He sipped his tea and urged indirectly, "Yunxi, you've reached the age to get married."
"I find the son of the Minister of Personnel to be gentle and refined, with beautifully written small regular script. If you marry him, you'll have someone to transcribe the military reports on your desk for you."
My hands, which gripped the gun barrel, were very rough, and my fingertips still bore calluses from practicing shooting. I was stunned when I heard this.
My hands can wield a sword to behead an enemy, draw a bow to shoot a wild goose, and grip the reins tightly to steady a runaway horse in the freezing cold, but I have never encountered such a delicate person before, and even thinking about it feels presumptuous.
Occasionally, she would drift off into thought, gazing at the drifting clouds above the training ground, and dreaming of finding a handsome and gentle husband in the future, and having a child with delicate features like Qin Qianluo.
Holding and rocking a baby to sleep at night, the touch of your fingertips on their soft little face is such a tender and wonderful thing.
But later, as he encountered her more often, or bumped into her chasing butterflies at the corner of the palace wall, the hem of her skirt brushing against the aster in full bloom.
Or perhaps you'll see her squatting on the stone bridge outside the academy, overlapping ginkgo leaves and arranging the golden leaves into a small fan.
Those thoughts, like smoke scattered by the fierce winds of the frontier, gradually faded away and disappeared without a trace.
My heart, a rough man accustomed to battlefields and filled with images of swords and shadows, softened and trembled before her, and I even unconsciously lowered my voice when I spoke.
He was afraid that his loud voice, honed in the military camp and capable of making a horse's ears droop, would actually scare the little girl to tears.
The palace banquet that day was lengthy, and the discussion lasted for half the night on the allocation of grain supplies in the northwest. The hall was filled with the smell of wine mixed with incense, and even the candlelight seemed somewhat weary.
I sat upright in the general's seat, my fingertips unconsciously tracing the rim of my wine glass. The fine wine in the glass shimmered with tiny sparkles, but my peripheral vision kept drifting towards her.
Look at her, her round eyes wide open, her nose almost touching the dragon pillar, her little head bobbing up and down, curiously staring at the patterns on the dragon scales, as if she were counting how many scales there were.
Taking advantage of the moment when Prime Minister Qin turned around and spoke in hushed tones to the Minister of Revenue, she quickly pulled out a piece of osmanthus cake from her sleeve pocket embroidered with magnolias.
The cakes were still steaming, with bits of osmanthus blossoms clinging to their edges, suggesting they had been brought in from the Prime Minister's small kitchen just before entering the palace.
He stuffed it into his mouth in a few bites, his cheeks puffed out like a little squirrel stealing food, not even noticing the bit of off-white rice flour stuck to the corner of his mouth.
She even secretly winked at the dragon pattern on the pillar, as if telling the dragon, "This cake is so sweet."
She was like a naive yet audacious little sparrow, hopping and skipping into my heart, making it impossible for me to dislike her.
She never concealed her curiosity. When she looked around the furnishings in the hall, her eyes were as clear as a newly thawed spring stream, without a trace of the restraint or calculation of a noble lady.
This is so different from those noble ladies who entered the palace for the first time.
Even if other girls could guess the exact details of the golden bricks in the Hall of Supreme Harmony and the dragon patterns on the throne, they would only lower their heads and steal glances from the corner of their eyes.
Her skirt hung motionless on the ground, and she even breathed very softly. Her timid and hesitant manner made her look like a thief afraid of being caught stealing something, which made her seem both awkward and deliberate.
But Qin Qianluo didn't care. She looked whenever she wanted, and couldn't help but move her feet toward the carved pillars. The soles of her embroidered shoes brushed against the gold bricks, making a very soft "rustling" sound.
Seeing a pot of camellias in full bloom in the corner of the hall, their petals as vibrant as fire, I wanted to reach out and touch them.
If Prime Minister Qin hadn't reached out and grabbed her wrist in time, whispering with a smile in her ear, "You can't touch the flowers in the palace, there are guards watching over them," she probably would have had to stand on tiptoe to touch the dragon claw on the pillar.
What truly captured my heart for this little girl was the voice that suddenly pierced my ears.
Despite being such a small person, barely reaching Prime Minister Qin's waist on tiptoe, and with his hair not even reaching the height of the bronze incense burner in the hall, he could still utter words that I couldn't understand.
That day, she stared at the dragon pillar for a long time, and I was wondering what was so interesting about the dragon carving.
The dragons carved on arrow shafts in the military camp were just a few thick lines, with ink dots for the dragon's eyes; that was enough to intimidate the enemy.
Suddenly, a soft voice rang in my ears, carrying a hint of pride and a touch of regret, like a candy ball rolling into my heart.
“These dragon scales must be ‘overlapping scales,’ one scale pressing down on another to show their majesty. Look at the curvature of these scales, they could only be carved with a ‘slanted knife’.”
The edges of each scale must be polished smooth so that it doesn't feel prickly to the touch.
However, the dragon's tail is missing a fine, hair-like grain; it should be as thin as a hair. The carpenter must have been too hasty and cut corners back then. What a waste of such fine rosewood.
And then there were the literary verses she hummed in her heart as she gazed at the palace willows outside the hall: "A tall tree adorned with jade, ten thousand green silk ribbons hanging down."
The melody was soft, like dew, a gentle charm I couldn't understand.
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