PWE – Chapter 114 Recollections, Zhao Zhao’s Birth Mother

Sensing that his hand was getting a little out of line, her expression darkened. She slapped his hand away and said, “What are you doing? Don’t you see the child right here?”

The child was sleeping on the bed beside them. Although Xiao Wange had already cast a spell to put him into a deep sleep, with the child right there, she truly couldn’t bring herself to do anything intimate with a man.

Just thinking about it made her feel embarrassed.

Zhan Zeyan suppressed a certain restlessness within him.

He caught her small hand and lightly scratched her palm. “Wange, I really miss you.”

The four words “I really miss you” carried a deeper implication. She wasn’t stupid—she immediately understood what he meant.

She pulled her hand back and glared at him. “Pervert. Can’t you think about something normal?”

Zhan Zeyan: “……”

He seemed genuinely startled by her words and said in surprise, “What’s abnormal about thinking about my own wife? If I don’t think about my own wife, should I be thinking about someone else’s wife instead?”

Xiao Wange: “……”
What kind of twisted logic was that? How could he spout such nonsense?

She was about to retort, but he reached out and pulled her tightly into his arms. “Just let me hold you for a while, okay? Just for a little while. After that, I’ll leave.”

Xiao Wange wanted to push him away. But feeling the warmth of his embrace, feeling the steady beating of his heart, she forcibly held herself back.

Actually…

She missed him a little too. After all, he was her first man. For such a long stretch of her life, she had never experienced romantic feelings between a man and a woman. Now that she finally had, it turned out to be a very different sensation.

On the day he left, her heart had felt empty. No matter what she did, she couldn’t muster any enthusiasm.

At night, lying in bed, she had even thought: if only he weren’t a soldier, if only he didn’t have to go on missions. Then they wouldn’t have to live apart for so long.

After holding him for a while, she suddenly looked up at him. “Where are you staying now? Somewhere nearby?”

Zhan Zeyan lowered his gaze to her, a gentle, lingering smile blooming on his face. “I’m staying at this guesthouse too.”

Xiao Wange: “……”
She was startled for a moment and said in astonishment, “You’re staying here too? When did you check in? Why didn’t I sense your presence at all earlier?”

The guesthouse wasn’t very large. If he had been staying in one of the rooms, she should have sensed his unique aura as soon as she entered.

Yet she hadn’t felt anything at all before.

Zhan Zeyan said, “I just returned to the guesthouse after finishing my task.”

Xiao Wange nodded in understanding. So that was it.

But after looking at him for a moment, she asked, “Have you encountered anyone particularly strange lately? Or anything especially unusual?”

She wanted to find out why his aura had appeared in the rat demon’s lair—and also in the cave where that powerful figure had once stayed.

She wondered if he had come into contact with the rat demon or that powerful figure, which was why their places carried traces of his aura.

Still, she felt puzzled. Even if they had come into contact with him, his aura shouldn’t have lingered for so long—much less so intensely.

The whole thing felt extremely strange.

“Strange people or strange things?” He frowned slightly. “No, I haven’t.”

Xiao Wange’s brows knitted tightly as she asked again, “Then have you been back to Hongta Mountain recently? Have you been to a cave on Hongta Mountain?”

Zhan Zeyan looked at her intently. “I’ve been on missions nonstop lately. I haven’t gone back to the village at all. Wange, from what you’re saying, it sounds like something happened? And you’re saying there’s a cave on Hongta Mountain? What’s going on with that cave? Have you already been inside? Did you discover something there?”

After a brief pause, without waiting for her answer, he continued, “Before I get back, don’t go into that cave again. No matter what secrets it holds, don’t go in anymore. I’m worried there might be danger inside, that something could happen to you.”

Even knowing how capable she was, he still feared something might happen to her.

After all, misfortune can strike at any time. If she ran into a major problem she couldn’t handle, and he wasn’t by her side, what would she do then?

“There is a cave on that mountain. But there’s not much of a secret inside, so I won’t go back in,” she said. She had originally wanted to tell him that the cave carried his aura, but after thinking it over, she let it go.

She didn’t want to distract him right now—after all, he was still on a mission.

She shouldn’t have asked those questions in the first place. Asking them only added to his worries.

Zhan Zeyan studied her face for a few moments. He wasn’t stupid—he could tell she wasn’t telling him the whole truth.

But he also knew that if she didn’t want to talk, no amount of questioning would make her.

He tightened his hold on her slightly and said slowly, word by word, “Wange, while I’m not home, you have to take good care of yourself. When I’m not there, you’re the only pillar of the family. You’re everything Zhaozhao relies on. So I’m asking you—please take good care of yourself.”

Perhaps the more he cared, the more he worried. When he was away on missions, he was always afraid something would happen at home—afraid she and the child would be bullied, or meet with some misfortune.

Xiao Wange looked at him and said, “I can take care of myself, and I can take good care of the child. But you… can you take care of yourself? If you encounter trouble you truly can’t handle on a mission, don’t force yourself to tough it out. There’s a saying: as long as the green hills remain, you won’t lack firewood. You have to stay alive to have another chance to deal with problems.”

Zhan Zeyan nodded, resting his chin against the top of her head, his voice warm and gentle. “I know. For you and the child, I absolutely won’t let anything happen to me.”

Xiao Wange lifted her hands and gently wrapped them around his waist.

The atmosphere in the room became exceptionally harmonious, tinged with a warm, ambiguous intimacy.

After a while, Xiao Wange suddenly glanced at Zhaozhao, then back at him.

She wanted to ask about Zhaozhao’s biological mother.

But she was afraid that Zhaozhao’s birth mother might be someone he couldn’t bear to mention—afraid of touching the most sensitive part of his heart. So she wanted to ask, yet didn’t dare to.

He looked at her expression, the corners of his lips lifting slightly, his warm voice unhurried and gentle. “Do you have something you want to ask me?”

Xiao Wange: “……”
She hadn’t expected him to be so perceptive—to see right through her.

She looked at him, wanting to ask honestly what was on her mind. But after hesitating for two seconds, she ultimately let it go. “Nothing. I already asked what I wanted to ask earlier. There’s nothing else.”

Zhan Zeyan smiled.

He looked steadily into her eyes. They were clear and luminous, like a pool of pure spring water.

He stroked her smooth hair, his warm voice full of tenderness. “You want to ask about Zhaozhao’s biological mother, don’t you? You want to know what kind of person she was.”

Xiao Wange’s eyes widened.

She stared at him in shock. How did he know what she was thinking? Was it all written on her face? Otherwise, how could he know so clearly?

Zhan Zeyan glanced at the sleeping Zhaozhao beside them. A gentle, affectionate smile appeared on his face as he said slowly, “Actually, I wasn’t particularly familiar with Zhaozhao’s mother. I met her by chance while on a mission.”

Xiao Wange propped herself up, her gaze fixed on him, waiting for him to continue.

After a second of silence, he did continue. “A few years ago, I was carrying out a mission in a forest near the southern Yunnan border. Deep in that forest, I encountered Zhaozhao’s mother. She was in very bad condition—she seemed to have been ambushed.”

Xiao Wange’s expression grew serious. “A forest near the southern Yunnan border?”

She had been to that place before as well. She had gone there to gather a medicinal herb. In one of the forests near the southern Yunnan border grew a rare herb nurtured by heaven and earth, with miraculous effects—capable of reviving the dead and regenerating flesh on bare bones.

She herself didn’t need such a herb, but it was extremely valuable. Refining it into pills might prove useful someday.

And at the time, she had been terribly bored—so bored she felt like she was growing weeds. So when she heard that such an herb grew in that forest, she rushed there overnight.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t arrived in time. By the time she got there, the herb had already been picked by someone else, and she returned empty-handed.

“Yes, a rainforest near the southern Yunnan border. There are many snakes, insects, and dangers in that rainforest. When I saw Zhaozhao’s mother, I was very puzzled—puzzled how a frail woman could appear in such a place.”

Zhan Zeyan lifted his head and looked at the ceiling, as if recalling the past.

After a few seconds of recollection, he continued, “She had been ambushed and drugged. She was trying to force the effects of the drug out of her body. But the drug was far too potent. From what she said, it was something her enemies had specially developed for her. She tried for several hours but couldn’t expel it. At that point, she had no other choice, so she and I…”

Xiao Wange frowned, her expression darkening. “So you did that with her, right? She tried to force out the drug for several hours, and you stayed by her side the whole time, didn’t you?”

It should have been their first meeting. To stay with a woman you’d just met for so long—that was no small amount of concern.

Although Zhaozhao’s mother had been in dire straits and needed someone to stay with her, hearing that he had stayed by another woman’s side for so long still made her uncomfortable. Unreasonably uncomfortable.

This wasn’t something she should have been upset about. Yet she couldn’t help it—it felt like a thorn lodged in her heart, painfully irritating.

Zhan Zeyan saw the displeasure in her eyes and coughed lightly. “I did stay with her for several hours. That was because I… I…”

His tongue seemed to tie itself in a knot, leaving him momentarily stuck.

Thinking back on the situation, when he had seen a breathtakingly beautiful woman lying on the ground, his first reaction had been shock—followed by retreat.

He felt that encountering such a beautiful woman in a dangerous rainforest was highly abnormal. His first instinct had been to leave immediately, fearing it was an enemy trap, that the woman had been sent to lure him.