Chapter 18 Chapter 18 I only felt her soft smile under the lamp...
Ji Yanlang walked into the hall and unconsciously avoided Fang Ying's gaze. He said, "Let's talk in the study." Then he turned right into the study and sat down behind the desk.
As usual, Fang Ying ordered tea to be made before going in and sitting down.
Ji Yanlang waited for her to speak, but she just sat there with her eyes on her nose and her nose on her mind. If it weren't for the fingers of her hands twisting around constantly, he would have thought she was meditating.
"Don't you have something to say?" Ji Yanlang finally asked.
"Um..." Fang Ying looked up at him, then quickly lowered her head, "I want to apologize to you first."
Apologize? Ji Yanlang, who was also thinking about this, didn't react and asked, "What are you apologizing for?"
"It's what you mentioned earlier... those things I said about you behind your back a few years ago... After returning from Mother's place, the more I thought about it, the more ashamed I felt." Fang Ying stood up and bowed to him. "I apologize to you, my dear husband."
Ji Yanlang didn't expect her to apologize so seriously. He quickly stood up and said, "Why are you doing this? Didn't I tell you that what you said was right?" He then called Lichun, who was guarding the door, "Hurry and help your wife up."
Lichun walked in quickly. Fang Ying helped her stand up straight by holding her hand and replied, "My dear, you are right. You are well-mannered and self-reflective. But as for me, no matter what, I shouldn't talk about others behind their backs. It's because you were so magnanimous that you didn't make a fuss about me at the time. If it were someone else, I would have brought trouble to our family."
Listening to her talk about "cultured and self-reflective" and "magnanimous", and calling him "my dear", Ji Yanlang, who had just been scolded by his brother, had to force himself not to jump up from his chair - was she praising him in public and criticizing him in secret, deliberately trying to embarrass him?
Unexpectedly, Fang Ying's words turned out to be very realistic at the end, which made her previous words seem very sincere. Ji Yanlang felt even more uncomfortable. Fortunately, the maid brought in tea at this time. He took the opportunity to move his buttocks and change his posture, which made him feel a little more comfortable.
"It's all in the past. I didn't mean to blame you when I brought it up..." After the maidservant who was serving tea withdrew, Ji Yanlang looked at the clear tea in the teacup and said carefully, "I just wanted to confirm..."
"I also have something to say about this matter." Fang Ying interrupted him, "Regarding the charter you mentioned earlier, I..."
She paused, then said as if she had spent a lot of effort to make up her mind: "I can agree, but, but..."
Ji Yanlang raised his head when he heard her speak. Seeing that Fang Ying's expression was not as usual, he felt something in his heart and interrupted, "You don't have to say anything, I..."
He wanted to say, "I have something else to tell you," but Fang Ying got anxious halfway through and blurted out, "But I'm not being false to you!"
“…”
Ji Yanlang was momentarily stunned by these words, but Fang Ying seemed to gain courage from saying them. She continued, "I really didn't like you during the Dragon Boat Race that year, but it wasn't because I had high standards. How could a wild girl with only one year of education have such high standards?"
She laughed at herself and continued to explain, "At the time, I felt that you couldn't understand your mother's painstaking efforts. You only thought about yourself and acted willfully. Sooner or later, you would make her sad..." Fang Ying looked at Ji Yanlang's face and withdrew the needle, not continuing. "But I later vaguely understood that some people are born like swans, destined to soar into the sky. Unless their wings are broken, there is no way to stop them."
Honghu? Are they talking about him? Ji Yanlang felt uncomfortable all over and couldn't help but start to suspect that Fang Ying was praising him in public but criticizing him in private.
"I'm getting off topic..." Fang Ying suddenly smiled embarrassedly.
Ji Yanlang had almost never seen her smile like this. He felt that her soft smile under the lamp was very unlike Fang Ying. This thought flashed through his mind, and he immediately asked himself: "How many times have you seen her? Maybe she is usually like this at home?"
Fang Ying didn't know what he was thinking, but she could sense he'd taken her in, so she continued, "You must find this strange too, right? There are countless genuine playboys in Shu, but why do I single out you for the sole reason of speaking ill of you?"
"...Didn't you say it was because of my mother?"
"Yeah." Fang Ying nodded. "That was indeed the case at first, but later, as I grew older, I also felt ridiculous. You and Mom are mother and son, so why should I worry about you? Besides, with Mom's background and experience, how could she raise her son to be a playboy?"
What she said seemed to be correct, but it had nothing to do with him. What on earth did she want to say?
"Later, the Wuding Army broke with Shu and surrendered to the Chen Dynasty. You stayed by my wife's side the entire time and never mentioned going to war with your father. In fact, I could see that during the campaigns to Jiangnan and other places, you were eager to make great achievements."
Although Li and the later emperor Li Xu were not born of the same mother, and because of the ten-year age difference between them, the siblings were not close, and the later emperor had been suspicious of Ji Guangting before, but the Kingdom of Shu was after all the foundation built by Li's father, and she could not help but feel sad when the country was destroyed.
In order to comfort his mother, Ji Yanlang never mentioned joining the army to fight again. After arriving in Tokyo, he listened to his mother and studied with a teacher for a year.
"From that time on, my opinion of you completely changed. That year, my fifth uncle and his wife got married at Chunxi Water Pavilion. Although you said you didn't remember it in front of mother last time, I know you won't forget such a thing."
Ji Yanlang certainly didn't forget, he just didn't want to recall those unpleasant people and things when he finally returned home to see his relatives after going through life and death - that day in Chunxi Water Pavilion, there were a few bastards who were drunk and talking nonsense.
The marriage between the fifth brother and his wife was of special significance to the Ji family at the time, as the father of the fifth sister-in-law, Gao Xingfeng, was the governor of the Zhongwu Army and the imperial consort. Gao Xingfeng himself was one of the first generals to support the current emperor. Later, after his first wife passed away, he married the emperor's younger sister, Princess Shengguo, at the emperor's behest.
Although his sister-in-law wasn't the eldest princess's daughter, she was nominally hers, and her father was a high-ranking general with a reputation for following the emperor. Honestly, his brother was marrying up. For the Ji family, having such a prominent marriage, coupled with his father's contributions in the several major battles to conquer Shuzhong and Jiangnan, meant they had truly established a firm foothold in the Chen Dynasty.
The Ji family thrived, and those powerful officials in Shu, who had been forced to move to Tokyo and no longer had any real power, watched with envy. Ironically, they secretly hated the Ji family, but when the wedding came, they rushed to offer congratulations, each one offering more disgusting compliments than the last.
Ji Yanlang accompanied his father and brother in entertaining guests. He couldn't stand the faces of these people so he ran away with an excuse after the banquet started for a while. He was upset and even avoided his playmates like Sun Qi and Yu Shiyi, who he could talk to. He hid all the way in Chunxi Water Pavilion facing the pond in the West Garden.
At this time, all the guests had taken their seats and the water pavilion was very quiet. He went up to the attic, went out through the window, sat on the roof with his back to the pond, enjoying the breeze and sun. Just when he felt a little better, he heard voices downstairs.
"Seriously, don't you think his wine stinks? I can't drink it anyway. A feast at the home of a traitor, ugh! Who can actually eat it?"
Ji Yanlang took a deep breath and resisted the urge to rush down and break the man's legs.
"Please stop saying those four words. You're causing trouble. If others hear you, they might think you're hinting at something..."
The people below didn't say who they were referring to, but Ji Yanlang knew after a quick thought that he must have pointed to the sky. This bastard really wants his life to be too long. No, he can't let them continue talking nonsense. It's better to make some noise to scare them away.
Ji Yanlang made up his mind and was about to knock on the roof tiles when he saw a young lady walking towards him from the back path holding the hand of a maid. The seats for the female members of the family were in Yunxiu Pavilion, northwest of the main hall, which was quite a distance away. How could someone come here?
While he was hesitating, the young lady looked around, allowing him to see her face clearly. It was Fang Ying, whom he had known since childhood but had always disliked.
Fang Ying didn't look up, but kept looking around, as if looking for someone. At this moment, several people in the water pavilion started talking louder again.
"If we talk about Ji, they have to be surnamed Ji. The father marries the eldest princess, and the son marries the eldest princess's daughter. Hey, even if the court changes, why worry about not having a family full of wealth?"
The water pavilion had no door, and the path Fang Ying was walking on was just behind the pavilion, so she naturally heard it. But when the young lady heard a man talking, she not only did not avoid him, but instead took the maid's hand and walked under the eaves.
"What princess' daughter? I heard she's just a concubine's daughter. And you treat her like a treasure, tsk!"
"Don't look down on her. After all, she is Gao Xingfeng's daughter. Besides, there is Ji Liu behind us. With this marriage, maybe in two years we can marry Ji Liu a real princess."
"Humph! That pretty boy, he's never fought a single battle, and all he can do is be a gigolo for the Lord."
Ji Yanlang was furious when he heard this and was about to rush down and beat up these bastards who were good for nothing, but before he could move, a female voice sounded from under the eaves.
"Who is this person who is speaking so arrogantly here that he even looks down on the imperial concubine?"
Several people in the water pavilion asked in unison: "Who?"
"No one, just someone who saw injustice. Some people, when the enemy was at the gates, threw away their armor and weapons and ran away faster than rabbits, and then they had the nerve to say that others had never fought a battle. This is the funniest joke I've heard today."
Ji Yanlang's anger suddenly disappeared by half - the following people were all sent to defend the city when the Chen army attacked Shuzhong. As Fang Ying said, when they saw the enemy approaching the city, they threw away their weapons and armor and ran away faster than rabbits.
"Where did this little girl come from? Are you tired of living?"
Hearing footsteps rushing towards the back door, Ji Yanlang turned around and jumped into the attic through the window. At the same time, he coughed loudly and shouted, "Who the hell is disturbing my sleep down there? Get out!"
As he spoke, he trotted downstairs. No one dared to answer him, but soon there was a chaotic sound of footsteps. When he went down to the water pavilion, no one was there.
Ji Yanlang couldn't help but smile when he thought of the scene at that time. He said, "I've always been curious. If I hadn't gone down that day, how would you have ended up?"
"It tripped me up." Fang Ying replied with a smile.
"What?" Ji Yanlang didn't understand.
Fang Ying glanced at Lichun with a smile, "At that time, we were standing on either side of the door, waiting for someone to rush out so that we could trip him and shout for help. In fact, there were maids passing by on the road behind us."
Ji Yanlang shook his head: "You are really brave. How could you two skinny girls trip up a grown man?"
Fang Ying said, "Although I'm thin, I'm quite strong. Otherwise, wouldn't all that food I ate be in vain?"
“…” Thinking about her appetite, Ji Yanlang suddenly felt unable to refute.
Fang Ying watched him quietly pick up the tea and drink it. Her eyes rolled around and she suddenly said, "It would have been nice if you had spoken so calmly that day."
Ji Yanlang was stunned: "Huh?"
"Have you forgotten? When you came down and saw me, you yelled, 'Why are you talking so much? What does this have to do with you that you rush over and start talking?'"
Ji Yanlang: "...How do you remember it so clearly?"
"There's more." Fang Ying continued to study, "I've never seen a young lady like you. Others don't even have time to avoid suspicion, but you rush up and quarrel with a man. Aren't you afraid that it will get out and embarrass your father?"
Ji Yanlang: "...I'm not wrong."
Fang Ying asked: "Do you remember how I replied?"
"..." Ji Yanlang thought for a moment, "You seem to be saying that you are speaking up for our family. If your father knew about this, he wouldn't be angry, he would even praise you."
"yes."
“…”
"But at the time, I wasn't just grateful for my father's kindness in recognizing my father, and for my wife's kindness in raising me for a year, but also..." Fang Ying paused, took a deep breath, and ultimately didn't look up to meet Ji Yanlang's gaze. Instead, she stared at her toes and said, "I can't bear to hear them talk about you like that."
Her voice trailed off, "You're so good, they don't deserve you."
This sentence, which sounded like a whisper, entered Ji Yanlang's ears, as if a fire was lit on each side of his ears, making him fidgety and wanting to run away immediately, but it seemed as if something was entangled on his legs and he couldn't pull it out.
Fang Ying waited a moment, surprised to see he didn't run away. She'd already gone all out and said such cheesy things, why hadn't he run away? Did he really have to force her to speak more clearly?
"I can never forget the way you came down from upstairs, pretending to be fierce and majestic..."
Ji Yanlang stood up suddenly: "It's getting late, I have to get up early tomorrow. If you have anything to say... wait until I get home tomorrow to talk."
Fang Ying looked at his fleeing back, took a long breath, picked up the tea and drank it all in one gulp - acting was so tiring.
The author has something to say:
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Sorry for the long wait. This chapter is so difficult to write. I feel that fake confession is harder than real confession.
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