Chapter 1097 I wish to live as long as you
Xiao Zhan's knuckles stroked the strands of hair on her temples, and the jade ring reflected tiny rays of light in the morning light.
"Don't move."
His voice was hoarse from just waking up. He supported himself on the mandarin duck pillow with one arm, forming a semicircular cage, and placed his other hand above the gauze on her waist.
There was a faint fragrance under the brocade quilt. His Adam's apple rolled to suppress the dark current in his eyes, but when he saw the blush on the tip of the woman's ear, he suddenly closed his five fingers and asked, "Does the medicine you applied last night still hurt?"
Jiang Xue was about to speak when she suddenly felt something burning on her lips.
Xiao Zhan's kiss was like the rain of apricot blossoms in March, and it carried with it the trembling of surviving a calamity.
She clenched the gold-embroidered quilt with her knuckles, and vaguely heard the roar of his heartbeat in his chest - that was the rhythm that shattered all his sanity when she was unconscious in a pool of blood.
"breathe."
He chuckled against her forehead and wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes with his fingertips.
This was the first time he saw Jiang Xiaowei's defensive face sleeping since her death, as if a snow lotus that had been frozen for a thousand years was slowly unfrozen in his palm.
It was not until the copper bells under the eaves rang that Xiao Zhan reluctantly let go of the person in his arms.
As the jade belt of his court robes clasped together, he leaned over and branded her neck with his last mark: "When I leave court, I'll take you to the city tower to see the Vermillion Bird Lantern."
When the sun set in the west, the two babies were carried into the warm room by the wet nurse.
Jiang Xue leaned on the pillow of hundreds of children and grandchildren, watching Feng Zhige holding Lan Zheng's tiger-head shoes and babbling.
Suddenly, the cry of babies broke the silence. The two little jade-like balls cried one after another as if they were competing with each other, and the enamel incense burner on the antique shelf was shaken slightly.
"No problem."
Jiang Xue stopped the nurse from kneeling down to apologize, and lightly touched the child's tear-soaked cheek with her fingertips: "Listen to this full-throated cry, it sounds a lot like their father's shouting when he was practicing sword."
After he finished speaking, he laughed out loud, startling a group of red-billed blue magpies outside the window.
Before dusk fell, the corner of Xiao Zhan's black clothes had already passed the threshold of the study.
The woman at the desk looked up when she heard the voice, and the jade pen drew half a plum blossom on the rice paper: "You're home early today?"
He glanced at the scriptures piled on the desk and the agarwood chips falling from the gilded incense burner.
"The prescription for calming the nerves that Dean Zhang prescribed the other day has resulted in a restless person."
His fingertips stroked the yellowed paper. The words on the Bodhi leaf-patterned paper were written in thin handwriting: "Rebirth Mantra?"
"When I changed little Zheng'er's swaddling clothes in the morning, he grabbed the tassel on my sleeve and smiled."
Jiang Xue placed the wolf-hair brush on the celadon brush holder. The sunset light that leaked in through the window gilded her profile. "Her eyebrows and eyes look like she is smiling. If she were still here..."
The newly ground pine soot ink in the inkstone began to ripple, and Xiao Zhan suddenly felt his sleeves sink slightly.
He lowered his eyes and saw the woman's slender fingers hooked on the jade buckle on his belt. The cinnabar mole at the end of her eye flickered in the twilight. "I heard that the lotus lanterns for the dead at Baoen Temple in the south of the city need to be offered with hand-copied scriptures."
"No more than three pages a day."
Xiao Zhan took off his cloak and wrapped it around her thin shoulders, but felt a half piece of candy hidden in his sleeve: "Last time I hid the candied fruit and got a cough..."
"Master Prime Minister wants to punish me?"
Jiang Xue suddenly leaned forward, and the scent of osmanthus in her hair brushed across his Adam's apple: "Then punish me..."
The last syllable turned into a warm breath that fell on the lips. The scriptures on the desk were blown by the evening breeze, revealing an apricot leaf stick sandwiched between them, with the four words "Long Life" written crookedly on it.
Xiao Zhan looked at the sly smile of the person in his arms, and suddenly remembered the pulse case sent by the Imperial Medical Bureau three days ago.
As the candlelight flickered, he hugged her a little tighter, letting her white wrist reach into her clothes to feel for the smuggled seal: "Five pages at most."
Words of compromise become soft as silk.
"Does Yun Che know that 'Buddha also has an angry aspect'?"
Jiang Xue pointed her finger at his chest, where the arrow wound from the Northern Frontier was hidden: "I want to copy the full number of ninety-nine, and ask for..."
The unfinished words were swallowed between the lips and teeth. The swaying shadows of bamboo outside the window obscured the newly added "May I live as long as you" on the last page of the sutra.
"I love to see you no matter what you look like." Xiao Zhan's fingertips gently brushed the ends of her hair, and suddenly his face turned stern: "Except when you are in a bad mood."
Jiang Xue tilted her head and leaned closer: "Really?"
"Absolutely."
She suddenly wrinkled her nose and winked, her whole face wrinkled like a crumpled piece of rice paper: "You like this look too?"
"I like it very much."
Xiao Zhan tilted his head and chuckled, his warm breath brushing against the tip of her ear: "Especially the way you imitated the little fragrant pig rooting for food, it was so vivid."
Seeing the tiredness between his brows fade a little, Jiang Xue took the opportunity to pull his sleeve: "Yun Che, I'm hungry."
When he was sorting out memorials for him just now, he noticed that the pile of secret letters on the desk was twice as much as usual, so he deliberately acted funny to make him laugh.
After the meal, Xiao Zhan took her for a walk around the lake. When her steps became weak, he squatted down and said, "Come up, I'll take you to see the newly blooming tuberose."
Jiang Xue leaned on his shoulder and couldn't help asking, "Is there something wrong in the court?"
"We received three urgent reports today."
Xiao Zhan weighed the weight on his back and said, "First, the two Huangfu brothers of Tianshui State are fighting fiercely, and the second brother has the upper hand."
“As expected.”
Jiang Xue played with the silk ribbon hanging from his hair crown: "It would be best to spend another three to five years to use up all their food and military equipment."
"Secondly, Prime Minister Dong sent a document to take Yun Zhen back."
"It's just a fool's dream."
She sneered, "They can't even get ten warships together."
The voice stopped abruptly, and I noticed his back suddenly tensed.
The night breeze wrapped in sandalwood filled the tip of his nose, and Xiao Zhan suddenly stopped: "The secret guards are back from the Western Regions."
His Adam's apple rolled several times before he continued, "Find the clues about your poisoning that year..."
"Is Fudong that girl getting more ambitious now?"
Jiang Xue leaned on the jade table, tapping the table lightly with her fingertips.
The copper bell in the corridor was startled by the night wind, and the tinkling sound was mixed with her question with a rising tone.
Xiao Zhan pushed the warmed green plum wine to her side and said, "When the falcon sent the message this morning, I exchanged secret orders with her."
The amber wine reflected the slight ripples in his eyes: "The matter of the Ghost Clan is originally a cursed sea of sand."
"curse?"
Jiang Xue suddenly stood up, and the golden hairpin in her hair made a crisp sound.
She clearly remembered that when Yun Zhen mentioned the Western Regions, he referred to them as "pearls from the homeland", but at this moment she tasted a strange flavor in the steam rising from the plum wine.
Xiao Zhan used a silver chopstick to light the candle, and the dancing flames drew a line of light and darkness between the two of them: "It is true that the yellow sand buried the city sixty years ago, but these years..."
He dipped his finger in the wine and drew twisted lines on the table: "Every night when the moon is dark, someone always sees a ghost-faced totem on the eastern foot of Mingsha Mountain."
Jiang Xue suddenly held down his painting hand, and the cold wine soaked his sleeves: "If Yun Zhen really had evil intentions, why did he lock Yaoyao's safety in Qiwu Palace?"
Her fingertips unconsciously stroked the half-piece of Pisces pendant on her waist, which was a token that she had torn off her brother's armor when the city was broken.
"A trip to the Western Regions!"
Before Xiao Zhan finished speaking, he suddenly felt his shoulders sink.
Jiang Xue had rested her chin on his shoulder without her knowing, the fragrance of agarwood and green plum wine in her hair formed a mist.
"After Xiaowei's death, Xiaozheng'er will be able to draw a double-stone bow."
As she spoke, her warm breath brushed Xiao Zhan's ears: "Yun Che, would you like to keep this half of the jade pendant for me?"
There was a sly smile in the ending tone, just like the girl who secretly picked green plums on the wall of the East Palace back then.
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