Sharing a Pavilion With You
Chapter 90: That Kiss!

Chapter 90: That Kiss!

"Your highness, what’s happened? Let us take Miss Mei for you!" said a junior eunuch.

"Get lost!" he replied. "Get me a royal physician immediately!"

"But your highness, they’re reserved for the royal family. They can’t be used for servants."

"Do as I say, unless you want to be beaten," he snarled savagely at the fellow.

The eunuch nodded, "yes, your highness," he said, running off to fetch one of the royal physicians.

The Second Prince realised he was taking her to his quarters instead of her own.

He didn’t care. The main thing now was to get her treated and warm.

Li Fengfeng stood hidden in the entrance to the one of the Lingbi stone caves in the Emperor’s garden. She had witnessed the whole affair.

The girl was half-dead when the Second Prince dragged her from the water. It had been touch and go whether she would survive.

If not for that dreadful dog of hers, she would be dead, she thought with annoyance.

After watching Zhu Yicai first breath into the girl’s mouth directly, and then kiss her, she was boiling with anger, and more determined than ever to be rid of the young woman...

After the prince’s servants had bathed and dressed Mei Meili and wrapped her in a thick comforter in his bed, the Second Prince hovered over the doctor as he cautiously examined her.

Noting the interest of the second-in-line to the throne in this girl, the royal physician made sure to follow all of the protocols, placing a fine gauze across her pulse so that he wouldn’t touch her skin.

The two men moved away from her bedside when the doctor was finished with his examination, out of earshot of the girl.

"How is she, doctor?" the Second Prince asked urgently.

He was aware of cases where patients who survived near drownings got water in their lungs and later died of pneumonia, so he was still very anxious.

The doctor looked grave. "She came close to not pulling through. She’s still very delicate. She will probably fall sick because of the water she drank and how cold she became. Call me again to check on her if that happens and I’ll prescribe medicines for her. She must stay in bed and rest for a few days at least. I’ll tell the Chief Eunuch."

The doctor knew she served the Emperor himself, adding to his anxiety in treating her.

"There was something perplexing I couldn’t make sense of, though."

"What?"

"Her lips are reddened and swollen, almost like she’s been stung or bitten by something. Come to think of it, perhaps she bit her own lips in the panic of slipping under the surface," the doctor mused.

"Yes, that’s probably it," said the prince circumspectly.

"But I’ve never seen it before," the physician continued, "normally the lips are thin and bluish in these types of cases," he looked puzzled, peering back at her.

To his surprise, the Second Prince grabbed him by the shoulders and propelled him from the room.

"Alright then, thank you doctor. I’ll call you to come back if she falls sick."

He waved at the man and stalked back inside.

Hm. It seemed the Second Prince was very fond of that Court Lady, the doctor thought, scratching his head at his sudden dismissal.

The Second Prince sat on the bed beside Mei Meili. He tried to pick up her hand, but she subtly moved it a few inches to avoid the inappropriate intimacy.

"How do you feel, Mei Meili?" he asked solicitously.

There was a strange awkwardness hanging in the air between them now that the crisis was past, and that kiss!

Like an unexploded bomb in no-man’s land, it sat, simply awaiting a spark to drift in its direction...

"I’m fine, your highness. Truly. Please have me sent back to my room though. It’s entirely inappropriate for me to be in your bed."

Her cheeks flushed red just in saying those words.

The prince raised one corner of his mouth, looking down at her.

"After what’s occurred between us, I hardly think that you recuperating from a near-death experience in my room adds much to the scales of inappropriateness..."

She decided then and there that the best approach was to pretend no recollection of the kiss between them.

"What’s occurred between us, your highness? What do you mean? Surely you rescuing me from drowning in the lake doesn’t count as inappropriate. I think that must be one occasion on which men and women touching is acceptable," she smiled up at him, trying to look innocent and forgetful, whatever those two things looked like.

He pursed his lips. So that was the way she intended to play things, was it?

No matter. At the end of the day the decision about whose wife she became would not be hers to make.

"Don’t try to pretend forgetfulness now, Mei Meili," he half-laughed. "Do I have to remind you that I blew the air back into your lungs to bring you back from the gates to the underworld?" his voice rose with emotion.

"That wasn’t done by me breathing into your ear now, was it?" he pushed his face up close to hers, and she pressed her head back into the pillows in alarm.

"No! It required me to put my lips to yours and breathe into your mouth! I did that until you came back to me, and then I could stand the temptation no longer and I kissed you, as you full well know Mei Meili," he said imploringly. "And you kissed me back, among other ’inappropriate’ things between a man and a woman who are unmarried. I intend to ask my Emperor Father for your hand in marriage. I must take responsibility for my actions."

"Why must you, your highness?" she cried. "I don’t need you to. No one saw us together. I don’t even recall what happened, I was hovering at the gates to the underworld as you say. I thought you were part of the underworld, sent to me by the ten magistrates."

She neglected to say, ’as a punishment’.

"Hah!" he laughed mirthlessly. "Why must you resist me woman? I just saved your life. That must count for something with you?" he half-yelled, half-pleaded.

"Of course it counts for something, your highness. It counts for something; it counts for everything! I can never repay you, yet somehow, I must," he voice caught and she started to cry, tears falling unchecked down her cheeks.

"But not through marriage! You are not the only man who has saved my life, you know? If that were the criteria for marriage I would already be married to Commander Bai!" she threw at him.

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