Chapter 736 I Wish Your Heart Was Like Mine [5.2k views, please vote!]
Lobby.
The bowl of noodles between the two women was steaming, but it couldn't melt away the icy indifference on Yu Nianyuan's face.
"Why hasn't Seventh Junior Sister left yet? Isn't she going back to find Ouyang Lianghan?"
Spend some more time with Second Senior Sister.
"You don't need to stay with me. I'll be leaving soon. It's getting late, and Insect Girl will be here soon."
Yu Nianyuan turned her face away, glancing at the gradually warming dawn outside. It was almost morning. Without turning her head, she said calmly:
"Seventh Junior Sister, you should go back and spend some time with Ouyang Lianghan. Also, you should think about how to welcome Senior Sister and the other senior sisters in advance. I was too soft-hearted to take you back. They will come looking for you soon after today's events are over."
"Besides, since you didn't choose the first path but insisted on taking the second, I can't plead for Ouyang Lianghan anymore. Helping him create merit to appease the court won't be agreed to by the senior and junior sisters. You should go back and talk to him... and make preparations as soon as possible. Take care of yourself."
Zhao Qingxiu lowered her head and wrote:
Thank you for your concern, Second Senior Sister. I thank you on behalf of my beloved.
Yu Nianyuan turned around instantly and said:
“I don’t care about him, I’m talking to you.”
Zhao Qingxiu seemed not to hear and continued to correct her:
Second Senior Sister, as I just said, I won't choose either path. I won't let Jianze down, and I won't let Senior Sister down.
"It's no use. Senior Sister won't listen to you. She's not as soft-hearted and easy to talk to as I am. She's straightforward and clear-cut... Seventh Junior Sister, so are you planning to shoulder everything alone? Don't talk to him."
"If things continue like this, I will maintain my previous view and have absolutely no confidence in your future."
The woman in white lowered her eyes, staring at the bowl of plain noodles in front of her that she used to love, but she had lost her appetite.
She continued:
"Instead of telling him about the current situation and choices, you're trying to smooth things over with your own self-pity. Seventh Junior Sister, if this is what you call home, what you call facing things together, then it's truly ironic. In my eyes, there's not even a one in ten thousand chance left."
Upon hearing this, Zhao Qingxiu quietly pushed her bowl of noodles forward as a gesture of acknowledgment.
Yu Nianyuan, his eyes fixed straight ahead, said softly:
"Alright, you've made up your mind, there's no point in nagging anymore. But one last thing, remember to tell him not to go to Xunyang Grottoes, and to hide away today."
Zhao Qingxiu suddenly wrote on the table in front of Yu Nianyuan:
Second Senior Sister, are we really going to use it?
"The Insect Maiden has departed."
Yu Nianyuan shook his head and said:
"You haven't returned yet, so your senior sister specially caught that white sturgeon to nourish your body. She's borrowing it for now. Xiao Shu is very reluctant to part with it. She raised it for a long time and even named it Big White. She's been eagerly waiting for you, her seventh uncle, to come back and cook for her. Now she definitely can't eat it, and she wouldn't dare to eat it if she saw it again."
Zhao Qingxiu asked:
Is Xiao Shu the new disciple that Second Senior Sister recently took in at Xingzifang in Xunyang City?
"Yes, her full name is Li Shu."
Is her biological father named Li Yu, the widowed wealthy man who used to run a medicinal herb shop in Xingzifang?
"Yes, it's him." Yu Nianyuan nodded, then suddenly asked, "You've seen him before?"
Zhao Qingxiu seemed to be recalling that meal not long ago, and wrote:
[I think I've seen him before]
Yu Nianyuan chuckled softly:
"Since you weren't here last night, I went to see him to arrange for him to leave the city, but he refused. Do you know what he said?"
[Is this to plead for Tanlang?]
Yu Nianyuan nodded slightly:
"Not only did he plead for mercy, but he also refused to leave, saying that he couldn't implicate his benefactor, Ouyang Lianghan."
He said that it was Ouyang Lianghan who pleaded for him in the water prison and vouched for him to the cruel female officials of the court, which is how he was released. If he leaves now, someone will investigate and hold Ouyang Lianghan accountable. So he can't leave, at least not now.
"Furthermore, he boldly pleaded that Ouyang Lianghan was a man of great talent, a true Jiangnan native, and a master of water conservancy. During his tenure, he provided disaster relief, controlled floods, and punished powerful and tyrannical figures. Even if he was temporarily swayed by fame and fortune and submitted to the pseudo-Zhou court, overall, he was beneficial to the people of Jiangnan. His joining the pseudo-Zhou government was merely to do some practical things for the elders of Jiangnan. He could be persuaded and recruited, or at least not completely rejected..."
Before Zhao Qingxiu could even write a word in response, Yu Nianyuan quickly moved on from the matter and continued with what followed:
"Actually, none of that matters. What's interesting is what happened next. Seventh Junior Sister, do you know what he said when I asked him if he wasn't afraid of losing his life if he stayed in Xunyang City and the pseudo-Zhou people started their indiscriminate killings after today?"
Zhao Qingxiu, who had been holding back, shook her head upon hearing this.
Yu Nianyuan narrowed his eyes and said:
He said he was not afraid of death because he had family on both sides.
Zhao Qingxiu paused for a moment, then wrote carefully, stroke by stroke:
He is a loyal and righteous person.
Yu Nianyuan nodded: "That's right, this person is indeed interesting."
At this moment, Zhao Qingxiu wrote another question:
[Second Senior Sister, besides the Great Buddha, are you and Eldest Senior Sister planning to attack the Xunyang Prince's Mansion today as well?]
Yu Nianyuan retorted, "Who told you we were going to attack the Xunyang Prince's Mansion? Ouyang Lianghan?"
Zhao Qingxiu shook her head:
[Just speculation]
Yu Nianyuan asked:
“Ouyang Lianghan and the Xunyang Prince’s Mansion are indeed quite close, but before coming here, at least I did not receive any orders from Senior Sister to take action. Compared to the Xunyang Prince’s Mansion, before we knew that Ouyang Lianghan was your child husband, we were more inclined to settle accounts with him in Xunyang City… Seventh Junior Sister, now you know why I insisted that Senior Sister would not agree to this matter, right?”
"Moreover, it involves the Xunyang Prince's Mansion. When we stopped at Xieshan earlier, there were actually people pleading for the Xunyang Prince's Mansion, and it wasn't just one or two..."
At this point, Yu Nianyuan stopped speaking, shook his head, and did not continue.
Zhao Qingxiu didn't ask too many questions, and after getting the answer, she seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.
At last night's birthday celebration, she listened attentively and learned about some of Tanlang's friends. She guessed that he seemed to have a good relationship with the people in the Xunyang Prince's Mansion. Judging from the attitude of Madam Zhen Shuyuan towards the people from the Prince's Mansion, this relationship with the Xunyang Prince's Mansion seemed to be related to Tanlang's future career. Zhao Qingxiu was naturally concerned about this.
Zhao Qingxiu asked again:
[Second Senior Sister, do you need my help to activate it?]
Yu Nianyuan glanced at her sideways:
“Now that you are also a Dream Lady, it would be great if you could contribute. If you don’t come, it’s not a big problem. My senior sister and I didn’t expect you to come before, because you were only a seventh-rank at that time and had hit a bottleneck. It seemed that you couldn’t become a Dream Lady or go there in a short time… So the original plan was to have you go back to Jianze directly.”
The woman in white had a complicated look in her eyes.
"However, now that you've reached the sixth rank and become Lady Meng, it's quite an unexpected surprise. And to have captured the 'Trapped Dragon' ahead of schedule is even more delightful..."
Zhao Qingxiu corrected:
[This is not an unexpected joy, but all thanks to my beloved. Without him, I could not have become Lady Meng so quickly.]
I don't know if it's just my imagination, but every time I make love with my lover, it feels like something has been added to my body, something like spiritual energy that isn't quite spiritual energy, ethereal yet incredibly fulfilling. Yes, fulfilling.
Yu Nianyuan remained noncommittal, seemingly maintaining this attitude towards anything Seventh Junior Sister praised about someone.
She said it very deliberately:
"You can help if you want, but you need to think it through."
"First, it's dangerous there. Logically, it should be my senior sister and I who take you there slowly to explore and familiarize yourself with it. But the situation is a bit urgent now, and it's your first time going, so it's better if we don't go, just to be on the safe side."
"Secondly, that giant Buddha was built by Ouyang Lianghan. Although he probably didn't know exactly what he was building, or how he was aiding and abetting evil, the Imperial Observatory wouldn't tell outsiders..."
"But as the presiding official, and with your future career in the political arena at stake, it's impossible for you not to care about the Buddha statue. Now that you insist on staying by his side, have you thought about how you'll explain yourself if you get involved?"
Zhao Qingxiu remained silent for a while.
Yu Nianyuan couldn't help but say:
"Can you feel it? You are so conflicted about this matter alone. Trying to avoid both paths and get your senior sister and junior sisters to accept him is just wishful thinking."
"This is just the beginning. If you get together with him, you will have to weigh and choose more things in the future. You will have to give up this or that, and you will inevitably face a dilemma. In the end, he will definitely drift further and further away from our Jianze."
"And then there's your identity. Yue Chuzi, Yue Chuzi, without the stillness of a virgin and the innocence of a child, how can you be a proper Yue Chuzi, how can you become the future Yuanjun and suppress that abyss?"
After speaking for a while and receiving no response, Yu Nianyuan waved his hand and said:
"Forget it, don't come. If you go and your senior sister sees you, she won't be able to discipline you there anyway. It will only make her angry and add to her frustration."
Zhao Qingxiu paused for a moment, then wrote:
Thank you for your concern, Second Senior Sister.
Yu Nianyuan emphasized, "I'll say it again, I didn't care about either of you."
The atmosphere at the table quieted down.
Zhao Qingxiu lowered her head slightly, seemingly lost in thought.
Yu Nianyuan stared at the bowl of plain noodles in front of him, hesitating to pick up his chopsticks.
However, the two maintained a tacit understanding throughout their conversation about the Buddha statue.
Neither Yu Nianyuan nor Zhao Qingxiu seemed to have doubted the fact that "the Great Zhou Dynasty could not protect the Buddha."
It seems they are certain of the final outcome of the battle at Xunyang Grottoes.
It's completely different from the Xingzi Lake Buddha statue.
Zhao Qingxiu got up, picked up her sword, and groped her way out the door.
Yu Nianyuan remained seated, staring intently at the plain noodles in front of him.
Just as Zhao Qingxiu was about to leave from the lobby, she suddenly called out:
"Seventh Junior Sister!"
Zhao Qingxiu faced the doorway, her back to her, tilting her head slightly as she waited.
Yu Nianyuan, however, did not follow up, seemingly only wanting to call out to his junior sister to turn around.
At the door, Zhao Qingxiu lowered her head, took out an ice-white jade hairpin from her sleeve, and replaced the quiet and unadorned mandarin duck jade hairpin in her hair in front of Yu Nianyuan.
She flicked the pendant that was suspended in mid-air with her finger.
"Longlongling~"
The sound of jade is clear and melodious.
Zhao Qingxiu smiled sweetly, hugged her sword tightly, and strode out the door.
Yu Nianyuan didn't go to look, but she heard the Fang sisters outside respectfully greeting her, and her footsteps walked away with the sound of tinkling bells.
Only Yu Nianyuan remained in the lobby.
Her eyelids drooped.
I saw a line of wet words on the table, left by my seventh junior sister before she left.
[If my senior sister wants noodles, she can come find me anytime.]
...
Zhao Qingxiu returned to the luxurious carriage.
Pei Shisan Niang and Ye Weilai, who had been waiting quietly, immediately stood up to greet her and helped her to a seat.
Pei Shisan Niang curiously glanced at the red-walled courtyard outside:
"What did you go back to, Miss Embroidery? Why did it take so long? Miss Ye and I almost had to go in to look for you."
Ye Weilai glanced at the missing food box beside her and suddenly asked:
"Sister, is someone in the yard?"
Zhao Qingxiu did not write anything. Instead, she took out two sky-blue ribbons from her sleeve and gestured to them, as if to indicate that she was going to retrieve them.
Ye Weilai pursed her lips.
However, Zhao Qingxiu couldn't see her expression.
Ye Weilai said, "Sister, it's time to go back. Tanlang will be worried if he comes back and finds we're not here."
"Um."
Zhao Qingxiu nodded her little head. Then, she began to write on Ye Weilai's leg. Seeing this, Ye Weilai simply lifted her skirt and let Zhao Qingxiu write on her tight thigh, which was only separated by her underwear, so that it would be easy to read.
Zhao Qingxiu's hand brushed against Ye Weilai's underpants; the thin, crimson material felt familiar. She blushed slightly, as if recalling something, but continued writing:
Miss Ye, where did Tanlang go before we left?
"I have to go out."
Zhao Qingxiu pressed further: "Do you know what it is?"
"I don't know." After a pause, Ye Weilai said, "But he should have gone to the Xunyang Prince's Mansion in Xiushuifang."
She then asked in return, "Why is Sister Embroiderer asking this?"
Zhao Qingxiu did not answer, and asked again:
Is there a place called Xunyang Grottoes outside the city? It was Tanlang who was in charge of its construction a while ago, right?
Zhao Qingxiu didn't see it, but Ye Weilai and Pei Shisan Niang exchanged a strange glance after hearing this.
Neither woman spoke immediately.
After a short while, Ye Weilai cautiously spoke:
"Well, actually the newly appointed Prince Xunyang was in charge of the construction, and Tanlang was trusted to go and act on his behalf, so he was like a right-hand man."
Zhao Qingxiu lowered her head and wrote:
So, that giant Buddha statue was a joint achievement of theirs, right? And Tanlang should get a share too?
"It should be." Ye Weilai couldn't help but ask, "What does Sister Embroiderer want to know?"
[I'm just curious... um, does Tanlang really need this credit?]
"Hmm." Ye Weilai's expression became more serious, and she explained more frankly:
"Actually, this is something Tanlang has been planning for a long time. He said before that Xunyang City is a birdcage, and we can't stay in the cage for too long. We have to find a way to leave."
"This time, Tanlang said that the merit of the Donglin Buddha could help him and the Prince's Mansion return to the capital Luoyang. It is a rare opportunity. Well, although there is nothing wrong with being an official in Jiangzhou, going to the capital would open up more possibilities. People strive for higher positions, and water flows downhill. Tanlang said he would take us with him."
Zhao Qingxiu listened silently without saying a word.
Ye Weilai asked curiously, "Sister Embroiderer, what's wrong?"
No, it's nothing.
She asked with concern, "But your complexion... are you feeling unwell?"
The pretty girl with the ribbon blindfold shook her head and turned her head away, looking somewhat absent-minded.
Ye Weilai had no choice but to shut up.
The silver-haired girl had no idea that Zhao Qingxiu, who had just confidently refused to choose her second senior sister Yu Nianyuan, was now inexplicably feeling guilty.
Zhao Qingxiu didn't know why either.
This feeling gradually lingered in her heart.
Zhao Qingxiu had previously trusted Tanlang deeply, believing that he would firmly choose her over the other two paths, so she immediately rejected Yu Nianyuan's suggestion.
But now, after saying goodbye to my second senior sister, I'm on my way back.
She suddenly felt a little... a little anxious.
Zhao Qingxiu wasn't actually guilty that Tanlang didn't choose her; rather, she was guilty that her choice might have caused Tanlang trouble or harmed his interests.
It wasn't that Zhao Qingxiu didn't trust Ouyang Rong's determination to be with her, but for some reason, a sense of fear welled up from the deepest part of her heart that she couldn't resist.
The feeling was both familiar and strange, seemingly distant yet so close, like something out of a recent dream; it was like a stray kitten that had wandered off and found its way home, led to a bustling street, and reminded once again of that lost and bewildered afternoon; a feeling of emptiness settled in the heart, a sense of loss, as if something was uncertain…
Zhao Qingxiu knew perfectly well that she shouldn't be like this. Not long ago, when she faced her second senior sister, she was so firm and unwavering in her heart, but now that she was out, she was feeling a bit anxious and uncertain. What kind of behavior was this? But that's how it is, or rather, that's just how people are. What could she do?
At one point, Zhao Qingxiu suddenly realized that her second senior sister might not be wrong about something she said.
There are some things she simply cannot choose for the other person.
She could disregard Zhen Shuyuan's choice, because it was a matter between her and Tanlang, but she couldn't keep it from Tanlang, precisely because it was a matter between the two of them.
Furthermore, judging from this slight feeling of gain and loss, has that past event, that shadow, truly passed? Are you sure it won't resurface someday in the future, striking her again when she's at her most vulnerable?
Zhao Qingxiu didn't know.
All she knew was that she desperately wanted to see Tanlang and hug him.
"Ah ah... Eee ya ya..."
Ye Weilai and Pei Shisan Niang noticed the movement of the blind and mute girl beside them and couldn't help but turn their heads to look.
【Sister Wei Lai, Madam Pei, let's not go back yet. Let's go find Tan Lang, okay? I want to see him.】
Ye and Pei looked puzzled.
Pei Shisan Niang, who was always gentle and considerate towards Zhao Qingxiu, did not speak immediately, but looked at Ye Weilai.
Ye Weilai carefully examined Zhao Qingxiu's somewhat uneasy face, pursed her lips, and asked softly:
"Sister Xiu Niang, is there something you want to say? If it's not urgent, you can have Thirteen Sister pass on the message. It's more appropriate for her to go. Tan Lang is probably busy with important matters. If we go directly to him, it might not be appropriate, although Tan Lang will definitely see us, but..."
"But Madam Zhen had often warned us women not to disturb our husbands when they were doing important business unless absolutely necessary."
Zhao Qingxiu's fingers paused slightly as she wrote, then continued writing.
Yes, I have something to ask him about the Prince's Palace and the Great Buddha.
The blind and mute girl lowered her head and wrote down each word carefully.
Upon seeing this, Ye Weilai nodded almost instantly:
"good."
She asked no more questions, and instructed the coachman to turn around and drive towards the Xunyang Prince's Mansion in Xiushuifang.
——————
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(End of this chapter)
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