Chapter 36 Are you following me?
An Ning stared carefully at Liang Weiyuan's flawless face, and soon remembered that at the Dragon Boat Festival banquet three months ago, the general's daughter had bowed to her.
"Are you the sister of the Liang family?"
Liang Weiyuan bowed politely and jokingly said to ease the atmosphere, "Three months ago, the princess seemed to have stared at me like this for a long time."
An Ning's ears felt slightly hot. That day, she was greedy and ate too many lychees, and was scolded by her mother in public. It was Liang Weiyuan who handed her the sour plum soup, which relieved her greasiness and also relieved her embarrassment.
She had a pretty good impression of Liang Weiyuan, but they had no interactions later on, and she gradually forgot about it.
An Ning didn't expect to see Liang Weiyuan again at the palace banquet today, and she was in such a predicament. Her cheeks couldn't help but feel hot.
She lowered her guard by a third, but still stiffened her neck: "Are you following me?"
"Why would you go to so much trouble to follow the princess?"
Liang Weiyuan shook her head. "Just now, I saw the princess running through Yongxiang. The scent of jasmine in her hair lingered all along the path. Daphne is planted all around this small lake, and only this path had the scent of jasmine and moss mixed in. So I guessed the princess was here."
"And." She tapped the purple buds in the cracks of the rocks with her fingertips. "The princess crushed the irises, and the fragrance became even stronger."
An Ning subconsciously looked down at her embroidered shoes, and sure enough, there were a few drops of light purple liquid on the toe of the shoes.
"Huh, what do you want from me?"
Feeling sullen, An Ning kept a stern face and acted tough.
But Liang Weiyuan knew that although An Ning seemed willful and capricious, she was just being pampered and loved, and at the same time was bound by layers of rules.
They still retain that innocence deep down, so it’s actually not difficult to get along with them.
"Nothing, I just wanted to ask the princess."
Liang Weiyuan sat down on the stone bench with a gentle and calm expression, hinting at something:
"The sycamore trees outside the Golden Throne Hall shed their leaves every year, and the peonies in the Imperial Garden bloom year after year. Why does the princess only have her eyes on the wild roses outside the wall?"
An Ning was stunned. They were all smart people, so how could she not understand the implication of Liang Weiyuan's words?
"Awen is different from others."
Perhaps because of her good impression of Liang Weiyuan, An Ning muttered without thinking about him, her fingertips stroking the hem of her skirt, "He would weave garlands for me and recite the Song of Everlasting Regret to me..."
"The art of making wreaths. The gardeners in the imperial gardens can make hundreds of different designs."
"The talent for reading poetry is such that the doctors in the Imperial College can recite it by heart."
Liang Weiyuan interrupted her, "Princess, have you ever seen him do anything for you that truly required strength and responsibility?"
"My Lady, do you know that true love is like a pine or cypress, able to withstand wind and snow, rather than like a vine that can only climb up by clinging to a tree."
Liang Weiyuan pointed to the pine tree reflected in the lake and said, "If he really loved you, he would be like this pine tree, first planting deep roots and then thinking about protecting you from the wind and rain. But what about him?"
"I'm just using the excuse of liking you to steal some shade in the shadows of this prosperous and dazzling capital."
An Ning followed the direction of Liang Weiyuan's finger and looked at the broken shadows of trees on the water.
Her eyes flickered.
He couldn't help but think of the embroidery bag his mother dropped last night, and the small change that fell out of it was the silver she had secretly taken from the treasury of the princess's mansion to help him.
Awen always said that a gentleman despised wealth, but he never refused the pens, ink, paper and inkstone she gave him. He even asked her personal maid to buy and embroider her clothes in the name of the palace's good craftsmanship.
"He..." An Ning's voice suddenly choked, "He said he would marry me."
"Marrying you requires three letters and six ceremonies. He needs to stand in the Golden Throne Hall and let the emperor hear his name."
Seeing An Ning's appearance, Liang Weiyuan sighed inwardly and took out a small bronze mirror and handed it to An Ning.
"But what about now? Princess, look at yourself. You cried so hard for him, lost your composure, and even argued with your mother. Did he ever feel any pain when you wronged yourself like this?"
The girl in the bronze mirror had red and swollen eyes, and the silk flower in her hair was tilted to one side. She no longer had the grace of a princess.
"But he would write love poems for me." An Ning was still struggling, but her voice was much weaker. "On my birthday, he wrote a total of thirty poems..."
"Thirty love poems are not as good as a bowl of bird's nest porridge cooked by a wet nurse."
Liang Weiyuan took out a brocade box from her sleeve, which contained the two pieces of rose and poria cocos cakes she had just packed in the pavilion.
"Knowing that the princess was hiding here and had nothing to eat, I brought it from the garden on purpose. This is what someone who cares about you would do."
An Ning stared at the cake and suddenly remembered the red date and lotus seed soup that her mother had sent to her room this morning.
And what about Ah Wen? Every time they met, he would only say something like "Across the water, the heart is filled with affection, yet unable to express it in words." She had heard it so many times that her ears were almost callused.
But he never thought about whether he would get stomachache if he met him on an empty stomach.
"You always say he treats you well, but that kindness is just the oil floating on the surface. It looks fragrant, but it will break if you poke it. The real kindness is the rice at the bottom of the bowl. It may not be eye-catching, but it can fill your stomach and warm your body."
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