Doomed to be Cannon Fodder

Fortunately, a large hand covered her mouth halfway through her shriek. Long Heng sat up with an unpleasant look on his face. He hadn’t even done anything, so was there really the need to shout like that? She made it seem like he had bullied her. “Calm down. It’s me.”

He saw emotion dart across her eyes as she visibly relaxed a bit. In that moment, he understood that she had behaved that way not because she was afraid of him, but because she didn’t know who was suddenly sleeping beside her. She seemed to be less scared now that she knew who was beside her.

Long Heng felt extremely pleased with her reaction and released his hand. He then got up and dressed himself. Actually, Bai Xiangxiu should have been the person waiting on him and doing these things. But seeing as she still seemed bewildered, he didn’t think that she would be able to do this for him. However, Bai Xiangxiu really felt that she should be helping him get dressed. She was his concubine after all. The clothes and whatnot had all been prepared in advance and needed only to be draped over his body.

In order to curry favor with her boss, she stood up and went to his side. After that, she took the belt and held it up in front of him. The corner of Long Heng’s lips curled in a familiar upward lift as he took the belt from her hands and fastened it around his waist. After he did so, he said, “Go and get dressed.”

Bai Xiangxiu responded in agreement and ran to her cupboard. She took out the clothes and randomly draped them over her body. Xiao Shi and the rest would come over and help her straighten herself out later anyways.

Long Heng had frequently heard people say that viewing a beauty beneath the light was a delightful form of enjoyment. However, he hadn’t known that the seductive appearance of a half asleep beauty in the morning was even more pleasing to the eye. Beauty under the light was only thus due to one’s inability to see all the blemishes, but Bai Xiangxiu’s face was perfect no matter what angle one looked at it.

Therefore, people felt extremely comfortable looking at her and always felt that she was quite alluring regardless of what time it was. Moreover, this woman was his! This fact seemed to triumph over every other matter in his head. There was nothing else in the world that made him as happy as that fact. For this reason, he felt that he would be in an extremely good mood today.

The two people only put on their outer garments, since they still needed other people to groom them. Seeing as there was a mistress on the premises, the ones who came in to serve them were both servant girls. They had joined the prince’s manor when they were but young, so they’d learned a little about matters of serving people.

They had breakfast served to them when they were properly dressed.

Long Heng had planned on taking Bai Xiangxiu for a walk nearby after they’d finished eating. But just as they came out, they saw a few monks standing outside. Surprisingly, one of the monks was someone he was familiar with; that old monk Hui Guang. He was the one who had said that Bai Xiangxiu had an affinity with Buddha and had tried to recruit her as a nun. The corners of Bai Xiangxiu’s mouth twitched. Does this mean that I really have a very strong affinity with Buddha?

Long Heng had a very cold expression on his face. It was so cold that Bai Xiangxiu unconsciously pulled her cloak tighter around her in an effort to dispel the sudden drop in temperature. She had a feeling that this old monk had caused trouble for her.

“Ah, it’s the lady patron. We share quite a great deal of destiny.”

“Yes, it must be fate.” Bai Xiangxiu smiled as she spoke, but what she was thinking was, it’s more like we have a grudge with each other! However, judging from the prince’s reaction, why did she feel more like a supporting male character had just appeared and the two men were fighting over one woman?

Unfortunately, this supporting male character was a little too old and he was fighting to make her become a nun. What’s going on with this laughable set up? She’d rather have an extremely outstanding supporting male character appear and steal her away to make her his wife!

“Is there a reason that the grand master is here?” Long Heng’s tone was so cold that his words almost had icicles growing from them. Even so, Hui Guang still maintained his calm smile. In some sense, his Buddhist cultivation was really quite commendable.

Even Bai Xiangxiu couldn’t help admire him for maintaining this staunchly indifferent manner when standing beside Long Heng. This old monk really wasn’t that simple. But, when the old monk spoke, his words were so clear and simple to the point that Bai Xiangxiu almost rolled her eyes in front of everyone. She forcefully stopped herself from doing so when she remembered that the act of rolling her eyes was extremely vulgar in ancient times.

“I’ve come to beg for alms.” Hui Guang smiled and recited one of Buddha’s names while still facing Bai Xiangxiu.

“Xiao Shi, give the grand masters ten taels of silver...” She immediately sent Xiao Shi to execute her order. The further away the monks were, the better. Bai Xiangxiu was really worried that she would be frozen to death even before winter had a chance to come.

“Servants, give this grand master a hundred pieces of fine silver and ask him to stay away from this area in the future.” Long Heng’s cold voice rang out once more. It really did make people feel refreshingly cool, as though they’d eaten a frozen pear in winter.

Hui Guang was still smiling and clearly didn’t take that alienating and cold tone of Long Heng’s to heart. “Many thanks to Prince Li and this lady patron. If the lady patron is free, please come to the Yongning Temple. This old monk will personally welcome you.” After he recited one more of Buddha’s names, he stood there and waited for Bai Xiangxiu to agree to his request.

Long Heng was absolutely certain that if he had a sword in hand right then, he’d definitely split this old monk’s head open to see what he was actually thinking. This damned monk was enticing a woman from his rear court to leave and become a nun! Could it be that he hadn’t noticed the man standing beside her who was still waiting to conjugate his love with her?! He really is an eyesore. Thus, he moved forward and blocked Bai Xiangxiu from his view, “Grand Master, we still have matters to attend to today, so unfortunately, we won’t be accompanying you any longer. Please excuse us.”

“I didn’t think that there’d be a day where a grand master would be left unable to invite guests over to his temple.” A peal of relaxed laughter accompanied the entrance of the supporting male character, Duan Yunying. He seemed to have returned from a trip outside just now. Even though he was dressed in a simple, white cloth gown from head to toe, it unexpectedly made him look extremely magnanimous.

He was a male god after all. Not only did he have the looks, his tastes in clothes was also similarly charming. But, a man as overly bewitching as him wasn’t Bai Xiangxiu’s type. Her type was a real man like the male lead. Either that or someone like the second supporting male character, Song Jiaoyue, who was truly kind and gentle. She didn’t have any favorable impression of a person who was uncommonly beautiful like this Duan Yunying. This probably was due to his attitude towards the female lead in the book, or his attitude towards all women in general. He was very handsome and knew how to use women well.

One could say that he didn’t have a shred of a feeling towards the female lead at all in the beginning. Even after she’d transmigrated over here, she couldn’t make out when he had fallen in love with the female lead.

His so-called passion was merely that of a man being attracted to a female and desiring a roll in the bedsheets with her. He was only using this feeling to play around with her. Of course, the female lead was also a stupid one. She treated him as a good man even after he’d played her like a little white bunny. When the male lead had gone to save her, she’d even said that everything was only a misunderstanding.

Bai Xiangxiu looked at the sky and let out a long sigh. She really didn’t understand how the female lead’s brain had developed. Couldn’t she see through such a transparent performance? He really had just wanted to use her to kill the male lead. To him, other than using her for that purpose, there was nothing else he’d found attractive about her. Even if he got together with her, wasn’t he still involved in clandestine relations with another woman?

A silhouette entered her line of sight at that moment. Bai Xiangxiu nodded involuntarily as her memory came back to her. That’s right! She was that extraordinarily beautiful woman who had clandestine relations with Duan Yunying. She looked like a mixed-blooded woman just like the woman who had just descended from the cart.

Wait a moment. Bai Xiangxiu rubbed her eyes again and looked at that woman. How come she looked like the woman described in the book from every angle? Wasn’t this the foreign supporting female character from the novel, who’d seduced the male lead whilst still being intimate with the other supporting male characters by her side? Wasn’t she Yaya, also known as the number one beauty outside the desert?

That’s right! She really was supposed to appear at this time. It also seemed that the female lead had misunderstood a little something between her and the male lead because of that. As a result of that misunderstanding, the female lead had been very jealous for nothing. In the end, the male lead had whisked the female lead away for a period of time.