The late autumn morning mist enveloped the courtyard of the Prime Minister's residence like a thin veil. Jiang Yan sat on a rose-shaped chair by the window, his withered fingers groping along the pillow, as if searching for lost treasure. Su Jinli approached with a bowl of bird's nest porridge. She saw his fingertips hooked around a faded blue cloth bag, faintly embroidered with twin lotus flowers—a purse she had embroidered for him in his youth, now used as a treasure bag, stuffed with all sorts of "treasures."
"Miss Jinli," Jiang Yan suddenly turned his head, his eyes shining with a childlike light, and poured out a few dark brown sugar cubes from the cloth bag, "Look, this is the phoenix sugar painting I have hidden for a long time!" The sugar cubes had long melted and solidified, and the surface was bumpy, but he regarded them as treasures.
Su Jinli took the candy, her fingertips touching the hard frosting, and recalled the warm yellow lights of the West Street sugar painting stalls fifty years ago. Back then, he always called her greedy, yet he always secretly bought an extra phoenix, saying, "Jinli's smile is as sweet as the sugar painting." "Thank you, Jiang Yan." She returned the candy to the cloth bag, her voice soft as if afraid to disturb anything.
"You're welcome!" Jiang Yan smiled proudly, revealing his sparse teeth. He fished out a wolf-hair brush from under another pillow. The word "Yan" was engraved on the penholder, but the bristles were now split and curled. It was the first brush he used when he first entered the Hanlin Academy. "This is my best brush. I'm giving it to you to write poetry!"
Sunlight streamed through the window, casting dappled shadows on the brush. Su Jinli took the brush and recalled how he'd grind ink for her under the lamplight in his youth, the ink in the inkstone always reflecting his focused expression. Now the brush hairs had fallen off, the inkstone was covered in dust, but only this stubborn heart remained, as solid as a piece of sugar painting.
"Miss Jinli," Jiang Yan suddenly grasped her hand, the warmth of his palm coming through the fabric, carrying the slight coolness that only an elderly person can feel. "Will you marry me?"
These words hammered gently into Su Jinli's heart like a rusty nail. She looked at the pure anticipation in her husband's eyes. It was the unvarnished starlight of a thirty-year-old top scholar, not the murky, murky glow of an eighty-year-old. "I do." She heard her own voice tremble in the morning mist, just like the first time she'd agreed to his request in the dilapidated temple fifty years ago.
"Excellent!" Jiang Yan clapped his hands excitedly, his sleeves sliding down to reveal his withered wrists. "By the way, I met with the Emperor yesterday! He praised my excellent writing of 'Spring Farming Fu'!"
Su Jinli knew that his "meeting with His Majesty" actually meant seeing his great-grandson playing in the garden yesterday wearing a dragon-patterned bellyband. But she still followed his lead and asked, "Oh? What did His Majesty say?"
"His Majesty said..." Jiang Yan scratched his head, messing up his silver hair. Suddenly, his eyes lit up. "His Majesty said that if I don't treat you well, he will take off my official hat!"
In the morning mist, Su Jinli's laughter was tinged with tears. She recalled that when Jiang Yan was Prime Minister, the Emperor had indeed patted him on the shoulder in the Imperial Garden and said with a smile, "My dear Jiang, if I ever hear that you treat your wife harshly, I will let someone else hold the position!" Now the country has a new master, and the person sitting on the throne is no longer an old acquaintance, but only this joke still glimmers in her hazy memory.
"Grandpa, it's time to take your medicine." Xiaoyue came in with a black lacquer medicine bowl, steam rising from the rim. "Doctor Liu said you'll be able to write better poems after taking this medicine!"
Jiang Yan stared at the medicine bowl warily: "Who are you? Why did you drug my girl?"
"I'm Xiaoyue'er! Your eldest granddaughter!" The little girl held out the medicine bowl, the pomegranate flowers in her hair gently swaying. "Look, this medicine has osmanthus honey in it. It's so sweet!"
"I'm not sick!" Jiang Yan pushed the medicine bowl away, but his movements were somewhat weak. "I still have to marry Miss Jinli. Drinking medicine will only delay things!"
"How could it be delayed?" Xiaoyue squatted down, tilted her little face up to coax him, "After you drink the medicine, you can draw more beautiful phoenix sugar paintings!"
Jiang Yan looked at her doubtfully, then at Su Jinli. Su Jinli nodded: "Be obedient, drink the medicine, and then we'll go see the peach blossoms."
"See the peach blossoms?" Jiang Yan's eyes lit up, like a lit wick. "The peach blossoms in Jiangnan?"
"Yes, it's in the backyard." Su Jinli held his arm and touched the protruding edges of the bones.
On the rockery in the backyard, Xiaoyue had already had her maid make a "peach tree" out of pink silk flowers. The autumn breeze rustled the flowers, resembling real peach blossoms. Jiang Yan, leaning on his cane, staggered closer. Suddenly, he shook off Su Jinli's hand and plucked a flower with the agility of his youth.
"Miss Jinli," he turned around, pinned the flower to her hair, and brushed his fingertips across her earlobe, "Look, the peach blossoms are blooming."
The silk flowers felt cool to the touch, yet they reminded Su Jinli of the springtime in Jiangnan twenty years ago. Back then, he'd returned from his post, his clothes stained with peach petals. He'd pulled a hairpin carved from a peach branch from his sleeve pocket and said, "Jinli, the peach blossoms in Jiangnan are even more beautiful than in paintings."
"So beautiful." She raised her hand to press the silk flower on her temples, and tears finally fell.
"Miss Jinli," Jiang Yan took a step back and looked at her seriously. A glimmer of clarity suddenly flashed in his eyes. "Will you marry me?"
"I do." Su Jinli's voice was choked, but extremely firm.
"Yeah!" Xiaoyue clapped her hands as the camera of the peep show focused on them. "Grandpa's proposal was successful again!"
Su Heng and Su Qingyao emerged from behind the rockery, each holding a silk flower. Su Heng's eyes flushed red as he thrust the flower into Jiang Yan's hand, "Jiang Yan, treat my sister well!" Su Qingyao, in turn, tucked the flower into Su Jinli's hair, rarely speaking with a sharp tongue, whispering, "That's so kind."
Jiang Yan looked at the crowd that had suddenly appeared, a little bewildered, but he still accepted the bouquet, solemnly accepting it as if it were an imperial decree. Su Jinli leaned against him and heard a "click" as the peep show recorded this belated "wedding."
The afternoon sun filtered through the window lattice, casting a warm glow on the bed. Jiang Yan slept for a long time, his breathing light and shallow. Su Jinli sat beside the bed, watching his sleeping face, remembering his wedding night fifty years ago, when he had slept just like this, his eyelashes casting a faint shadow in the candlelight.
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