A Pharaoh and Her Beloved Queen: Modern Chapter - Chapter 2

For several days in a row, the weather was exceptionally fine—the sky clear and vast, comfortable and pleasant, illuminating the scenery outside with a transparent glow.

Ye Zhiqing usually didn’t have many recreational activities and few social engagements. These past few days, she spent her time leisurely lying on her balcony soaking up the sun while looking up materials related to archaeological research.

Her posture was lazy, her mood quite serene.

But clearly, someone did not want her to stay this idle.

The female voice on the other end of the phone was soft and seductive; if anyone else had heard it, they would surely have misunderstood the relationship between the two.

Her eyelids lifted slightly, but Ye Zhiqing’s expression remained cool and unmoved.

“My dear Zhiqing, I’m leaving Bai Bai in your care for the next half month. Mwah~~~” Before hanging up, she didn’t forget to send a loud, blowing kiss.

Clearly long accustomed to Ruan Yu’s enthusiasm, Ye Zhiqing shook her head helplessly. Ruan Yu had grown up with her and was currently a divorcee with a four-year-old son.

The Rongbaozhai auction house was an industry under her name.

One was a domineering and beautiful CEO, the other was a cold appraiser personally hired by said CEO; several versions of stories regarding the relationship between Ruan Yu and Ye Zhiqing had long been circulating within the company.

She glanced down at the time: 4:00 PM. By the time Ye Zhiqing picked up Ruan Bai and brought him home, it was already 5:30 PM.

“Bai Bai, your mother has to go on a business trip for half a month, so Auntie Zhiqing will take care of you for the next two weeks, okay?” Ye Zhiqing carried the little one out of the car and back to the room, her voice soft and gentle.

“Okay, thank you Auntie Zhiqing,” the child in her arms pouted aggrievedly. Though he looked utterly upset, he held back his tears.

The child’s eyelashes were very long, his black eyes bright and sparkling, his face chubby. Although he was still young, it wasn’t hard to see the high-quality beauty genes inherited from his mother.

Ye Zhiqing comforted Ruan Bai clumsily. Due to work, the time Ruan Yu spent with her child was pitifully small. Perhaps due to the lack of her mother’s company, Ruan Bai was exceptionally well-behaved.

Having no experience in soothing children, Ye Zhiqing turned and went downstairs to bring up the Lego sets and remote-control toys she had bought on the way.

Children should generally like playing with toys.

Sure enough, seeing the toys, Ruan Bai’s attention was drawn away, and he began playing with the blocks.

Ye Zhiqing leaned against the doorframe, feeling a sense of relief. She let out a long sigh, thinking she must give Ruan Yu a good talking-to when she returned—she couldn’t neglect her son for work.

Seeing Ruan Bai playing happily, Ye Zhiqing began preparing dinner. She didn’t have a strong desire for gourmet food and usually ate simply.

But children require balanced nutrition. Ye Zhiqing rubbed her temples; Ruan Bai’s arrival felt like facing a great enemy. Raising a child was truly a troublesome matter.

Clearly, there was more than one “troublesome matter.” When Ye Zhiqing was halfway through cooking, a burning gaze behind her became impossible to ignore.

It was Ruan Bai.

Ye Zhiqing put down the knife and knelt, bringing her line of sight level with the child’s. “Bai Bai, what’s wrong?”

“Auntie Zhiqing, the plane fell into the yard next door.”

“Is it the toy plane we just bought?”

“Yes.”

Wiping her hands clean, Ye Zhiqing reached out and soothingly stroked the child’s soft hair. “It’s okay. You go back upstairs and play first. Auntie will go get it in a little while.”

The cool white light of the streetlamps filtered through the golden plane tree leaves, casting scattered bits of warmth.

The daytime temperature had been just right, but as night fell, a silent chill began to seep in.

As soon as she stepped outside, Ye Zhiqing shivered from the cold. She looked toward the house Ruan Bai had pointed to; the lights were bright, clearly indicating someone lived there.

The two houses were very close, but the pebble path followed the terrain in a winding fashion. It took Ye Zhiqing two minutes to reach the door.

Ding-dong~ She pressed the doorbell. After waiting a while, there was no movement.

Ye Zhiqing tentatively called out toward the inside, “Is anyone home?” She pressed the doorbell again.

The night wind was very cold, and Ye Zhiqing was only wearing a thin, form-fitting cashmere sweater.

Belated footsteps approached from far to near. Tap~ Tap-tap~~

It was her.

With a flowing black cloak, the owner of the house appeared in the light, walking toward her step by step. Like a solitary and proud god, she carried a sharp wind with her. Complex, mysterious totemic embroidery adorned her collar, stretching the mysterious aesthetic to its limit.

Ye Zhiqing was dazed by her once again. The empty piece in her heart was filled with an inexplicable, indescribable sense of wonder.

A slight panic, yet it was a scorching heat one couldn’t help but crave; she didn’t want to reject it.

Before Ye Zhiqing could react, a cloak carrying body heat was placed over her. The woman skillfully tightened the drawstrings with such natural ease that there was no sense of discord—it was as if she had practiced this ten thousand times, carrying an intense meaning that brook no refusal.

Standing against the light, Ye Zhiqing couldn’t see her expression clearly. She only knew that the woman’s hands were exceptionally beautiful—fingertips rounded, joints well-defined. They weren’t the soft, pale hands of traditional beauty, but rather a faded wheat color, full of a sense of power.

The hands matched the owner, easily making one feel a sense of pressure.

As if she had long known Ye Zhiqing’s next move, when Ye Zhiqing raised her hand to take off the cloak, a scorching warmth slowly covered the back of her hand, stopping her action.

In a slightly husky, warm voice: “You’re cold.”

“He… Hello, my child’s toy plane fell into your yard…” Ye Zhiqing’s mind went blank for a moment. The scorching heat from the back of her hand quickly seeped into her skin; then, from the inside out, her whole body began to burn. A faint pink appeared on her exposed skin, and she was so nervous she became tongue-tied.

A very slight curve appeared at the corner of Edith’s mouth. She listened patiently until Ye Zhiqing finished, then naturally withdrew her hand behind her back. She leaned her body to one side, gesturing for Ye Zhiqing to go in and find it herself.

Ye Zhiqing looked away like a guilty thief, feeling constrained and extremely uneasy. This was a situation she had never encountered before.

In her fluster, she stepped forward to enter, but the cloak was clearly much too long for her.

Before she could take two steps, Ye Zhiqing stepped on the cloak, instantly lost her balance, and fell forward.

A powerful arm wrapped around her waist. It all happened too fast to react to; following the external force, Ye Zhiqing fell heavily against Edith.

Edith used the momentum to step back until she hit the door pillar.

The two were very close. Under the warm yellow light, they were pressed tightly together. Their exhaled breath intertwined, and their chaotic heartbeats were clearly audible.

Like a jammed machine, Ye Zhiqing stood dazed, staring at Edith without moving, completely failing to notice how ambiguous their current posture was.

Something felt very wrong.

“Your hand.”

“Ah,” following the reminder, Ye Zhiqing belatedly realized her hand was currently covering a soft part of her body that wasn’t particularly plump—an uprising that her hand just managed to cup.

Her beautiful eyes widened. Ye Zhiqing pulled her hand back as if she had received an electric shock. Like a cat with its fur standing on end, she pushed away Edith’s hand and instantly retreated several steps.

In contrast, Edith maintained an unbothered posture, watching Ye Zhiqing tenderly with a smile, a flickering light in her eyes.

Ashamed and annoyed, a deeper red spread across Ye Zhiqing’s skin, standing out even in the night.

“I’m sorry, I accidentally…”

“It’s nothing. I’ll look with you; it will be faster,” Edith shook her head slightly, interrupting Ye Zhiqing’s explanation. With an irresistible manner, she took Ye Zhiqing’s hand and led her into the yard.

This was not a normal progression of events. Ye Zhiqing looked in shock at their joined hands, yet miraculously, she couldn’t give rise to the thought of refusing.

She clearly didn’t like being this close to strangers.

In this neighborhood, there weren’t many streetlamps; they stood sparsely along the path, responding to the rhythm of day and night.

Edith held a flashlight. The two stayed close, searching along the shadows. The sky grew darker, yet there was still no sign of the toy plane.

Meanwhile, Ye Zhiqing had broken into a thin sweat. Her palms were damp, and her body felt sticky; she furrowed her brows imperceptibly.

Edith quickly noticed Ye Zhiqing’s abnormality. The thin light blurred the silhouette of Ye Zhiqing’s profile. As beads of sweat slid down, her skin appeared even whiter and more translucent. That familiar fragrance seemed to grow more intense.

Darkness swirled in her eyes. Edith let go of Ye Zhiqing and pulled away slightly.

“It’s too dark. Let’s come back to look tomorrow.”

Having searched for so long without finding it, it seemed they could only come during the day. Ye Zhiqing nodded. “Okay.”

One after the other, they walked toward the gate.

“Um, thank you for tonight,” though it was only a few steps, Ye Zhiqing felt the distance was too long. Her heart was beating so fast it felt like it might jump out.

“It was nothing,” just like the previous times, Edith’s words were pitifully few. She just watched Ye Zhiqing tenderly, her gaze never leaving her.

Within the subtle atmosphere, a hint of awkwardness lingered.

Ye Zhiqing tried to do something to ease it. She reached out, intending to take off the cloak and return it, but surprisingly, she was stopped by Edith again.

“It’s cold at night. Wear it back and return it to me tomorrow,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

After hesitating for a moment, Ye Zhiqing didn’t refuse. “Thank you. I still don’t know your name.”

“Edith.”

Ye Zhiqing nodded. “Then I will come again tomorrow. Sorry for the bother.” After receiving Edith’s response, she turned to leave.

“Wait, you haven’t told me your name yet.”

“Ye Zhiqing.”

“It’s a very beautiful name.”

“Thank you.”

“You have said thank you to me many times today.”

“Ah, have I?”

Ye Zhiqing was completely in a daze, muddled and led along by Edith the entire time.

Even though she had lived twenty-some years with few desires and had never stepped foot into romance, Ye Zhiqing knew that the state of their interaction was very wrong.

Having lost her usual composure, Ye Zhiqing was clearly flustered.

A subtle silence fell.

Edith’s gaze shifted slightly, diffusing a somewhat blurred and moving light. She slowly walked closer, raised her hand, and tucked away a strand of hair that had fallen to the side of Ye Zhiqing’s face.

With their breath nearly touching, Ye Zhiqing tilted her head back, looking at this stranger who felt ten-thousand times familiar from a close distance.

She had to admit, this woman was stunningly beautiful.

Different from current popular aesthetics, Edith’s facial lines were resolute, her features handsome and grand. Her light wheat-colored skin gave her a sense of mysterious majesty.

She didn’t know how to describe it; it was like an ancient cultural relic that had settled over thousands of years of time. The most attractive thing was that distant, archaic aura.

Despite it being a cold night, the two of them somehow caused a few threads of ambiguous beauty to arise.

Edith lowered her head, slowly approaching the lips she had thought of day and night. Her hand slid from the shoulder blade down to the waist and abdomen.

The lower back was Ye Zhiqing’s most sensitive area. At Edith’s touch, Ye Zhiqing trembled.

Suddenly snapping back to her senses, Ye Zhiqing retreated several steps in succession, speaking rapidly: “I should go back.”

Having said that, she prepared to leave.

“Wait.”

Ye Zhiqing stopped again and turned around, her eyes full of confusion.

“Bring your child tomorrow. He should know exactly where it fell.”

As if something was wrong—but Ye Zhiqing didn’t think too much of it. She hurriedly agreed and walked quickly toward her home.