It’s the Mengxia season in April, and half a month away is the Dragon Boat Festival. The bustling scene of the past has returned to the residence of Marquis Xuanyuan. The servants are busy picking mugwort leaves, twisting ropes, and preparing various materials for wrapping millet. On this day, it had just rained in the morning, and the sky was filled with blue clouds. The delicate peach petals were knocked off by the rain, and they swooped into the lake. And those lives that disappeared quietly, just like the fallen flowers, were swept away in a hurry and forgotten in a hurry, without even leaving a ripple in people's hearts.

Yuan Xi did remember it, the beautiful and young corpse, the ugliness she had seen with her own eyes, and the unpredictable human heart behind the ugliness. She also clearly remembered that Xiao Du had never come to her room since the day of their wedding. On one hand, she was relieved, but on the other hand, she was a little sad. Perhaps this was her fate, from her father to her newlywed husband, she was destined not to be loved.

She stared blankly at the petals that were spinning in the wind without her knowing it, and felt that she was the same. From her birth to her marriage, nothing was chosen by her. And in this life, was there anything she could truly control?

She felt a little sad and couldn't help but sigh. Suddenly, she thought of that day in the deserted courtyard when the crazy Yunniang pointed at her and shouted, "This is a curse! It's a curse!" Her heart suddenly skipped a beat. Since the day she married into the Marquis's Mansion, too many strange things had happened. Even her husband had never really seen through it.

But she always felt that all this was not over, and was just the beginning. This thought made her feel uneasy and a little breathless. She quickly turned her eyes away from the outside, gently closed the paper window, turned around and asked Li Ma, "What time is it now?"

Nanny Li glanced at the leaky pot and replied, "Madam has been asleep for nearly an hour. It is already 15:00."

It was time to reckon with the bills again. Yuan Xi held her forehead and pursed her lips helplessly, deciding not to indulge in these strange thoughts any longer. She asked, "Where are An He and Rong Xuan?" Rong Xuan was a personal maid that Aunt Wang had recently assigned to her. Aunt Wang said that as the wife of a marquis, she had too few personal servants around her, and An He was young, so she had to have someone more skillful. So she assigned a maid from her own room to come over first.

As Nanny Li was combing her hair, she said with a smile, "I saw that you fell asleep just now, so I asked them to go to the outer room to rest. Now let's ask them to come in."

Nanny Li combed her hair and called out. Two maids came in and found Aunt Wang. Yuan Xi didn't know why she came to her room at this hour, so she hurriedly asked her to take a seat and told An He to get some tea and fruit to entertain her.

Aunt Wang sat down and said with a smile, "I came here today to discuss something with the young lady. The Dragon Boat Festival is coming soon, and the old master thinks the ancestral hall is too old and wants to repair it before the Dragon Boat Festival. I thought of renovating the Buddhist hall as well. This project must be huge and the time is too tight, so I hurried over to discuss a plan with the lady."

Yuan Xi's eyes widened, and she felt a little ashamed and said, "But I don't understand any of this. I haven't even remembered the account that Auntie gave me last time."

Aunt Wang still smiled and said, "That's fine. How about this? I will still take care of this matter. All personnel deployments and account transactions will be reported to Madam for review first. They will only be finalized after you have approved them."

Yuan Xi actually wanted to say that even if she read it, she would not understand it, and was afraid that it would only delay things. However, since Aunt Wang was so attentive, she was embarrassed to refuse, so she had to agree and said, "Then I'll trouble Aunt Wang to take care of it."

Aunt Wang seemed to have let go of a worry, and held her hand again, saying, "Since the Marquis has asked the Young Madam to be the head of the family, as your aunt I must of course cooperate. The matter of repairing the ancestral hall and the Buddhist hall this time will be decided by you, Young Madam, and I will help with everything else." Yuan Xi always felt that this was a bit strange, but she couldn't figure it out for the moment, so she reluctantly smiled and agreed.

Aunt Wang sat for a while and asked her carefully if there was anything she was not used to, such as the living environment and food. After two cups of tea had been served, she said she had to go and report to the master and left in a hurry.

Yuan Xi finally breathed a sigh of relief. Seeing that it was getting late, he asked An He and Rong Xuan to carry their account books, paper and pen and walk to the Qingzhi Courtyard next door. After crossing a waterside pavilion bridge, they saw a few stone benches and a stone table under a few lush gardenia trees.

There was a gardenia tree planted next to Yuan Xi's chamber in the prime minister's mansion. She loved reading in the company of that fragrance since she was a child. A few days ago, she accidentally discovered this quiet place surrounded by gardenias. She was immediately surprised and nostalgic. As she felt that her room was too stuffy, she came here every afternoon to check the account books.

She watched for a while, then looked up and saw that An He and Rong Xuan, who were serving beside her, had already ground the ink. They were both bored and sleepy at the moment. She felt sorry for them and said softly, "I have to watch for a while. You two can go out and play first."

An He's eyes lit up when she heard this, but Rong Xuan was still a little hesitant. But when she saw An He had already thanked Madam excitedly and was pulling her out, she had no choice but to bow to Yuan Xi and say, "We'll just play outside on the corridor. Madam, just call us loudly if you need anything."

Yuan Xi smiled and nodded, then lowered her head to look at the account book. She didn't know that behind the largest gardenia tree, in an open window, Xiao Du was listening with a sad face as Zhou Jingyuan read out the arrangements before and after the Dragon Boat Festival and the arrangements for the mansion one by one.

Xiao Du leaned on the beauty couch by the window and listened for a while. Seeing that Zhou Jingyuan had no intention of stopping, he said, "Uncle Zhou, you can arrange these things. I don't have any opinions."

Zhou Jingyuan said firmly, "How can that be possible? The old master has said that this Dragon Boat Festival sacrifice is a major event in the mansion. The Marquis is now the head of the family, so of course everything must be reported clearly."

Xiao Du responded with a forced smile, suppressed the urge to yawn, and turned his gaze to the window in dismay. Suddenly, he sat up straight and found with interest that his newlywed wife was sitting under the shade of the gardenias, staring intently at the account book in her hands.

Yuan Xi looked listless, but stood straight, frowning as she tried to memorize the numbers in the notebook. Xiao Du remembered that the servant had reported to him that Aunt Wang had asked her to memorize all the accounts of the mansion in the past few years. He suddenly found it very interesting and ignored the constant chattering in his ears and looked over there.

On a rainy afternoon, bright beams of light passed through the thin clouds and through the gaps between the petals, sprinkling on her swan-colored profile. Her eyes were serious and bright, and her fair face was bathed in a fine halo. After a while, she seemed to be unable to bear it any longer, so she rubbed her eyes helplessly, and simply took out a pen and paper and began to copy down every word in the account book.

Xiao Du couldn't help but curl his lips. It was hard for her to come up with this method to force him to memorize those boring numbers. He just leaned against the window frame and watched intently until someone kept calling him, "Mr. Hou! Mr. Hou!"

When he came to his senses, he looked at Zhou Jingyuan's angry eyes, which seemed to be very dissatisfied with his distraction. Xiao Du covered his lips and coughed twice, then put on a sincere smile and said, "I'm listening, Uncle Zhou, please continue."

Zhou Jingyuan glanced at him suspiciously, then took out a piece of paper and began to read out the items needed for this sacrifice. Xiao Du quickly looked away and found that Yuan Xi seemed to have encountered some difficulties at this time. She was frowning and biting the pen, and her feathery eyelashes were fluttering up and down in the halo.

Xiao Du wanted to laugh at her childish behavior, but he didn't dare to disturb Zhou Jingyuan who was thinking seriously. Suddenly, he had the idea of ​​playing a trick on her, so he got off the couch, grabbed a handful of pine nuts from the porcelain plate of snacks on the table, then hid behind his body and walked to the window. Before Zhou Jingyuan noticed, he threw the leaves at Yuan Xi's head.

After half a day's heavy rain, a lot of rain had accumulated on the leaves. He had acquired good accuracy in the army, and he hit many leaves with a casual throw. The rain on the leaves splashed down like fine raindrops, falling on Yuan Xi's head and body.

Yuan Xi thought it was raining again, so she stood up in a hurry and was about to call An He and the others over, but she found that the sun was shining brightly overhead, and there was no sign of rain at all. She looked around in confusion, and then stared at the ink stains on the paper in a daze, frowning and thinking for a long time, not knowing what had just happened.

When Xiao Du saw her looking over here, he quickly lowered the window and hid himself in the shadows. Thinking of Yuan Xi's silly expression just now, he couldn't help but smile, and his mood suddenly improved. Zhou Jingyuan here had already found something wrong, but he couldn't get angry, so he could only suppress his anger and shouted again: "Young Marquis!"

Xiao Du then realized that he seemed to have gotten a little carried away in the fun. He turned around and was about to say a few words to comfort him, when a servant suddenly ran in from outside the door and whispered something in Xiao Du's ear in a very nervous tone. Xiao Du's face changed, and his good mood was instantly wiped out. He said with a sullen face, "I'll go right away."