Gu Yaoniang looked up at Lu Zhaoan.
The young man had deep-set eyes and brows with faint wrinkles. His gaze was not as resolute as usual; it was somewhat unfocused, as if he were reminiscing about something.
Seeing her looking at him, Lu Zhaoan continued walking forward, his posture as upright as a pine tree.
“I don’t go back to the Lu family’s house for the Mid-Autumn Festival every year.”
Why?
Gu Yaoniang blurted it out, but then realized that her tone seemed a bit too hasty, so she quickly shut up.
"The Lu family doesn't like me."
For him, the annual family reunion was a torment. He didn't know where to go, yet he didn't want to return to the Lu family, where he would be met either with hypocritical flattery or condescending contempt.
Lu Zhaoan was the second son of the Lu family. Although he was not born to the matriarch, he was still highly anticipated.
His birth mother was beautiful, gentle, and somewhat talented; she was his father's favorite concubine. They were already deeply in love and naturally had high hopes for this child.
But she didn't expect that she would die in childbirth.
Overwhelmed with grief, the father transferred his love for his deceased friend to this young man. The mistress, a kind and upright woman, treated him like her own son, raising him from childhood and caring for him tenderly as he grew up.
When Lu Zhao'an was a little over one year old, Lu's eldest son, who was also Lu Zhao'an's elder brother, caught a cold and died before recovering.
Madam Lu cried her heart out, but fortunately Lu Zhao'an was by her side, which helped her gradually recover from the grief of losing her son.
From then on, she poured all her maternal love into Lu Zhaoan.
It wasn't that no one had gossiped about him.
Lu Zhaoan was still young and didn't understand the scheming and intrigue among adults. He only knew that his father and mother loved him very much.
He vaguely understood what the servants were saying about him not being their biological son and having a strained relationship with him, so he went to ask his parents what it meant to be a biological son.
His father scolded him for believing the rumors spread by the lowly slave, but his mother hugged him and told him, "If you are my biological child, then you chose me to be your mother; if you are not my biological child, then you chose me to be your son."
He was overjoyed to hear this, because his mother didn't dislike him at all, contrary to what the servants had said; on the contrary, she adored him. Otherwise, why would she have chosen him from among so many children?
In the days that followed, he saw his mother secretly shedding tears several times, and from then on, the people serving her were replaced.
He then realized that his mother would be saddened by this, and from then on, he never asked her about such topics again.
His mother took care of him from when he was just learning to speak until he was three years old, when she personally taught him his first lessons, and when he was six, he entered the clan school.
Lu Zhaoan was very intelligent. While other children his age in the clan school had to memorize articles that took them a whole day to read, he could memorize them after hearing them only once.
As time went on, he became somewhat lazy.
I can always finish the homework assigned by my teacher, so it shouldn't be a problem for me to play around a bit, right?
Since that's the case, it wouldn't hurt to play a little longer, right?
Later on, as he got more and more into off-roading, one day he skipped school with some of his cousins and went to the village to play.
Lu Zhaoan closed his eyes in pain, unable to continue speaking.
Gu Yaoniang listened quietly.
She guessed that something terrible must have happened during this truancy to cause Lu Zhaoan such pain and regret.
Taking advantage of being the youngest and lightest, Lu Zhaoan climbed up a tall tree, swinging his legs and swaying on it.
He suddenly saw a pink peach blossom in front of him, peeking over the neighboring wall.
At that moment, he felt that the peach tree was truly beautiful, blooming brightly in the sunlight, even the stamens were more beautiful and moving than he had ever seen before.
He recalled that his mother had always loved peach blossoms, and when he was a child, he often saw her putting peach branches into vases to enjoy them when he entered her bedroom.
As he grew older, he became more and more mischievous. Relying on his exceptional intelligence, he had long neglected his studies at the clan school, and today he went even further by skipping school.
Lu Zhao'an felt a little guilty about skipping school for the first time. Now, seeing the peach blossoms, he wanted to pick one to please his mother and avoid her anger and punishment.
He carefully swayed on the branch, weighed himself in, and determined that it could support his weight, then carefully climbed down the branch towards the peach blossom.
He carefully broke off a peach branch, but when he turned to go back, he found that it was extremely difficult.
Looking down at my feet, I realized that I was already more than ten feet above the ground.
No matter how clever and mischievous Lu Zhaoan was, he was still just a child. Seeing this situation, he couldn't help but feel frightened.
His cousins who came to the estate with him were also terrified. Lu Zhao'an was now the eldest son of the Lu family's main branch and was always favored by his wife. If something happened to him here, not only would the elders of the clan not forgive them, but even his own parents would not let them off the hook.
The boys were all panicked, searching everywhere for the steward and for a ladder, but Lu Zhaoan was some distance from the wall, and the branch he was on could not support his weight, so he could not turn around and get back to the other side of the tree.
The boys had never seen anything like this before, and they were all flustered, resulting in a stalemate.
Madam Lu learned from her husband that Lu Zhao'an had skipped class, and she was furious. She had long been dissatisfied with Lu Zhao'an's careless attitude towards studying, relying on his intelligence, and had been patiently waiting for him to make a bigger mistake so she could teach him a lesson.
Hearing that Lu Zhaoan had gone to the estate, he also ordered his servants to prepare a carriage and go there to catch Lu Zhaoan red-handed.
Unexpectedly, upon arriving at the manor, they saw Lu Zhao'an trapped high up in a tree, unable to come down.
At this point, she had no intention of educating Lu Zhaoan at all!
He kept calling out "My son!" and hurriedly called on the people in the village to think of a way. They quickly found a ladder and a thick quilt. As they went to the tree, they encouraged Lu Zhao'an to carefully follow the path they had taken and climb back up to the thick branch.
She saw the branch trembling precariously, as if it might break at any moment, and was afraid that even a breath of air would break it off.
But Lu Zhaoan was still clutching a peach blossom branch and wouldn't let go. Madam Lu was both angry and anxious: "What are you still holding onto the peach blossom for! Throw it away right now and hold the branch with both hands! Hurry!"
Lu Zhaoan still refused to let go: "No! This is what I put in the vase for you! I want to take it home!"
Madam Lu was both angry and touched. Just as she was about to coax him to throw down the peach branch, the branch where Lu Zhao'an was standing creaked.
Lu Zhao'an was so frightened that he dared not move. Madam Lu was also startled and hurriedly went to Lu Zhao'an's side, loudly asking the servants on the estate, "Where are the quilts! Why haven't they come yet!"
The villagers were on tenterhooks, saying there were no extra blankets and they would have to go to their rooms to get them, which would take a while and they would have to wait.
The tree branch couldn't wait any longer. Under everyone's watchful eyes, little by little, irreversibly, it bent downwards and finally broke.
The people around screamed in fright. Without thinking, Madam Lu rushed forward and reached out to catch Lu Zhao'an.
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