205: The information released before Chapter 205 has worked (3/16)

The next day, the sky over the capital was just beginning to brighten.

The overnight rain had just ceased, and the stone-paved streets were damp.

Chen Shanzhi was dressed in a pale gold brocade robe, waving a folding fan in his hand, and strode swaggeringly into Yihong Pavilion.

It was early in the morning, and the girls in Yihong Pavilion, having been worn out from the previous night's activities, were mostly still fast asleep.

The main hall was quiet and deserted, with only a few Attendants cleaning up. The air was filled with the cloying scent of leftover wine from the night before, intertwined with the heavy smell of cosmetics.

Chen Shanzhi, familiar with the layout, stepped up the stairs and pushed open the door to the Heaven-grade room.

"Creak—" The door opened.

The light inside the room was dim, with only a few strands of cold morning light spilling in through the half-open carved window lattice.

Chen Shanzhi stepped over the threshold, his gaze instantly fixing on the golden silk soft couch by the window.

Jiang Yingrao was wearing a thin, bright red long dress today.

The red dress was as bewitchingly vibrant as a dew-kissed rose plucked at dawn, the fabric clinging softly to her near-perfect physique, outlining the woman's breathtakingly alluring curves to perfection.

She rested her chin on one hand, her waterfall-like black hair not tied up but instead falling loosely over one side of her round, translucent shoulders.

She reclined on the soft couch, intently flipping through a book in her hands.

The most lethal part was that her delicate little feet were not tucked under her skirt but were resting casually on the edge of the soft couch.

On those fair feet were a pair of extremely thin yet tight-fitting delicate stockings, wrapping her rounded arches and exquisite insteps with great elasticity.

Through the nearly transparent delicate stockings, one could even vaguely see her soft, pale pink soles, which shimmered with a warm, criminally alluring luster in the morning light, so exquisite they seemed otherworldly.

Jiang Yingrao seemed engrossed in her reading at this moment, not even noticing the sound of Chen Shanzhi pushing the door open.

Only her slender, jade-like fingers gently turned the page, emitting a very faint "rustle."

Chen Shanzhi was somewhat stunned; at this moment, Jiang Yingrao was so beautiful she didn't seem of this world, yet she carried a deadly, alluring charm that rushed straight to one's head and made one's blood surge.

This enchantress was truly a natural-born femme fatale.

Chen Shanzhi cursed inwardly, his thieving eyes taking several hard looks at Jiang Yingrao's little feet wrapped in those delicate stockings.

Only then did he put away his folding fan and walk over swaggeringly.

Hearing the heavy footsteps, Jiang Yingrao slightly raised her soul-captivating fox eyes.

She cast a faint glance at Chen Shanzhi, her exquisite and stunning face showing no ripples of emotion.

She didn't even intend to say a word, and immediately lowered her eyelids, returning her gaze to the book in her hands.

Chen Shanzhi didn't treat himself as an outsider.

He unceremoniously sat down on the edge of the soft couch, their bodies instantly becoming extremely close.

He could even smell the faint, jasmine-like fragrance on Jiang Yingrao's body, as if after the rain.

"Something?"

Jiang Yingrao continued flipping through the book, asking coldly without raising her head.

Chen Shanzhi didn't answer, instead shamelessly leaning his somewhat handsome face forward.

He almost pressed against Jiang Yingrao's fair and smooth cheek, his eyes darting around as he stared at the book in her hands.

After examining it for a long time, he realized that what Jiang Yingrao was holding was actually a poetry collection by scholars, which was extremely popular in the Great Jiang imperial court.

This style was truly quite peculiar.

"Tsk tsk."

Chen Shanzhi admired the flawless side profile of this enchantress, who was right before his eyes.

He extended a finger, tapping rhythmically on the wooden edge of the soft couch, and teased curiously:

"I say, Miss Youyou, you are a Saintess of the Demonic White Lotus Sect, yet instead of pondering how to kill and set fires all day, why have you become interested in the poetry and songs written by these pedantic scholars?"

Speaking of this, Chen Shanzhi turned his head to look at Jiang Yingrao's exquisite face and couldn't help but exclaim:

"Although it is said that 'within books, one can find a face as beautiful as jade,' I think Miss Youyou is much more beautiful than the jade-like beauty in those books."

Jiang Yingrao's movement of reading the book stopped abruptly.

She slowly turned her head, her watery fox eyes staring at Chen Shanzhi at close range, her eyelashes trembling slightly.

"Within books, one can find a face as beautiful as jade..."

Jiang Yingrao lightly pursed her red lips, pondering this sentence carefully. In her originally cold and ethereal beautiful eyes, a brilliant radiance suddenly lit up.

"Where... did you get this line?" She looked at Chen Shanzhi somewhat eagerly.

As a White Lotus Saintess, although she Cultivated a Demonic Technique, she loved poetry and songs in her bones and had been extremely sensitive to things of great talent since she was young.

This line, "Within books, one can find a face as beautiful as jade," used extremely simple words, yet the Concept was incredibly beautiful; it struck right at her heart.

Uh... Chen Shanzhi was slightly stunned.

He hadn't expected that a line he casually spouted, from the "Exhortation to Learning" by Emperor Zhenzong of the Song Dynasty in his previous life, could actually make this cold-blooded Demonic Saintess lose her composure like this.

However, he, the great Heir Chen, did not come here today to accompany this enchantress to appreciate poetry or chant verses.

"This Heir was just wandering on the street when I heard a wandering Daoist chanting it casually."

Chen Shanzhi curled his lips and casually made up an excuse to brush it off.

"A wandering Daoist?"

The look of amazement in Jiang Yingrao's eyes instantly dimmed, and she withdrew her gaze with some lack of interest.

She had thought it was written by some great scholar in the capital.

After all, what Chen Shanzhi said was clearly only half the sentence.

She thought that if it had been written by a scholar in the capital, she could ask around, and even if Chen Shanzhi didn't remember the other lines, it wouldn't matter.

She could just send someone to inquire and copy it down later.

But if it was written by a wandering Daoist, she would likely not be able to find the complete content in the capital.

"Then do you remember the rest of it?" Jiang Yingrao asked, not giving up.

Chen Shanzhi shook his head, indicating he only remembered this one line.

Seeing that it was indeed so, Jiang Yingrao somewhat annoyedly stretched out a little foot wrapped in the delicate stocking and kicked Chen Shanzhi's brocade robe lightly, her tone returning to its usual coldness:

"If you don't remember, then why say it? It's early in the morning, yet you don't act like the Heir of the Zhenguo Marquis Mansion, and instead come running all the way to my Yihong Pavilion; what exactly is the matter?"

As expected of a beauty, even when she was angry, she looked very beautiful.

Seeing Jiang Yingrao kick over, Chen Shanzhi not only didn't dodge but instead grabbed her delicate little foot wrapped in the soft stocking.

"Ah!"

Jiang Yingrao's pretty face flushed red, and she hurriedly snatched her foot back, glaring at him in shy anger.

Chen Shanzhi then clapped his hands, his expression becoming serious.

He leaned close to Jiang Yingrao's ear and said slowly in an extremely low voice:

"Miss Youyou, the news released previously has taken effect.

"These past two days... people from the Grand Elder's side have already come to secretly contact This Heir."

Jiang Yingrao's slender hand, which was about to turn the page again, froze completely in mid-air.

Her pair of originally charming and affectionate fox eyes froze in that instant, turning into endless coldness and murderous intent.