The Daily Life Of Mei Furen Doting On Her Husband - Chapter 5

Under the hot late spring sun, the tung flowers emitted a subtle fragrance that induced a drowsy feeling. The tabby cat on the branch yawned lazily, revealing her sharp, white teeth.

Resting on the tung tree branch with her tail dangling, Wu Zhen narrowed her eyes and scrutinized the eldest son of the Mei family—from his meticulously coiled black gauze bun to his slender neck, his not overly broad but straight back, and down to his tightly cinched waist… Ah, quite slim, what a pleasant waistline. The tabby cat on the tree shifted her furry paws idly. 

Perhaps sensing something, the eldest son of the Mei family, who was working at his desk, suddenly turned his head and looked toward the window. He happened to see the tabby cat on the tung tree branch outside the window.

Seeing the sight of the tabby cat, the eldest son of the Mei family was not surprised at all. He just calmly watched the cat trembling with the tung branches in the wind.

Wu Zhen finally saw Mr. Mei’s appearance clearly and thought to herself: Not bad, not ugly.

Who was Wu Zhen? She had seen so many handsome men, and the man in front of her was probably only in the middle. His appearance was not stunning, but he was comfortable to look at. He looked nothing like his pretty cousin Mei Si, nor did he look like the elegant Concubine Mei. If she had to choose a word to describe him, it would probably be “honest”.

His eyes were calm and indifferent, his expression clear and slightly sharp. This sharpness was not as cold as that of a sharp sword, but a kind of cold and solemn aura unique to those who were in charge of punishment.

Seeing her fiance’s self-possessed and dignified temperament, Wu Zhen secretly sighed that it was not good. In truth, she was the worst at dealing with such a person who looked serious at first glance.

Mr. Mei turned his head to look at the tabby cat outside the window, his wrist raised in the air, the ink on the brush still not falling, and a drop of ink fell on the paper. He turned back, discarded the ink-stained paper aside, prepared to use it for other purposes, and took a new piece of paper to continue working.

Wu Zhen kept watching him. It was about time for her to leave, but she didn’t know what she was thinking. Maybe she was too lazy to move, so she continued to stay there and look at Mr. Mei’s back.

After watching for a long time, she couldn’t help but grumble. Others would go out for a breath of fresh air after work, chat with colleagues, or take a break, but Mr. Mei was different. He didn’t move after sitting down, and his brush didn’t stop. Only the papers on one side of the desk kept piling up.

After an unknown amount of time, Mr. Mei finally stood up. Wu Zhen, who was dozing off, raised her head and looked over, and she sighed in her heart. She hadn’t noticed it when she was sitting, but when he stood up, she found that Mr. Mei was too tall. Her own height was the best among women, and not inferior to many men, but Mr. Mei was more than half a head taller than her.

Maybe it was because he was too tall, but Wu Zhen felt that he appeared even thinner when he stood up. This thinness lent him the air of a noble scholar.

Mr. Mei exited the room, prompting Wu Zhen to also rise. She leapt from the branch and through the window, approaching the table for a closer look.

Wu Zhen was half asleep and inadvertently stepped on the inkstone with her paw. Her furry white front paw immediately bore a stain of black ink. Without hesitation, Wu Zhen pressed her cat’s paw onto the nearby waste paper to clean it, leaving several paw prints.

Upon Mr. Mei’s return with water, having fetched it moments earlier, he discovered the bold tabby cat standing fearlessly on his desk. Rather than fleeing at his sight, the cat nonchalantly added another print to the paper right under his nose.

Not a drop of the water Mr.Mei had brought was consumed by him; instead, he used it entirely to clean the cat’s paws.

Observing Mr. Mei, Wu Zhen couldn’t imagine him as someone fond of cats. Thus, she was quite taken aback when he used water to wash her paws.

 After washing her paw, Mr. Mei observed the tabby cat shaking off the water. Suddenly setting the pot aside, he extended his sleeve to the cat.

The tabby cat paused momentarily, then instinctively rubbed her paws on his sleeve to dry them.

Once her claws were dry, the tabby cat leapt out of the window and departed, while Mr. Mei resumed his work.

Outside the window, tung blossoms drifted down.

Wu Zhen moved silently across the roof, eventually stopping to examine her front paws. Despite Mr. Mei’s efforts, traces of ink stubbornly remained, staining her fur. She lowered her paws and resumed walking forward. After a couple of steps, she suddenly caught snippets of conversation beneath the eaves. It was a group of officials from the Ministry of Justice, speaking in hushed tones.

Intrigued, Wu Zhen halted and unconsciously pricked up her ears.

“I’ve encountered this,” someone was saying. “I was so drowsy that I didn’t know what I was doing. I just stood there until Song Da came and woke me up. I realized I had been standing there for over an hour.”

“I’ve had a similar experience,” another voice chimed in. “I suddenly lost my focus and clarity. Mr. Zhao reprimanded me for neglecting my duties, but he didn’t understand my circumstances.”

There was a pause, then someone hesitated, “Could it be that I was the only one who saw that… woman?”

After a moment of silence in the corridor, the earlier speaker said in an uneasy tone, “Honestly, I also saw a woman, but I couldn’t see her face clearly.”

“I… did as well.”

Wu Zhen lay there, eavesdropping quietly until she grasped the conversation. The clerks were discussing a warehouse behind the Ministry of Justice where documents were stored. It was isolated and poorly located, receiving no sunlight since the afternoon. Lately, they had encountered strange occurrences there. People would enter and suddenly lose their senses, forgetting where they were or what they were doing. Some had even glimpsed a vague woman in there.

No fatalities had occurred, and normally Wu Zhen wouldn’t have bothered with such trivial “hauntings”, initially intending to leave. However, after a brief reflection, she changed her mind and decided to investigate the warehouse they were talking about.

“Since I’m already here, I might as well do a good deed. I’ve had too much free time lately,” Wu Zhen thought.