Chapter 20 — Li Changche
Baochan cried until her voice turned hoarse. Watching the struggling figure in the water slowly disappear beneath the surface, she panicked and was just about to jump in herself.
At that critical moment, someone suddenly appeared out of nowhere and grabbed her shoulder.
Baochan turned around with reddened eyes. Before she could even make out the young man’s handsome face, he had already leapt into the lake.
A moment later, he emerged from the freezing water with Xue Ning in his arms.
“Who’s that man?”
“Does Miss Xue not care about her reputation anymore?”
“If it were me, I’d rather die than let another man touch my body.”
“Good thing winter clothes are thick—”
But no matter how thick the padded robes were, once soaked, they clung tightly to the curves of a woman’s body.
Xue Ning was already breathtakingly beautiful to begin with. No one had expected her figure to be so alluring too—soft and shapely in all the wrong ways for public eyes.
A crowd had gathered along the shore. The moment the man stepped onto land, he wrapped her tightly in the cloak he had taken off earlier.
Baochan rushed over at once. “Miss! Miss, are you alright?”
Half-conscious, Xue Ning curled weakly against a warm chest, shivering uncontrollably from the cold.
Her teeth chattered. Trembling, she lifted her thick lashes and looked at the man holding her.
For one brief instant, she thought she had seen someone from another lifetime.
“Can you still breathe?”
His voice was pleasant, softened by a gentle smile.
One large hand hovered near her chest, originally intending to press the water out of her lungs. But after a brief pause, he merely pinched her cheek instead.
Xue Ning turned her pale face aside and coughed up a mouthful of water onto the ground. Slowly recovering, she stared blankly at the man who had saved her.
It was an exceptionally handsome face.
Sharp brows, deep-set eyes, long brows sweeping toward his temples.
A clean jawline. A straight, elegant nose bridge. Lips with a healthy flush of color.
Crystal-clear droplets slid from the ends of his dark wet hair, falling one by one onto the back of her pale hand.
In the bitter winter cold, those drops somehow felt scalding hot.
“Don’t tell me you’re so dazzled by my looks that you’ve forgotten how to speak?”
The man laughed lightly, teasing her. A carefree smile curved at the corners of his lips.
It instantly brought his already picturesque features vividly to life.
“I’m not—”
“Since you’re alright now, here. Little maid, help your mistress.”
He released her and stood up in one smooth motion.
His clothes were completely soaked, outlining the lean strength of his waist beneath the fabric.
Combined with that astonishingly beautiful face, it was enough to make several young women nearby blush in secret.
More than a few pairs of eyes kept drifting toward him.
Yet he stood there tall and composed in plain blue robes, his temperament cool and distant, without the slightest trace of flirtation.
Xue Ning blinked through the drifting haze of snow and finally saw his face clearly.
Her mind went blank for a moment.
Then her eyes suddenly burned hot.
“It’s you?”
The man who had once saved her from the Suiye River in Yongzhou in her previous life.
After pulling her from the water, he had carried her to a clinic.
He bought medicine for her, found her fresh clothes, even brought her all kinds of food.
After being sent to the old estate in Yongzhou, it had been the first time she’d ever eaten something truly delicious—something that could actually fill her stomach.
She had cried while eating, and he had simply rubbed her head and told her that if she ever wanted anything in the future, she could tell him. As long as he had money, he would buy it for her without hesitation.
The man paused briefly while adjusting his pale green sleeve and turned back toward her.
“Miss, do you know me?”
Xue Ning looked at him with reddened eyes, tears trembling on her lashes. She smiled and shook her head.
“It’s only that Young Master looks strangely familiar to me. I wonder if I may know your name?”
That was right.
Even in her previous life, though they had already met, she had never learned his name or where he came from.
Because after that day, she had never escaped the old estate again.
She never saw him again either, nor did she have any way to search for a young man whose name she did not know.
Snow drifted softly onto the high knot of his hair.
The man lifted his lips in a casual smile. Standing amid the snow, refined and gentle, he looked almost like a jade sculpture brought to life.
Afraid he would leave again, Xue Ning forced herself shakily to her feet.
She wanted to grab his sleeve, yet didn’t dare.
All she could do was look at him carefully, expectantly.
“May I know your name?”
His gaze swept across the crowd watching the spectacle before settling once more on the young girl staring at him so anxiously.
He smiled faintly.
His cool, clear voice seemed to travel through the river of two lifetimes before reaching her ears.
“Li Changche.”
Xue Ning’s eyes widened slightly.
Li Changche?
This was Li Changche?
The famed upright official of the future—the one who would stand nearly equal to Su Zhan, the people’s beloved magistrate, the leading scholar admired throughout the realm?
Li Changche had no desire to become the center of attention. After rescuing her, he also feared causing unnecessary trouble for such a beautiful young girl. So after one final glance at her, he cupped his hands in farewell and turned to leave.
Xue Ning remained frozen where she stood.
Only after the Black Hawk Guards dragged Cao Jin away and the crowd gradually dispersed did she finally come back to herself, smiling with barely contained excitement.
But the moment she turned around, her gaze collided with Su Zhan’s cold, unfathomable phoenix eyes beyond the crowd.
His face was expressionless.
His gaze dark and piercing.
He simply stood there looking at her.
Xue Ning’s breath caught instantly. Her whole body stiffened, and the smile on her lips froze.
Hadn’t he returned to the capital last night?
Why was he still at Zhenguo Temple?
Across the snowy distance, Su Zhan stared at her coldly as he walked toward her step by step.
Having fallen into the icy water, Xue Ning was already freezing to the bone. The wind only made it worse.
She tightened the cloak around herself and unconsciously stepped backward until she nearly reached the edge of the pond again. Lowering her eyes nervously, she avoided his gaze.
But then another thought surfaced.
Su Zhan didn’t care about her anyway.
What was she so nervous for?
In this lifetime, she was no longer his fiancée.
She was only his nominal younger sister.
At that thought, Xue Ning forced out an innocent smile.
“Brother, why haven’t you returned to the marquis estate?”
Wrapped in a thick fox-fur cloak, Su Zhan let out a low laugh, though no warmth reached his eyes.
“If I had gone back, how would I have witnessed such an entertaining scene today?”
Xue Ning’s small face turned even paler.
“A-Ning doesn’t understand what Brother means.”
Su Zhan gave a cold laugh.
Even he could not explain the surge of anger raging uncontrollably inside him.
Was it because of Cao Jin?
Or because of that man named Li Changche?
He himself could not say.
He only knew that the instant he saw Xue Ning fall into the water, a sharp pain had suddenly pierced his chest so violently that even his limbs went numb.
As her elder brother, he had naturally intended to save her himself.
But Li Changche had moved faster than him.
Not only had he rescued her, he had continued holding her afterward—wrapping her carefully in that tattered cloak of his.
And after that…
There had been a strange expression on Xue Ning’s face.
She looked as though she knew him.
The thought made Su Zhan deeply displeased.
His voice lowered, calm and rough, while his long beautiful eyes burned into hers.
“If you don’t understand, then let me make it clearer. How exactly did those Black Hawk Guards happen to ambush the temple ahead of time? Surely I don’t need to spell it out for you.”
