One Life, One Incarnation, Beautiful Bones

23

Very painful. Her brows furrowed together.

Her stockings slid against the rough surface of the ground and pulled against the scrape wound on her knee.

"My apologies, Shi Yi." He lowered one knee down and crouched before her, carefully inspecting her injury.

Because it was so painful, she was about to sit down onto the ground but he stopped her action. "Do not sit on the ground. The light here is too dim, and it would not be convenient to have people come out here to check your wound. I will carry you inside."

Without waiting for her response, he had already stretched out his arms and lifted her up into his embrace.

Very quickly, he strode up the more than one dozen bluestone steps. Uncle Lin swiftly pushed open the main doors. The whole way, he did not dare delay and it could almost be said that he strode so quickly it was as if he had wings. All along the way, people would bow and greet him with "Eldest Young Master" and some of the more familiar faces would stare in slight surprise at them.

Shi Yi leaned her head against his shoulder and listened to his heart that was beating very fast. Her breathing also started to grow quicker.

It was because of the pain and also because she was being carried in his arms like this.

She stared at her silvery-gray stockings that were now bloodstained at the knee as well as covered in snagged threads and runs. It looked so wretched and ugly. She was concealing a very secret thought, one that was actually able to overshadow the fear she had felt earlier and the pain from her fall: she needed to cover up her knee because she very much did not want him to see any part of her that was in a sorry state.

Zhousheng Chen, of course, did not know what she was thinking.

The tension in his heart finally loosened only after they were inside their own manor wing and he saw the Chinese and western doctors Uncle Lin had sent for.

More than just the family physicians were waiting in the sitting hall.

Truly, it was filled with sitting people.

The ones Shi Yi knew included his mother, his uncle, as well as his younger brother Zhou Wenchuan and his wife, Tong Jiaren. The ones she did not know were, of course, the distant or closely related elders of the family. It seemed those of the same generation as him were not eligible to participate in this matter. When those people saw this scene of the two of them, they each had different expression. The look on his mother's and Tong Jiaren's faces shifted, whereas Zhou Wenchuan seemed to find the situation very amusing and even sighed that Eldest Brother was becoming more and more romantic.

"I shall return very shortly," he stated briefly and then carried her upstairs.

All four family physicians followed up the stairs behind him.

After he had set her down on the wooden chair in her room, Zhousheng Chen finally noticed that his hand was actually resting against her chest.

In the same instant he saw this, Shi Yi noticed it as well.

He very swiftly pulled his hand back, and then after instructing the doctors to quickly tend to the wound, he went back downstairs without a backwards glance.

Before long, from downstairs, the sound of voices quarreling could be heard, some louder, some not as loud. The wordings used were vehement, but the tone and demeanor were still restrained.

The soundproofing of this old-style house was not very good, and she could hear generally that his mother was reproaching him and that his uncle's tone was very severe. Soon, she heard a woman sobbing. She pondered briefly. The only woman who was relatively younger was Tong Jiaren, but why would she be crying?