Chapter 34

It rained from time to time in the past few days, but after it cleared up these days, the flowers in the garden bloomed more and more beautifully. I strolled along the corridor in the moonlight, secretly thinking that I would come back later to pick a few branches of half-opened roses, and add a few green gentian from my own yard, and put them in a vase on the desk to read. How poetic it would be!

As you step into the courtyard, the first thing you see is a banyan tree next to the steps leading into the house. Its huge crown blocks the scorching sun like an umbrella, casting a cool shade.

On a bamboo mat in the grassy field beneath a shady tree, Yun Kai lay, one hand tucked behind his head, the other holding a book. A cat with a sharp black nose curled up against his chest, sound asleep. A gentle breeze rustled the banyan leaves, sending a few leaves drifting through the air before swaying and landing on the mat.

The scene was warm and relaxing: bright sunshine, vibrant green trees, fresh grass, vibrant flowers, a handsome young man, and a lazy cat. Yueming felt the scene before her was as beautiful as a postcard.

It was a beautiful day with a gentle breeze, and the flowers were in full bloom with reds and tender greens. Yue Ming couldn't bear to disturb this beautiful tranquility, so she stood blankly at the gate of the yard.

The maid mopping the floor in the main hallway spotted Yueming and knelt on the floor to pay her respects. The noise startled Yunkai, who was lying on the grass. He propped himself up with his hands, and the cat slipped off his chest, meowed in dissatisfaction, stretched, and ran away.

Yun Kai smiled and said to Yue Ming, "You're here?"

Yueming's heart trembled at this smile. No matter how many times she looked at him, she felt that Yunkai was the most handsome person in the mansion.

Seeing that she was silent and in a daze, Yun Kai stood up and walked over to her. Seeing that she and the maidservant who accompanied her were empty-handed, he asked in confusion, "Didn't you say you were going to treat me to something delicious? Where is it? You're not going to treat me to Xibeifeng, are you? Or are you lying to me and actually want to come to my place for a free meal?"

Yueming closed her eyes. Han Yunkai was indeed a handsome man as long as he didn't speak.

Yueming was upset about her momentary distraction. She said dejectedly, "It's still in the kitchen. I'll bring it over soon."

Yun Kai was dissatisfied with her attitude and stretched out his fingers to grab her face and said, "You invited me to dinner and you're still rude. Are you itching for trouble?"

Yunkai was wearing a beige linen shirt and matching trousers today. Linen wrinkles easily, and his clothes were already awfully wrinkled just from lying down. His outfit also alerted Yueming, and her courage suddenly grew. She angrily brushed his hand away, "You're still blaming me? Where's the tailor you promised to find me? My clothes are almost ruined by washing."

Yunkai then remembered that Feng Xiaosai had come to tell him that Tailor Yan's apprentice had returned to Mengning with him. He had wanted to tell her, but after the Third Madam's incident, she had gone into hiding, and over time, he had forgotten.

Even though it was his mistake, Yun Kai remained calm and put the blame on me: "Didn't you run away when you saw me before? I should have chased you all over the house to tell you."

Having suffered so many losses at his hands, Yueming had long given up arguing with him.

She said helplessly, "Well, when will my tailor be here? If he doesn't come soon I'll have to wear winter clothes in this hot weather."

Yun Kai smiled shamelessly: "You can make do with the winter clothes first, he will be back after the Dragon Boat Festival."

Yueming felt her hands itching, and she really wanted to scratch his face. To avoid a bloodbath in the Second Young Master's beautiful courtyard, Yueming changed the subject, stroking a pink rose and saying, "Your flowers here are really beautiful. Can I pick a few?"

Yun Kai looked at her suspiciously: "Are you craving flower cakes?"

Unable to continue the conversation, Yueming turned to leave. Yunkai quickly grabbed her and said with a soothing smile, "Why are you so stubborn? Go ahead and pick them. Xiaosai! Go get Miss Lan a pair of scissors." As he spoke, he winked at Feng Xiaosai.

Feng Xiaosai had been in cahoots with Yunkai for years, and the second young master knew what to do with just one look. Bent over, he stepped forward and said apologetically to Yueming, "Miss Lan, these flowers are covered in thorns, so you can't do it yourself. Just point out the ones you like, and I'll cut them down and remove the thorns for you. You can take them home and enjoy them without worry."

Yueming turned around and tilted her head to look at Yunkai, and asked with a raised eyebrow, "Pick the one I like for me?"

Yun Kai said solemnly: "You can dig it up with the roots and bring it to your yard to enjoy it."

Yueming was satisfied and pointed at the flowers and said to Feng Xiaosai, "This one, this one, this one, and that one."

She cut off a large bunch of flowers as she instructed, but Yun Kai didn't feel bad. He nodded and praised her: "Drinking wine to make her slightly drunk, admiring flowers when they are half-opened, she has taste and style."

Yueming was so flattered by his flattery that she decided to return the favor: "Your favor is not for nothing. Tomorrow I'll ask Mrs. Du to make roast duck and mix it with vermicelli in duck fat. It's delicious. We can have dinner together tomorrow."

Ai Ye and the little girl from the kitchen came into the yard carrying food boxes. Yun Kai saw them and said with a smile, "You said I didn't plant the starvation poison in you the night you called your soul away. You haven't even eaten today, and you're already thinking about tomorrow night's meal."

Yue understood Yun Kai's words and said, "Where is the dining room? The starving people are waiting for dinner."

The steamed buns were thin and filling, and Yueming devoured them with the white flower bean and rice soup. As she ate, she opened her greasy mouth and said to Yunkai, "I love this white flower soup. It's in season, and it'll be gone in a month. I have to eat it every day during this month."

Yun Kai despised her for treating breakfast like a full meal. He had the maid serve him a bowl of sticky rice, and only after he ate a handful of ham, fermented black beans, and bracken with his chopsticks did he feel better. He had grown accustomed to eating bread while studying in England, and whenever he didn't have rice or rice noodles, he felt like he hadn't eaten at all. Even if his throat was full, he still felt unfulfilled.

As he ate his rice, he scoffed at Yueming's ignorance. "There are so many edible flowers all year round, magnolias, camellias, brooms, pear blossoms, banana blossoms, rape blossoms, walnut blossoms, beets. If you want to eat them, just ask the kitchen to make them for you. Why do you stick to eating just one white flower? Don't you feel sick of it?"

Yueming was not ashamed of her narrow-mindedness. She looked forward to a life in which she could eat all the flowers in Yunkai's mouth.

She held her chin with her hands and said hopefully, "If I eat these buds every day, will I grow like a flower in the future?"

Yun Kai chewed on some dried muntjac that he had slowly roasted over a low fire and chuckled, "Actually, you're like a flower right now. Do you want to know what kind of flower it is?"

Yueming knew that he definitely had no good intentions, so she held out her hand to stop him: "I don't want to, you don't have to tell me."

The Second Young Master wants to speak freely, but can you just not listen if you don't want to? He ignored Yueming's resistance and continued, "You are just like the cactus planted on the edge of the roadside orchard to prevent thieves. The flowers look delicate and attractive, but they are covered with thorns and you can't get close to them. You can only watch from afar."

Yueming...cactus? Not bad, right? She thought Yunkai was going to call her a dogtail grass!

She said to Ai Ye and Ye Hu, "There are people serving here. You can go and have your meal. I will be reading a book here with the Second Young Master later. After you finish your meal, go and get the book next to my pillow."

Ai Ye and Ye Hu bowed and left.

Yun Kai had almost finished his meal. He put down his chopsticks and wiped his mouth with a handkerchief. He said with a knowing look on his face, "You sent them out to tell me something shameful, right?"

Yueming put a bun in his bowl and said, "Eat some more."

Yunkai pushed the bowl away: "I'm full."

Yueming pushed it back to him again: "I'm not full yet. I feel embarrassed to eat if you put down your chopsticks."

The clouds opened... and he picked up the chopsticks again helplessly.

Yueming thought of her mistress, who was always so kind to her. As she ate, she said to Yunkai with a worried look on her face, "We have good food and drink at home, but Madam only ate vegetables and tofu when she went to worship Buddha. I wonder if she was able to eat enough."

Yun Kai asked curiously, "Who told you that Madam can only eat vegetables and tofu when worshipping Buddha?"

Yueming's eyes widened in disbelief as he asked, "Isn't that so? Dad and I went to Yuantong Temple to eat vegetarian food. It looked like meat, but it was actually made of tofu. How could Madam actually eat meat in a temple?"

Yun Kai curled his lips in disgust. "You Han people are so hypocritical and pretentious. You can eat vegetarian food if you want, but you have to make it look like chicken, duck, fish or meat. If you want to eat meat, can't you just eat at home first? You want to appear pious and appease yourselves. Even the Buddha can't bear to see you."

Yueming was so angry that his chest felt tight, but he suppressed the urge to hit someone and asked for confirmation: "Is it really possible to eat meat in your temple?"

Yunkai continued in that annoying tone, "Your Buddha wants you to be compassionate, but our Buddha wants us to liberate ourselves."

Yueming was confused. What the hell was this? Humility made him ask, "What does it mean?"

Yun Kai gave her a fake smile: "What I mean is, as long as you have something to eat, don't meddle in other people's business and ask what your wife eats in the temple."

She knew she shouldn't have asked. Yueming was so angry that she decided to stuff him to death. She lifted the plate and dumped all the remaining buns into his bowl. She pointed her chopsticks at him and said, "You must finish it. If you don't, I won't be polite to you."

Yunkai didn't care how rude Yueming was to him, but seeing her angry look, he felt like he had an appetite again, and the two of them started eating quietly again.

After eating for a while, Yun Kai felt that it was boring to eat so quietly, and he couldn't eat any more. He held up a bun and asked, "Aren't you going to ask Li Shengmeng why he gave you these two maids?"

Yueming ate without even looking up: "What's there to ask about the person my grandpa sent here?"

The bun on the chopsticks fell into the bowl, and Yun Kai threw the chopsticks away: "So you knew? Then why did you pretend to know nothing before? You were just putting on an act for me?"

They were eating well, but suddenly they turned hostile. Yueming could only put down his chopsticks to appease him: "I didn't know before! During the Water Splashing Festival, my father asked me to call him 'Grandpa'. I thought Yunxiang only called him that when he was older."

Yun Kai didn't believe it. He crossed his arms and looked at her with his nose turned up. "Then how do you know now? Have you been eaten through by the starving corpses in your body?"

The fabricated "Hungry Corpse Gu" thing is unacceptable, right? Is he planning to keep telling it forever? Yueming said angrily, "I'm just young, not stupid. You said the other day that I could walk all over Yunxiang, and my mother is from Yunxiang, and Li Shengmeng sent me people and carriages. Isn't this easy to guess?"

Yun Kai was skeptical: "Didn't your father tell you who else was in your mother's family?"

Yueming lost her appetite after being interrupted while eating. She wiped her mouth with a handkerchief and said, "She only said that my mother's family is in Yunxiang, and that my mother's relatives don't like my father or me. There's nothing else."

Yueming felt a little lost when she spoke of this. The Lan family had been a single-line family for generations. Her grandparents had passed away just as her father had returned from studying abroad, and her mother's family had also ceased to exist. She had lived with her father since childhood, and she actually longed for the lively life of a large family. During holidays, relatives gathered together, chatting and counting red envelopes. Her brother took her to set off firecrackers, and her sister held her aside to chat. She would always give in to her younger siblings, giving them first bites of delicious food and first playtime.

She became close with the Third Miss not just because she could speak Chinese, but because she desperately wanted an older sister. It didn't matter if she argued with her about food and clothing, or argued over trivial matters. With an older sister, they could go shopping hand in hand, and whisper in each other's arms in the same bed at night.

She sighed softly and looked at Yun Kai: "Can you tell me who else is in my mother's family?"

Yunkai didn't understand why Yueming, who had just been fine, suddenly became depressed. He waved his hand and had the servants clear the table and bring up two cups of tamarind juice. Yunkai handed her one and said, "Your grandmother was the second wife of the Tao chieftain. She's long gone. Your dear uncle was the third child in the family. Mrs. Tao gave birth to two sons. The eldest son's daughter is married to the Mengmeng chieftain's family and will be married off in a few months."

The emphasis on the "dear uncle" was meant to remind her that the relationships between the branches of the Tao family weren't so good. Yueming asked, "Does my dear uncle have any children?"

"Yes, a son and a daughter. The daughter seems to be ten years old, but I can't remember the son."

Knowing that she was also a sister, Yueming was very excited. She pulled Yunkai's sleeve in a flattering manner and said, "You are going to go when the Tao family marries their granddaughter, right? Can you take me with you?"

Yun Kai didn't fall for her trick and took a sip of the tamarind juice. The sweet and sour drink was reflected on Lan Yueming's begging smile. Two words: refreshing!

After leaving Yueming alone for a while, he said, "They didn't acknowledge you openly, nor did they invite you. What's the point of you going there? What are you going to say? If you say you're going to a wedding, people will think your father didn't make any money, so you went to Lishengmeng to eat for free."

These words really touched Yueming's heart. She stood up and walked out.

Seeing that she was truly angry, Yunkai quickly grabbed her, but Yueming, with her stubborn temper, struggled towards the door. Yunkai had no choice but to block her from the doorway. Seeing Yueming's red eyes, she was stunned and stammered, "Why...why are you crying again?"

Yueming opened her mouth and tears fell. She gritted her teeth and said, "Don't think I really want to live in your house. I do this to make my father feel at ease."

Yun Kai now felt that the joke had gone a bit too far. She had suffered at the hands of the Third Wife in terms of food and drink, and she was particularly sensitive to this. He smiled awkwardly and said, "I was just joking. Don't take it seriously."

Yueming wiped her tears with the back of her hand and said angrily, "I gave Mrs. Du 50 yuan. We agreed to refund her at the end of the month and make up for the shortfall. You don't have to worry about her expenses. I'll ask your accountant to calculate the expenses for my doctor's visit and the expenses during this period. You don't have to wait for my father to come back. I'll give it to you right away."

Yun Kaixin was uneasy at the sight of him trying to settle the money. He humbly said, "I was just joking. Don't be mad at me. I apologize."

Yueming was truly heartbroken. She had thought Yunkai had punished the servants and humiliated the Third Madam out of genuine desire to protect her. Now she realized that in Yunkai's eyes, she was just a pathetic little creature who had come to the Tusi's residence to eat and drink for free. Perhaps, as he said, he wasn't punishing the Third Madam for her sake; her incident was merely the trigger. She had taken everything for granted.

Yueming was disheartened and didn't want to say anything more. He lowered his head and said, "I'm going back first. Ai Ye and the others should be looking for me."

Yun Kai refused to let her go. He pulled her sleeve and said, "Don't you want to go to my study to read?"

She didn't know many of the words in the books he gave her. She had wanted to borrow a dictionary from him today and ask him how to pronounce some passages, but no matter how she looked at them, they didn't seem right. But now she couldn't say anything.

She shook her head: "I feel a little sleepy after dinner. I want to take a nap and watch it another day."

Yun Kai knew that there was no chance of another day. But he didn't know what to do now, so he could only watch Yue Ming lift the curtain and walk out.

Yueming walked to the middle of the yard. Feng Xiaosai came over with a bouquet of roses. He bent down and held it out to her with both hands and said, "Miss Yueming, these are the flowers you asked for. Please see if they are enough. If not, I will pick more for you."

Yueming took it and took out a silver dollar from his pocket and handed it to him: "That's enough, thank you!"

Just a few flowers, isn't this a bit too much reward? He didn't dare to accept it and subconsciously went to find Yun Kai.

She found her young master standing at the door with the curtain drawn, his face looking strangely gloomy. Miss Lan had a silver dollar in her palm, her eyes were swollen and red, and the tears on her face had not yet dried.

Feng Xiaosai's heart skipped a beat. These two were quarreling again. What had the young master done to Miss Renlan again?

He smiled and said, "It's just a few flowers, how dare I ask for a tip from the lady."

Yueming stuffed the money into his hand and said, "I'm giving it to you, just keep it!" After that, he turned around and walked out of Yunkai's yard with the flowers.

Feng Xiaosai held the silver dollar in his palm and said to Yun Kai in embarrassment: "Master...this..."

Yun Kai said lightly: "Miss Lan is rich and powerful, just take it if I give it to you." After that, he slammed the curtain and went into the room.

Lying on the couch, he thought angrily: He had already apologized, why was Lan Yueming still so stingy? He just said something wrong! She didn't even think of his kindness at all.

He turned over and rested his head on his arms. He thought of Yueming's back just now, with his shoulders slumped like a cat slave who had just been beaten. He lost interest in the flowers he had been thinking about, and carried them like vegetables. He estimated that the petals would have fallen off before he even got back to the yard.

If it weren't for what happened just now, she wouldn't have left like this. She would have held the flowers and smelled them first, said thank you to him with a smile, and then went back happily.