Indulging in Carnal Desire

On top of the stage, Du Xiruo and Chu Jiao were standing opposite of each other.

Du Xiruo’s bright heroine halo couldn’t be concealed. Not long after she came into her school life, she had won the favor of most of her classmates and was selected for the role of the play’s female lead, even garnering the highest number of votes from the class. However, she refused firmly and insisted on getting the second female lead, giving the coveted lead role to Chu Jiao, who had the second-highest number of votes.

Her classmates all thought she was humble from this certain act, but Chu Jiao knew the truth. Naturally, it was because the heroine needed to pretend to be a man, so Du Xiruo was afraid that her appearance would resemble and expose her alternate identity, especially in front of Chu Jiao, who had already seen her before.

“Who are you!?” Xiang Cui’e, played by Du Xiruo, abruptly stopped in the middle of the road. “If you want to cross my Erlong Mountain, leave all your money behind!”

“Heh,” Chen Yueying, who was played by Chu Jiao, held an intimidatingly long sword, appearing valiant and formidable with the weapon at hand, “I’m your grandpa!”

“Impudent!” Xiang Cui’e glared daggers at her, drawing out the long knife she carried with her and flinging it towards Chen Yueying’s direction, “Where did a lecher like you crawl out from!”

The two quickly became entangled in a fierce battle.

This scene was where Chen Yueying had taken on a man’s identity and had gone to the mountain to flee disaster, while also pretending to be Xiang Cui’e’s fiancé, Wang Fugang, but she ended up confronting Xiang Cui’e in the end.

The two had knocked their heads with each other not too long ago. Du Xiruo was originally worried that Chu Jiao was onto her, but when she saw Chu Jiao’s ostentatious moves, which were in full accordance with the plot, she felt relieved on the inside and quickly made similar gestures towards her.

After exchanging two blows, Chu Jiao deliberately dodged sideways, causing the pendant on her neck to be exposed from the round-necked robe.

Even though the pendant fell back inside her clothes in the next second, Du Xiruo was still able to catch sight of the pendant’s shape.

It was a small seal!

It was the dragon seal!

In the later rehearsals, Du Xiruo appeared to be a little absent-minded as Chu Jiao coldly looked on from the side, trying to figure out her thoughts.

Without a doubt, she intentionally did it.

From the selection of the repertoire to deliberately revealing the dragon button, she wanted to see just how long the female lead could keep up her facade.

In the original plot, the female lead ended up carrying justice onto her family from her love for the male lead. She had always been like a lotus flower that grew out of the mud and was unsullied¹Growing out of the mud and unsullied means to be unprincipled and incorruptible. She was kept in the dark, like duckweed, and was without a single clue as to what her adoptive father was planning in secret.

However, Chu Jiao didn’t believe this was plausible. She felt that with the female lead’s above-average intelligence, it was simply impossible to be unaware of her adoptive father’s behavior.

If the man in black was truly the female lead that night, she would definitely make a move against her now that she had seen the dragon seal.

The school that Chu Jiao was currently attending was the most famous private middle school in Zhili. Most of its students were children of high-ranking officials or have come from wealthy families. The principal had already been long promoting its incoming anniversary, inviting parents to come to the school to enjoy their children’s performances.

Chu Jiao did not have parents, but because she moved into Yan Zhan’s mansion, the invitation was sent to the Yan residence. The old housekeeper held it close as he stepped inside. Chu Jiao initially wanted to deal with it by herself, but she didn’t expect Yan Zhan’s eyes to be so sharp.

“You’re performing in a play?” Yan Zhan shook the invitation in his hand in interest, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

His height towered over hers, so no matter how many times Chu Jiao tried to jump as high as she could, she couldn’t reach the invitation that he had lifted with his hand.

“It’s not a big deal.” Chu Jiao said as she thought to herself. ‘If this was going to make you see the female lead, she wouldn’t want it to happen.’

Yan Zhan swiftly wrote down the event date and pinched the tip of Chu Jiao’s nose affectionately.

“Any matter that concerns you is a big deal.”

Soon, the day of the school’s anniversary had arrived.

Yan Zhan sent Chu Jiao to school early, giving the little lady time to put on makeup, change her clothes, and do a lot of other miscellaneous things.

After sending her off, he turned around and went back to his government office to review some documents to pass the time. Recently, several concessions have not been peaceful, especially the Japanese concessions. Consuls and several high-level military officers had been preoccupied as of late because of them.

Whilst thinking of something in his heart, Yan Zhan arrived at school. However, he completely didn’t expect to run into the consul general of the Japanese consulate, Yoshida Hideaki, at the school gates.

“Governor Yan,” Yoshida Hideaki’s hair was parted in a lustrous 3:7 ratio, and he greeted Yan Zhan with a polite smile, “I didn’t expect to bump into you here.”

Yan Zhan nodded in agreement, “I didn’t expect it either.”

“Hehe,” Yoshida Hideaki amiably patted the shoulders of the person beside him, “Du Sang’s cousin is also in this school. I heard that Chinese students have excellent performances, so I came to enjoy the show.”

Du Shourong smiled awkwardly at the side but was leaking out buckets of cold sweat in secret. He didn’t expect to run into Governor Yan here, hopefully… nothing would go wrong later on.

[Completed]