Mu Mingtang was actually worried— she couldn’t afford to lose her reputation here, so the only thing she could do was to try and coax the ‘Lord’ beside her. However, Xie Xuanchen was pushing more boundaries the more she relented. He put on a dissatisfied expression, angled his neck sideways and said nothing. Mu Mingtang was afraid that Xie Xuanchen would try to pull some tricks again, so she could only humour him. She tugged on his sleeve and explained in a soft tone, “I wasn’t looking at another man; I was just trying to find someone.”
Xie Xuanchen’s eyes flickered, but his voice was still proud and cold, “Find someone?”
“That’s right,” Speaking of this, Mu Mingtang also became a bit sulky, “I’m trying to find who eavesdropped on our conversation in the afternoon. Xiao Siyi, Jiang Mingwei and I were talking in the gazebo and behind us was a row of hibiscus shrubs. We were all focusing on the topic at hand and we didn’t pay attention to anything occurring behind us. I don’t know how long they eavesdropped on our conversation, but when they left, it wasn’t discreet. Xiao Siyi was the one who noticed something was amiss before I realised that our conversation was overheard.”
Xie Xuanchen’s lips quivered and he seemed hesitant to speak, but Mu Mingtang didn’t pay attention to it since she was immersed in her own thoughts.
Hands on the side of his hips, he asked inadvertently, “If you find the culprit, what do you plan to do?”
“Of course I’m not going to go easy on them,” Mu Mingtang suddenly became sullen and said, “What sort of men are they? A gentleman should not breach others’ privacy, but as a result, these men ended up eavesdropping on a group of women’s conversation. Plus, they just left without a trace. Pray tell, does this sort of action seem to be something befitting of gentlemen?”
Xie Xuanchen’s confession was on the verge of his lips, but he silenced himself before he could let the words tumble out of his mouth. Mu Mingtang seemed to be truly annoyed. For him, being called ungentlemanly was worse than being yelled at.
Especially when the person who was lecturing him was none other than Mu Mingtang.
Xie Xuanchen was silent for a while before he asked, “How do you know it’s a man and that there are several of them?”
“Based on the footprints on the ground,” Mu Mingtang didn’t think too much and directly shared her speculation, “Although there were no footprints on the ground, the soil was messy and many petals had been scattered on the ground to mask them, so it was obvious that someone had done so deliberately. There was no reason to leave with such haste had it been a woman upon knowing that Xiao Siyi was approaching. Nevertheless, the men’s movements were quite agile. Plus, the part of the soil that was overturned on the ground covered quite a large area. Had it been only one person eavesdropping on our conversation, the amount of soil and dirt wouldn’t have ended up being so large.”
Xie Xuanchen pursed his lips while listening to her explanation. The two pieces of trash, Ye Luyan and Xie Xuanji, had actually left their marks on the ground. If Beirong and the Ye Dynasty were to fall into the hands of these two, then both countries were pretty much doomed to fail.
Comments