Chapter 48 Chapter 48 Accompany You to Have Fun

Fu Wang escaped from the academy by climbing over the wall.

"Fu Er, you're amazing," Jiang Hexue sighed. "You really haven't changed in years."

"You've never changed." Ruan Yueyi scolded. "The Spring Examination is approaching, and you still have the mind to go out and have fun?"

"This is just a moderate relaxation for me." Fu Wang sat down on the chair. "Hexue, do you want to drink?"

"No," Jiang Hexue refused with little interest. "You can't drink much. Drinking with you is boring."

"I can't hold my liquor like the princess," Fu Wang said, folding his legs with a chuckle. "But I have some good wine. I guarantee you'll enjoy it."

"Drink! Today is the sixth day of the first lunar month. I haven't had a drink in half a month. You won't accompany me, and neither will the princess. I'm so lonely traveling to the capital to take the exam alone!" Seeing that Jiang Hexue had no intention of accepting his offer, he pretended to plead pitifully. "Could it be that the princess and the princess no longer consider me a friend? I'm truly heartbroken..."

"Nonsense. Have someone bring it to me." Jiang Hexue finally nodded. "Just consider it a way to get rid of the bad luck."

"I won't accompany you." Ruan Yueyi pressed the back of her neck, stood up and put on her cloak. "I have an appointment with Jiang Xingcong to look at new furniture."

"Then I will drink with the princess." Fu Wang waved at her and poured a cup of wine from the attendant for Jiang Hexue. "Princess, on your wedding day, I will definitely attend even if it means going through fire and water."

Ruan Yueyi smiled and nodded: "Then this princess would like to wish you success in the Spring Examination."

"Thank you, Princess, for your kind words." Fu Wang downed a glass of wine and tilted his head to Jiang Hexue. "I promised you to pray for blessings during the Spring Examination. Now that the Princess is busy preparing for her wedding, Princess, you must not break your promise."

"Let's go." Jiang Hexue thought about what he said. "It just so happens that there have been a lot of bad luck lately, so I'm going to pray for myself. I'm also going to pray for Gan Le and my future nephew-in-law."

-

It's snowing.

Xuemei stood up to close the window, then followed Jiang Hexue's instructions to heat up the wine before admonishing him, "Princess, you'll feel dizzy if you drink."

"It's okay." Jiang Hexue took a sip of wine and a bite of chicken gizzards with fresh peppers, his face flushed red from being drunk. "I'm not in a good mood today, so let me drink more."

"Why didn't you tell His Highness about this?" Fu Wang asked vaguely, trying to compete with her for the chicken gizzards. "Could it be that your Highness doesn't even want to make his wife happy?"

"It's already happened, what's the point of me telling him specifically?" Jiang Hexue pushed the fried salt and pepper peanuts in front of him. "Stop stealing my meat."

Fu Wang said "Oh" and said, "Then if you don't go back home, you don't need to inform him?"

"No need... What day of the first lunar month is today?" Jiang Hexue, still half drunk, was startled by Xuemei's "sixth day" and sat up straight. "What time is it now?"

The night watchman's long curfew call replaced Xuemei's answer.

"This is bad." Jiang Hexue slumped back on the table dejectedly. "I promised him I'd be back on the sixth day of the New Year."

"It's snowing today, and it's difficult to travel. It's understandable that you didn't return home. If Your Highness fusses over such trivial matters, it would be too petty." Fu Wang comforted him.

Jiang Hexue shook his head disapprovingly, but changed the subject: "It's curfew now, how are you going to get back to the academy?"

"I've had this experience before." Fu Wanghun nonchalantly shook his wine cup. "After the first watch, the guards will only patrol for half an hour, and then they'll start again a quarter of an hour before the second watch. The gap in their shifts is enough for me to return to the academy with my light-duty skills."

"The Qinggong is excellent, it's really convenient." Jiang Hexue sighed. "If my Qinggong was also outstanding, I would definitely return home today."

"I'll teach you."

"Do I need you to teach me?" Jiang Hexue smiled, then pricked up her ears. "There seems to be a knock on the door. Who could it be at this hour?"

"I'll go take a look." Fu Wang quickly stood up and opened the door.

The cold wind blew in snowflakes as heavy as goose feathers, but no sound was heard. Jiang Hexue casually pulled out a cloak and walked towards the door, calling out, "Fu Er, who is it...?"

The flying snow blurred her vision for a moment, and the next moment, someone wrapped her cloak tightly around her: "It's cold."

Jiang Hexue raised his head and met Shen Qingchen's gaze at the door.

-

Fu Wang had already escaped, and in Qianxiangfang, only Jiang Hexue and Shen Qingchen were left sitting opposite each other.

The door was shut again, the charcoal brazier burned more and more vigorously, but the room became colder and colder. Jiang Hexue was so cold that she wrapped herself tightly in a thin blanket and huddled in a chair, not daring to even take a sip of wine.

She had never felt that the sound of dripping water was so loud, it drowned out all the other sounds in the room.

"Zhaohua," Jiang Hexue hugged her knees, peeking out from under the thin blanket and looking at him with a flattering wink. "You are dressed very beautifully today, too."

He was wearing clothes she had never seen before: a emerald green robe embroidered with black bamboo, and a moon-white fox fur coat on the outside, which shone with a low-key yet luxurious silver hue under the lamplight.

I also changed my earrings for a pair of silver ones. The diamonds inlaid on them sparkled in the light, and they were shaped like...

Jiang Hexue was a little drunk and couldn't see clearly. She just vaguely felt that it was a bit similar to the magnolia ring he gave her at the end of the year.

"Why are you drinking today?" Shen Qingchen did not respond, his voice was cold. "Is it the falling snow? Are you cold?"

Jiang Hexue shook her head: "Not cold."

"Are you greedy?" He weighed the almost empty wine jug.

Jiang Hexue shook her head again. She didn't want to speak, and she was dizzy from the shaking.

"Do you want to drink with him?" Shen Qingchen held her little face, which was about to tilt towards the table, with one hand and asked.

"Who is he?" The hand against her cheek was cool. Jiang Hexue sighed comfortably and stayed close to it, not wanting to move.

"Who brought the wine?"

"Fu Er brought it..." The coolness of the snow on his body mixed with the cold fragrance of cedar. Jiang Hexue instinctively moved closer to him, hugging his arm and acting coquettishly. "But I want to drink with my husband."

"Come." Shen Qingchen didn't ask any more questions. He poured the last of the wine in the wine pot into the cup, but frowned slightly at the slightly turbid wine. "This wine is not good enough. I will take you to taste fine wine in the future."

"There is only one left, what should I do?" Jiang Hexue didn't care about the quality of the wine at this time, and asked with puffed cheeks.

"What do you want?"

"I'll drink it myself." She looked up at his earring. "I remember not drinking alcohol after having your earring pierced."

“It’s okay.” Eunuch Li had warned her about this, but Shen Qingchen didn’t care. “I’ll accompany you until you have fun.”

"That's fine." Jiang Hexue quickly pulled the wine cup over, as if afraid he'd snatch it. "I said no, and it's no."

After she finished speaking, she held the wine cup and drank it all in one gulp. She also made a "ha" sound and showed him the clean bottom of the cup: "I'm done, there's no more."

Shen Qingchen bent his lower lip: “Still drinking?”

"No more." Jiang Hexue burped, and the mellow aroma of alcohol spread to their noses. "I still want to eat chicken gizzards."

"Did Mr. Fu bring it too?" Shen Qingchen picked it up for her.

"No, I made it." Jiang Hexue chewed the chicken gizzards until they made a crackling sound. "How can anyone in the restaurant cook as well as I do?"

Shen Qingchen glanced at the oily peanuts fried to a charred brown in another small porcelain plate: "This one too?"

Jiang Hexue nodded and served him some food attentively: "Husband, please try it."

Shen Qingchen took a bite, then lowered his eyes to look at the girl who was still greedily eating chicken gizzards after burping.

She had put a lot of chili peppers in the chicken gizzards, and her already rosy lips were now made even more red and bright by the oil and wine. While eating, she kept mumbling to him, her red lips opening and closing, revealing her delicate white teeth and soft, tempting tongue.

Shen Qingchen shifted her gaze slightly and asked her again: "How many times has Master Fu used the dishes you cooked?"

"Today is the first time, right?" the drunk Jiang Hexue would answer him seriously. "I only do this after leaving the Zhenbei Marquisate. I'm usually lazy. If it weren't for the snow today and I didn't want the servants to go back and forth to the restaurant, I wouldn't bother to do it either."

Shen Qingchen raised his hand and touched the top of her head.

"Why are you asking that?" Jiang Hexue took the initiative to rub his palm. "Tell me first, is it delicious?"

Shen Qingchen nodded, but did not answer the previous question. She just pushed the sobering soup in front of her: “Drink some, ginger picked it.”

"If I don't drink, will you force me to drink like last time?" Jiang Hexue asked him with a smile, recalling the past.

"If you like, you can." Shen Qingchen answered calmly, but her ears were redder than hers who was still drunk.

"No." Jiang Hexue shook her head and, unusually obediently, used the hangover soup herself. "I just want to kiss my beautiful husband."

Shen Qingchen was as unmoved as ever, his Adam's apple slid up and down, and he tilted his face slightly towards her.

Jiang Hexue didn't kiss me: "I've been drinking. You've almost got your ears pierced, don't touch me."

She remembers things that she shouldn't be aware of better than anyone else.

Shen Qingchen had no choice but to sit up straight again. Seeing her finish the hangover soup in a few gulps, he turned around and asked a question: "Why are you drinking?"

Jiang Hexue regained some consciousness and slowly told him about Ah Cheng's situation: "That's really too much."

"It just so happens that today Fu Er mentioned to me that I had promised him to go to the temple to pray for blessings. I might as well go there in the next two days." She looked at Shen Qingchen eagerly. "Do you know the temple that Kyoto often goes to to pray for academic success? I remember Dingkong Temple is not it."

"I'll take you to Renshu Temple in the suburbs of Beijing tomorrow."

"Renshu Temple? Isn't that a place for finding marriage?" Jiang Hexue had heard of it.

"It's mainly to pray for your good luck. And to help him while you're at it." Shen Qingchen paused and added, "You also want to pray for Gan Le and Jiang Xiaolang, that's the best place."

He had wanted to take her with him since the beginning of his marriage.

Jiang Hexue agreed: "Then let's go and rest."

Shen Qingchen carried her upstairs with ease.

"Just now, Fu Er asked why I didn't tell you about Ah Cheng." Jiang Hexue let him take off his embroidered shoes and silk stockings, and then she told him about Ah Cheng and Zhou Yiheng. "Even though Zhou Yiheng is wrong, I'm worried that you'll be caught between me and the Su family..."

"No." Shen Qingchen answered decisively. "Help you."

"...I am naturally happy that you are like this, but it will definitely disappoint my mother." Jiang Hexue lay down on the couch and motioned him to lie down too.

Shen Qingchen shook his head and took her into his arms.

"Ah? I think my mother treats you well." The bed was not wide enough, so Jiang Hexue stayed in his arms without moving.

"Maybe she forgot." Shen Qingchen lowered his eyelashes and asked suddenly. "Do you still remember when we first met?"

"In the summer of the fifteenth...sixteenth year, in Liangzhou?"

"No, it was earlier." Shen Qingchen took her hand into his palm. "It was in the eighth year of Yongjia, at the New Year's Eve banquet."

"That day we met by chance in the Imperial Garden, and you asked me..." He closed his eyes slightly, recalling the old days.

"The Emperor and Empress Dowager Su both have black pupils. Little Immortal, whose eye color did you inherit?"