His kiss was fierce and conquering, holding nothing back, like a wildfire spreading on dry grassland in an irresistible, unstoppable sweep. His hand came up behind my nape and pulled me in tight against him, so hard that I thought my neck might break.

This was far different from his usual gentleness, but it ignited me, and I parted my lips further, inviting him in, giving him back what I took. My hands cupped his cheeks, feeling every movement of his muscles, every heavy breath against my skin, every bit of rising heat.

I gasped when his other hand reached for my waist and started working the ribbons of my dress.

“Right … Right here?” I pushed myself a little farther away and stared at him wide-eyed.

“Bedrooms are too far away,” he replied and closed the distance between us again, sealing the rest of my protests in my mouth.

I kept staring at his blurry image in front of my eyes. The intimate scenes from last night were still fresh in my mind, and I had already been ashamed of the feeling it awakened in me earlier. But now, we were going to do it again in broad daylight, outside in the garden, on a tea table?

His fingers didn’t slow. There were too many layers to my outfit, and he didn’t have the patience to undo them all. He loosened the ties around my waist, and the next moment his hand was beneath the fabric, burning away all my senses and reasons as he skimmed upward, tracing the curve of my body. The sensations from last night flooded back to me, and my whole body throbbed under his touch.

But what if …

“No one will see,” he heard my silent questions and whispered under our mixed breaths. Then he brushed his lips over my ear and nibbled my earlobe, “or hear.”

The bite was nothing more than a slight pinch, yet the tingle it sent through me was sharp, almost shuddering. I moaned. His warm breath tickled softly against my skin, and a trail of kisses followed down my neck.

A blazing fire consumed me, and I surrendered. Modesty be damned. I clutched his collar, yanking the layers loose, and my hands slid under.

His skin seemed even hotter today under the sun, like a flame beneath my palm. I followed the lines of his strong bones and hard muscles, studying all the ridges and dips with my fingertips. I felt his tight stomach, his steady heartbeat—

My hands stopped over his heart.

He felt different there. Coarse. Rough. At first, I thought it might’ve been a patch of burn scar, but when my fingers grazed over it, I felt thin, disconnected ripples of bulging skin. Burn scars didn’t feel like this.

I straightened myself and looked. My boiling blood froze at what I saw.

He nudged my hand pulling hard on his collar. “Qing-er—”

“How did you get this?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“You’re tearing my collar to shreds—”

“How did you get this?” I demanded again.

The skin over his heart was covered in scars. Hundreds, thousands, so many that I wouldn’t have been able to see them individually if not for the more obvious, fresh healings on top. They were all the same size, likely from a small dragger, and they layered on top of each other endlessly like a poisonous snake encircling and strangling itself.

What kind of horror did he go through to get scars like this?

“I’m not invincible,” he said casually. “When I get cut, I bleed, and when I heal, I get a scar. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“This is not ‘a scar’,” I persisted. “They healed at different times. Some are old enough to be barely visible, and some are newer … from probably a few years back. They weren’t from the same injury—”

“They just healed differently,” he clasped his hand over mine. “Scars are inevitable for a swordsman, Qing-er. You should be proud of me for them.”

Proud? How could I, knowing how much it must hurt and how close he was to death?

I leaned in and pressed my cheek to his chest. My eyes grew misty at the thought of what he had to endure, but the sound of his strong heartbeat reassured me that it was all in the past. I kissed those scars, feeling their roughness on my lips, and I wished I could smooth them away along with his memories of the pain.

He ran his fingers slowly through my hair, “Had I known cuts could get me treatment like this from you, I should’ve gotten more of them.”

“Bai Ye!” I straightened and glared at him. Did he think I was so heartless?

He started at my protest. Then he noticed the swirling tears in my eyes. The look on his face changed fleetingly, from surprise, to relief, to delight, and finally to a hint of that mysterious sorrow. He planted a kiss on my eyelids. “I promised not to let you weep for me … Please don’t make me break my word.”

“Then please be careful and don’t risk your life like this again,” I said almost sobbingly. Bai Ye had always been nothing but unrivaled in my mind, and I had never thought that anyone or anything would be able to injure him to such an extent. The revelation terrified me, and the marks of his sufferings shredded my heart to pieces.

He closed his arms around me. “I’m glad, Qing-er,” he said softly, “and grateful … to hear that you care.”

His words bewildered me. Why wouldn’t I care? What did he expect instead?

“But now that we’ve taken too long …” he continued, “the tea table might be starting to make you sore.”

I blinked, and I subconsciously wiggled my legs to test it out. He was right. My thighs were beginning to grow numb—

The next moment I was swept off the table into his arms.. “Looks like we’ll have to save the garden for next time,” he kissed me and carried me into his room.