan Ling swallowed the moan that was about to escape, involuntarily caressing Lin Ting’s waist, his fingers climbing over the red sash that hung down and tightening their grip.
Lin Ting noticed and grabbed Duan Ling’s hand, moving it away from the sash at her waist, pressing it onto the pillow beside her, and then interlocking their fingers, not giving him a chance to untie the sash.
He kissed her more deeply.
Duan Ling licked Lin Ting’s lips and teeth, and soon after, he coaxed her tongue back, retreating into his own mouth, drawing her in.
Lin Ting did as he wished, entering and trying to use the kiss to get by.
Duan Ling’s fingers convulsed with pleasure, and the moan that had been held back finally escaped, spilling into her ear.
His reaction was so strong that Lin Ting wanted to pull away.
Duan Ling closed his mouth, capturing her tongue that had entered, preventing her from pulling back until she no longer resisted, and then he opened his mouth again, allowing her to move.
Lin Ting’s lips and corners of her mouth ached from the prolonged kissing.
But Duan Ling was not yet satiated; instead, he seemed to have found something he truly liked and couldn’t stop.
Lin Ting’s loose, long hair all fell onto Duan Ling, the scent of her hair surrounding him like a soft net coming from all directions, enveloping him and making him hers.