54 Chapter 54

◎Let’s meet again, even if it’s fake.◎

The streets were bustling with people. A canopied carriage with the sign of the Duke of Fuguo's Mansion was rumbling by, followed by a luggage cart loaded with several boxes and cages.

On both sides of the carriage were two personal maids serving as attendants, and in front of the carriage were four maids walking with their heads lowered. Behind the carriage were dozens of guards walking in two rows, each holding the long sword at his waist tightly.

The group walked around two busy streets and headed towards Qi Mansion on North Street.

The two maids who were serving were Nanzhi and Lin Xiao, and inside the carriage was Lady Zhao Wan, the wife of the Duke of Fuguo, who was comforting her long-awaited daughter-in-law.

"That bastard actually did something so foolish as to clamor for a concubine on the second day of his wedding. But my lady, please don't take it to heart."

Zhao Wan spoke earnestly, but she couldn't quite believe what she said. "He had a rough childhood, so I spoiled him to be so willful. But he's not a bad person by nature. He was just possessed by a ghost today and said those harsh words. He didn't really mean it."

Of course Xu Qinghe knew that the so-called concubine was just a cover.

This morning, she took Nanzhi to the Duke of Fuguo and his wife, crying, to complain. Wei Yiqun was so angry that he picked up his sword and was about to kill this rebellious son, but was persuaded by Zhao Wan.

Zhao Wan knew that her son had done something wrong again, but this lady was asked for by her son himself. She thought that it would help her son grow up and be more obedient, but she didn't expect that her nature was still hard to change. On the second day of their marriage, he started to ask for a concubine!

She took her daughter-in-law to their courtyard, determined to support her daughter-in-law and not let another scandal spread out of the Prince of Fuguo's Mansion.

Who would have thought that as soon as I stepped into the moon-shaped door in the backyard, I heard the laughter of men and women coming from the window of the new house.

And that male voice was clearly his son's!

Zhao Wan was so angry that she lost her usual composure and kicked the closed door open!

She saw that the curtains of the bed in the inner room had already been drawn. She lifted the curtains and saw clothes scattered all over the floor.

As his eyes moved up, he saw his son lying on the bed, wearing only his shirt, clapping his hands to the rhythm, and in front of him was a beautiful maid with half her clothes on, twisting her lithe waist and dancing to the song on the ground.

"Evil child!" Zhao Wan's eyes were almost spitting fire. He picked up the wireless water surface bamboo picture seven-treasure vase from the shelf beside him and smashed it over, hitting the maid's shoulder.

The maid immediately fell to her knees and begged for mercy. Wei Che grabbed his robe and threw it on himself, saying in a panic, "Mother... Mother, why are you here?"

Zhao Wan didn't say much, picked up the feather duster and started beating him violently: "Didn't you say you would turn over a new leaf after getting married? Then what are you doing today?"

"Mother, look at the princess's face. It's become like that. Who can bear to see it? My son hasn't even had his wedding night yet. There are so many beautiful maids in the courtyard. What's wrong with me finding one or two to be concubines? It will save the princess from too much trouble! Hey, be gentle... be gentle, mother!"

Wei Che hid while raising his voice to defend himself.

The wife of the Duke of Fuguo made such a grand scene that the maids in the entire courtyard, although they kept their heads down, were all listening with their ears perked up. The servants in the outer courtyard could not hear anything and wished they could spread their wings and fly in to take a look.

In the inner room, Zhao Wan panted, "You have many beautiful maids? I'll give you more! I'll give you more! Just wait, my wicked son. I'll send the princess to Princess Jing'an's residence first, and then I'll come back to clean up your Fengheyuan!"

So the result was that Zhao Wan personally took Xu Qinghe to Princess Jing'an's mansion in a car.

The daughter-in-law felt wronged and wanted to find someone to complain to, but this was not possible. However, the evil son knew that the princess was just outside the door and still spoke nonsense, which hurt the princess's heart deeply.

Zhao Wan was not a pedantic and conservative person. Moreover, the reputation of the Prince of Fuguo's Mansion had long been ruined by his son. He was not worried about the debts. No matter how ridiculous it was now, it was just a topic of conversation among the people after dinner.

**

Princess Jing'an received the news in the morning and immediately ordered people to clean out the guest room where Xu Qinghe had stayed, and she went to the door to greet him in person.

Then he saw a group of people coming down the long street. The wife of the Duke of Fuguo and Xu Qinghe, who was wearing a veiled hat, got off the carriage and personally handed Qinghe to him.

Jing'an felt depressed.

She had known that Prince Wei was not a good man, but she didn't expect him to do such a ridiculous thing. It was a pity for Qinghe, who fell seriously ill on her wedding night, and her husband made such a joke before she recovered.

Xu Qinghe had no choice but to ask Nanzhi to explain the various reasons to her.

Jing'an: "You mean, he did this on purpose, hoping to use the wife of the Duke of Fuguo to clean up the backyard?"

Xu Qinghe wrote on her palm: It also gives me an excuse to leave the Prince of Fuguo's Mansion.

When she was in the palace before, she needed the permission of Queen Mother Wei to leave the palace. Now that she has married into the Prince of Fuguo’s Mansion, she still cannot come and go freely at first.

At this time, she was a little envious of Jing'an.

The parents of the son-in-law Qi Sheng died early, and now there is only one mistress, Jing'an, in the huge Qi Mansion. She has no elders to support her and concubines to sleep with. If she wants to leave the mansion, she can do it with just a word.

Unlike the Prince of Fuguo's Mansion, what you do and what you say must be considered by the Duke and the Duchess.

But for Xu Qinghe, this is already the best result.

She estimated that she would stay in Jing'an Mansion for three to five days. On the one hand, she asked Nanzhi to direct his men to move the boxes and gifts from the carriage frame, and on the other hand, she asked Jing'an to ask the doctor of Qi Mansion to treat her again.

In order to prevent Jing'an from worrying too much, she did not explain the hidden reason behind taking peanuts, but just said that she was not feeling well.

After the female court doctor came to see her, she checked the ointment she usually used. In fact, Xu Qinghe had not used this medicine since yesterday. Even though the female court doctor said today that the ointment was fine, she only asked the court doctor to prescribe some other medicine.

Qi Sheng went to the palace to be on duty, so Jing'an had lunch placed in the room where Xu Qinghe was. After the two sisters had their meal together, she told Xu Qinghe about the paintings.

"Your paintings originally sold well in the calligraphy and painting shop. Although they weren't masterpieces by great masters, they were simple yet vivid, and the scenery they depicted was a southern region never seen by people in Beijing. But then... a strange customer suddenly approached the shop owner, and he in turn approached me."

In fact, the shop owner did not approach Princess Jing'an directly. Jing'an originally gave the paintings to the cousin of her personal maid, sister-in-law. She only said that the cousin had found some unknown calligraphy and paintings from somewhere and wanted to do calligraphy and painting business, but he had no way to do it, so he had to act as a middleman to sell the calligraphy and paintings.

The shop owner was reluctant to accept the unknown work, but the cousin insisted that the owner take a look at the painting first.

Sure enough, after looking at the paintings, the boss saw that the paintings used only a few strokes to outline the beautiful mountains and rivers that people in Beijing could hardly see. Each painting had its own characteristics and its own mood. They were all different yet vivid, making people feel as if they were there. It took them a long time to come back to their senses.

The advantage of these paintings is that they are fresh and vivid. Scarcity makes them valuable. Although they are not works of famous artists, they will definitely fetch a good price.

So the boss accepted all the paintings and told the cousin that if he had any more paintings by that painter in the future, he could send them all and he would buy them all.

Later, a strange customer bought two paintings and claimed that he wanted to spend a large sum of money to meet the painter in person, intending to hire him as his private painter.

The boss passed the news to his cousin, who then passed it all the way to Jing'an.

"Mr. Jiang will reserve a private room at the Bamboo Tea House on May 16th. Please come and keep the appointment."

Considering that she had just left the palace and didn't have a detailed understanding of the situation in Beijing, Jing'an explained to her, "The Bamboo Tea House is a teahouse in Beijing. Although it's not the most famous, it attracts many talented scholars."

Xu Qinghe thought that Mr. Jiang chose such a place because, firstly, he did not want to attract too much attention, and secondly, he did not want to treat his future private painter badly.

Today is May 13th, and the appointment with Zhu Ming is in three days.

I don’t know whether Wei Che can handle the affairs of the Duke of Fuguo’s Mansion within three days.

But Xu Qinghe still hoped that he could do things more slowly and carefully. She could come and go freely in Jing'an, but that might not be the case when she returned to the Duke of Fuguo's Mansion.

The sky suddenly changed in the afternoon. Dark clouds climbed all the way from the northern horizon and quickly occupied the originally blue sky at a speed visible to the naked eye. The sky and the earth suddenly became dark, and the originally gentle and warm wind became faster and faster, mixed with a strong sense of tide.

Xu Qinghe was already ill, feeling very weak and achy. Now he had no energy to walk around, so he simply spread out paper in front of the desk and started painting.

The moment I picked up the paintbrush, a flash of lightning suddenly split the sky, tearing a bright hole in the dark sky. Then a few loud thunders sounded in the sky, and bean-sized raindrops immediately fell down with crackling sounds.

She glanced at the glass window where raindrops were already sliding down, and couldn't help but recall that there had been a similar heavy rain in the southern border more than five years ago.

At that time, Xu Qinghe's father and mother had been dead for half a year.

Fearing that she was too young to accept the bad news, Xie Qi followed her parents' orders and stayed by her side every step of the way, both to protect her and to comfort her.

Half a year had passed like this, and she was still immersed in the sorrow of her parents' death, unable to get out of it. Xie Qi's companionship day and night had made her dependent on him. Whenever she couldn't hear his voice or see his figure, she would feel even more empty in her heart.

However, there are still remnants of the Nanyi Kingdom who often harass the border. Xie Qi is not only her childhood sweetheart and fiancé, but also the young General Xie of the entire Southern Border Army.

That day when he was ordered to go to the border by military means, it was also raining heavily. Xie Qi stood at the door and said goodbye to her. Xu Qinghe did not respond, but she remembered that when the news of her father and mother's death came, it seemed to be raining heavily like this.

In the pouring rain, she never seemed to get any good news.

Previously, it was news of the death of both parents, and today it was news that Xie Qi was about to rush to the border.

"The border issue isn't serious. I'll be back early tomorrow morning and come see you then, okay?"

Xie Qi said this, put his arm around her shoulders and held her in his arms, and finally gave her a passionate kiss on the forehead.

"wait for me."

Xu Qinghe no longer remembered how he reacted at that time. Now, standing in front of the desk, he suddenly realized that the only thing left in his mind was a gray-white figure gradually moving away in the falling rain.

She couldn't tell whether it was the rain that blurred his back view at that time, or whether she had already forgotten his figure now.

Amidst flashes of lightning and cries of thunder, streaks of ink seeped onto the plain white paper.

Surrounded by mountains in the southern border, the dome was gloomy and covered with dark clouds, and raindrops were crackling in the sky. Across the endless wilderness, a young general came galloping with his horse's back lowered.

The world and mountains are so vast, and the man and the horse are so small. They turned into a tiny shadow in the rain, but they seemed to be galloping forward.

It was just what she imagined, the look of Xie Qi returning on horseback.

"Princess, it's past midnight. Do you want to take a bath and rest?"

Nanzhi's voice briefly pulled her away from the distant past. After taking a bath, Xu Qinghe asked Nanzhi to go to the ear room to rest and she didn't have to keep watch.

She lay alone on the bed, with the occasional sound of thunder and the crackling of raindrops in her ears.

In fact, Xie Qi did not lie to her.

Young Xu Qinghe sat alone on his pillow, unable to sleep on that rainy night. He fell into a light sleep near dawn, but not long after, he was startled awake by a loud thunder in the sky.

There were still lightning flashes outside, and a candlelight was dying in the corridor. She opened her eyes and saw a hazy figure outside the bed curtains.

"...Xie Qi?" Xu Qinghe asked tentatively.

The figure leaning against the bed frame shuddered suddenly, as if just awakened from sleep, and his voice was hoarse when he spoke: "Did I wake you?"

It was indeed him.

At that moment, Xu Qinghe's eyes felt hot and his nose felt sore.

She felt like crying.

She remembered that when she was six or seven years old, she was very afraid of thunderstorm nights. At that time, her father and mother had just returned from the battlefield. When they heard that their little princess could not sleep at night, they stayed outside the bed to protect her.

Now that her father and mother are gone, Xie Qi is still with her.

When Xu Qinghe thought of her father and mother who were no longer alive, she couldn't help but burst into tears.

In the past six months, Xie Qi had seen all kinds of ways of her crying. He could tell with just a few ears. Now, she must be hugging the quilt and crying with pursed lips in the bed curtains.

He sighed, raised his hand to open the curtain, and said, "Qinghe, I'm coming in."

Xu Qinghe didn't say anything. She listened to the sound of his footsteps getting closer and closer on the ground. She turned her back to him and her tears rolled down even more violently.

Xie Qi sat on the floor beside the bed and patted her shoulder gently, very lightly, very softly, and without haste, which reminded her of the way her mother patted her to sleep when she was little.

"Qinghe, I'm here."

She fell asleep to the gentle patting sound.

Suddenly, there was another loud thunder in the sky. Xu Qinghe opened his eyes suddenly. Coincidentally, at this moment, a white light suddenly appeared in the sky, illuminating the dark room.

Outside the bed curtains, a hazy figure appeared.

She was a little dazed for a moment. What she saw before her, whether it was the momentary light from the lightning, the figure outside the bed curtain, or the crackling sound of raindrops hitting the ground, made her unable to tell what day it was.

Especially the figure leaning against the bed frame, which was exactly the same as in my memory.

At this moment, she seemed to have forgotten the pain in her throat. She only opened her eyes and called out tentatively: "...Xie Qi?"

The figure leaning against the bed frame suddenly trembled, as if just awakened from sleep, and his voice was hoarse when he spoke: "Did I wake you?"

It was indeed him.

At that moment, Xu Qinghe's eyes felt hot and his nose felt sore.

Be it a dream or a fantasy.

All in all, it would be good if she could see him again.