The late spring rain finally stopped at the end of the morning hour. Sunlight filtered through the window lattices, casting dappled shadows on the blue brick floor, like a handful of scattered gold. Su Jinli's breathing was as soft as a thread, each rise and fall affecting the hearts of everyone in the room. The ginseng soup on the rosewood bedside table had long since cooled, its bitter aroma mingling with the sweet fragrance of bygone days, lingering in the air like a melancholic mist.
Xiaoyue'er slumped over the edge of the couch, her plain skirt trailing on the ground, soaked with tears. Clutching the unfinished storybook, her fingertips repeatedly traced the words "Travel to Jiangnan" on the pages, where Su Jinli's vermilion annotations from her proofreading remained. "Grandma!" Her cries echoed against the carved wooden beams, breaking into sobs. "The thirtieth chapter hasn't even written about you and Grandpa admiring the lotus flowers by West Lake! You said you'd include Grandpa stealing the pleasure boat..." The edges of the storybook were wrinkled by her tears, and the unwritten stories, like unfinished sugar paintings, gradually melted in the warm breeze.
Nian Li's fingers curled around the edge of the copper basin, the warm water inside already cold, reflecting off her red, swollen eyes. She looked at her mother's withered hand—the hand that had overturned the teacup at her coming-of-age banquet, written "The Heroine Fan Lihua" at her desk, and gently caressed the top of each grandchild's head at birth. Now, it was so thin that only a thin layer of skin covered the bones, and the jade hairpin on her wrist had a large gap. "Xiao Yue'er," she tugged at her daughter's sleeve, her voice choked with sobs as if choked by cotton wool, "be gentle, don't startle Grandma..."
"Snap!" A muffled sound caused the dust on the beams to fall. Su Heng was wearing a half-worn stone-blue python robe, and the jade belt buckle on his waist made a harsh sound when it hit the blue bricks. He wiped his face, and his rough palms rubbed across his gray stubble, making a "rustling" friction sound. "Don't look so sad!" His voice was still loud, but with an undisguised tremor. The toy sword in his hand creaked, and the faded red tassel on the scabbard looked like a crumbling flag. "Sister, you can go without worry!" He shook the sword, and the blade reflected the light from the window, "I'm keeping an eye on your bookstore. If anyone dares to touch a word in your storybook, I will fight him with my old bones!"
Su Jinli's eyelids fluttered slightly, like butterfly wings brushing against water. Suddenly, the scene of her sixteenth year came vividly to her—scalding tea splashed onto Liu's moon-white brocade skirt, the rising steam blurring her stepmother's false smile. It was this younger brother, his temples graying, rushing towards him, carrying a toy sword taller than he was, the blade clanging against the bricks with a crisp sound: "My sister says she won't marry, even if the gods come, it won't help!" His voice could still shake the roof, but the mist in his eyes reminded her of the blushing face he'd flushed when he'd been caught secretly planting a pomegranate tree beneath her window.
"Hmm..." She squeezed out a single note from her throat, and turbid tears slid down the corners of her eyes and dripped onto the handkerchief handed to her by Su Qingyao. The twin lotus embroidered on the handkerchief was blurred by tears, and it looked very much like the jade hairpin that Jiang Yan gave her fifty years ago. Su Qingyao's fingertips touched the loose skin of her cheek. Those wrinkles hid the spring nights of forming a poetry club, the laughter of revising limericks, and the awkwardness of secretly stuffing rouge into her dressing table. "Jinli," Su Qingyao opened the mother-of-pearl rouge box in her hand, the bright red of "Drunk Flowing Clouds" reflected the light, "Do you still remember changing 'Spring breeze greens the south bank of the river' to 'Spring breeze blows green the watermelon fields'? The old scholar's beard was crooked with anger..."
Yes, how could I not remember? Su Jinli chuckled inwardly. She recalled the first time Su Qingyao had stuffed rouge into her room. Her ears were red, yet she held her chin high, saying, "Beauty is paramount. I can't let that old woman from the Liu family outdo me." Now, this renowned rouge master in the capital, sporting a newly blended "Taoyao Powder" on her temples, no one could make her blush and share the latest shades.
"Water..." she suddenly spoke, her voice as soft as a gossamer in the wind. Xiaoyue hurriedly brought a white jade cup, dipped a thin cotton towel in warm water, and gently wiped her chapped lips. Su Jinli licked her lips, her eyes drifting to the door - it was empty, but crowded with people from the past. Liu held the teacup with a fake smile, the rim of the teacup reflecting the calculation in her eyes; when her father tore up the marriage certificate, the furious wrinkles on his face hid the belated fatherly love; and there was the young man in green clothes squatting on the street, holding a sugar-painted phoenix in his hand, smiling brightly, and the sugar threads stretched out transparent arcs at his fingertips.
"Dad... Mom..." she murmured, as if she were back in her cradle. The warm embrace of her biological mother at her death had long faded, and the time she had reconciled with her father after her rebirth was too brief. The unspoken love she had felt for her father now dissolved into a sob. Nian Li leaned over to her ear, her voice as gentle as a spring rain: "Grandma and Grandpa are watching from heaven. They say you've made your life a living of sweetness. They're so proud."
Su Jinli's lips curled up slightly. From the daughter of a prime minister at the mercy of others to a renowned writer of vernacular novels in the capital, she had truly transformed the bitterness of her past life into honey. The high spirits of her poetry club, the boldness of her bookshop, the peaceful years after marrying Jiang Yan—every scene played before her eyes like a sugar painting, so sweet that it made her want to cry.
"Grandma, look!" Xiaoyue suddenly pulled an oil-paper package from her bosom, still stained with fresh sugar. She carefully opened it, revealing a distorted sugar phoenix. The syrup melted slightly in the warm breeze, pulling out long, thin threads. "I learned this from Grandpa Zhang," she said, tears dripping onto the sugar painting, spreading a small, sticky, sweet stain. "I know you love phoenixes the most..."
Su Jinli's gaze fell on the sugar painting. In the blur of light and shadow, it gradually transformed into sixteen-year-old Jiang Yan. He squatted on the stone pavement, the hem of his blue shirt brushing the sunlight on the ground. He pointed at her dragon drawing and laughed, "Jinli, your dragon looks like an earthworm!" But the next moment, he pressed his phoenix drawing towards her, his fingertips touching her palm with the warmth of malt sugar. "I'll take you in. I'll protect you from getting into trouble from now on."
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