Princess Linchuan knocked her armor against the stone table. "The Su family's ancestral precepts prohibit legitimate descendants from taking concubines." Her phoenix eyes swept across her son's flushed face. "Sheng'er, don't you agree?"
The celadon cup in Su Sheng's hand cracked with a crack. "Mother! When did our Su family..." Before he could finish his words, the eldest princess twisted his ear and pinched his earlobe with the jeweled armor. "You dare to forget the ancestral precepts that were just added last month?"
Jiang Songyi leaned against the vermilion lacquer column and chuckled, "Young Marquis is so pitiful. All the young men in the capital can have three wives and four concubines, but you..." She deliberately dragged out the last word, and her crimson skirt swept across the fallen petals on the ground.
"Who says I can't!" Su Sheng slammed the table and stood up, the ruby on the jade crown clashing in the shadow of the eaves. "Tomorrow I will take in ten beautiful maids!"
Princess Linchuan smacked him on the back of the head with her round fan: "How dare you!" She turned to Jiang Songyi and smiled kindly: "Songyi, I've just received a batch of Shu brocade..."
"Princess, I'll take my leave." Jiang Songyi bowed and walked towards the hexagonal pavilion, holding the hem of her skirt. The golden finch on her embroidered pleated skirt fluttered with her steps, startling Su Sheng's Adam's apple. "Actually... if..."
"Louder!" The eldest princess grabbed his ear and turned him around. "Wasn't you quite impressive just now?"
Su Sheng stared at the crimson figure, his voice as light as catkins: "If she is willing to marry..." The second half of the sentence was blown away by the draft, and the tips of his ears were red enough to drip blood.
…
Moon-shadow veils hung around the pavilion. Jiang Qingzhi was pushing iced bayberries to Jiang Songyi. "Did you get a heat stroke? You look so pale."
Jiang Songyi leaned against the white marble railing, her fingertips still tingling with the burning pain from the divination. The black mist she had just glimpsed while reading for Jiang Shu's stillborn baby still lingered before her eyes. She picked up a bayberry and suddenly caught sight of a snowy figure on the arched bridge.
"Master!" She lifted her skirt and ran after him, her embroidered shoes catching on the golden thread at the hem of her skirt, nearly causing her to fall into the stream. The embroidered gold-embroidered dress was beautiful, but as she walked, it felt like she was dragging a thousand-pound chain.
Jiang Qingzhi came after him with some summer tea: "Songyi! Over there is..."
"I'll be back soon!" Jiang Songyi had already stepped onto the arched bridge. The railings were carved with lotus patterns, and the figure's back was reflected in the stream—wide sleeves flowing like clouds, black hair unbound, and as he walked, he was like a lone crane skimming across a cold pond.
The laughter from the Peony Garden drifted in on the wind, but here it was so quiet that one could only hear the sound of willow leaves falling into the water. Jiang Songyi chased to the Moon Cave Gate and was stunned by the three words "Zhenliu Pavilion" on the plaque.
"Master is from the Ministry of War?" She stroked the copper coins in her sleeve. When they first met last year at the foot of Mount Taibai, he clearly claimed to be a scholar heading to Beijing for the imperial examination. How could he be in the forbidden area of the Princess's residence?
A late spring breeze swept across the azure waters, sending willow catkins scattering onto the hem of Jiang Songyi's woven golden skirt. Her fingertips, gripping the bridge railing until they turned white, swept her gaze over every weeping willow by the stream—the snow-white figure she had just seen vanished like morning mist.
"Master..." She tiptoed to bend the highest willow branch. The moment her gilded armor snipped off the tender bud, the scent of cold plum blossoms suddenly filled her from behind. A wide white sleeve brushed across her wrist, and jade-like fingers softly grasped the willow branch. "Plants and trees have spirits. Why would you take their life?"
Jiang Songyi spun abruptly, the golden hairpin sweeping across the man's jaw. Xin Yidao lowered her eyes, her long eyelashes casting a shadow across her pale face, like a streak of ink on cracked porcelain. The stream shimmered his snow-white crane cloak, making him look like a banished immortal stepping onto the waves.
"I've found you!" Jiang Songyi's raised willow branch suddenly dropped, its tender green branches swaying in a strange arc on the bluestone slabs, the tip pointed squarely at Xinyi Daoyi's black boots. She stumbled half a step, holding onto the bridge pillar, her forehead stained with sweat, and asked, "Master, are you familiar with this 'Green Fly Leading the Way' move?"
Xin Yidao covered his lips and coughed softly, the silver lines on his sleeves flowing like moonlight as he moved. He clearly remembered this lost Xuanmen tracking technique, now revived in the hands of a young woman from another world. Before he could speak, the crimson figure before him suddenly fell, and the golden necklace brushed against the jade buckle on his chest, startling a series of piercing sounds.
"Your Highness!" The secret guard leaped down from the treetops, the tip of his sword pointed directly at Jiang Songyi's throat, "This woman..."
"Back off," Xinyi said, his hand trembling slightly as he held the girl. The scent of jasmine in her hair mingled with the scent of blood. He had actually forced his spiritual power to backfire. In his previous life, in the modern Xuanmen sect, only the little sister who always pestered him, calling her "Master," could wield such desperate magic.
The secret guard stared at his master's pale lips, his sword clanging in its sheath: "Let this subordinate..."
"She's the only daughter of the Marquis of Yongding." Xin Yidao bent her knees and lifted her up. Jiang Songyi's gilded skirt flowed like water, brushing against the dragon-patterned jade pendant at his waist. The secret guard's pupils shrank suddenly—the Crown Prince had coughed for half the night three days ago because he couldn't hold a medicine jar, and now he could hold a young girl steadily!
Xinyi Dao stepped over the willow catkins, her moon-white brocade boots crushing a fallen petal. The woman in her arms was too light to look like a noblewoman, yet on her wrist she wore the "Nine-Turn Exquisite Bracelet," a supreme treasure of the Xuan Sect. In her previous life, her junior sister always flirted with this bracelet, saying, "Master gave me this life-saving talisman. I'll wear it even when I die and am reborn."
"Your Highness, are you really going to take her to Zhenliu Pavilion?" The secret guard hurriedly gave chase, "If the Jiang family comes looking for you..."
"Take the Three Purities Bell and hang it in the southeast corner." Xinyi kicked open the carved wooden door and placed the man on the bamboo couch. Suddenly, the Buddhist beads on her wrist snapped. The round sandalwood bead rolled across Jiang Songyi's pale lips, leaving a light brown mark—a sign of the Heart-Eating Gu attack.
When the secret guard entered with the copper basin, he saw his master cut his fingertip and drip blood into the teacup. The crimson stain fell on the white porcelain, like a red plum blossom in the snow. "Your Highness!" He threw the copper basin and tried to grab the dagger. "The imperial physician said you can no longer..."
"Get out." Xinyi said as she flicked her sleeve to extinguish the candlelight. When the secret guard was pushed out of the door by the strong wind, he caught a glimpse of the bloody lines appearing on the master's neck - those were the backlash marks of the curse that changed his fate against the will of heaven.
In the moonlight filtering through the bamboo curtains, the exquisite Nine Revolutions bracelet on Jiang Songyi's wrist suddenly glowed green. As Xin Yidao pinched her jaw open to feed her blood, he vaguely remembered the modern Xuanmen explosion: the Nine Revolutions bracelet on his wrist had also shone like that when his junior sister pushed him out of the formation.
"Master..." The unconscious girl suddenly grabbed his collar, her fingertips just touching the old wound on his heart, "Don't abandon Song Yi..."
Xin Yidao froze in place. This was exactly what his junior sister had said before falling into the sea of fire in his previous life. The Buddhist beads on his wrist suddenly felt hot. The Heart-Eating Gu gnawed along his veins, gnawing at his heart, but it couldn't compare to the turmoil in his heart. The teardrop mole at the corner of Jiang Songyi's eye was positioned exactly like his junior sister's.
A night owl startled from outside the window, its long cry echoing. The guard's hand, clutching the Three Purities Bell, trembled slightly. The bell rang in the southeast corner, windless, and the sandalwood beads on the ground bounced like living creatures. Suddenly, the sound of shattering porcelain echoed from within the Pillow Flow Pavilion. He burst through the door to find Jiang Songyi slumped over his master's shoulder, vomiting blood. The Nine Revolutions Bracelet enveloped the two of them in a green glow, casting tangled shadows on the ground.
"Hurry! Listen to me and take her away." Xinyi Daoyi threw the blood-stained handkerchief into the brazier, "Go through the secret passage to the back door of Yongding Marquis' Mansion."
When the secret guard took the person over, he was shocked to find that his master's back was soaked with cold sweat.
The green light on Jiang Songyi's wrist gradually faded, and cracks suddenly appeared on the Nine Revolutions Bracelet - exactly the same as the traces of "soul transfer and life extension" recorded in ancient Xuanmen books.
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