Jiang Yuyao was stunned for a moment, her eyes flashing as she darted towards the man who had been hit by the screen. Jiang Jinzhao skillfully straightened the fallen screen, gently patted his sleeves, his expression as cold as ice, and walked calmly to the front of the crowd.
He walked right past her without even glancing at her, as if she didn't exist.
The copper bells on the eaves rang loudly, and Jiang Yuyao dug her fingertips into her palms. She had clearly seen a strange man carrying Jiang Songyi into the side room, so how could it be Jiang Jinzhao? The light filtering through the diamond-shaped window shone on Jiang Jinzhao's jade-colored waist belt, dazzling her eyes.
"Who just said my sister was having an affair with a man outside her family?" Jiang Jinzhao's fingertips brushed the edge of the teacup. The celadon teacup clattered against the table, startling Yao Shuying so much that she took a step back.
Su Sheng suddenly raised his hand and pointed at the crowd: "Him! And her!" The noble lady who was chosen stumbled and knocked over the embroidery stool, and her hairpin got tangled in the bead curtain. Yuan Tong twisted his fat hands and added: "Miss Peng said that the county lady hid the bellyband!"
"Fatty Yuan, you!" Miss Peng's face flushed, and her red nails almost poked into Yuan Tong's eyes.
Jiang Jinzhao stood up slowly, and the jade pendant with dragon pattern on his waist swept across the table: "My father attaches great importance to family traditions, and I think it will be the case for your fathers!" Before he finished speaking, the pearl curtain rustled, and the spectators rushed to squeeze out - who doesn't know that the Marquis of Yongding single-handedly took down a bandit's nest when he was young?
Jiang Songyi leaned against the doorframe, sneering. It was the same in her previous life. Jiang Yuyao had falsely accused her of having an affair with a groom at a flower viewing banquet, but Jiang Jinzhao had only punished her by making her copy the "Lessons for Women" for three days. She gathered her torn sleeves tightly together, turned around, and shattered the light and shadows on the ground.
"Miss, wait for me!" Xiang Zhu glared at Jiang Yuyao, and deliberately stepped on her trailing shawl when her skirt swept over the threshold.
Jiang Yuyao stumbled as she was dragged along, looking up and meeting Jiang Jinzhao's gaze. Those eyes, which always held a smile, were now frosted. She hurriedly tugged at his sleeve, "Yao Shuying really insisted on bringing someone with her!"
"Yuyao." Jiang Jinzhao pulled back his sleeves, his tea-scented fingertips pointing out the window. "Three years ago, you knelt before Grandmother and said you wanted to be the second daughter of the Marquis's mansion."
Dusk drifted through the window lattice, and Jiang Yuyao recalled that day's heavy rain. She clutched her dripping skirt and cried for shelter. The handkerchief Jiang Jinzhao handed her was still scented with agarwood. But now the fragrance made her nauseous—ever since the real daughter returned home, even the fake one's share of fumigation had been cut in half!
"Brother, you know it's her fault!" Jiang Yuyao suddenly fell silent. Jiang Jinzhao hadn't known when the jade pendant on his waist had been replaced with a bamboo leaf-patterned sachet embroidered by Jiang Songyi, and the tassel was still the heart-shaped knot she'd tied last year.
Suddenly, a cry of surprise came from outside the wing room. Jiang Songyi stood in the corridor, with an unconscious man in brocade robe lying at his feet. Yuan Tong pried through the crack of the door and exclaimed, "Isn't this the man who carried the county lady into the wing room?"
Jiang Jinzhao rushed out, his black cape sweeping away the pearl flowers on Jiang Yuyao's temples. A silver hairpin was prominently tucked into the back of the man's neck. It was the birthday gift he had given Jiang Songyi when she reached the age of 15.
"I knocked him unconscious." Jiang Songyi rubbed the blood-stained tip of the hairpin. "Brother, do you want to try him or report him to the police?"
Jiang Yuyao's legs went limp and she fell to the ground. She had clearly seen this scoundrel being led to the west wing. How could this happen? Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through her wrist. Jiang Jinzhao grabbed her vital point and said, "Yuyao, the scent of the albizzia flowers on your purse is from the same source as the incense used on the thief's clothing."
Xiang Zhu suddenly pointed at the sole of the man's boots and said, "This mud mark! The peony garden on the back mountain was just watered this morning!" Everyone looked at the hem of Jiang Yuyao's skirt - under the light pink gauze skirt, the embroidered shoes were stained with the same red mud.
The evening drum shattered the last ray of daylight. Jiang Songyi leaned over to pick up the blood-stained hairpin, and pointed it at Jiang Yuyao's pale face. "The coming-of-age gift my second brother gave me last month is appropriate here."
Jiang Yuyao twisted the apricot-colored handkerchief and pressed it to the corners of her eyes, squeezing out two tears: "Big brother, I really didn't mean to let it slip." Before she finished speaking, the lotus pattern embroidered on her cuffs was already wrinkled - this trick always worked. Usually, as long as she called out "Big brother" with red eyes, Jiang Jinzhao would even cover up for her when she broke the imperial glass cup.
But today, Jiang Jinzhao's gaze passed over her shoulder, fixed on the jade chessboard on the rosewood table. The black and white pieces crisscrossed, completely breaking the "Seven Stars Gathering" game that had trapped him for over a month. The only person who had touched the pieces was Jiang Songyi!
"Go to the ancestral hall and kneel down," Jiang Jinzhao suddenly said, startling the canary in the corridor so much that it fluttered and flew into its cage. Jiang Yuyao forgot to cover her eyes with her handkerchief, tears hanging on her cheeks, threatening to fall. "Big brother, are you really going to punish me for a stranger?"
"Songyi is your eldest sister." Jiang Jinzhao's fingertips traced the chessboard's star, where a half-dot of rouge still remained. Three days ago, when Jiang Songyi had brought him osmanthus cake, she had pointed at the unfinished game and remarked, "It's like a trapped dragon entering the sea." He had dismissed it as the foolish ramblings of a young woman.
Jiang Yuyao suddenly threw the handkerchief to the ground: "Yes! You are the blood relatives!" The pearl-studded embroidered shoes rolled over the silk handkerchief, "Anyway, I was raised by a concubine, I deserve to be abused by you!" She turned and rushed towards the moon-shaped door, and the golden hairpin in her hair scraped off two magnolia petals.
Normally, Jiang Jinzhao would have caught up to comfort her by this time. Jiang Yuyao deliberately slowed her pace, the only sound she could hear was the crisp sound of chess pieces hitting the board. She turned around abruptly and saw Jiang Jinzhao standing in the shadow of the corridor column, holding a black piece. The coldness between his brows was surprisingly similar to Jiang Songyi's.
Outside the wing room, Jiang Qingmo picked a white peony and pinned it to Jiang Songyi's temple. "Let me take a look, don't leave a scar." She deliberately put on a stern face. "If it really leaves a scar, I will have someone tear down the stage in the Yao Mansion tomorrow!"
"Sister, you're just talking nonsense." Jiang Qinghe smiled and handed over the bronze mirror with lotus pattern. "Songyi's skin is as white as cream. How can that nagging guy from the Yao family be worthy of mentioning the word 'disfigured'?" The mirror reflected the girl's smooth forehead, with only the pale blue blood vessels behind her ears throbbing slightly - that was the mark left by the suppressed anger just now.
Jiang Qingzhi suddenly pointed toward the flowerbed. "Look at that cluster of peonies!" Over twenty peonies unfolded their petals in the dusk, the brightest perched just beside the hem of Jiang Songyi's skirt. As she leaned forward, the black seed hidden in her sleeve fell with a plop into the flower mud.
"Ah!" Jiang Qinghe picked up the chess piece stained with floral mud, "Isn't this the black jade piece that big brother always carries with him?"
Jiang Songyi took the chess piece and caressed it. The warmth and smoothness of it felt exactly the same as it had three days earlier. That day, she'd barged into the study under the pretext of delivering snacks and, while Jiang Jinzhao's back was turned, had secretly switched the star position. Thinking about it now, perhaps from that moment on, some fate had quietly shifted, just like this endgame.
A bronze bell suddenly tinkled from the eaves of the main house. Jiang Jinzhao stood in the corridor, clutching a half-finished chess game. From afar, he caught sight of his sister's silhouette, leaning over to sniff at the flowers. The evening breeze blew the hem of her pomegranate-red skirt, and it seemed as if she overlapped with the figure in his dream, atop a horse, shielding him from the arrows.
He subconsciously touched the arrow wound on his heart, but what he touched was the cold chessboard in his arms - there was a piece of blood-stained jade stuck in it, which was the fragment of the jade pendant that Jiang Songyi had clutched when he died in his previous life.
As wind chimes tinkled in the corridor, Mei Weixing sketched the final petal of a peony. The woman in the painting stood fanning herself among the flowers, her features bearing a striking resemblance to Jiang Qinghe in the pavilion. A servant carried the scroll across the Nine-Curve Bridge, unrolling it like a treasure. "Miss Qinghe, please take a look. This was painted specially for you by our prince..."
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