As Bai Linxi leaned against Jiang Songyi and crossed the hanging flower gate, the bloodstains on the toes of her embroidered shoes left a plum mark on the blue bricks. Xu's hand, holding the teacup, trembled, spilling scalding tea onto her peacock-blue horse-faced skirt.
"My son!" Xu hurried down the stairs, her skirt lifted. Her gold and jade armor scraped against Bai Linxi's frayed sleeves. "Is this how Yihuan, that bastard, takes care of his fiancée?"
Jiang Yihuan's black iron wrist guard knocked against the scabbard, sparks flying. "You left the team without permission, you deserve it."
"Bang!" The teacup in Xu's hand slammed heavily on the table, startling the spring swallows nesting under the eaves. "Do you think you are training the Black Tiger Cavalry? Lin Xi is the girl you have been engaged to since childhood!" The gilded armor tapped her son's chest. "If you don't make things clear today, the brambles in the ancestral hall will be waiting for you to kneel!"
Bai Linxi chuckled and tilted her head to rub Jiang Songyi's shoulder. "Look, Auntie, I'm back safe and sound." She deliberately stamped her injured leg and said, "When Brother Yihuan carried me back, he even wrapped me in his battle robe to block the wind."
Jiang Songyi helped her sit down on the stone bench with twisted branches, her fingertips brushing against the bamboo leaves stuck in Bai Linxi's hair. "I have some jade dew ointment from Southeast Asia. I'll have Xiang Zhu deliver it later." She turned and winked at Xu. "Mother, why don't you let Sister Bai stay at Langhua Garden? It's cheaper to change the medicine at night."
Before Mrs. Xu could say anything, Bai Linxi suddenly hugged Jiang Songyi's arm tightly: "Yes, yes! Living with the county lady can bring you some fairy spirit. Maybe your injury will be healed by tomorrow!" The silver bell on her wrist jingled, startling the koi in the pond so much that they wagged their tails and fled.
Third cousin Jiang Qingmo came over, holding an apricot, "Songyi, you're biased! Last time I wanted to stay at Langhua Garden to see the night-blooming cereus, you insisted the bed was too small." Her round fingertips poked Bai Linxi's brow, "What kind of magic potion did this black girl give you?"
"Cousin, you're stealing candied fruit again!" Jiang Songyi suddenly reached out and scratched Jiang Qingmo's waist, causing the girls to burst into laughter. A pomegranate-red shawl wrapped around her moon-white skirt spun into blossoming kapok flowers in the spring sun.
Jiang Yihuan stood in the shadow of the porch, gripping the hilt of his sword. The yellow sand from the Great Wall, stained by his dark cloak, fell to the ground. He remembered how Yuyao had clutched his sleeve and burst into tears when he left home, saying that Jiang Songyi had stolen the pearl hairpin she had worn at her coming-of-age ceremony. Now, amidst the laughter in the courtyard, it seemed as if he was the outsider.
"Cough cough!" The scabbard hit the white marble railing heavily.
The laughter stopped abruptly. Jiang Songyi straightened her wrinkled cuffs and took the sardonyx box from Xiang Zhu's hand: "Sister Bai, this is for scar removal..."
"Jiang Songyi!" Jiang Yihuan swallowed his bitter taste in his mouth, his Adam's apple rolling. Three months ago, Yuyao had said in a letter that this wild girl was even trying to steal her sister's place at the morning and evening visits. But the girl before him, the center of attention, didn't even glance at the sword at his waist that had slashed an enemy chief.
Xu suddenly slammed the table and stood up: "Are you just standing there as a door god? Why don't you go to the ancestral hall and burn some incense for your father!" Then she turned around and put on a kind expression, "What would Lin Xi like to eat tonight? Ask the kitchen to stew black chicken with angelica..."
As dusk drifted over the courtyard walls, Jiang Yihan knelt on the cold tiles of the ancestral hall. The newly added gilded incense burner on the altar was inscribed with "Presented by Princess Jiaqing." Even the eternal lamp before her father's tablet was filled with South China Sea shark oil. That wild girl, who should have been huddled in a corner, had now turned the Yongding Marquis's mansion upside down.
A ray of sunset happened to leak through the glazed windows of Langhua Garden, illuminating Jiang Songyi's fingers as she applied the medicine to Bai Linxi, making them as translucent as warm jade. Bai Linxi suddenly lowered her voice, "Actually, I was just mad at Miss Xue that day. Brother Yihuan insisted on taking her with him..."
"Sister." Jiang Songyi stopped the silver spoon dipped in the ointment in mid-air. "The horse farm of Yongding Marquis' Mansion is big enough, it's just to accommodate more people for dinner." She lowered her eyes to hide the dark thoughts in her eyes. The scene of Xue Xin poisoning Xu's throat in her previous life seemed to be still before her eyes.
Suddenly, the sound of a sword tassel sweeping across a beaded curtain could be heard from the corridor. Jiang Songyi's wrist trembled slightly, and the Jade Dew Cream splashed onto her butterfly skirt. Bai Linxi had already jumped out, lifting the curtain. "Brother Yihuan, are you here to see me?"
Jiang Yihan stared at the motionless figure behind the curtain, and suddenly threw a celadon bottle onto the stone table: "Golden wound medicine." As he turned around, his black iron boots crushed the fallen flowers in front of the steps, as if this could crush the cheers in the yard that did not belong to him.
The crisp sound of horse hooves echoed on the bluestone road outside the city gate. Xue Xin's fingers, clutching the carriage curtain, turned pale. Peering through the gauze curtain, the vermilion plaque on the city gate shone golden in the sunlight. She couldn't help but whisper, "General Jiang, is this the capital?"
Jiang Yihuan tightened the reins and turned, just in time to see Xue Xin cautiously stepping out of the carriage, her plain skirt lifted. The spring breeze blew her hair around her temples, revealing a small crimson mole on her jade-white earlobe. He dismounted, his dark cloak sweeping across the newly sprouted grass by the roadside. "Don't worry, Miss Xue. I'll take care of finding your relatives. You can rest assured and stay in the Marquis' Mansion for the next few days."
Xue Xin lowered her head and twisted the silk ribbon at her waist, her dark blue eyelashes casting a small shadow under her eyes. "I am really sorry to trouble you, General."
In the main hall of the Yongding Marquis's residence, Xu sat upright on a huanghuali armchair, her fingertips tracing the subtle patterns on her sleeves. Three beautiful girls stood beside her. On the far right, Jiang Songyi tilted her head, fiddling with the jade pendant at her waist. The silver bells tinkled beneath her apricot-colored skirt.
"Mother, this is Xue Xin." Jiang Yihuan strode across the threshold, his golden cloud-patterned boots creaking against the blue bricks. The young general's gaze swept over his three cousins. As he passed Jiang Songyi, his Adam's apple moved, and he deliberately raised his voice, "The benefactor who saved my life in the northern border."
Xu sized up the delicate woman before her: her plain skirt had been washed bleached, and she wore only a wooden hairpin in her hair. Yet, her eyes, full of affection, seemed to speak volumes. She calmly raised her teacup and asked, "How could Miss Xue end up wandering alone in the northern border?"
Xue Xin suddenly knelt down and bowed deeply, startling Jiang Qingzhi so much that she wanted to help him, but Xu Shi raised her hand to stop her. The hall was so quiet that one could hear the soft ringing of the bronze bells under the eaves. The young girl's sobbing voice was particularly clear: "I have been following my grandfather to collect herbs for a living since I was young. Two years ago, the Hu people invaded the border." Her shoulders trembled like leaves in the wind. "My grandfather was killed by those beasts to protect me."
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