Chapter 95 Night Talk (1) A late-night chat between fans of old-fashioned folk music who ship characters...

"Hey, it's flowing over here."

"Find a bamboo pole, quickly find a bamboo pole."

"Pick a long one!"

"Hurry, hurry, hurry!"

In the back garden, a group of maids braved the wind and rain to chase after the white gauze lanterns that drifted eastward with the water along the Stream.

The plain gauze lanterns flickered in the stream, drifting aimlessly with the current...

The girl picked up the lantern she had been longing for, only to find that the plain gauze lantern had been burned with a hole by the candle flame when it tipped over. She was very disappointed and threw the lantern by the water.

A-Cai gently placed the oil-paper umbrella on the bluestone, picked up the lamp, examined it from all sides, and smiled at the girl, saying, "It's just wet, not covered in mud. It would be a waste to throw it away, given its exquisite carved wood grain. I'll try to repair it."

The girl looked at A-Cai with a skeptical expression: "Sister Cai, can you really fix it?"

Ah Cai nodded, holding an oil-paper umbrella in one hand and a lamp in the other, and left chatting and laughing with the crowd.

She deliberately gestured to the girl, whose face was full of questions, to the hole burned into the gauze lamp: "Look, this hole is shaped like a wing. Perhaps we can patch it up with a kestrel, a phoenix, or a dragonfly..."

Because they were both busy during the day, Guoniang and Acai were unusually allowed to not keep watch at the lamp tonight.

The wind chimes on Rouyi's eaves trembled slightly, echoing the slanting wind and drizzle. Acai sewed up the waterlogged and scorched gauze lantern, while Guoniang recorded the recent expenditures of the Li family's villa treasury and Changsun Qingjing's private savings for Changsun Qingjing.

Rouyi built a separate house, which, although not spacious, was quite satisfactory as it served as the daily residence of her master's personal maid.

"Ah Cai, let me ask you, when you went to report to your wife just now, was she still angry? Did she complain to Erlang? Did Erlang get ridiculed by his wife?" Guo Niang asked cautiously, afraid of overstepping her bounds.

“She’s not angry, my wife is quite happy.” A-Cai looked up at the grasshopper. “My wife watched the insects for a while and was in a good mood. Chan-Yi said she only saw the two of them watching the rain under the eaves from afar… chatting and laughing… and then…”

"And then?" the grasshopper asked curiously.

"And then, just like that... um... the young master left Cuiwei Residence and went back to his own quarters." Acai, her mind focused on the hole in the plain gauze lamp, muttered to herself, "This fire is strange, burning so unevenly. Perhaps I should embroider a phoenix, but this lampshade is too plain; I'll embroider a dragonfly instead. Grasshopper, do you prefer dragonflies or damselflies?"

Guoniang snatched the plain gauze lantern away, glaring at Acai and saying, "'So-and-so' means what? Speak like a human being!"

"You're so poor!" the grasshopper said, pursing her lips. "I told you to speak properly, not to use such flowery language!"

"...It's...it's Erlang who secretly kissed his wife! How could you be so stupid!"

"In front of everyone?"

"It wasn't intentional, but I wasn't trying to avoid people anyway..."

The cricket's reproachful cries, the painless punches, and the exasperated words made A-Cai giggle: "Spare me, spare me, I only heard it from Chan-Yi... Okay, okay, next time we'll go get the ginger and cinnamon soup, and you can spy on us."

The grasshopper, tired from pounding, stopped and chuckled, clutching her stomach. "No wonder when I was ordered to deliver the ginger and cinnamon soup to Erlang, he was playing the pipa and singing something like 'The Oriole Stays, the Mulberries Are Ripe,' it was awful, and he wouldn't let anyone interrupt him. Turns out he had something on his mind..."

"Huh?"

"Well……"

The two girls stared at each other for a long time, then finally reached a consensus: "Don't tell Madam Liu!"

The two girls became uneasy at the thought that the task entrusted to them by Lady Liu to keep a close watch on her husband and wife might fall into their hands.

"Tell me, what were you and your husband doing in the mulberry grove that night after the feast?" A-Cai asked tentatively.

"What can you do in such a short time?" Guoniang said with a look of disdain for Acai's naiveté.

"So you think you know a lot?" A-Cai retorted, unconvinced.

"On the day of the feast, when your wife came back from the plateau, was she all puffed up with anger and tears in her eyes?" A-Cai asked.

"Yes," Guoniang added, "Later, Erlang didn't dare to provoke him anymore, and he was always careful around him. He even came to Cuiwei Residence in person to apologize. My wife then went to sleep happily again..."

"I thought they were just arguing..."

"I also thought they were just arguing..."

"ah!"

"Then I'll keep the books!"

The two remained silent for a long time, each focusing on their own tasks.

Guoniang took out a pile of receipts and wrote down the quantities of animal hides and medicinal materials donated by the village heads on behalf of the elders of the village, as well as the details of the rice, millet, cloth, and tiles donated by the Li family in return.

"Hey, Cai, how do you write the 'marrow' in 'earth marrow'?" Guo Niang scratched her head with the root of her pen and asked somewhat embarrassedly.

"Don't be so arrogant and look down on me!"

“Then I’ll teach you.” Ah Cai was struggling with whether to change the hole in the gauze lampshade into a butterfly or a dragonfly wing, and said somewhat perfunctorily, “Listen carefully, remove the ear from the character ‘Sui’ in the name of the dynasty, add the walking radical, and add a bone radical on the left.”

"What dynasty? It's all gone!" The grasshopper's mind was overwhelmed by the massive amount of information. Like a flood bursting its banks, she couldn't resist and could only reluctantly admit defeat, saying, "You're so jealous, you're just trying to cause trouble. I'm ignoring you."

After saying that, she copied the messy handwriting on the first few receipts she had presented, and then drew a piece of rehmannia root next to it in case Changsun Qingjing couldn't understand it.

A-Cai merely glanced at the grasshopper girl, too lazy to put down her needlework to teach her to write, only secretly chuckling. Through her ingenious craftsmanship, a pair of dragonfly wings cleverly concealed the hole.

"It's as if so many county magistrates, county lieutenants, and registrars are vying to marry you," Guoniang laughed.

"What nonsense are you two young ladies spouting here instead of keeping watch tonight?"

"Oh no, the fierce Hun woman is here!" Guoniang cried out in despair.

"What shrewish Hun woman?" A Cai asked, puzzled.

“It’s Lady Liu! I don’t know which page of the Duke’s youth gave her that nickname. Everyone’s used to calling her that behind her back.” Guo Niang snatched the still unrepaired gauze lantern, threw down her pen, and blew out the oil lamp. “Stop mending! Don’t say anything more, rest. Otherwise, that fierce Xiongnu woman will punish you by making you sleep in the porch.”

The two of them leaped onto the bed like lightning and crawled into the quilt, pretending to be asleep.

"I heard a noisy cricket talking badly about me behind my back," Liu Niangzi said jokingly, lightly knocking on the door.

"My lady, how could I dare?" Guoniang pretended to sit up from under the covers. "I was just telling Acai that Lady Changsun likes dragonflies, and Acai got a sudden inspiration and tried to embroider a dragonfly pattern and asked me if it looked good."

"You two, go check if there's still water in the water clock!" Madam Liu pounded on the door, raising her voice.

"My lady, A-Cai knows she was wrong. Let's rest now."

Once the small house was quiet again, Guoniang could hear the rustling of clothes outside. By the light of the torch, the silhouette of Liu Niangzi gradually disappeared into the distance, projected onto the window lattice.

After waiting for half a day and confirming that Madam Liu had gone far away, Ah Cai, still thinking about the dragonfly she hadn't finished embroidering, gently nudged the grasshopper beside her: "Hey, are you still going to keep track of the accounts? Madam Liu probably won't be coming back, right? Wake up, I'll teach you to write."

"Yama, the Queen Mother of the Underworld... I'll tear your mouth apart," the grasshopper mumbled in her sleep. She was probably too tired from the day, for she fell asleep the moment her head hit the pillow. But she was also troubled by the injustices of the day, hence her incessant talking in her sleep.

"Even in her dreams she's so fierce! And she still has the nerve to laugh at others." Ah Cai sighed and shook her head, then crawled into bed.

"Why do you toss and turn like a pancake in your sleep?! I woke up from the cold!" Guo Niang sat up again at some point. In the darkness, her face was not visible, but A Cai could only feel that this fierce girl was staring at her angrily, and she tried her best to snatch the quilt to the other side.

If it weren't for Guoniang's complaints, Acai, who is generally gentle, wouldn't even have realized why she was so tired and couldn't fall asleep.

"I'm angry." Ah Cai suddenly remembered the terrible encounter she had earlier that day.

Author's Note: I'm preparing to write the B-side of this story, from the perspective of a CP fan, depicting Erfeng arguing with her aunt [winking emoji]