Chapter 72 I am seriously ill. Are you attracted to me?
Later, Luo Wan learned that the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess had brought their divorce case to the Emperor and Empress, a scene that happened almost every once in a while in the Yunjing Palace.
The ending was the same: the two were always severely reprimanded by the emperor and empress, and then punished to kneel together in the Fengxian Hall, reflecting on their mistakes in front of the tablets of their ancestors.
Even though they lived together in General Lingyun's mansion, Luo Wan didn't see Jiang Cichen very often. Since returning to Yunjing, he had become even busier than when he was in the southern military camp, and he was often nowhere to be seen.
But he was the only one who was busy; Xie Yan and Chen Nanyuan were both very relaxed.
Perhaps because of their northern origins, the Yun Emperor could accept Jiang Cichen, who held half Yun blood, but he might not trust all of his former northern subordinates with the same degree. Naturally, they needed to avoid suspicion when it came to matters of Yun court.
The wisteria flowers in the courtyard of General Lingyun's mansion gradually bloomed, dropping down clusters of pale purple flower spikes.
The housekeeper transplanted a few plants to the side of the swing, saying that they would look beautiful when the vines were in full bloom and covered the swing frame.
That day, Luo Wan was sitting on a stone bench under the shade of a tree in the backyard, flipping through a book. That day, while on the same boat with the Crown Princess, she had asked if "Tao Tao" was the young prince's nickname. The Crown Princess nodded and told her that the name came from the line "A gentleman is like a flower."
Chen Nanyuan was also sitting on a stone bench nearby, but he was absent-minded. Xie Yan asked him why he was in such a daze, and he actually said that he was missing the young prince.
Everyone knows that the Crown Prince and his wife made too much trouble last time. After kneeling in Fengxian Hall, they are now ordered to be confined to the East Palace for reflection. Naturally, the young prince cannot see them.
Xie Yan was stunned at first when he heard this, and then he burst into unrestrained laughter.
He turned around and went back to his room, and took out a set of hexagrams.
On the day they arrived in Yunjing, the Emperor and Empress's gifts were delivered to the General's Mansion in batches. Among the dazzling array of gold, silver, pearls, jade, silks, and satins, there were also a few playthings for entertainment, and this smooth, polished six-line hexagram set was one of them.
Xie Yan placed the hexagram on the stone table and said with a smile, "Nanyuan, today I will tell you how you will meet your true love and become a father!"
Chen Nanyuan blushed immediately and retorted, "Who said I wanted to be a father?"
"Would you like me to tell your fortune?" Xie Yan said, "I've been studying the I Ching for several days."
Seeing Xie Yan's serious stance, Luo Wan and Chen Nanyuan also fell silent. For a moment, the only sounds in the courtyard were the rustling of leaves in the breeze and the crisp clinking of copper coins tumbling within the tortoise shell.
Xie Yan placed three copper coins into the tortoise shell, closed his eyes and concentrated, silently reciting the question he wanted to ask, then shook the tortoise shell and threw the copper coins onto the stone table.
He repeated this three times, then suddenly stopped and glanced at Luo Wan. Luo Wan also looked at him in confusion, but the next moment, the book in his hand was suddenly taken away by Xie Yan.
“Borrow it for me,” Xie Yan said, quickly writing down the results of the first three shakes on the blank space of the page.
After repeating this three times, the divination was complete. Next came the drawing and arranging of the hexagrams. Luo Wan quietly watched Xie Yan write and draw on the pages of the book, and she became quite curious about what he could predict for Chen Nanyuan.
The most complicated and profound step is to interpret the hexagram. Xie Yan pondered for a long time, and suddenly looked at Chen Nanyuan seriously.
Chen Nanyuan asked, "How is it?"
Xie Yan shook his head.
"I won't end up alone, will I?"
Xie Yan sighed.
Chen Nanyuan looked very unhappy. Although he had never considered getting married, since he had decided to follow the young master in this life, family would inevitably become a burden. But when he really knew that he would end up living alone, he still felt lost.
Xie Yan said with a half-smile, "Miss Luo, how about I tell you a fortune?"
Luo Wan thought about it and smiled: "Okay."
Xie Yan asked, "Are you also looking for divination for your true love?"
"No." Luo Wan refused and said, "I have an enemy, and I want to know if I can kill him."
In her previous life, she cared too much about these illusory things and ended up like this. If she were to live again and still made no progress as before, then her death would have been in vain.
Luo Wan now only wants to know whether it is possible for her to defeat the high priest, kill Chu Lin, and avenge herself in this life.
Seeing that she had her own ideas, Xie Yan didn't force her and agreed to her words.
Xie Yan placed the coin into the hexagram and started throwing it again, but this time the divination was particularly strange. The coin fell off the stone table five times out of six shakes.
The hexagram is even so vague that it is impossible to interpret. There are too many moving lines and they move randomly. The relationship between generation and restraint is extremely complex and chaotic, making it difficult to distinguish between good and bad luck.
Xie Yan thought about all the possibilities. The time has not come yet and the variables are too great. His sincerity is not enough. Or maybe this is an unjust hexagram that harms others and benefits himself. So why doesn’t the hexagram tell him?
In short, he just couldn't figure it out.
After a pause, Xie Yan said, "I can't predict it."
Luo Wan's heart sank. She felt the same sense of loss that Chen Nanyuan had just felt, but this hexagram didn't say anything, which was better than Chen Nanyuan's.
She had never pinned her hopes on a hexagram in the first place, so she smiled slightly and said, "If that's the case, then forget it."
Xie Yan comforted him, "The hexagram itself isn't absolute. It merely indicates trends and possibilities. Ultimately, your fortune or misfortune still depends on your individual efforts and choices. Just because I can't predict it doesn't mean you'll fail."
Chen Nanyuan couldn't help but ask, "Is it possible that your divination was wrong, and I won't end up alone?"
"That's certainly unlikely," Xie Yan said as he put away the six-line hexagram and stood up. "Your hexagram is very clear."
The wind in the courtyard was getting stronger, the branches were swaying wildly in the twilight, and the pages of the book on Luo Wan's lap were rustling.
It was getting dark, but Jiang Cichen still hadn't returned.
Luo Wan clearly remembered that he had returned at this time in the past. He had been waiting for a while, so a moment wouldn't make much difference. Luo Wan was sitting under the eaves in the backyard, playing with a wind chime.
This wind chime also came from the batch of rewards sent from the palace. It was different from all the wind chimes Luo Wan had seen before.
Ordinary wind chimes make sounds with the help of wind, and their sounds are clear and pleasant, while the Mandala wind chimes used by the eunuchs in the palace spin quietly when the wind blows, and the rotation is full of light and is extremely gorgeous.
Luo Wan felt that the wind chimes at night were not as beautiful as those in the daytime sunshine.
The housekeeper came to persuade her once, bowing and whispering, "Young lady, why don't you go to the room and rest. I will tell the general when he comes back."
Luo Wan said: "No problem."
In the past, when she was on a mission, it was common for her to stay awake for three days and two nights straight. If she couldn't hold on any longer, she would only close her eyes for an hour or two before regaining consciousness. In comparison, this wait was nothing.
Seeing that he could not persuade him, the housekeeper withdrew and ran to the gate of the mansion to wait.
*
When Jiang Cichen came back, his expression was extremely cold.
Since he came back, the housekeeper had never seen him look so bad. Oh, no, he had seen it once, on the first day Jiang Cichen came back. They both came from the palace, so he must have had a conflict with the palace master.
After Jiang Cichen got off the horse, the housekeeper came to him diligently and told him that Luo Wan was waiting for him in the backyard.
When Jiang Cichen arrived at the backyard, he saw Luo Wan sitting on the porch, asleep against a pillar. Her fingertips were still loosely hooked around the string of a wind chime, which lay beside her legs, spinning gently in the evening breeze.
When she fell asleep, her usual aloofness faded, but her brows were slightly frowned. She was always like this, always having something on her mind that she couldn't unravel.
Jiang Cichen walked slowly closer, stopped in front of her, and looked at her with his arms folded. He didn't know how long he looked at her, but the originally cold emotion in his eyes gradually melted away, and slowly, a gentle look appeared in his eyes.
Seeing her breathing steady, he suddenly spoke very softly: "If you knew that the emperor's grandfather wanted to arrange a marriage for me, would you frown?"
The wind was blowing a little harder at night, the wind chimes were spinning a little faster, a strand of long hair fell diagonally on her cheek, and the itchiness made her wrinkle her nose unconsciously in her sleep.
After pondering for a moment, Jiang Cichen reached out his hand, wanting to tuck the long hair behind her ear. However, just when his fingertips were half an inch away from her face, Luo Wan's eyelashes trembled violently, and she opened her eyes. At the same time, she accurately grabbed his "committing" hand.
Jiang Cichen looked at her in slight surprise, but felt that her reaction was reasonable, so he curled his lips and smiled: "Aren't you waiting for me?"
Luo Wan released his hand and asked, "How did you send a message to Shen Zhiyan last time?"
Jiang Cichen said without hesitation, "Yanyun Pavilion." After a pause, he asked, "Do you want to write him a reply?"
She originally thought so, so she specifically asked him how he delivered the message, but now she felt that there was no rush.
Whether using Yanyun Pavilion or Tingyu Tower, the letter would have to originate from General Lingyun's Mansion, from her hands, and then reach the capital. If someone with ulterior motives took advantage of this and accused Jiang Cichen of secretly colluding with the capital, it would be more trouble than good.
The ambush in the forest had made her realize that Jiang Cichen's time in Yunjing wasn't smooth sailing, but she wasn't foolish enough to commit a crime under someone's nose. It was just a letter; she could still pass it on after leaving Yunjing.
Luo Wan said: "No, I won't go back. I'll talk about it after I leave Yunjing."
Jiang Cichen also sat down in the corridor, leaning against another pillar, his posture relaxed, and he said lazily: "You can write as much as you want. It's just a letter, and I can protect it. Besides, you didn't write anything shameful."
Luo Wan said: "It's better to have less trouble than more."
Jiang Cichen said nonchalantly, "I thought the owner of Tingyu Tower always did things according to his heart."
Luo Wan didn't know what he wanted to express. If she was just the owner of Tingyu Tower, she would naturally not care about him and would just spread the news.
But now, they are in the same boat.
It wasn't that she hadn't thought about simply getting Shen Zhiyan to stay away from trouble, but what reason could she use to convince him amidst the internal and external troubles? And how could she convince him to abandon his country and the people of the Northern Kingdom by using various identities?
When Beiye Ji ordered the execution of Shen Zhiyan, she saved him, and when the world was united, she asked Jiang Cichen to let him go. This was the best solution she could think of.
Some things are meant to be kept to oneself. If she were to speak them out, it would probably make people think she was seriously ill.
Luo Wan raised her eyes to look at him: "This time is different from that time. Now we are allies, sharing weal and woe, right?"
She pronounced the word "ally" clearly.
When Jiang Cichen heard this, the amusement in his eyes gradually subsided and turned into a deeper gaze. Luo Wan also looked at him.
After a moment, he suddenly smiled and leaned forward, closing the distance between them and snatching the wind chime from her fingers. He put the previous topic aside and asked, "What is this?"
Luo Wan said calmly, "It's the Mandragora Wind Chime given by the Empress."
Jiang Cichen picked up the wind chime, fiddled with it casually with his fingertips, and said, "Do you like it?"
The wind chime spun slowly in his hand, and the pieces of the wind chime reflected a halo of light, perfectly covering his facial features.
His eyebrows and eyes were beautifully formed, a kind of clear and clear handsomeness. His brow bones were smooth, his eye sockets were deep, and his nose was straight, which should have given him a natural sense of coldness and distance.
But at this moment, the usual lazy, half-smile look in those eyes was immersed in the light and shadow reflected by the wind chimes. When he smiled slightly, it gave people the illusion that someone as high and mighty as him also had a delicate heart, and that I was the only one he treated with tenderness.
Jiang Cichen waited a long time for an answer, and asked in a shocking tone: "Luo Wan, are you interested in me?"
Luo Wan almost wanted to laugh, and automatically ignored his second sentence, saying only, "I've never seen this kind of wind chime before, it just looks strange to me."
Jiang Cichen didn't say anything, staring at her, as if to confirm the truth of her words. After a moment, he raised his eyebrows and said, "It's mine."
After saying that, without waiting for her reaction, he hooked the string of wind chimes that were still spinning and turned to leave.
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