Nastasia lay stunned on the bed, staring up at the canopy in a daze as her brain short-circuited in having any form of a clear and full thought. Mostly her mind's voice was screaming in her head as her heart pounded a mile a minute.

A kiss!

Granted it was chaste, only a bit of lips touching one another, it was still the first one she had ever received from a man outside of her family members.

She didn't know whether to get angry over the fact that it happened or be disappointed that her first kiss had been too short. At that thought, she began to wonder what it would have been like had he continued.

No, her mind chastised, you're forty years old... having such thoughts at such an age is unbecoming.

"I'm forty years old." She whispered in horror. Soon she buried her face in her hands, cheeks reddening in shame. "I'm forty and I just kissed a man half my age... does that make me a pervert?"

No! It wasn't her fault, he was the one who suddenly... ah! She rolled around the bed, a strangled noise trapping itself in her throat. No, it was her fault. Sort of. It was a bit of his fault too.

Had he not acted like her siblings, pretending to be fine when he was clearly suffering from some type of sickness, she wouldn't have treated him like a child. She would not have gone back in time, equating him to her cute little brothers and sisters, checking his temperature as she had.

Her hands have always been really cold. It was hard for her to tell temperatures as everything felt especially hot to her icy palms and fingers. She always checked them with her forehead and then cheek when a thermometer wasn't available. Although since coming to this strange place her hands hadn't really suffered, so there was no reason to do it, she acted as she had due to his evasive attitude.

It had been a subconscious act triggered by those similarities. It was an innocent thing, so he didn't have to...AH! She rolled around the bed some more as she screamed internally. She recalled the electric-like feeling as their lips brushed and even began to imagine -with her bit of knowledge of the things between men and women- what the kiss would have been like should it have gone further.

Was it because she had remained pure for so long that her mind couldn't help but fantasize? As her breath quickened and her heart started to pound its way out of her chest, she shut the thoughts off, refusing to think about it any further.

'Wait,' the devil on her shoulder whispered enticingly, 'after coming to this place your body is about fifteen. It's probably fine to think about "that" with him.'

She entertained the idea for all of a few seconds before denying everything. "Nope, forget it! Nothing happened!" Nastasia rolled to her side, firmly shutting her eyes. It was still early and she was extremely tired from taking care of Li Yu Rong throughout the night.

So this had to be a hallucination from lack of sleep.

Yup, nothing happened.

-----------------------

Currently, Li Yu Rong was sitting behind the desk of his study, looking over a few reports; most of them being details on the contracted Spirit Realm residents. This wasn't something that necessarily needed to be done at the moment, however, he needed something to busy himself with while he waited for enough time to pass.

The easternmost part of the courtyard was home to a pair of orphaned foxes. A twin pair of brother and sister troublemakers. Though their transformations were flawed, their ability to make a person forget that and go along with their tricks was near to perfection. They understood their cute cherubic faces and used them well to their advantage.

Thinking about the trouble they'd soon be causing eased the frustration from his heart.

"Master."

Li Yu Rong looked from the document he was reading to find Hui Se Ying kneeling before the desk, here to report the completion of his task. As he looked at his subordinate and recalled the events earlier, he sighed heavily.

"How do you get a girl to like you?" He suddenly asked. This was something Li Yu Rong had never, in his entire life, ever attempted. He had no experience in winning a girl's heart and thus could only humble himself to ask someone who knew well his way around the subject.

Hui Se Ying was stunned at first and then held his hands up defensively with a pained look. "Master, my methods are only for married women dissatisfied with their husbands. It won't work for what you're wanting."

When Li Yu Rong had found Hui Se Ying -the third of his subordinates named Ying- the man was a wandering ghost sneaking into the windows of married women. He had been a child at the time and did not understand what it was that he had been attempting to do with his sneaking about. It was how he was able to easily buy into Hui Se Ying's tale of looking for an important thing lost that he couldn't recall.

It wasn't until he was much older when Li Yu Rong had found that his subordinate was an incorrigible lover of women that couldn't go too long without having one. It was quite a shock to find that his normally very stoic Hui Se Ying had such a troubling side to himself.

That wasn't the worst of it.

One evening, a few years back, when he had taken Hui Se Ying along to go drinking he had drunkenly and quite happily confided in him the circumstances surrounding his death. Li Yu Rong would never be able to understand how he had been able to brag about the man who stabbed him to death because of the multiple green hats he'd given him. Nor could he begin to guess at what the man had done for him to sleep with his wife and four concubines.

Hui Se Ying had passed out, dead drunk, before he could get to that part of the story. Afterward, neither of them brought the incident up again.

Li Yu Rong didn't believe it. "There must be something you could tell me."

Shaking his head the other man quite proudly stated. "Nope, the first woman I ever had was married. It was a bit bumpy going, but from her to her sister to the aunt of her sister's concubine mother I managed to develop some pretty decent skills. I'd share them with you, but you're not going after a married woman for a nice romp beneath the sheets." He shrugged helplessly.

Having no words to say after being told this, Li Yu Rong rubbed at his temples, frustrated. "Never mind, forget I asked." It was stupid to ask this married-woman-killer for advice.

"Oh, but," Hui Se Ying continued even so, "the thing they complained about most was their husbands not paying attention to them as much as they used to. Why don't you try being really attentive, doing little things for her here and there? Can't hurt, right?"

Thinking about it a bit, Li Yu Rong "hmm'd" his agreement to the advice. Although he would still be quite busy dealing with the current issues at hand, he could still make time to dote on her here and there.

Although he didn't relish the thought of bringing Asya to the Imperial Palace it could present a good opportunity for him to make her feel cared for. Standing from his seat, Li Yu Rong headed for the door.

"It's been long enough, let's go meet with the eunuch."

Hui Se Ying tried to keep his amusement to himself as he followed his master to the easternmost courtyard. Though his master had grown quite a bit and developed rather coldly, he still had his cute sides. Hui Se Ying was actually quite looking forward to watching his master's courtship of the strange red-haired girl his master picked up.

He had to make sure to share this with Lu Se Ying later.