“Tear——”
Jiang Songyi suddenly snatched the scroll, her slender fingers tracing across the lady's face. The crisp sound of the silk tearing startled swallows from the eaves, and the fragments fell onto the bluestone slabs.
"County Lady Jiaqing!" Mei Weixing rushed over, his moon-white brocade robe sweeping across the mossy stone steps. "This painting is the fruit of my labor..." Before he finished speaking, Jiang Songyi had already stuffed the torn-off portrait of the lady into Jiang Qinghe's hands. "My cousin, keep it. This peony painting..." She tossed the remaining scroll back into the servant's arms. "Please practice your brushwork, my prince."
Mei Weixing's face flushed. The peony in the painting was indeed lifelike, but the lady's features were stiff, as if painted after the magnolia hairpin Jiang Yuyao had worn yesterday. He subconsciously glanced toward the moonlit door—Jiang Yuyao was peeking through the handkerchief.
"Is this the first time the prince has painted a girl?" Jiang Songyi tapped the edge of the remaining scroll. "The way he moves his brush looks like he's painted beauties thousands of times."
Jiang Qinghe suddenly clenched the image in her hand. She remembered last month's outing, when Mei Weixing said he was not good at drawing figures. But the hairpins in this painting clearly showed the most fashionable folded gauze style this spring. If it wasn't a typical painting of a woman in the boudoir, how could he be so familiar with it?
"My cousin has been naughty, please forgive me, Prince." She shielded Jiang Songyi behind her, the gold peony thread on her sleeve brushing against Mei Weixing's palm. A trace of regret flashed in the young prince's eyes. He had used this trick on Jiang Yuyao before, and she blushed at that time.
Behind the rockery, Jiang Shu crushed the peony in her palm. The thought she had just heard was like thunder—there was actually a portrait of Jiang Yuyao hidden in the Mei family's secret room! Remembering how Lady Jingkang had held her hand and promised her that she would "treat Qinghe as her own daughter" that morning, her stomach suddenly churned.
"Mother?" Jiang Qingzhi held her up, worried. Jiang Shu waved her hand, indicating it was nothing, her eyes glancing at the new dragon jade pendant on Mei Weixing's waist. She recognized it; it had appeared at Jiang Yuyao's coming-of-age ceremony last month.
Suddenly, a sound of shattering cups echoed from the pavilion. Jiang Yuyao had accidentally knocked over a teacup, soaking her skirt. Mei Weixing instinctively tried to untie his cloak, but froze under Jiang Shu's cold gaze.
"This cloak of the prince..." Jiang Songyi suddenly chuckled, "Is it embroidered with twin lotus flowers?" She deliberately pulled at Jiang Qinghe's cuff - the same pattern was embroidered there.
Mei Weixing's forehead was covered in sweat. He'd originally worn this cloak to please Jiang Qinghe, but seeing Jiang Yuyao's pitiful appearance, it had somehow taken over his mind... He quickly thought of a solution: "Today's flower viewing banquet is themed around lotus, and I'm just being polite..."
"Is it appropriate for my cousin's fiancé?" Jiang Songyi interrupted, picking up the cloak's laces with her fingertips. "I remember Sister Yuyao wrote 'Ode to the Lotus' at last month's poetry gathering?"
Jiang Qinghe suddenly released her grip on the afterimage. The silk fluttered onto the surface of the pond, startling the koi. She recalled Mei Weixing's expression when he'd praised Jiang Yuyao's poetry that day. She'd assumed it was just a polite gesture...
"Since the prince is good at painting, why not paint a lotus painting for Sister Yuyao?" Jiang Songyi pressed the paintbrush into Mei Weixing's trembling hand. "It will perfectly match this cloak."
Jiang Yuyao's face turned pale. She had deliberately worn a dress of the same color as Jiang Qinghe's today, but she had also inserted a white lotus hairpin in her hair. At this moment, the hairpin seemed to have transformed into a sharp arrow, piercing her scalp and making it numb.
"Nonsense!" Jiang Shu finally spoke up, "Prince Mei and Qing He's marriage hasn't been finalized yet..." She suddenly stopped. The list of betrothal gifts sent by the Jingkang Marquis's Mansion the day before was still in the study, among which was a box of lotus seed-carved twin hairpins.
Mei Weixing sank to his knees: "Madam, please understand. I have done this to Miss Qinghe..." His words of defense were silenced by Jiang Shu's cold gaze. He suddenly remembered his father's advice - the Yongding Marquis's Mansion is in great favor with the emperor, and this marriage must not be ruined.
The remaining painting sank to the bottom of the pond, koi carp pecking at the inky peonies. Jiang Qinghe bent down to pick up the soaked portrait of the woman, her face blurred on the silk gauze. "Don't force yourself, my lord," she said softly, folding the remaining image and placing it back in Mei Weixing's hands. "Let's leave this painting to someone more suitable."
Jiang Yuyao dug her nails into her palm. She clearly saw a corner of the sachet peeking out from Mei Weixing's sleeve. It was the old thing she had "lost" last month. She had thought she could climb into the Jingkang Marquis's mansion through an engagement, but now...
"Sir, do you know the ancestral precepts of our Jiang family?" Jiang Shu suddenly asked, "Any daughter of the Jiang family would rather die than live in disgrace." She took off the red ruby hairpin from Jiang Qinghe's hair, "This item was originally intended to be added to the dowry." The gold and jade pendant fell into the pond with a clang, startling Mei Weixing so much that he trembled all over.
A crimson figure suddenly emerged from behind the rockery. Princess Linchuan chuckled, fanning herself softly. "I didn't know that these days, when noble sons seek marriage, they must bring portraits of two daughters from both families?" Behind her, the maid holding a brocade box contained a painting of a lady that Mei Weixing had painted as a practice.
As dusk fell over the eaves, Jiang Songyi leaned against the porch pillars, munching on osmanthus cake. Jiang Qinghe tossed the broken painting into the brazier and suddenly whispered, "Cousin, how did you know he had paintings in his secret room?"
"I..." Jiang Songyi choked, and was about to make an excuse when she saw Jiang Shu approaching with the marriage certificate. As the flames passed over Mei Weixing's name, she heard her aunt murmur softly, "This time, I must choose a true love for you."
Jiang Shu's knuckles were white as she held onto the Taihu stone. Just now, as she passed through the moon-shaped gate, she had clearly spotted the gilded, hollowed-out scent pouch hanging from Mei Weixing's waist—the same design as the one Jiang Yuyao wore at her coming-of-age ceremony. Now, listening to the argument between her daughters and Mei Weixing, her nails scratched three white marks on the stone.
"Prince Mei has a great taste." Jiang Songyi poked her head out from behind Jiang Qinghe, her slender fingertips pinching the remaining half of a painting. "He hid thirty-six small portraits of Jiang Yuyao in the secret room. Is he trying to emulate the story of Tang Bohu and Autumn Fragrance?"
Mei Weixing's forehead veins throbbed. He had hoped to use the Peony Banquet to cultivate his relationship with Jiang Qinghe, but he hadn't expected this young woman to find him in the secret room the moment he entered the courtyard. Looking at the pearl hairpin trembling in Jiang Qinghe's hair, he suddenly remembered Jiang Yuyao's hairpin, swaying so temptingly as she looked back from the dragon boat during the Dragon Boat Festival that year.
"Please be careful with your words, my Lady!" He clenched the bones of the Xiang Fei bamboo fan. "My Mei family has been a family of nobles for generations. How can we allow you to slander us?" The four words "A gentle breeze is coming" written on the gold-sprinkled paper on the fan were crumpled into a ball, which looked very much like the unfinished painting "Playing the Lute Under the Moon" in the dark room.
Jiang Qinghe suddenly reached out and ripped away the remaining painting. The sound of the brocade tearing startled the swallows from the eaves. She gently tossed the fragments into the lotus pond: "Since the prince has accused me of slander, these filthy things should be fed to the koi." The water reflected the new lotus hairpin in her hair—a betrothal gift from the Mei family the day before.
Mei Weixing stared at the drifting picture, and vaguely saw Jiang Yuyao playing "The Phoenix Seeks the Phoenix" at the Duke's Mansion last Mid-Autumn Festival. Back then, she was wearing a moon-white cloud brocade skirt, the jasmine in her hair trembling with the music, a hundred times more vivid than the wooden beauty before him.
"Miss Qinghe, do you know this painting?" His voice was hoarse. "I stayed up all night for seven days."
"Your eyes are bloodshot just to paint a concubine?" Jiang Qingmo suddenly sneered, "My second sister's eyes are red from embroidering her wedding dress, how come you don't see the prince feeling distressed?"
This remark irritated Mei Weixing. He swept the Ru kiln teacup off the stone table with a flick of his sleeve: "Your Jiang family daughters are so well-educated! One trespassed into a private residence, one destroyed someone's calligraphy, and there's another one." His eyes swept over Jiang Qinghe's plain moon-white skirt, and he swallowed back the word "bland and boring".
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