48 Asleep?

Huan Meirong lasted a good while under the water that the palace maid, Xian Hei, began to felt a little anxiety; her charming pair of dark eyes wavered with uneasy and deep thought as well.

Her thoughts were brief as they were swallowed by her increased uneasy feeling when Huan Meirong suddenly came out of the water while coughing with a flushed face.

*Cough, cough* Huan Meirong turned back and walked to the edge of the pool. She placed both of her arms on the border and then, rested her head on them as she breathed deeply, thinking with some delight, 'Serves you right,' she was feigning to tease Xian Hei and had a release of some of her frustrations, all right. She could have lasted the double or triple of that time and enjoyed the calmness of being under the water a bit more but she couldn't afford it. Nevertheless, she couldn't come out of the water in the time a normal person could endure just like that, she wanted a payback for her broken time of pleasure. Fortunately, in the past two weeks, she had noticed that whenever she was about to get hurt for real, the palace maids flinched and hurried to her aid, making her avoid the worst of embarrassments when she was "adapting" to the new courtyard. So she was able to pull a little something; though, it wasn't really much.

*Cough*

"Good thing I woke up in time," her flushed face became redder and she closed her blind eyes.

'That… asleep?' thought Xian Hei with trembling lips; if the lady hadn't woken up, what would have happened in her moment of contemplation?

Huan Meirong was just resting after all the acting she had performed. Even though she had gotten her little fun, it hadn't been enough to appease her complex feelings; she didn't want to give up but deep inside, something kept telling her that get bounded by a marriage was unavoidable. This call was stronger whenever the palace maids flinched or staggered as their sway made her got the odd feeling that the heavens might fall if she got hurt and wasn't able to marry.

She might have been mistaking the sensation she had gotten and being overthinking but whether the heavens would fall or not and if she also put aside the impertinent undertones she heard from some of the palace maids, the fact that they did pay attention and care for her was a given; hence, the increased difficulty.

'… Too risky,' she thought and her upper body began to slowly slide down into the water. It was not that her plans weren't viable at all but the risk of exposure and the possibility of attracting unnecessary attention that could lead to major problems was too great that she found herself stuck. If she were to be really desperate, future risk could be put to a side but she wasn't, and the reason was because, despite her palpable reluctance against the marriage, she didn't care about who or if she married or not in this lifetime; apart from her eldest brother and another three people, in her eyes, all the men had come to be of the same kin as her previous husband. Her unwillingness to marry only came from the concern of being or not able to cultivate calmly without disclosing anything that could endanger her life as she wanted to go back to her home.

'…' as her mind began to become blank, something she hadn't thought about before popped out of nowhere in her sea of vanishing thoughts. She half-opened her eyes with heaviness and stopped her body from sliding down.

Xian Hei who had given a few soundless steps forward when she saw Huan Meirong slowly sliding down stopped when she half-opened her blind eyes; she was more alert this time, though her dark eyes still held a glint of doubt.

Many thoughts that were different in essence but that seemed to serve to her purpose according to her new gained perspective began to flow in a disorderly way into Huan Meirong's mind.

A couple of minutes passed and having already sorted out all the messy thoughts of recollected information from her past life, she made sure they made sense and assessed the viability of her new reasoning, 'Getting stronger it's not the only way I can go back home, now that I just thought about it but… I will only reach it if everything falls perfectly in the right place…'