Chapter 15 Eating Porridge on a Snowy Day "Sister..."
This is strange, yet it's like the invisible autumn wind. You can feel its chill, but you can hardly see its form.
It's hard to explain in a short time.
He tightened the brocade rope with his index finger, leaving a bloody mark. A snowflake fell from his eyelashes, settling on the back of his hand for a long time without melting.
Yan Di narrowed his eyes into slits. He usually wouldn't even remember that Wende Hall was such a dilapidated place that it had been neglected for years.
This should have been a time for drinking and merrymaking. But then he felt hot, the woman's voice was shrill and unpleasant, and the annual autumn celebrations were becoming increasingly tedious. So he took off his fox fur coat and went outside to cool off.
Perhaps he was drunk, and finding the place secluded and quiet, he took a wrong turn. Hearing voices inside, the young emperor simply leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and basked in the sun.
Then came that soft, gentle birthday wish. Like a dull needle, it pricked his temple when he wasn't looking.
The skin wasn't broken, but it hurt a little.
The effects of the alcohol have subsided, and I am now three-quarters sober.
Is the world at peace, and the seas calm and the rivers clear?
What the hell? Who does she think she is?
Yan Dibai was immediately displeased. He twisted his waist and expertly grabbed a crack in the wall. When he looked closely, he clearly saw the rather arrogant maid.
He was taken aback.
Is this Yangliuqing?
Unlike the concubine whose name he had favored for several nights but whom he couldn't remember at all, Yan Dibai recited the name of a maid with unusual fluency, even though she seemed quite different from the Black Chai he remembered. He pronounced it correctly, without the slightest hesitation.
The boy's heart skipped a beat, and he immediately felt annoyed and wanted to throw a tantrum.
So he grabbed a snowball and threw it over Yang Liuqing's head.
When she failed to open her eyes the first time, Yan Dibai frowned, swung her elbow, and threw her a second time with great force.
This time, he narrowed his eyes even more, and from the right side, he made a snowball three times larger than before. "Plop!"
In the third instance, Yang Liuqing was jolted awake by the blow, the scattered snow hitting her head and face, and the chill in her collar completely waking her up.
Crunch, crunch, crunch—amidst the unceremonious sound of footsteps on the snow, a slender figure blocked the sunlight in front of him.
She thought such an unfriendly gait would be Dai Yun. But when she opened her eyes again, Yang Liuqing's brain, which had just restarted, almost crashed again.
Her hair was half-tied up with a golden crown, adorned with a dazzling array of five-colored necklaces. She had a fair complexion, red lips, and phoenix eyes that seemed to beckon.
Is Yan Di white?
"His Majesty?!"
She instinctively pursed her lips, perhaps because she hadn't knelt and bowed in so long, and she simply didn't have the strength. Yang Liuqing wriggled in the blankets, but ultimately didn't move an inch. Chi Dun raised her head, looking at his deathly pale face, hiding under his thick, slightly rough black hair, and just stared at him blankly.
Yan Dibai couldn't remember the last time he had been so close to this maid. He looked into her eyes, which reflected his face; they were clear and bright, showing no fear or unusual expression. He couldn't understand why she was so unusually quiet, like a stranger meeting him for the first time.
The nameless fire in his heart burned even brighter.
Yan Dibai brushed the snow off her nose and said in a harsh voice, "You audacious lowly servant, how dare you not bow before me?"
As if waking from a dream, Yang Liuqing lowered her head to bend her knees, but her feet felt weak and she stumbled and fell face-first into the snow, wrapped in her blanket.
When I looked up again, the tip of my nose and the corners of my eyes were red from the cold.
Yan Dibai sneered; this woman was up to her old tricks again. Then, glancing at her face, which was covered in dust and had a hazy, indistinct expression, his anger subsided several feet.
Yang Liuqing thought he was about to have a seizure, so she tried to sit up straight with her chin resting on the snow. The boy swayed from side to side, then suddenly squatted down and grabbed a corner of the blanket. With all his might, he forcefully and willfully snatched the blanket away.
Then, to the girl's utter astonishment, she squinted and wrapped the thin cotton quilt around herself, letting out a leisurely sigh of relief.
Yang Liuqing was stunned. "Your Majesty?"
Yan Di parted ways with Yang Liuqing, threatening her fiercely, "Don't move! Otherwise, I'll cut your bones into drumsticks!" Before he finished speaking, as if afraid the quilt would be snatched back, he grabbed it and tucked it under his buttocks, pressing it down firmly. He placed his feet on Yang Liuqing's side and fell asleep.
“…”
She was a bit far away, so she couldn't see Yan Dibai's expression. Besides, she really wasn't that curious.
Shivering, Yang Liuqing endured the cold and slowly sat back down on the small chair. Staring at the person of noble birth in the dusty blankets, she was speechless for a long time, at a loss for words.
After a while, she sniffed her almost frozen nose, then slowly moved over and hugged the earthenware pot that still had some porridge left in it.
She had specially saved it for dinner; it was still a little warm.
She wanted to call the eunuch, but in her current state, she might faint before even reaching the door. She glanced at the man and sensed that he seemed to be sleeping very soundly, his even breathing unusually calm, quite unlike his usual ruthless nature, where he would readily use a knife to kill.
But it's cold on the ground; if I were to sleep outside, I'd get a fever.
Yang Liuqing took a sip of porridge and sighed resignedly. She then dawdled inside to add some water, started a fire, and cooked the porridge while keeping the two of them warm.
The warmth melted away the stiffness in her body, and Yang Liuqing wiped her runny nose. Taking another sniff, she suddenly caught a strong smell of alcohol.
She glanced to the side and was met with a gust of cold wind. Tracing its source, she realized it was coming from Yan Dibai.
Yang Liuqing rubbed her hands together. Only then did she remember that someone had said Yan Dibai was drinking and enjoying the snow with his new concubine today.
I don't know how I found the Wende Hall.
But then he thought again, he had grown up in the palace and traveled everywhere, so he was probably familiar with the place. It was just that he was unlucky and kept running into them.
So he laughed at himself.
After watching him for a while, Qingqing couldn't bear it any longer. She struggled to drag out another quilt, wrapped it around herself, and sat on the doorstep, squinting as she kept watch for a moment.
But gradually his head tilted to one side, and he fell asleep.
The life I saw after falling asleep was wonderful, with my grandma, chickens, ducks, fish, pigs, and many professional courses.
A girl surnamed Lu from the upstairs dormitory often comes down to visit, wearing beautiful modified Hanfu and sharing the various delicious foods her boyfriend makes for her.
Pork jerky, osmanthus cake, kiln-roasted chicken, beef jerky…
Everyone was envious.
It smelled so good, she swallowed hard, her mouth watering. But she only dared to sit shyly at the very back, pretending not to see her, waiting for her to happily distribute the food, and then she smiled and thanked her.
Yang Liuqing belatedly realized, in her daze, that she suddenly remembered. That girl surnamed Lu was very famous at school.
She was beautiful and cheerful, and her long-haired boyfriend was devastatingly handsome. Her whole family was friendly and fun-loving, and they would always come out in droves to help her pack her luggage and make her bed when school started. They even got engaged in the first semester of her sophomore year.
She might have seen them from afar when she was away working. One was like a little sun, the other like a cold, distant moon. Unfortunately, she had too little personal time and no time to care about others.
… …Yang Liuqing took a deep breath. For some reason, the aroma of food in her dream didn't seem so ethereal. Instead, it felt tangible, though not the overpowering smell of meat.
Instead, she thought about it for a moment.
wrong.
Why does it smell like rice and beans?
Yang Liuqing suddenly woke up and opened her eyes. Yan Dibai had his back to her. She could only see his disheveled black hair.
It was unclear when this person had woken up; half of the blanket was draped around his waist, and his fair hands were holding a jar as he tilted his head back to drink porridge.
The fire seems to have gone out for a while.
The porridge, with plenty of water added, was slippery and not so thick. He gulped it down, completely abandoning any semblance of imperial decorum.
Yang Liuqing's eyes widened as she caught a glimpse of the dark bottom of the jar. As the white soup flowed out, the last soft, mushy bean slid out.
Yan Dibai actually finished off all the birthday porridge she hadn't even had a chance to eat.
He finished drinking and tossed the earthenware pot aside. The ear-piercing cracking sound was painful. Yang Liuqing looked at the only pot with a pained expression, her face contorted in distress.
Yan Dibai suddenly turned around, half-closing his eyes and searching for something.
He looked around, his sharp eyes suddenly fixing on Yang Liuqing. He abruptly stood up, bent down, and pulled at her exposed collar. He carefully wiped her mouth, top to bottom and left to right.
Yang Liuqing was forcibly pulled close to him, and Yan Dibai's beautiful face was only an finger's width away from touching hers. She panicked, but fortunately Yan Dibai quickly calmed himself down and lay down.
She gasped for breath, staring down at him in disbelief.
Yan Dibai, however, seemed still drunk. Like a wolf, he seized the pitiful warmth on her body, and immediately and domineeringly took it without any reason. His icy hands crawled into her chest, groping and pinching haphazardly until they reached her warmest part, her lower abdomen.
Yang Liuqing's whole body stiffened.
He grunted, then pulled back the covers, curled up, and buried his head under them.
Yang Liuqing was cold and hungry, and now she was carrying an extra weight. She was so unlucky that she could only make things worse.
She didn't know what to do, and her heart instinctively resisted. Not only that, she also held a grudge.
Yan Dibai is so drunk he probably doesn't remember anything. Should I push him away and let him lie in the snow...? Never mind, I don't have enough heads to chop off.
The boy twisted his head around for a while before finally finding a comfortable spot. He pressed his face against that relatively soft surface for a moment, finally seeming to feel comfortable. His body relaxed slightly.
Her bright red lips curved into a smile, as if in a whisper, carrying a long-held, unspoken longing:
"Sister..."
A note from the author:
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