Phi-Fic Chapter 864 Huanbi 8
Chapter 864 Huanbi 8
This girl is obviously smart and clever, but why does she act like a frightened deer in front of him? She is so stupid that people wonder what skills she learned from Zhen Huan.
"Still grinding?" He whispered, with a hint of teasing in his voice.
Huanbi's hand trembled, and the ink stick hit the inkstone heavily, making a crisp sound. The ink in the inkstone spread slightly, a little overflowed from the edge, staining the white tablecloth under the inkstone black.
Her face turned pale immediately, but her cheeks turned red as the panic suddenly rose in her heart.
She quickly put down the ink stick, bowed her head and knelt on the ground, her tone full of trepidation: "I am useless, please forgive me, Your Majesty!"
Yinzhen raised his eyebrows. This girl really knows how to scare him. Want to get away with it by saying sorry? He didn't take it seriously at first, but seeing her trembling, he felt a little interested in teasing her.
"Forgive me?" Yinzhen leaned back in his chair nonchalantly, his tone lazily and leisurely.
"You said that the inkstone destroyed my private poems. Whose writings were destroyed?"
Huanbi was speechless for a moment, her mind in a mess. Destroying the emperor's "imperial traces" - isn't that disrespectful!
Thinking of this, her breathing became faster and her mind became a mess. So she followed the rules in the book and knelt down and kowtowed: "I am so bold and reckless, please punish me severely!"
A smile appeared on Yinzhen's lips, with a hint of mischievous mischief. He wanted to continue to scare her, but when he saw her trembling shoulders and her little hands clenched into fists, he suddenly felt like a little master bullying a puppy, and a slight pity emerged in his heart.
"I'll punish you..." He paused, narrowed his eyes, and dragged out the last word. "I'll punish you to stay by my side and serve ink until you learn it. How about that?"
Huanbi raised her head suddenly, her almond-shaped eyes sparkling with fear and disbelief: "Stay... with the emperor?"
Yinzhen nodded, his eyebrows slightly raised: "Why, you don't trust my leniency?"
"No, how dare I..." Huanbi explained hurriedly. Obviously she didn't hear the low sarcasm in his words and became more and more at a loss.
Seeing that she was so nervous that she was almost incoherent, Yinzhen stopped teasing her on purpose and instead spoke in a slightly more gentle tone, "Get up. Today, the inkstone is just dirty. How could I really blame you for such a small matter?"
As he spoke, he simply stood up and walked to the desk, bent down, took out a clean silk handkerchief from a small carved box on the side, and unexpectedly handed it to Huanbi with his own hands.
"Wipe your hands. Look at you. You are darker than ink."
Huanbi was stunned, but she slowly took the handkerchief with both hands. The silk felt slightly cool when her fingertips touched it. Her heart was beating wildly, and she looked up at Yinzhen's face.
The Emperor was right in front of him, his brows erect, and his usually unfathomable and cold expression seemed to soften at this moment.
This gentleness instantly emptied Huanbi's heart, and then filled it with an unknown warmth. Her clear almond eyes moistened slightly, and she whispered, "Thank you, Your Majesty, for your grace..."
The voice was so soft that it was almost inaudible.
Yinzhen's eyes were fixed on her. Her stubbornness in her humbleness and the ignorant struggle behind her emotions inadvertently aroused his desire and a trace of pity. He even had the idea of completely stripping off her disguise.
Yinzhen held Huanbi's hand, and the coldness of his hand startled him slightly.
This girl was so nervous. He wrapped his large palm around her small hand and gently covered her ink-stained fingertips with the handkerchief.
"Don't be afraid." He whispered, with a barely perceptible tenderness in his tone: "I won't eat you."
Huanbi's heart beat faster, the emperor's breath sprayed in her ears, making it almost impossible for her to breathe. She felt her cheeks getting hotter and hotter, as if they were burning.
Yinzhen brought Huanbi to the desk, picked up the ink stick, and slowly ground it on the inkstone.
While grinding the ink, he explained the techniques involved: "The ink should be ground gently, slowly, and evenly to produce fine ink. Don't be impatient, otherwise the ink will be rough and the words you write will lose their charm."
Huanbi listened carefully, staring at Yinzhen's movements without blinking. She had never thought that the emperor would be so patient in teaching her how to grind ink.
This made her feel inexplicably moved and made her feelings towards the emperor more complicated.
Yinzhen held Huanbi's hand, and the warmth of his palm penetrated her ink-stained skin. Those slender and powerful hands carried an authority that could not be refused, yet revealed a hint of elusive tenderness.
He pressed her hand on the inkstone, put the ink stick between her fingers, and whispered to remind her: "Be gentler. If you use too much force, the ink will spread out and won't be even or clean."
Huanbi hardly dared to look up, and could only stare at the ink-like sound in front of her, her heart beating like a horse. The emperor's hand was too close, and she couldn't ignore the unique breath of him. His voice was so low that it seemed that even the air was sticky, and there was some inexplicable certainty in his magnetism, like the deep thunder in spring, which made the listener uneasy.
"I will teach you, just concentrate." Yinzhen lowered his head and found her eyes wandering, so he smiled softly, revealing a bit of imperceptible doting.
His hand tightened slightly, wrapping her palm tightly: "I didn't ask you to be so stupid."
Huanbi finally managed to calm down, but she found that her fingertips were trembling slightly. Her foolish appearance made her feel ashamed and regretful. She had always been smart and self-controlled, but now she was like a bug whose shell had been broken in front of the emperor, and it was difficult to hide the complexity in her heart.
She subconsciously wanted to pull back her hand: "Your Majesty, I am clumsy and I am afraid I can't learn it well and cause Your Majesty trouble."
Yinzhen didn't let go, but instead glanced at her calmly: "If you are stupid, I will teach you until you are no longer stupid. I don't believe you are so stupid."
This short sentence caught Huanbi's cheeks off guard, and she felt ashamed and guilty. She stubbornly clenched the ink stick again, trying her best to keep her voice from trembling: "Yes, I will study hard."
Yinzhen raised his eyebrows slightly, as if he was more interested in her stubbornness. He placed his big palm on the back of her hand, and with a little force on his fingertips, he guided her to grind it in circles.
The circles of dark ink on the inkstone slowly spread out, as if outlining the distance between the two people. This kind of distance, as slow as a trickle, makes people want to indulge, unable to tell whether it is a confused love or a weighing of gains and losses.
"You know, grinding ink is not only a skill, but also a thoughtfulness." Yinzhen said it seemingly casually, but there was deep meaning in his glance.
His tone was gentle, and even though he was explaining trivial matters, every word he said was meaningful: "If your mind is not calm, you can't use good ink, and you can't write good characters. You are so nervous, are you afraid that I will punish you, or are you afraid of... something else?"