Su Jinli's cheeks flushed slightly, and she gently pinched the back of Jiang Yan's hand with her fingertips. Jiang Yan, however, took her hand in his, gently rubbing his fingertips against her palm. The touch was very similar to the way he used to coax her to sleep in the leaky, dilapidated house fifty years ago - when it was raining heavily outside the window and there was only a soybean oil lamp in the house, he would use the warmth of his palm to dispel her fear of the dark.
Su Qingyao stepped forward, agate wine glass in hand. A fresh gardenia adorned her bun, dotted with sparkling white among her graying hair. "Jinli, Jiang Yan, congratulations." She looked at Su Jinli, her eyes filled with the weight of time and a sense of relief. "I still remember when you were first reborn, you took us to the West Market every day to listen to stories, and you changed the pedantic couplets in the poetry club into doggerel. Back then, I always thought you were being naughty, but it wasn't until I secretly followed you to the bookstore to read storybooks that I realized women shouldn't be confined to the boudoir, like embroidered pillows."
She raised her glass, the amber liquid swishing gently within it. "This is a toast to your fifty years of standing together through thick and thin, and also to myself. If I hadn't seen you living so carefree, I'd probably still be trying to figure out how to use rouge to please my husband's family."
When Nianli led her children forward, Xiaoyue suddenly broke free from her mother's hand and flew to the main seat like a pink butterfly flapping its wings, looking up with her little face covered in icing sugar: "Grandpa and grandma, I have prepared gifts for you!" She opened a small gold-painted box as if presenting a treasure. Inside was not jewelry or jade, but a stack of booklets bound with red silk thread.
"This is the storybook I wrote!" Xiaoyue raised her chin proudly, the pomegranate-red velvet in her hair trembling slightly with her movements. "It's called 'The Number One Scholar and the Firstborn Daughter: Fifty Years of Sugar Painting'! The first chapter is about grandpa and grandma fighting over a sugar painting, and grandpa saying that grandma's dragon looks like an earthworm—"
The audience erupted in good-natured laughter, but Su Jinli's eyes suddenly reddened. She picked up a small booklet. On the cover was Xiaoyue'er's crooked handwriting. Next to it was a pencil drawing of two little figures holding hands. The taller one held a sugar-painted phoenix, while the shorter one clutched a crooked "dragon." Below the drawing, a line of words, repeatedly erased, read: "May Grandpa and Grandma be as sweet as the sugar painting, sweet enough to make your teeth fall out."
When it was Su Jinli's turn to speak, she slowly stood up, holding Jiang Yan's hand. Her gaze swept across the room full of relatives and friends, and she suddenly recalled the scene at her deathbed in her previous life—she was so thin then that she was just a bag of bones, snow was falling outside, and the medicine her stepmother, Liu, brought her was more bitter than coptis root, yet she didn't even have the energy to take a sip. She took a deep breath, her voice trembling slightly. "Fifty years ago, I never imagined I'd be standing here."
"I was once the most insignificant legitimate daughter of the prime minister's family, living like a shadow trapped in my stepmother's schemes. Until I was sixteen, when I met the poor scholar on the street who had snatched my sugar painting." She turned to look at Jiang Yan, tears in her eyes reflecting the lights in the hall. "He squatted on the ground and laughed at the dragon I drew, saying it looked like an earthworm. He then thrust his own phoenix into my hand and said, 'I'll take you in and protect you from any trouble.' He kept protecting me for fifty years."
Jiang Yan took over the conversation. His voice was much deeper than when he was young, but it still carried a gentleness that could soothe people's hearts: "I was a poor student who couldn't even afford a sugar painting, but at the prime of my life, I met the daughter of the prime minister who dared to overturn the teacup. She told me that happiness is not bought by family background, but should be cultivated slowly and carefully, just like making a sugar painting." He raised their clasped hands. The back of the hand was covered with age spots and the knuckles were a little deformed. "In the past fifty years, we have had children all over the house, relatives and friends all over the house, and even--"
"Dad! Mom!" Su Heng suddenly rushed onto the stage, holding a wine jar half the height of a man. The red cloth on the rim of the jar was shiny from the smell of wine. "Stop saying such sour words! Try the daughter's red wine I've kept for thirty years. Drink this jar of wine and you'll have another fifty years!"
As the sun set, the guests gradually dispersed. Su Jinli and Jiang Yan walked side by side on the gravel path in the back garden. The evening breeze blew pomegranate petals off, and a few clung to Jiang Yan's shoulders, reminiscent of the red cape he'd draped around her in his youth. Xiao Yue followed behind, clutching a stack of storybooks, muttering about writing a second book for Grandpa and Grandma, saying it would be about their trip to Jiangnan to see the peach blossoms.
"Are you tired?" Jiang Yan stopped and reached out to brush the petals off her hair. His movements were gentle, as if he were wiping a rare treasure.
"Not tired." Su Jinli shook her head, looking at the brilliant sunset glow in the sky. The colors were like the watercolors in Xiaoyue'er's storybook. "It just feels like a dream."
Jiang Yan pointed to the nearby lotus pond, where twin lotus flowers were in full bloom, their pink petals still stained with evening dew. "Look, we planted that with our own hands, the second year after we got married." He then pointed toward the martial arts arena, from which came Su Heng's powerful roar. "And over there, your brother is teaching his grandsons sword techniques, just as noisy as he was fifty years ago."
Su Jinli couldn't help but laugh. Her laughter startled the koi in the lotus pond, and the splashes of water from their leaps cast a delicate rainbow in the setting sun. She remembered the last page of Xiaoyue'er's storybook from that day. It showed two white-haired elders sitting on a stone bench, holding sugar drawings of a phoenix and dragon. Next to it was written: "Grandpa and grandma will hold hands even when they grow old, inseparable, just like the sugar drawings."
"Grandpa! Grandma!" Xiaoyue suddenly pointed at the sky and exclaimed, "Look at that cloud!"
Su Jinli looked in the direction she pointed, and saw a cloud in the western sky dyed golden red by the setting sun. Its shape really looked like the phoenix on the street sugar painting stall fifty years ago - its wings were spread, its tail feathers were flowing, and even the "sugar bead" in its mouth was shining brightly in the sunset glow.
Jiang Yan held her hand, and they smiled at each other. His eyes reflected the light of the sunset, as well as her shadow, just like fifty years ago under the oil lamp in the dilapidated temple, when he only had eyes for her.
Fifty years is enough time for a young man to become a gentle old man, enough time for a daughter of a noble family to live out her own legend. The grievances she endured in her past life have long since been filled with the honey of this life, as sweet as the aftertaste on her tongue right now—the scent of Jiang Yan's powder as he painted her eyebrows, Su Heng's noisy voice as he defended her sister, the crooked blessings from Xiaoyue'er's storybook, and the warmth of their shoulders leaning against each other.
Su Heng's roar could be heard from afar: "You little bastard! You're holding the knife upside down! If you do it again, you'll be sent to sweep the stables!" This was followed by Su Qingyao's complaints: "The rouge has gotten darker, it looks like a monkey's butt!" Then, Nian Li's gentle laughter: "Dad, Mom, it's time to come back for dinner. I made your favorite lotus seed soup."
Su Jinli leaned on Jiang Yan's shoulder, listening to the noise of her family gradually becoming clearer in the twilight, feeling the warmth from his arms, and suddenly felt that this was the best ending in the world - the years had turned frost on her temples, but made the affection more mellow; the past pains turned into honey, and she shared the rest of her life with the person in front of her.
And their story, like the unfinished chapter in Xiaoyue'er's storybook, has just turned to a new page.
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