Zhou Yi cursed all the way while Nangong Muyan ignored him completely, dragging him straight into her room and slamming the door shut with a loud "bang."
"Nangong Muyan, what exactly do you want?"
Zhou Yi glared at the person before him in anger, straightening his disheveled clothes, only then realizing he had been dragged into a room.
And there was even a bed inside!
Zhou Yi immediately became terrified, one hand clutching his collar, the other holding his belt, as he backed up against the door: "Don't you dare!"
Nangong Muyan smiled slightly, looking at Zhou Yi's appearance of a chaste man ready to die for his virtue, and felt an urge to hit him.
"You misunderstand," Nangong Muyan said with a somewhat gritted smile, "I'm not going to sleep with you this time, don't worry. I just want to discuss our marriage."
"I won't listen!" Zhou Yi refused to communicate, declaring firmly, "I won't marry you either, give up on that idea! A woman like you—"
"I'm pregnant." Nangong Muyan casually interrupted him.
Zhou Yi's righteous words came to an abrupt halt, his eyes widening in disbelief at what he had just heard. After a while, he finally found his voice again: "Preg... preg... pregnant?"
Nangong Muyan's smile faded as she nodded seriously.
"Is... is... is it... mine?"
Nangong Muyan wanted to hit him again. She took a deep breath, silently repeating "stay calm, live long" several times in her heart before speaking: "I'm not some loose woman, you're the only one I've been with."
And in fact, he was the only one she had been with in both her lifetimes.
"How is this possible? Didn't you drink the contraceptive medicine?"
He had given the medicine to the inn's servant at the time, instructing them to brew it and send it up, then went home himself without actually seeing Nangong Muyan drink it.
"I did drink it," Nangong Muyan knew Zhou Yi was suspicious and explained further, "If I wasn't going to drink it, why would I have bothered asking you to buy it?"
"Then how did this happen..."
Zhou Yi stood in a daze, his hands falling limply from his collar and waist, something breaking in his eyes.
"Who knows?" Nangong Muyan sighed, saying helplessly, "I only found out I was pregnant today, and then my mother threatened to kill herself. I had no choice but to tell them about you."
Zhou Yi fell silent, lowering his eyes to stare motionlessly at Nangong Muyan's flat stomach, feeling as if fate was playing a cruel joke on him.
Nangong Muyan looked at him, noticing he had indeed become much thinner than before. Previously, he had seemed somewhat foolishly carefree, but now that he was thinner, his features were more defined, making him appear more like a mature and steady man.
Nangong Muyan also knew that Zhou Yi hated her, and all of this was an undeserved disaster for him.
Thinking of this, she felt an unusual pang of guilt.
"After you marry me, I won't interfere with your life. You can keep as many concubines as you want, is that acceptable?" Nangong Muyan solemnly promised.
Zhou Yi glanced up at her, tugging at the corner of his mouth self-mockingly: "Our Zhou family doesn't have the custom of taking concubines."
"Then how about I help you set up a separate residence for someone outside?" Nangong Muyan suggested sincerely. "As long as they don't find out, I can even help cover for you."
"Just shut up, I don't want to discuss this with you. Let me have some quiet for a moment." Zhou Yi was in no mood for this.
Nangong Muyan obediently fell silent, crossing her arms as she waited for Zhou Yi to recover from the massive shock.
After waiting patiently for a long while, the person before her finally spoke, his voice as soft as a murmur: "Nangong Muyan, you're really a bastard, how can you be so awful? Did I owe you something in my past life..."
Nangong Muyan: "..."
In this world, only Zhou Yi could curse her to her face without making her want to kill him.
After another moment, Zhou Yi let out a long sigh, as if making up his mind, and raised his eyes to look at Nangong Muyan: "I will marry you, but there are some things we need to clarify first."
"Setting ground rules, I understand. Go ahead."
After all, she did owe him, so Nangong Muyan's tolerance for Zhou Yi was unusually high.
"First, you can't bully my parents."
Nangong Muyan quickly nodded: "Of course not."
"My family has many houses in the capital. After we marry, you can choose whichever one you like. My parents won't live with us - you officials have too many rules, and my parents wouldn't be comfortable with that."
"Yes, yes, yes!" Nangong Muyan couldn't ask for better - she didn't want to deal with any mother-in-law relationship either.
"Second, you can't have any ill intentions toward my sister-in-law anymore. Stay away from her and Brother Liu in the future, and stop doing evil things."
"Alright." It would be difficult for her to do anything to Jiang Ning now anyway.
"And... you can't bully me either."
Nangong Muyan's heart seized - what kind of evil woman did Zhou Yi think she was!
"Especially... you can't force me to do that kind of thing with you again..."
Zhou Yi continued, making Nangong Muyan's breath catch and her blood pressure spike.
So in Zhou Yi's eyes, she wasn't just venomous, but also a lustful person...
"...Anyway, in the future, I'll be the father, you'll be the mother, and we'll live peacefully while raising the child properly."
Now that sounded more reasonable, Nangong Muyan thought.
"I agree to all of it."
When they returned to the sitting room after clearing things up, both sets of parents had already settled on the wedding date and were discussing the timing of the betrothal gifts.
Seeing Nangong Muyan and Zhou Yi walk in side by side, four pairs of eyes looked over with concern, though mainly at Zhou Yi, given how strongly he had resisted earlier.
"We've come to an agreement," Nangong Muyan saw through everyone's thoughts clearly. "We will get married."
Nangong Ya and Luo Siyi immediately breathed sighs of relief, feeling as if a great burden had been lifted.
Hong Yuanping and Zhou Zhili looked at their son, then at Nangong Muyan standing to the side. Even if they had something to say, the timing wasn't right, so they could only swallow their words.
"Then, dear in-laws and Zhou Yi, please stay for a simple meal at our manor," Luo Siyi suggested with a smile. "Marriage is no small matter, and since we're all arranging our children's weddings for the first time, we should discuss more to avoid any oversights."
The Zhou family naturally had no objections.
"Minister Nangong, Minister Nangong!"
A somewhat shrill voice came from outside the hall, followed by hurried footsteps. Everyone looked up to see Old Zhong leading in a pale-faced, beardless man wearing eunuch's robes and holding a horsetail whisk.
"Eunuch Liu!"
Seeing this trusted eunuch from the emperor's side, Nangong Ya immediately went to meet him, asking, "Has something happened?"
Eunuch Liu hesitated upon seeing so many people in the room and avoided answering directly, only saying anxiously, "My lord, please come to the palace with me immediately!"
"Very well!" Nangong Ya agreed, then turned back to instruct Luo Siyi: "Siyi, please take care of entertaining our guests."
"Yes, don't worry about it," Luo Siyi nodded.
Nangong Ya apologetically cupped his hands toward Zhou Yi's parents, then quickly left with Eunuch Liu.
Nangong Muyan watched her father's departing figure, feeling that something major was about to happen. It wasn't until five days later, when the bells rang in the imperial city and she knelt before the Taiji Hall wearing mourning clothes as a member of a high official's family, that she realized her premonition had been correct.
At that time, Jiang Ning was still bent over watering vegetable seedlings halfway up the mountain at Fuling Temple.
Two men wearing official's robes and gauze caps came galloping on horseback. From a distance, Jiang Ning saw them tie their horses at the foot of the mountain and hurry up toward Fuling Temple without a moment's rest.
A moment later, those two figures appeared again, and continuous bell tolls began to echo through the mountains, one after another in a regular rhythm, like an eternal chant.
The two men mounted their horses and rode away. Standing in the vegetable patch, Jiang Ning suddenly recalled some content from the leisure books she had read:
"During national mourning, all temples, monasteries, and shrines within a hundred li of the capital must toll their bells thirty thousand times..."
"All citizens of the imperial city must wear plain clothes for a hundred days, and no music or marriages are allowed..."
"All matters such as sacrificial ceremonies, court celebrations, and imperial examinations shall be postponed for one month..."
Thinking of this, Jiang Ning quickly picked up her empty water bucket and headed up the mountain.
The imperial examinations had been suspended; she needed to go back to find Liu Ming'an.
The drum beats seemed to pound against people's hearts one by one. Watching the birds startled from the mountain forest, Jiang Ning felt as if she was witnessing the calm before a storm.