10 Engagement

◎It is a happy event. ◎

When Ciying woke up again, she felt someone standing in front of her.

The crying and noise were mostly blocked by the familiar figure. She almost thought it was the young lady who came back, but in the next moment she recognized that the shaky figure in front of her was the lady.

——The lady who was seriously ill and lying in bed in a coma for most of the day.

Of course, the lady's condition is not much better now, or it is very bad. Ci Ying looked at the lady's pale and weak profile and the figure blocking her way. She lifted the quilt and tried to get up, but the mouthful of blood seemed to have taken away all her strength. It took Ci Ying a long time to sit up.

She looked at the Madam before her. Sickness and weakness, like the thin curl of smoke from an incense burner, emanated from her shaky figure. As if a dream had been suddenly shattered, Ci Ying emerged from the Madam's room, which reeked of medicine. She saw the clear sky outside, and beneath it, the Madam, half-dead from the illness.

It seemed like Ci Ying had just discovered it today, and it also seemed like she had to discover it today.

The young lady has already left, and the lady seems to have not much time left.

Ci Ying was silent for a moment.

Unlike the young lady, who had been frail since childhood, the lady had been in excellent health until her death. On a summer night with shimmering stars, Ciying and the young lady lay on a boat together, gazing at the starry sky. The young lady had once, with a gentle smile, recounted to Ciying a story about the lady's youth. Back then, when the second young lady Lin was in Chang'an in March, she whipped her horse and a woman threw flowers and fruit at her. This event became known as one of the great amusement parks in Chang'an.

But the lady in front of him was like a dead branch covered with snow in winter, pale and shriveled under her gorgeous clothes.

When Ciying looked over, she saw the lady holding the table with one hand and extending her sleeve to shield herself from view. From a peripheral vision, Ciying also saw Aunt Yusheng, dragging someone along. The room was in chaos, with countless figures confronting each other. Ciying's ears were filled with cries, angry voices, and a deadly clamor.

As Ciying's thoughts slowly returned, she gradually made out the numerous figures in the room. The servants inside her room knelt outside and looked in the direction the old lady was blocking. The old lady raised her cane and shouted angrily. Chuntao and Chunhua knelt and pulled her. The head of the family looked at the old lady with a complex and cold expression.

Ci Ying was speechless and struggled to get up from the bed. How could she deserve the lady to protect her like this? She had trusted Ru Zhen again and again and had caused great disasters. How could she let the lady bear the consequences for her?

No one noticed that Ciying had woken up. When Ciying sat up on the bed with a pale face, the previous stalemate suddenly changed.

Ci Ying looked towards the crowd screaming, only to see the lady pull out the golden hairpin on her head, press it against her throat, and roar: "Xie Qingzheng, promise me that you will get them engaged today. You owe me, and your Xie family owes me!" Her face was a mixture of tears, anger, and resentment, like a cuckoo weeping blood. When she roared, the golden hairpin on her hand was moved, piercing into the flesh, and blood instantly flowed out.

Everyone present immediately changed their expressions. Xie Qingzheng shouted, "Lin Lan!"

The lady opened her mouth to say something, but her emotions were too great and her frail body could not hold on. She was about to fall. Ci Ying had not yet recovered from the word "engagement" and subconsciously rushed forward to support the lady who had fallen.

In a panic, Ci Ying hugged his wife, and before he realized anything, tears had already fallen.

How could Madam be so embarrassed for her...

The golden hairpin fell from Lin Lan's hand due to exhaustion and fell to the ground. Yu Sheng shook off the old nanny's hand behind her, knelt on the ground and took Lin Lan from Ci Ying's arms.

The room was noisy again. The old lady raised her crutch and dropped it on the kneeling Ci Ying. The lady clenched the golden hairpin in her hand with red eyes.

"Enough!" This was said by Xie Qingzheng.

As the voice fell, the once bustling room suddenly became dead silent. Only Lin Lan, lying on the ground, turned her eyes from the old lady to the right, slowly fixing Lin Qingzheng's figure in place. Her eyes were too revealing, decades of hatred and resentment overflowing at this moment. With the melancholy and sickness carved by time, she stared at Xie Qingzheng for a long time.

Xie Qingzheng looked at Lin Lan. As he looked at Lin Lan, the head of the Xie family, who had been mighty and upright all his life, sat down on the armchair at the back with trembling steps.

Lin Lan still looked at him like that, and Xie Qingzheng could no longer ignore her. Once he felt like retreating, compromise was inevitable.

Xie Qingzheng closed his eyes. He had never experienced such a moment in his life. In a trance, Xie Qingzheng thought of the daughter he and Lin Lan had born. She had a disease from her mother's womb and had been weak since childhood. Whenever she looked at him, she would call him "Father" in a light and distant tone and then walk towards her mother.

After Yu Sheng helped Lin Lan to a chair, Xie Qing finally spoke: "Lin Lan, Shu He, as the eldest son of the Xie family, cannot marry a maid."

The old lady beside him leaned on her cane, her words full of contempt: "Even being a concubine is not enough."

Lin Lan looked over coldly, but before she could say anything, Xie Qingzheng said in a cold voice, "Mother is tired, Chuntao and Chunhua, help her down to rest."

Chuntao and Chunhua lowered their heads and supported the old lady on the left and right. The old lady wanted to say something, but was silenced by Xie Qingzheng's cold look. However, she was still unwilling to give in. She raised her crutches and clapped them a few more times before she snorted and left with her two maids.

The room suddenly grew quieter. Ci Ying stood behind Lin Lan, her hands and feet cold as she finally understood what had happened. She had assumed the Madam had regained her memory, heard about the flower viewing banquet, and wanted to protect the young lady for her own sake, leading to a conflict with the Patriarch and the old lady.

Ci Ying had never thought that the lady would want her to marry the eldest son.

She almost immediately wanted to kneel down, but Aunt Yusheng, who was beside her, held her up. Ciying looked at Aunt Yusheng with tears in her eyes, wanting to tell herself that she had never had such extravagant thoughts, but Aunt Yusheng held her wrist tightly and shook her head at her very softly.

So Ci Ying looked at the lady in front of her with trembling eyes. Even though she was sitting on the armchair and was almost exhausted, the lady still protected her tightly behind her.

Ciying lowered her eyes and tears fell.

The lady did not continue with Xie Qingzheng's words, but said in a cold voice: "Who said Ciying was a maid? I have sent a message to my uncle and cousin. From tomorrow on, Ciying is the sixth daughter of our Jiang family. She will be included in the family tree and placed under the wing of my eldest cousin and his wife."

The Jiang family was Lin Lan's mother's maternal clan, and the uncle Lin Lan mentioned was Jiang Wen, the current Minister of Rites. Over the past twenty years, Lin Lan had severed ties with the Lin family due to the incident, but she had always maintained contact with the Jiang family.

Lin Lan looked at Lin Qingzheng with a resolute gaze, her eyes cold and filled with a hint of disgust. Lin Qingzheng was speechless. Even after twenty years of marriage, he still didn't understand Lin Lan.

Today, even at the cost of death, she was determined to make a maid the mistress of the Xie family. Was it because this maid really pleased her, or was it Lin Lan's revenge on the Xie and Lin families that she had been planning for twenty years?

But he knew Lin Lan quite well. Lin Lan was indeed a person who wanted love to live and hate to die. Back then, the two elders of the Lin family knelt under the carriage to send her to the bridal sedan. She stopped struggling dejectedly and said with tears in her eyes, "Today I, Lin Lan, will repay your life. This is the end of our relationship in this life."

That was the only time in her life that she compromised.

Xie Qingzheng looked at Lin Lan. Yu Sheng's hand was still on the bleeding part of her neck. Xie Qingzheng was speechless. He knew in his heart that no matter what the reason was, Lin Lan would not compromise again today.

Xie Qingzheng closed his eyes and lowered his voice: "Shuhe, what do you think about your marriage?"

It was from this sentence that Ci Ying realized that Xie Huaijin was also in the room.

Ci Ying looked at Xie Huaijin. When the patriarch spoke, he was standing by the window. Next to the window was a tree full of crabapple blossoms. When the wind blew, the crabapple blossoms fell like light red snow. Xie Huaijin was standing in that light red snow and chuckled when he heard the words.

Like snow in the mountains, like a gurgling stream.

That smile fixed Ciying's eyes.

It was a long time later that Ci Ying understood what Xie Huaijin was laughing at at that time.

But now, Ci Ying looked at Xie Huaijin and only heard her lover say, "Marriage is a matter of parents' orders and matchmaker's words. It's up to parents to decide."

Just like that, with the background of the room full of shivering servants kneeling on the ground, and the scar on Lin Lan's neck that had stopped bleeding as an embellishment, in the dead silence, Xie Qingzheng finally spoke and finalized this absurd marriage contract.

As for Ciying, no one would care about Ciying.

No one would ask a maid whether she is willing to marry a noble master, and no one would ask Ci Ying whether she wants to marry the lover she has loved since her youth.

After the scandal of the flower viewing banquet, her love, soul, and even her entire person became the least important things in this hastily arranged marriage.

Almost at the moment Xie Qingzheng spoke, Lin Lan couldn't hold on and fainted.

Ci Ying hurried forward to support the lady, and Lin Qing also wanted to go forward, but was blocked by Yu Sheng the next moment.

Lin Qingzheng took a step back, turned around and told the maid to find the palace doctor, then looked at Xie Huaijin beside him and frowned, "Shuhe, come out with me."

The court doctor arrived and took the lady back with Aunt Yusheng. Ciying wanted to follow, but Aunt Yusheng stopped her: "The doctor said you should rest well, my dear. Don't worry, I'll take care of the lady."

So Ciying had no choice but to stay, and the servants who were kneeling on the ground also stayed with her.

I don’t know when it started, but they crawled forward on their knees and surrounded Ciying, crying out, “Miss, Miss, please save us, Miss… please.”

How many farces they had witnessed today, how many secrets they had heard, would become a knife at their necks tomorrow. Now all they could pray for was Ciying, who was still in this farce.

Ci Ying looked at them, and as she looked, tears began to fall.

She is going to marry her sweetheart.

It's a happy event.

How many more happy events like this can she have in her life?

Ci Ying wiped the tears from her face, not understanding why she was crying.

The maids were still kneeling and kowtowing, crying, and some even came up and hugged Ciying's legs. Ciying thought it might be a dream, so she closed her eyes and fainted. Before losing consciousness, Ciying saw the young lady again.

Just as she understood him, the young lady understood her as well.

The young lady noticed something strange about Ciying after she came back from the heavy snow even before Ciying did. So when Ciying picked up her pen to write the love poem and subconsciously wanted to destroy it, the young lady stopped her.

Faced with Ciying's blushing face, embarrassed eyes, and bitter love poems, the young lady gently treasured them.

The young lady said to her, "If you like your brother, Ciying, I can help you."

When saying this, Xie Suwei looked into Ci Ying's eyes very seriously, as if she would do something the next moment as long as Ci Ying nodded, but Ci Ying just shook her head.

She didn't know whether the lady was joking or serious at that moment, but she seriously rejected the lady's kindness.

She was sold to a man by a scholar for ten taels of silver. Is ten taels of silver too little? It was quite a lot. It was enough for the scholar to bribe an official once and gain a high position in society. It was enough for the embroiderer to not have to stay up all night embroidering for three years. It was enough to save hundreds of people in Dingyang during the famine that year.

But when she arrived at Xie's house, ten taels of silver was just a monthly allowance for the young lady, and it was just a piece of sandalwood and gold Xuan paper, which was popular in Chang'an.

A thin piece of rice paper is enough to buy a living her.

Who is Xie Huaijin?

Ci Ying no longer wanted to use those piled-up words to describe Xie Huaijin.

So she gazed at the bright moon in the night sky, comparing him to the moon, herself to the vast multitude beneath his cold, clear light. Only by standing on the sandalwood and gold rice paper that matched his could she possibly stand shoulder to shoulder with him.

She looked at the moon and wondered how many sheets of sandalwood and gold rice paper this person named Ciying would have to put under her feet to get that moon?

The answer is——

Thousands and millions, endless.

So when the young lady asked her, Ciying was wondering whether she could ever reach that person in her entire life.

cannot.

At the moment of fainting, Ci Ying whispered: "I can't..."

She can't.

And the old question has a new answer.

How can she get that crescent moon?

The lady filled in the answer for her, which required a blood-stained golden hairpin.

She needed a seriously ill, weak and shaky lady to stand in front of her, and she needed the lady who had been dignified and gentle all her life after entering the mansion to awkwardly insert the golden hairpin into her own throat.

She accepted the heavy gift in a daze.

Then what.

How could she repay this enormous kindness?

The slaves' wails echoed in Ci Ying's ears, and she drifted off to sleep, as if being dragged down by waterweed into a bottomless lake. She couldn't save them; they needed to gamble their lives on the Xie family's mercy, and so did she.

In the dream, Ci Ying saw Xie Huaijin again in the snow that year.

He was very close to her, within her reach, but she stammered and didn't dare take a step forward.

The time in the dream quietly transformed into everything that happened in the room before falling asleep. Ci Ying looked at herself behind the lady, and saw her pale face, falling tears, and stopped heart at the moment when Xie Huaijin spoke.

From that moment on, every beat of her heart for Xie Huaijin was filled with a bloody scent.

【Author’s words】