As leaden clouds weighed heavily on the glazed tiles of the capital, the first snowflakes landed on the red-gold and kingfisher-emerald hairpins at Su Jinli's temples. She stood beneath the carved doorpins of the hanging flower gate, watching her husband, Jiang Yan, carrying a stack of imperially bestowed books, as he walked down the bluestone corridor. The hem of his purple robe swept past the copper vat in the corridor, startling the thin ice on the half-filled lotus leaves. The snow flakes, shattering into silvery flakes, fell onto the mossy rim.
"Lord Jiang," she knocked on the vermilion door frame with her fingers, and the ruby pendant on her hairpin shone like blood in the twilight, "The pension awarded by His Majesty is enough to buy ten mountains of gold. Is it necessary for you to move these antiques yourself?" Before she finished speaking, another snowflake stuck to the tip of her nose, and it felt cool.
Jiang Yan paused beneath the eaves, the snowflakes clinging to his eyelashes falling softly. His breath drifted through the cold air, misting the gilded inscription "Books from the Imperial Collection of Wenyuan Pavilion" on the book. "Madam, do you still remember who stole my sugar painting at the west wall of the Prime Minister's residence?" he asked, his fingertips unconsciously stroking the frayed brocade cover.
"Pfft!" Su Jinli blushed, flipping her wrist and unfolding her round fan. In the newly mounted painting "Fishing Alone on a Cold River," the ink-wash sketch of an old man in a straw raincoat perfectly overlapped with the falling snow on Jiang Yan's shoulders, as if the snow itself were drifting down from the painting. She suddenly remembered that late spring twenty years ago, when this man had squatted before a sugar-painted stall, his blue shirt hem sweeping the muddy ground, arguing fiercely with her over a phoenix sugar painting. His temples were now frosted, but only the smile lines at the corners of his eyes still hinted at his former cunning.
Twenty years have passed since Si Yan's "Little Good Official" incident. The child who once worked as a supervisor at the Imperial College, checking accounts with a broken abacus, is now a wealthy magnate. And yet, this old tutor, with his temples graying, still can't break his habit of hanging out on the street to buy sugar paintings. Three days ago, he insisted on showing off his skills to his three-year-old granddaughter, Jiang Pan'er, on Zhuque Street. He ended up pulling the sugar threads crookedly, and the little girl poked him with her lotus root-like fingers and laughed, "Grandpa's dragon looks like an earthworm!" That sharp mockery still lingered in his ears, but Jiang Yan, clutching the imperially bestowed book, stood in the snowy wind, a picture of ancient charm.
"Bang!"
The deafening banging on the door startled the icicles beneath the eaves. Su Jinli's wrist trembled, and the pearls on her hairpin swayed and spun over her shoulder. Amidst the violent clattering of the doorknob, Jiang Yan watched the door tremble and raised an eyebrow helplessly: "Listen to this noise, who's following it?"
"Whatever you want!" Su Jinli glared at him, but her fingertips subconsciously clenched the white cuffs of her sleeves - she remembered the sound of porcelain shards cracking when she overturned the teacup at her coming-of-age party.
Amid the creaking of the door hinges, Nian Li, wrapped in a frayed fox fur coat, burst in, followed by a man in a gray robe with a bun of grass. The muddy snow from the soles of their boots left crooked footprints on the blue bricks. The fat rabbit Nian Li was holding was still thrashing about, a frosted blade of grass clinging to its paws. The rabbit's blood dripped through the rips in the fox fur onto the cracks in the blue bricks, forming dark red beads of ice.
"Mom!" There were spots of dried blood on the neck exposed by the fox fur collar. Nianli threw the rabbit to the ground with her hands and opened her arms to pounce on it, but Su Jinli dodged sideways in disgust, and the silver bells under her sleeves rang: "Go away, go away, there is a smell of blood! Did you fight with someone again?" As soon as she finished speaking, the rabbit suddenly kicked its legs, and the splashed mud fell on the hem of her moon-white skirt.
Shen Yue hurriedly stepped forward and bowed. The straw slipped from his bun and rolled to Su Jinli's feet: "Mother-in-law, please forgive me. Nianli saw injustice on the road..."
"Flatten your head!" Nian Li kicked her husband's butt with the tip of her boot, and rabbit fur fell from the torn fox fur. "The ruffian on West Street stole Wang Po's buns. If I don't beat him up, should I watch her cry?" As she spoke, she suddenly covered her stomach, glanced towards the kitchen, and her Adam's apple rolled: "Mom, I smell the delicious pork ribs you stewed!" Snowflakes fell from her loose hair, hit the ground and shattered into stars.
Su Jinli looked at the holes in her daughter's sleeves, feeling both angry and amused. Back then, when she was looking for a husband for this girl, the list of aristocratic young men stretched from the prime minister's residence to Zhuque Street, only to be seduced away by this impoverished knight with half a roast chicken. At their wedding, Nianli wore only a patched-up old coat, and now, every so often, he'd return home with "trophies"—last month a three-legged stray dog, this month a fat rabbit, and next month, maybe even a wounded beggar.
"The kitchen has left some food for you," Jiang Yan slowly brushed off the snow on the book, his fingertips rubbing the solidified snow water on the gold-embossed inscription, "But who will kill this rabbit?" As he spoke, his eyes fell on the still twitching rabbit on the ground. The snow light made the white hair on his temples particularly obvious.
Nian Li hid behind Shen Yue in an instant, brushing the sleeve of her fox fur coat against her husband's grass-smeared back. "Kill Chen Yue! He killed a wolf in Taihang Mountain last year!"
"My wife!" Chen Yue shrank back with a bitter face, the copper bell on his belt clattering. "Last time I killed the rabbit, you said I was cruel and forbade me to touch a knife again..."
"Stop talking nonsense!" Nian Li pinched the flesh on his arm, her fingertips almost digging into his coarse clothes, "If you keep dawdling, you'll have to gnaw on rabbit bones tonight!" Before she finished speaking, the rabbit suddenly kicked again, and its front paws just happened to grab onto the surface of Shen Yue's shoes.
Su Jinli watched the playful couple jostle in the hallway, and suddenly felt a warmth on her wrist. Jiang Yan had grasped her hand at some point, his fingertips tracing the lines of the mutton-fat jade bracelet—a relic from her biological mother, worn for forty years by her, now as smooth and smooth as a piece of jade. "Let them be," he chuckled softly, his warm breath brushing against her ear, startling a fine tingling sensation. "Back then, you flipped the table at your coming-of-age banquet, three times more powerful than she was." He spoke, his fingertips tracing the age spots on the back of her hand.
Before he finished speaking, Siyan's housekeeper ran in breathlessly, his black gauze hat tilted at the back of his head, with snow lumps on the brim. The gold-plated invitation in his hand was dripping with snow water: "Master! Madam! The eldest young master sent an invitation saying that the retirement villa in the suburbs of Beijing is ready. You two are invited to stay for a few days..." The four large gold-plated characters "Retirement Villa" on the invitation were blurred by the snow water, revealing the texture of the gold-sprinkled paper underneath.
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