Jiang Songyi stared at the crane pattern on the corner of his moon-white robe, and suddenly remembered the snow on Mount Taibai. That year, when she accidentally ate a poisonous mushroom, her master carried her on his back, stepping deep and shallow through the snow, leaving winding trails wherever the crane's cloak swept.
"I want to learn too!" Su Sheng stretched his neck and squeezed in between the two of them, his brocade robe rubbing against the lilac embroidery on Jiang Songyi's sleeves. Xin Yidao glanced at him calmly: "The kitchen is hot, cousin, are you sure?"
The princess held her forehead and sighed, "Sheng'er can't even tell the difference between sugar and salt." Before she could finish her words, Su Sheng had already chased the moon-white and lilac figures through the moon-shaped gate. The pebbles on the path crackled under his feet, startling the koi in the pond and scattering them.
The kitchen was filled with the aroma of steaming milk. Jiang Songyi rolled up her sleeves, revealing her fair wrists. Xin Yidaoyi stood behind her and instructed, "Sieve the glutinous rice flour three times." His breath brushed against her ear, startling the tiny hairs.
Su Sheng suddenly squeezed in. "What's so difficult about this?" He grabbed the sieve and shook it wildly, sending a mist of powder all over his face. Jiang Songyi turned to smile when she saw the prince raising his hand to brush the flour from her temples. As the jade ring brushed against her earlobe, she suddenly remembered that snowy night in her past life, when her master had used the same gesture to remove dead leaves from her hair.
"It's overcooked." Xinyi Daoyi suddenly grasped her spoon-holding hand. Jiang Songyi's calloused hand rested against his palm, and she vaguely heard the breeze from Mount Taibai sweeping through the bamboo forest. Su Sheng knocked over the sugar jar nearby, and the sticky honey dripped onto the counter, reminiscent of the medicine she had spilled while making her master's medicine that year.
This was the scene the Princess witnessed when she entered: the Crown Prince holding Songyi's hand as they mixed the filling, while her own son was jumping up and down over the burnt milk cake. She suddenly remembered her brother teaching the late Empress how to carve a hairpin, twenty years ago.
"Aunt, try it!" Su Sheng brought a black mass of something like a treasure. The princess reluctantly took a bite, and the sweet and fishy taste rushed to her head - this fool had used sugar instead of salt.
A copper bell tinkled beneath the eaves as Jiang Songyi packed her milk cake into a lunch box. Xin Yidao suddenly offered her a handkerchief: "You got it on your face." She looked up to take it, but he wiped the flour off her nose. In the distance, Su Sheng's overturned copper basin clattered to the ground, startling sparrows from the trees.
Jiang Shu stood in the corridor, watching, and suddenly understood what the prince meant by "the person who deserves the gift the most." She stroked the jade bracelet on her wrist, remembering the gleam in Song Yi's eyes when she asked about the Qi family's marriage this morning. Suddenly, it seemed less important to whom the jade pendant was tied.
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