As evening approached, Qingying guessed that the banquet should be coming to an end soon, so she got up to prepare to return home.
Tongxia came over at this moment and asked anxiously, "Miss, what are you doing here?"
Because maids were not allowed to attend the banquet, Tongxia waited by the carriage the whole time.
"What's wrong?" Qingying looked at her.
"The second young lady just said she was going back to the manor. I haven't seen you since. She said you may have left with Miss Xie a long time ago."
"Why didn't you go back to the manor with her while I was away?"
"This servant believes that you, young lady, will not abandon me and leave on your own."
“Your maid is quite loyal.” Xie Jiaoying stood up and said, “Let’s go, I’ll see you off.”
"No need," Qingying shook her head and said, "I can walk back."
Xie Jiaoying looked at her in confusion, "Why? It's not exactly close to the General's Mansion, but it's not far either. It will take you at least an hour to walk back, and by then it will probably be dark."
Qingying smiled and said, "Of course it's to play the victim. When she goes back and her mother doesn't see me, she'll naturally ask where I am. Then she'll tell her mother that I left early. My mother specifically asked me to come with her, but I left first. She knows she'll definitely blame me. So when I go back, and my mother finds out that she left me alone, how can she blame me for anything?"
Xie Jiaoying was stunned for a moment, and a pang of heartache welled up in her eyes as she looked at her. "You never needed to scheme like this before..."
Yes, why would she have needed to resort to this method to avoid her family's blame before?
After leaving Biyuan Garden, Qingying bid farewell to Xie Jiaoying and, with Tongxia in tow, walked step by step toward the General's Mansion.
Tongxia followed behind her, staring at her straight back, and suddenly her eyes reddened.
Qingying was the only girl in the General's Mansion, and she was pampered and always sent off by carriage. She had never traveled such a long distance before.
She had only walked for less than half an hour when her legs started to ache slightly. Tongxia coaxed her to sit down and rest by the roadside, but she didn't force herself to continue walking.
She sat down on the stone steps in front of a house by the roadside, and Tongxia squatted down beside her, gently pressing her calves.
"You should rest too," Qingying said softly.
Tong Xia shook her head and said with a smile, "I often do errands, so I don't feel tired walking this little distance."
Qingying didn't say anything more. She took out a silk handkerchief she always carried and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She said self-deprecatingly, "What a waste. I can't even sweat after walking this little bit."
"No, that's not true. Young ladies are delicate and precious, unlike us servants who are so rough."
As they were talking, a carriage suddenly drove up and stopped in front of them. The person inside the carriage lifted the curtain, revealing half of a familiar, handsome face.
"Miss Liu, I'll give you a ride since I'm going that way."
Seeing Wei Dongchen's ever-smiling eyes, Qingying hesitated for a moment, but ultimately got into his carriage.
"Why didn't you take Miss Xie's carriage back from Biyuan earlier?" he asked, voicing his doubts.
After considering for a moment, Qingying repeated what she had just said to Xie Jiaoying.
"So why did you decide to get into my carriage?"
"Because I suddenly realized that I am not a person who can endure hardship. I would make things difficult for myself and no one would feel sorry for me. Thinking about it, I felt that there was no point in doing so."
"Why is no one concerned? I feel more sorry for you than anyone else when I see you being wronged."
Qingying thought he was joking again, but when she looked up, she was met with his affectionate eyes and was stunned.
He seems... to be serious?!
Wei Dongchen had a pair of incredibly captivating and affectionate eyes; in Liu Chengfeng's words, he could look at a dog with deep affection. Therefore, Qingying had never taken his affection for her to heart before, thinking it was just a passing fancy that she would forget about later.
At this moment, there was more bewilderment than surprise.
Qingying blinked, "Why..."
But when she opened her mouth, she didn't know what to ask. Should she ask him why he liked her? Or why he happened to appear at that moment? Or when did he start liking her?
"Want to know when I started to fall for you?" Wei Dongchen gazed at her, his eyes sparkling like pools of rippling autumn water.
Qingying didn't answer, so he continued, "I wonder if you remember that time when Chengfeng took you with us to go hunting in the mountains. I accidentally fell off my horse and was seriously injured, bleeding a lot. At that time, only you and I were in the carriage. I was in so much pain that I almost fainted several times, but you kept chattering in my ear, telling me things that you thought were interesting to distract me. Actually, I didn't hear a word you said. I just thought it was annoying, so I impatiently yelled at you to be quiet."
"You suddenly burst into tears, and between sobs you said that you were afraid I would never wake up again once I fell asleep, and that your mother abandoned you like this."
"Your crying made my heart race. I was the one who was hurt, but in the end, I was the one who had to endure the pain to comfort you. I even forgot that I was about to faint." As he said this, he couldn't help but curl his lips into a smile.
Qingying recalled that such a thing did happen. It must have been four or five years ago. She had been pestering Liu Chengfeng to go to the mountains with him. Wei Dongchen was seriously injured that time, and she remembered it very clearly because he had lost a lot of blood. When they hurriedly lifted him onto the carriage, she was really afraid that he would die.
Although her memories of her mother had long since become blurred, she always remembered that when her mother was on her deathbed, the blood beneath her body flowed like flowers, covering the ground, which became a nightmare in her childhood.
Wei Dongchen said he didn't hear a word of the funny stories she told him at the time, and she had actually forgotten what she said. All she knew was that she couldn't let him fall asleep.
Qingying pursed her lips and asked, puzzled, "Is that all?"
“Yes, that’s why.” Wei Dongchen looked at her, his eyes crinkling with a smile, and said, “I don’t need any dramatic reason. When I saw you crying, all I wanted to do was protect you. No matter how much pain I was in, all I wanted was for you not to cry.”
"Oh, it's so early..."
But why has she never felt his feelings for her all these years?
"Yes, it was that early, but unfortunately we were still a step too late, and someone else beat us to it." Wei Dongchen's tone was full of regret and frustration.
"Then why do you still frequent brothels?"
If what he said is true, that he had been in love with her since so early on, but his reputation as a playboy only gradually spread three years ago, and that he did indeed frequent brothels, the scandalous stories she heard about him were enough to fill several novels.
Doesn't he seem a bit... um... irresponsible?
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