"Nonsense!" I knocked on his head, only to catch a glimpse of Liu standing behind him. The hem of her moon-white silk skirt was still stained with moss from the corridor. The scroll she clutched was deeply dented by her knuckles, even the pages were curled up like dog ears. The red gold hairpin dangled dizzily from her hair, as if it might fall off at any moment. "Su Jinli! How dare you slander our elders with innuendo!"
The abacus beads pierced my fingertips, like tiny hailstones. I put down the account book and looked at her trembling hands. On those hands was my biological mother's jade bracelet—she had pawned it and redeemed it, wearing it herself. The jade bracelet gleamed coldly in the sunlight. "Aunt Liu, why do you say that? The Aunt Liu in the storybooks is lazy and greedy, mistreating her stepdaughter, and stealing her dowry. How is she like you, the 'virtuous' wife of the Prime Minister?"
"You!" Liu screamed, taking a step forward. The hem of her skirt knocked over the charcoal basin at her feet, and sparks flew through her delicate skirt, burning several small holes like a honeycomb pricked by needles. "When the master comes back, I will tell him that you, a shameless girl, actually wrote such obscene words that ruined the family tradition!"
Just then, Su Xiang coughed from outside the door. He was dressed in casual clothes, twirling his beard. His eyes first fell on the book in Liu's hand, then swept across the banknotes and rouge account book spread out in front of me. The jade ring on his finger flashed coldly in the sunlight, as if it had been frost-hardened. "Oh? What is Jinli calculating?"
Liu immediately put on an aggrieved expression, pressing a handkerchief to her eyes, but not even a tear shed: "Master, you've come just in time! Jinli's writings allude to me, and..."
"An allusion?" Prime Minister Su took the storybook, flipped through two pages, and suddenly chuckled. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes squeezed his reading glasses half an inch. "This plot of Concubine Liu withholding the monthly allowance and secretly replacing the jewelry seems to have been copied into the harem account book." He turned to me, his eyes smiling. "Jinli, have you calculated the monthly allowance? I heard that someone withheld the charcoal money from the legitimate daughter's courtyard last month?"
Liu's face instantly turned pale as paper, her lips trembling and unable to speak, like a shrimp with its bones removed. The young marquis seized the opportunity to raise his wooden sword, the tip of the blade pointed at Liu, the red silk on the tassel dazzling everyone's eyes: "Dad! My sister's book is so beautiful! It's a hundred times better than Liu's osmanthus cake! She always puts alum in her cakes, and it makes your tongue numb!"
Prime Minister Su hummed, then pulled a hundred-liang silver note from his sleeve and shoved it towards me. His fingertips brushed the back of my hand, their warmth like charcoal in a warm stove. "I heard Mr. Jinxin's books are selling well. This is your reader reward from Dad." He turned to Liu, his tone suddenly cold, like winter ice. "You can go back now. I'll have the accountant take a close look at the accounts in the backyard tomorrow."
Watching Liu's back as she fled in panic, the burn marks on her skirt twisted and twirled like a flower. I clutched the silver note my father had given me, and suddenly the peppery royalties seemed even sweeter, carrying a hint of the warmth of my father's palm. Mo Zhu leaned close to my ear, his voice low, as if afraid to startle anything: "Miss, just now, the servant from Jiang Zhuangyuan's residence brought a sugar painting, saying that Mr. Jinxin's books are a daily must-read for his son, and he also said..."
"What else to say?" I looked at the darkening sky outside the window. The sycamore leaves fluttered down on the windowsill like someone had scattered a handful of paper. Suddenly I remembered the last time Jiang Yan pretended to be a sugar painter. The sugar stains on his cuffs looked like a Milky Way in the moonlight.
Mo Zhu's cheeks flushed, as if stained with rouge. "He also said that next time he paints a sugar painting, he'd like to get you a calligraphy piece. A dragon... like the one you painted at Zhang's last time. He said it was the most lively dragon he'd ever seen."
I looked down at the wet ink on my desk, remembering the cunning glint in Jiang Yan's eyes when he squatted on the street trying to snatch my sugar painting, like the lanterns in the sugar painting shop. It seems this anonymous storybook business not only earns royalties that taste like Sichuan peppercorns, but also... can hook me up with the top scholar who always tries to snatch my sugar painting but then gives it to me instead. Dusk deepened outside the warm room. In the distance, I heard the young marquis's shouts as he trained his guards, each one louder than the last. And I knew that this honey, forged from the grievances of a past life, was only just beginning to sweeten, as sweet as the sugar cake in Mo Zhu's hand, with a subtle numbing kick of Sichuan peppercorns, choking me to tears, yet simultaneously wanting to laugh.
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