Chapter 9 Chuntao "Be good. Good girl, very pretty."...
Shen Xi stood her ground, her bloodshot eyes blazing with fury: "Shut up!"
Seeing this, Qingqiu quickly stepped in front of her to confront Granny Liu.
Granny Liu's temper flared even more. She was Jiang's most trusted confidante, and even Jiang's own daughter, Shen Wan, had to give her some respect. When would she ever let this little brat ride roughshod over her?
"Hurry up, if she keeps blocking us, we'll tie her up! When we report back, Madam won't blame us. We'll show her who's the real master of this Shen mansion."
The servants around responded and acted without restraint. Shen Xi was shoved to the ground, half of the tattered book rolled off the ground, and the fire was reignited.
Shen Xi struggled fiercely but was no match for their strength. Her vision gradually blurred, and she seemed to be enveloped in large patches of red. The air was so thin that it couldn't fill her lungs. Her fingernails dug deep into her palms, tearing at the burns on the back of her hands.
But she couldn't feel any pain.
Or perhaps the pain in her chest was too intense, as if something was trying to break free from her confinement, burning like fire, making her hoarse and trembling all over.
He could only desperately squeeze out his last words: "No! Don't burn it! It's mine, it's my last thing..."
Growing impatient with the noise, Granny Liu, relying on her status as a senior member of the Shen family and the fact that Madam Jiang was deliberately tormenting Shen Xi, suddenly became wicked.
He stepped forward and raised his hand to slap Chen Xi.
"What kind of noise is this!"
Outside the moon gate, Shen Wangchen strode in with an air of authority, glanced at the fire, and ordered the servant behind him, "Put out the fire."
Then he walked closer, without looking at Shen Xi, raised his hand and grabbed Liu Mama's wrist, pressing it down hard, almost making a cracking sound as if bones were grinding together.
"When did the servants in this mansion become so bold as to dare to lay a hand on their master?"
His gaze was sinister, startling the two men who were holding Chen Xi, who quickly let go.
Shen Xi immediately broke free and, in a disheveled state, painstakingly retrieved the tattered pages from the fire, which were already badly damaged after being burned and then doused with water.
She stubbornly unfolded the pages one by one, pulling up her sleeves to wipe away the water stains, trying to salvage the situation, but to no avail.
Suddenly, Shen Xi's eyes reddened, and a surge of bitterness and grievance welled up in her heart. She knelt on the ground, clutching the torn page tightly to her chest.
Her heart pounded violently, and a damp chill crept up her knees and spread throughout her body. Shen Xi forgot her surroundings and didn't even know how Granny Liu and the others had left.
"If you could learn to say a few nice words, things wouldn't have come to this."
Seeing that she seemed determined to kneel there forever, Shen Wangchen finally couldn't help but come over.
Shen Xi forced back her tears, her knuckles clenching so tightly they cracked.
Shen Wangchen continued, "You should know your own situation in the manor. If it weren't for me today, do you really think it would be so easy to end this, or even protect your worthless books?"
Upon hearing this, Shen Xi lowered his head, but his thin spine trembled twice.
Shen Wangchen thought she had finally realized her fear, and smiled with relief. Just as he was about to speak again, he heard a few low laughs escape his lips.
He looked down in surprise.
It's Shen Xi, she... she's actually smiling?
Shen Wangchen's words were cut off, and after a moment of stunned silence, Shen Xi spoke first.
She looked up to meet his condescending, condescending gaze, speaking in an almost disdainful tone.
"Shen Wangchen, after all these years you still only know how to use the same trick. Don't you find it ridiculous?"
Those eyes stared straight at him, a sight that was chilling.
Shen Wangchen frowned: "What do you mean by that? I helped you, but I'm being bitten back?"
Today's events crossed Shen Xi's bottom line. She didn't want to pretend anymore and slowly got up from the ground: "Have you made enough of a scene? Who are you trying to impress with this pretense?"
"It seems I wasted my time and helped an ungrateful wretch."
Shen Wangchen's face instantly turned cold.
Shen Xi sneered, a few strands of hair hanging down from the tug, obscuring his eyebrows, yet he showed no sign of distress, his thin back standing straight.
"Then why don't you guess, elder brother? Even the maids who serve me personally don't know this, so how did Mother find out?"
Her voice was almost soft, each word slowly and deliberately uttered from her lips, but her eyes were cold and indifferent, staring directly at Shen Wangchen without any attempt to conceal her true feelings.
"Besides my eldest brother from back then, who else would know about the existence of these books?"
Shen Xi knew in her heart that Jiang Shi could not tolerate her mother, so she kept these things very well hidden, even from Qing Qiu.
However, there was one oversight: when she took the book and left, she accidentally bumped into Shen Wangchen.
Therefore, besides herself, only he knew about this matter.
Only he could do something like that.
While committing all sorts of evil deeds, they also put on airs and act superior, offering help.
Today was no different. It seemed that Shen Wangchen came to help, which allowed her to protect these tattered pages from Granny Liu. Thanks to Shen Wangchen's kindness in rescuing her from a predicament, she was able to resolve the farce.
But only Shen Xi and he knew that Shen Wangchen was the mastermind behind this farce.
The fact that Lin Anrong's belongings were hidden in her room was naturally revealed to Jiang by Shen Wangchen. It was such an obvious thing that Shen Xi didn't need to guess at all.
Shen Wangchen's pupils constricted sharply, as expected: "Why...?"
Shen Xi had no interest in listening to him continue: "Brother, you only care about pitying me, how could you forget about what's in your own ear? It must have been neglected for many days and has grown back."
My gaze drifted to Shen Wangchen's ear, where a tuft of downy hair had already sprouted.
Touched on a sore spot, Shen Wangchen frowned deeply, covered his ears, and took a few steps back to avoid Shen Xi's gaze.
This is a strange illness he has had since childhood. Hair would always grow in his ears for no reason, which is different from ordinary people. He sought medical treatment for this problem many times when he was young, but there was never a solution.
It wasn't until my father met a miracle doctor in Qingzhou that he was diagnosed that the disease had no effect on the body, and that if he disliked it because it was unsightly, he could simply have it treated periodically.
Shen Wangchen naturally wouldn't allow himself to have such an anomaly, and he would carefully clean the strange object on his ear every now and then. However, recently, Shen Xi had really bothered him, so he had no heart to take care of it.
Shen Wangchen stopped arguing with her and coldly remarked, "Ungrateful wretch."
He then left.
Shen Xi closed her eyes, and as soon as she relaxed, exhaustion and unease surged up from the bottom of her heart. She struggled to suppress those emotions and focused on sorting out the few remaining pages she had rescued from the fire.
As night fell, the mess in the courtyard had been cleaned up, as if the whole farce had never happened.
Shen Xi changed out of her clothes, which reeked of smoke, took a bath, applied medicine to the back of her hand, lit an oil lamp, and knelt down in front of the table to carefully write from memory.
Fortunately, she had looked through her mother's medical books and remembered most of their contents.
Even without books, preserving them in this way is a form of solace.
At some unknown time, Qingqiu walked in carrying a small food box.
“Miss, the master knows about what happened this evening and specially sent something over from the kitchen.”
Chen Xi paused, ink spreading across the paper, then quickly stopped writing: "What did Father say?"
"Master said that the young lady has been wronged, and he has already spoken ill of the lady."
Shen Xi's lips curved slightly into a smile, not out of happiness, but rather with a self-deprecating sense of knowing this was how it would be.
She knew all too well that her father's words were meant to deceive children, but unfortunately, she was no longer the child who would cry even if she lost her pet.
When Mother was still alive, Father would never have spoken against Jiang for her sake. He was like that when Mother was alive, and now that she is gone, he would be even less likely to offend Jiang.
The saying goes that harmony in the family brings prosperity in all things. In this matter, he only needed to wrong his daughter, who couldn't cause any trouble, and everything would be fine. Why bother making things worse by escalating the situation?
He's always been like that.
Shen Xi suddenly remembered what she had said to Granny Liu earlier that day.
“I must tell my father.”
Where did she get the confidence to say those words? She probably just spoke without thinking in the heat of the moment.
Shen Xi shook her head, no longer thinking about these trivial matters.
Pick up your pen again and continue writing from memory, following the same train of thought.
She was too lazy to even look at the contents of the food box; she couldn't eat it and didn't want to put it away, but Qingqiu had already opened it.
Inside was a bowl of elegant jade pearl cloud silk soup, a specialty of Qingzhou, which is rarely seen in the capital.
In a daze, Shen Xi recalled some things from the past.
She was clearly still young then, and this was just a trivial matter.
But only now did she realize that she remembered it so clearly.
At that time, Shen Guangjun found a pair of red sparrows from somewhere and gave them to her. It was the first time Shen Xi had ever seen such a little thing, and she liked it very much. She lay on the table and watched the two little sparrows chirping and pecking at the millet grains she had just scattered on the table.
"Does our Xi'er really like magenta that much?"
Shen Guangjun patted her head with a smile. Her head was covered with the double buns that her mother had tied for her by hand in the morning, with two small white pom-poms hanging from them.
Shen Xi propped herself up with her hand, her palm supporting the little head that was swaying as she watched the sparrows eat.
"I love them! And they even have names!"
"Oh? What nice name did you choose for Xi'er?"
Shen Xi pointed to one of them: "The one with a red spot on its forehead is Tuantuan, and the one so fat it has no neck is Gungun. My little sparrows must have their own names, otherwise they'll get bullied when they go out to play with their other friends!"
Shen Guangjun was amused by the child's innocent words and laughed heartily. Not wanting to shatter his daughter's beautiful fantasy, he didn't tell her that the two pink birds would have to stay in the birdcage from now on and that no other birds would come to befriend them.
But she continued, picking up where Shen Xi left off: "Why won't you be bullied if you have a name?"
Shen Xi put her hands on her hips and said, "Of course not. They'll be mine from now on, so I'll naturally back them up. If any other birds bully Tuantuan and Gungun, I'll chase them all away."
Mother came in just as she overheard this: "You child, you're so young and you already know how to protect your own."
"Mother, Mother! Did you make Jade Pearl Cloud Silk Soup? I can smell it!"
Lin Anrong feigned surprise and playfully pinched her little nose: "Your little dog nose is really sharp; you can smell things from that far away."
"Yay! I was just getting hungry!"
Beside the two little sparrows, there was a small wooden puppet playing the flute. Its head was round and it looked very simple and honest. It was not very delicate and the workmanship was even a bit rough.
It was Lin Anrong's skill that allowed her to carve it casually and then toss it to Shen Xi to play with.
Shen Xi had originally been joking, wanting Lin Anrong to carve a little wooden puppet exactly like her, with both of them wearing double buns, which would surely be very cute.
Unfortunately, Lin Anrong was not skilled enough. She carved more than ten figures, all of which were carved from the same mold, and she couldn't carve any specific person at all.
Shen Xi then gave up.
But he also really liked this flute-playing puppet and often held it in his hand to play with it.
Shen Xi pulled Xiao Ou over, nimbly climbed down from the rose chair, and took short steps to wash her hands, but accidentally tripped and fell on flat ground, knocking over the basin of water as she fell, splashing water all over herself, and getting completely soaked.
Her parents behind her laughed so hard they almost fell over, calling her a gluttonous and reckless girl.
Laughter and cheerful conversation shattered the spring of the old year.
Looking back now, it all seems like such a long time ago.
My mother was from Qingzhou and had a particular fondness for this dish. Before she passed away, she would often cook it herself for her and my father, and occasionally send a portion to the Jiang family.
Since her mother's death, likely at Jiang's behest, no one in the entire Shen household has made this kind of food.
Shen Xi didn't learn her mother's cooking skills, and most restaurants in the capital served Beijing-style dishes. Perhaps because few people liked them, or perhaps because they found them too troublesome, she hadn't seen this kind of cloud jelly soup for a long time.
Shen Xi was in a daze, and it took her a long time to look away from the bowl of soup before she calmly said, "Remember to thank Father for me. I'm busy sorting out Mother's belongings right now, so I won't go in person."
"Yes. Then this bowl of soup..."
“I’m not hungry, you eat. If you don’t like the taste, you can just throw it away, it’s just a bowl of cloud shred soup.”
Yes, the person is gone, what use are these things now?
Medical books and the "Jade Pearl Cloud Silk Soup" are merely the obsessions of the living.
That night, Shen Xi sat in front of the oil lamp, reading from memory all night. The injuries from riding horses during the day were still aching, and she couldn't bear it no matter how she changed her position.
But by sheer coincidence, the faint pain masked her exhaustion, and she managed to stay awake through the pain, refusing to rest.
She couldn't hold on any longer until the sky began to lighten, and she collapsed onto the table and fell into a deep sleep.
As expected, Shen Xi fell asleep again.
She was nestled in the man's arms, her hands gripping his shoulders tightly. Her dress was half-undone, revealing her slender, white legs to the cold.
With the window half-open, one can look up and see the garden full of spring colors outside.
A gentle breeze swept by, and the ink-soaked pen tip lightly landed on the outside of her thigh. As it moved, it tickled her, and she couldn't help but want to curl her legs up, but a pair of large hands grabbed her, preventing her from escaping.
"obedient."
A slightly stern voice was mixed with a low laugh, enticingly saying, "It'll be done soon, just bear with it a little longer."
Immediately afterwards, he dipped his brush in ink and began to write.
Shen Xi trembled slightly with his movements, yet was held firmly in his arms.
A quick glance reveals the vibrant light of spring, where a pink peach bud, about to bloom, unfolds on a canvas as delicate as white jade, charming and lovely.
Her leg was gripped tightly in his palm, and several ambiguous finger marks were faintly visible.
The sudden surge of spring's beauty caused Shen Xi to blush instantly, burying her head back into Xie Chengyan's chest, unwilling to look any longer.
After an unknown amount of time, he finally put down his pen, waited for the ink on her legs to dry, and gently kissed the top of her head.
In the spring sunshine, a chest behind him vibrated, echoing with whispers: "Good child."
"very beautiful."
The praise smoothed out a rough edge in Shen Xi's heart. She looked up and gazed into those familiar eyes, gentle and soft, and saw her reflection in them.
Only one person had flushed cheeks and was slightly out of breath.
She wasn't like herself, and he wasn't like the real Xie Chengyan at all.
Suddenly I woke up from my dream.
As Chen Xi's hazy thoughts gradually returned, she felt a tingling sensation on her legs, as if thousands of ants were gnawing at them, and she hissed softly.
It turns out that he had fallen asleep while kneeling, and his legs went numb.
No wonder I had that dream.
She subconsciously looked outside. The sky was already beginning to lighten. The snow that had fallen silently last night had piled up like silver and jade, a stark reminder of the cold winter.
Where are there any spring peaches?
She's overthinking again.
That was Xie Chengyan, Xie Wenlang's most respected elder brother.
She is not worthy of even thinking of him.
A note from the author:
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Tuan Tuan and Gun Gun are silver-throated long-tailed tits, also known as magenta, two adorable little chirping creatures with round heads [droopy-eared rabbit head].
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