'I did not expect this from you, husband.'
She sighed. The sound was audible. The sigh of a woman who was disappointed.
Tianlong looked at her. His gold-crimson eyes, warm, found hers. The connection — the divine-qi bond, the master-slave link, the invisible thread that connected them — hummed.
"I would visit the market here," he said. His voice was casual. "To see a few things for me. Will it be fine if you accompany me, madam?"
The question — the request to take another man's wife to the market — was, in any other context, an insult. A violation. The kind of request that would get a man killed in the sword domain.
She said, "What?" Her voice was surprised. The performance — the appropriate surprise of a modest wife being asked to accompany a man who was not her husband — was automatic.
Her husband spoke. "I would send some servant—"
