The corridor was old and leaky, and there were always a lot of small noises when it got dark, such as the sound of footsteps, the chirping of insects in some corner, or the sound of dust falling from the gaps between the tiles above.
But at this time of daylight, the surroundings were too quiet and unusually silent. As the man whispered in her ear, she suddenly felt as if she was surrounded by a vague and intimate atmosphere.
In an instant, she came to her senses from her daze, responded to his words, and walked in quickly and hastily.
She groped slowly in the dark room, and after a few breaths, she finally lit the light in the room.
The candlelight gradually brightened, slowly dispelling the darkness and illuminating the walls.
By now, she had recovered from the great surprise when she first saw him. She calmed herself down, stood by the candlelight, turned around, nodded to the person still standing outside the door, and invited him in with a smile.
Pei Xiaoyuan looked at the woman in the light inside the house.
The candlelight shone on her, reflecting her face as bright as the moon.
On this face, he could not see any trace of the joy that he felt at this moment, as if he was overjoyed and relieved for having found someone.
She was still the same impression he had when they last met at the County Magistrate's Mansion: gentle, polite, and a little distantly polite.
In fact, he had been waiting under the lantern at the stairs long ago.
In his imagination, when she climbed up the wooden ladder, he would stand there to greet her. But as if possessed by some strange magic, when he heard her footsteps approaching and the wooden ladder made the first creaking sound, he retreated, hiding himself in the shadows, watching her walk past the lantern halo only three feet away from him without noticing.
It must be too difficult to find her. He chased her from Ganliang in the dusty and windy weather to Jiangnan Road, and then turned west to Beijing and Luoyang, traveling thousands of miles in between. When he saw her again with his own eyes, the past events of just a few months ago seemed like a lifetime ago to him, and many words rushed to his throat.
But at this moment, as the candlelight illuminated the surroundings, he looked at her who once again smiled and invited him in, and all the emotions that he could not tell others a moment ago disappeared.
After hesitating for a moment, this time he finally stepped in and stopped opposite her, with the candle table between them.
"Did I scare you just now? I'm really sorry, I didn't mean it."
He never expected that the first words he would say when they met again would be this.
Xu Yu laughed when she heard that, looked at him and shook her head: "Not bad. But I really didn't expect that you would come to the capital."
Pei Xiaoyuan nodded: "Yes, I didn't expect it myself. Just after you left, I received a call from the court, so I set off..."
He paused for a moment and said, "I have come to Chang'an and am now serving under the Jinwu Guard."
Xuyu took a look.
He must have come here after finishing his court work for the day. He had not changed his clothes yet. He was still wearing the dark crimson robe of the Jinwu Guard with embroidered beasts on the shoulders and a golden belt around his waist. The room was narrow and the lights were yellow, making him look taller and more like a green pine.
She knew that this was a position of the fourth or fifth grade, and for someone in his early twenties, it was indeed considered prominent.
She smiled and said, "Congratulations on your promotion!"
Pei Xiaoyuan also laughed with her and waved his hand: "Don't make fun of me." He looked down at himself and explained, "I left the government office today in a hurry and didn't even change my clothes. I came here like this. I'm sorry to embarrass you..."