With only three days until the wedding, the sycamore trees in Xiefang Courtyard were lush and leafy. Palm-sized leaves wove a green net overhead, filtering sunlight like fragments of gold, which flickered on the blue brick floor. Chen Weiwan stood with her hands on her hips before a gilded bronze mirror, looking at her half-worn, washed-out skirt. Her nose wrinkled into a small puff. "Chuntao, are you sure you want to wear this to try on your wedding dress? I think you look like one of those refugees fleeing famine south of the city last year, barely crouching on a street corner with a broken bowl."
Chun Tao was squatting beside a bamboo basket, carefully shaking off the chili powder tribute from the Western Regions. When she looked up at the words, the tip of her nose was still stained with bright red powder, like a small animal that had secretly drunk rouge. "Miss, this is your 'battle robe'!" She lifted the hem of Shen Weiwan's bright red wedding dress and pointed her fingertips at the three delicate hidden pockets on the inside. "Those sour guys like Liu Ruolin were mumbling in the teahouse yesterday, saying they were going to throw dog blood on your skirt while you were trying on clothes. This three-layer chili powder of ours will make them sneeze if they get within three feet of it. It's more effective than dog blood!"
Chen Weiwan spun around, the powder in her skirt rustling and raising a fine red mist in the sunlight. "Alright, I hope I don't choke myself into a red-braised lion's head." She thought of the gilded invitation she'd received this morning, the signature written by Liu Ruolin in a twisted, snake-like hand. Her fingertips wrinkled the corners of the paper in her sleeves, and suddenly she smiled like a fox stealing fish. "If you dare to mess with my place, you'll have to prepare ten packs of soft handkerchiefs—no, even suppositories won't save them from the mess they're going to be in."
Half an hour later, in the fitting room on the third floor of Jinxiu Pavilion, the air was so stagnant it felt like water could be wrung out of it. Shen Weiwan "accidentally" knocked over a carved embroidery frame, sending colorful silk threads cascading down like a waterfall, weaving a dazzling web across the floor. Liu Ruolin, accompanied by three other noble ladies, Lin Wanyue, strode in. Seeing Shen Weiwan's washed-out skirt, her coral-red nail polish twitched imperceptibly, but a false smile spread across her face. "Ah, Sister Shen, why are you dressed so plainly today? Could it be that the general's wedding dress is still being worked on? Do you need me to ask the embroiderer for you?"
Lin Wanyue stepped forward on the bottom of a three-inch flower pot, deliberately covering her nose with a Su embroidered handkerchief, and glanced at Shen Weiwan's old clothes: "That is to say, the wedding dress of the Seventh Prince's wife should be inlaid with South China Sea pearls and a hundred birds paying homage to the phoenix, unlike some people... ahem!" Before she finished speaking, her toes "accidentally" hooked on the silk thread, and she stumbled towards the hem of Shen Weiwan's skirt, her fingertips reaching straight for the hidden pocket of the skirt.
"Be careful!" Shen Weiwan exclaimed, spinning back. The hem of her lotus-embroidered skirt unfurled like a full moon, just enough to brush Lin Wanyue's face. In an instant, crimson powder rose like mist, and Lin Wanyue let out a deafening "A-choo! A-choo!" Tears mixed with rouge washed over her face, leaving two crooked furrows. Her carefully painted eyebrows, like distant mountains, became a blur.
Liu Ruolin jumped in surprise and instinctively reached out to help, only to inhale a mouthful of chili powder, instantly joining the sneezing chorus. The other two ladies, unable to dodge, were choked by the powder and burst into tears. The four of them huddled together in the cramped fitting room, sneezing like a nest of sparrows, their golden hairpins dangling askew.
"Chen Weiwan! You...A-choo! What's hidden in your skirt?!" Liu Ruolin covered her red and swollen nose, her voice hoarse like a drake with its neck strangled, staring at her with tears in her eyes.
Chen Weiwan blinked her innocent almond eyes, pinched the corner of her skirt with her fingertips and shook it gently, and more fine powder was raised: "It's nothing, I accidentally splashed some chili powder when I was eating oil-splashed noodles this morning. What's wrong with the sisters? Are you allergic to Northwest chili peppers?" She tilted her head deliberately while speaking, and the sunlight shone on her face through the window lattice, making her eyelashes tremble like butterfly wings.
"A-choo!" Lin Wanyue's legs went weak and she almost fell into the pile of silk threads.
At that moment, a figure flashed by, and Xiao Yu stepped in, waving a folding fan painted with black bamboo. The jade belt at his waist shone coldly in the sunlight. He glanced at the messy floor and the weeping ladies, his dark jade eyes flickering with a hint of amusement. "I heard at the palace gates that someone had prepared a 'spicy surprise' for the princess, so I came here specifically to join in the fun." He walked to Shen Weiwan's side and calmly used his folding fan to fan away the diffuse powder for her. "It seems this surprise was strong enough to turn the ladies into red-nosed clowns."
When Liu Ruolin saw Xiao Yu, she felt like she had found a lifeline. She tumbled and tugged at his sleeve, crying breathlessly, "Your Highness! Please help us! She... Achoo! She deliberately used chili powder to harm us!"
"Oh?" Xiao Yu raised his eyebrows in surprise, looking down at Shen Weiwan, his eyes filled with indulgent smiles, "When did Weiwan fall in love with eating chili powder? And even hid it in her skirt as a self-defense weapon?"
Shen Weiwan immediately pouted, tugging at the end of Xiao Yu's jade belt in grievance, and secretly pinched the back of his hand with her fingertips: "Your Highness~ I really got it accidentally stained while eating noodles this morning! My sisters suddenly rushed over and scared me, so I spilled it..." As she spoke, the hem of her skirt "accidentally" rubbed against the corner of Liu Ruolin's pomegranate red skirt, causing her to sneeze even louder.
"A-choo!" Liu Ruolin was completely speechless, and could only stare at Shen Weiwan with a resentful look, like a poisonous snake whose tail was stepped on.
Xiao Yu suppressed his laughter and said solemnly to the frightened pale-faced owner of Jinxiu Pavilion, "Please ask these young ladies to go to the side hall to wash up and serve them carefully, so as not to soil the wedding dress of my princess." He turned around and took Shen Weiwan's hand, pausing slightly when his fingertips brushed the thin calluses on her palm. "Come on, I'll take you to pick out a real wedding dress. By the way, I'll ask Mr. Wang from the West Market to grind ten pounds of chili powder and make you a sachet to hang around your waist to prevent anyone from 'accidentally' approaching you again."
After leaving Jinxiu Pavilion, Shen Weiwan couldn't hold it in any longer. She laughed so hard that she hung on Xiao Yu's arm, unable to straighten her back. "Your Highness, look at Lin Wanyue just now. Her eyeliner has been smeared all over her cheeks because of crying. It's like a naughty boy smeared her face with ink!" She laughed so hard that her shoulders trembled, and the jasmine hairpin in her hair almost shook.
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