Chapter 70 The blindfold makes my heart feel full and heavy, like the weight of summer...
Meng Cizhang glanced at Le Jin's hand, but then turned his head away again.
"Get away from me, you liar."
Having just fooled him once, and now seeing him in such a disheveled state, Le Jin knew perfectly well that he was angry with her.
It was already difficult enough for him to take his sister-in-law out behind his brother's back, but if she were by his side and he could keep an eye on her, nothing serious would happen. But this "bad woman" changed her mind at the last minute, making him worry all day long.
Le Jin smiled shamelessly at Meng Cizhang, grabbed his reins and shook them, "But we're almost home, aren't you going to dismount?"
Meng Cizhang covered his eyes and snorted. He lifted his long leg, deliberately avoiding Le Jin, and jumped off his horse in a different direction.
He didn't wait for her; he took off running back home.
Le Jin had no choice but to ask the attendant beside her, "Where is the young master's blindfold?"
The attendant pulled a deformed gold-threaded eye mask from his robes and handed it to Yue Jin. "There were many people at the Prince's mansion today, and the Heir Apparent instructed everyone not to be restrained and to enjoy themselves freely. So when the young master was pecked at by a magpie, quite a few people saw it, and everyone gathered around to help chase the bird away, and then..."
Le Jin touched the eye mask that had been stepped on and folded over; it felt prickly and sharp.
As a child, he was unaware of beauty or ugliness and was relatively accepting of his disability. But at seventeen, he was in the prime of his youth, and the more radiant he was, the less he could accept any darkness. Exposing his physical disability in public was nothing short of a slap in the face for Meng Cizhang at that age.
Le Jin felt a pang of regret; she should have gone to the Prince's mansion.
The incident happened suddenly. Master Meng and Madam Meng were still busy socializing with Prince Pingning and couldn't get away. Meng Cizhang rushed home on his own.
He shut out the deepening night, hiding behind the door, afraid to step inside. For once he passed through the beaded curtain, a mirror stood by the window.
The oval bronze mirror would honestly reflect every inch of his color. His eyeball, having withered, would not grow back; no one knew that Meng Cizhang's necrotic eye had shrunk so much that it clung to the skin of half his face.
The tiny fleshy mass wasn't gouged out of his eye back then; it remained in his eye socket. His body still held that long-dead fleshy mass, which had collapsed, become cloudy, and merged with the flesh in his eye socket, with only a slight protrusion indicating that something had once been there.
Meng Cizhang didn't even dare to press his palms against his eyes to cover them; instead, he cupped his hands and loosely covered his eyes with them.
Without his cover, he's a monster.
He leaned against the door, turned his head, and used his only remaining eye to watch the sunset through the carved openwork.
The winter sun has no warmth; from a distance, it's just a pale orange ball of light, evoking a sense of useless sadness, as if everything will pass away.
Meng Cizhang felt desolate, and tears welled up in his eyes. Through the blurry water, he saw a figure walking in the thin light of the setting sun, carrying a round frame with some things in its arms.
He quickly crouched down, not daring to let her see him.
Why is she so annoying? That was the only question that popped into his head, completely unaware of the bitterness that welled up inside him with it.
There was a gentle knock on the door, and a woman's clear and melodious voice rang out: "Cizhang, I have something to give you."
"I don't want your things," Meng Cizhang said sullenly. Was she here to compensate him? Or to give him charity? He didn't need either.
Le Jin had already guessed his reply, but she wasn't annoyed. Instead, she squatted outside the door and spoke her mind in a gentle, flowing voice.
"I checked that gold-threaded eye mask, and it's unusable. I asked the people who serve you, and they said that all the eye masks you use are made of gold, silver, or jade?"
As Le Jin spoke, she simply sat down cross-legged and placed the bamboo bag she had brought over on her lap. "Those materials are precious, but haven't you felt uncomfortable wearing them for so many years?"
The bamboo bag contained a ball of snow-white cotton, several pieces of plain soft cloth, and some needles, thread, and scissors. Le Jin examined the tools and determined that she could make a soft eye mask.
"Sigh, I really don't know what you people are living for?" she muttered, picking up the soft fabric and starting to cut. Although Le Jin knew that the young man raised by Yu Li Jin Chun didn't care about her handiwork, the injured area should be properly protected. Wearing those pretty but useless things wouldn't do any good for his disability, yet no one had noticed this problem for so many years.
Hearing the snip-snip sound of scissors outside the door, Meng Cizhang's brow twitched. "What...are you doing?"
"To make the goggles more comfortable and safer for you..." Le Jin paused, then tapped the door with her finger and emphasized, "If you don't open the door, I won't know what color you like or your exact size, so I'll just have to make something random."
She had never made an eye mask before, so she could only make one out of thin air based on her sense of touch. Le Jin guessed that the finished product wouldn't look very good, so she sighed softly and gritted her teeth and started making it anyway.
Just as she finished cutting the fabric pattern, the door slowly opened, and a beautiful pair of eyes peeked out from behind a narrow crack, looking at her like a deer.
"...It's so ugly, I don't want this pattern."
Le Jin chuckled, "Is apricot not pretty? Your skin is fair, this color suits you."
Meng Cizhang stubbornly uttered two words, "No."
He pointed with one finger to the piece of fabric that Le Jin had pressed under the fabric, "This one."
"black?"
Le Jin frowned. Didn't the black eye patch make her look like a pirate? She picked up the piece of fabric and held it up to the edge of the door. Meng Cizhang thought she was going to push the door open and shrank back in fright.
"What's there to be afraid of?" Le Jin smiled, her eyes sweet. "Black is nice too. Adding a pearl or two or a red agate along the ribbon will make it less monotonous."
Moreover, Meng Cizhang is good-looking; the black outfit makes his face look less silly and more like a chivalrous knight.
Le Jin went along with his wishes and changed the material to black for the coat. She wanted to make a thin cotton lining inside. So Meng Cizhang watched as Le Jin's fingers flew across the paper, and with a few skillful movements, she actually managed to make an eye mask.
"Give it a try."
He took the delicate, soft object from the crack in the door, and placed it over his eye. Surprisingly, it fit perfectly, like a gentle cloud supporting his eyeball.
Unlike the cold, luxurious gold and jade, this thing was simple yet warm, as if it had grown a layer of flesh for him, filling in the original depression.
A sudden tremor ran through Meng Cizhang's heart, spreading like ripples, questioning the subtle trials that had always existed in his past life.
So this is how comfortable it can be? So my eyes don't have to be trapped in a cold, woven fabric...
Seeing that he hadn't moved from behind the door, Le Jin asked, "Is it not suitable? I can change it again."
However, he didn't answer even after I asked him several times. The last glimmer of light on the horizon disappeared, and night fell completely.
Le Jin had no choice but to get up and pack up to return to Zhenyuan. Before leaving, she told him, "If you don't like it, you can tell me what style you like tomorrow, and I'll make it again."
She was quite attentive to this matter, but not only to apologize to Meng Cizhang. In the midst of the needlework, Le Jin discovered that she missed the sense of control that came from being self-reliant.
My heart is full, like a heavy stalk of rice in summer.
She walked happily for quite a distance, but suddenly remembered something and turned back.
The crack in the door was still there; it wasn't closed anymore.
Le Jin leaned closer, covered her lips with her hand, and whispered, "I'm not a bad person, really."
She left as soon as she finished speaking, without looking back. As she skipped and hopped, the little scissors bounced up and down with her, flashing a playful silver light.
The silver light fell into Meng Cizhang's eyes, like fragments of the moon, softening and melting in his heart.
"He's not a bad person..."
——
Time flies, days and nights change. Le Jin counted the days; Meng Shutai had been gone for almost sixty days.
Spring light streamed through Zhenyuan Garden, and the tender, pale yellow and green branches had long since swept away the winter snow, trembling slightly in the warm breeze.
Le Zhao had punished her by confining her to her quarters before, and she found it unbearable then. But if Meng Shutai never returned, she would be willing to live like this forever.
Baoyin built a swing set for her in the garden. Lejin changed into a peach-pink spring dress and sat on it, swinging like a fluttering butterfly. Every time she swung at the highest point, she felt as if she were very, very close to freedom.
Seeing her happy made Bao Yin happy too. When Le Jin stopped, she gently fanned her with a fan, saying, "My wife has been eating, sleeping, running and jumping around these days, as if we were still at home."
Le Jin's smile was radiant, even surpassing the beauty of spring blossoms on the branches. "Since your son-in-law is away, of course I want to be as happy as I can."
She patted the swing to signal Baoyin, and said excitedly, "It's your turn! I'll push you!"
The two girls switched places, and Baoyin was pushed high by Lejin, giving her a much better view. She was having a great time when something suddenly popped into her head, and she turned to tell Lejin.
"My lady, I've learned that Princess Zhaode has already left Luoyang. The Zhennan Prince's Mansion only has servants left to guard it. Will you still deliver your letter?"
"She's gone?"
"Yes, I went back to Ganzhou."
They had been separated for nearly a hundred days. Le Jin had originally been afraid that her lover's heart might change, so she had collected many love letters to send to the Prince of Zhennan's mansion to prove her devotion. But now it seemed that was no longer possible.
She frowned in disappointment, and her strength in pushing Baoyin lessened, but Baoyin suddenly screamed loudly.
"ah!"
"What's wrong?"
"Young master! Young master is back!"
Le Jin stared in disbelief, jumping up and down anxiously beside the swing set. "Don't scare me! He said he wouldn't be back for almost three months!"
Le Jin felt the pain of being forced to work overtime during a holiday, and hoped that Bao Yin had misjudged her.
"It's true! The son-in-law is coming into the garden!"
As soon as Le Jin turned her head, she saw a graceful and elegant figure entering Zhenyuan Garden.
He smiled gently beneath the white walls and green tiles, as if the entire Zhenyuan Garden, overflowing with spring colors, had lost its brilliance and its colors had faded in an instant.
Le Jin stood there, stunned and at a loss. Wasn't it supposed to be the 100-day celebration? Why did they come back early?! They're ruining her mood…
Meng Shutai strode towards Le Jin, then suddenly jogged, bringing a gentle breeze of sandalwood fragrance, and pulled her into his arms.
He held Le Jin by the back of her neck with one hand and wrapped his other arm around her waist, pulling her tightly into his embrace.
"Ah Jin, I haven't seen you for sixty-two days and seven hours."
His tone carried a slight hint of coquettishness, which stung Le Jin like dewdrops on her back.
Ugh, that's so cheesy...
Le Jin supported herself on his waist and abdomen with both hands and pushed him away slightly, "I'm right here."
As soon as she finished speaking, she caught a glimpse of Meng Cizhang running towards her, panting heavily.
"Brother, all you do when you come back is look at your sister-in-law!"
Having been separated from his elder brother for so long for the first time, Meng Cizhang was eager to see Meng Shutai. However, his brother went straight to his sister-in-law as soon as he got home, so he had no choice but to come over as well.
He was wearing the blindfold that Le Jin had made for him.
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Author's Note: I know this chapter is short... [Chin resting on hand][Chin resting on hand][Chin resting on hand]
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