Chapter 38: County Lady's Husband
This time, Shi Jingning made all new dishes that were refreshing, crispy and tender vegetarian dishes. He also made a sweet and sour soup, which finally allowed Qiandeng to use something.
Ji Linyou still felt a little regretful and said, "Brother Shi's cooking skills are really amazing. The county lady can try it next time."
Qian Deng had no desire to eat now, so he just said to him, "I am not worthy of it, but courtesy cannot be abandoned. I have something here that I would like you to pass on to Ling Weng. Please come with me."
"No, no, it's just a trivial matter, not worth your mention..." He was trying to politely refuse, but seeing Qian Deng's stern expression, he immediately realized that she must have something to say to him, so he hurriedly followed her into the study, closed the door, and sat down upright, waiting for her instructions.
"It's about your cousin." Qian Deng raised his hand to rub his slightly aching brow and said, "I think he's quite different from the poor little guy you mentioned."
"Yeah, I'm quite surprised too. When he was little, Cousin Tianshui was introverted, weak, and small. I never imagined he'd grow up to be so majestic now." Ji Linyou thought of his silent, oppressive aura and asked with doubt, "Cousin Tianshui, whose parents are both dead and who's not good at speaking, could he really be a completely different person after not seeing him for over ten years?"
"It's hard to say. In ten years, it's hard to say what changes have taken place from a child to an adult." Qian Deng collected the military strategy manuscripts left by his grandfather, put them in a box and asked Ji Linyou to pass them on to his grandfather. He also asked if his family had any contact with Ling Tianshui before.
"Well, my whole family are military commanders, fighting in various places and guarding the country. We don't even have time to take care of our own families. How could we possibly have close contact with a distant cousin?"
Qian Deng pondered for a moment, then asked, "Does your cousin have any scars or birthmarks?"
"That's true. I remember when we were little, we went fishing in the river together. He slipped and a rock in the river cut a long gash on his left arm. The wound was quite deep and bled a lot. It must have left a scar." Ji Linyou rolled up his sleeves and gestured to her. "It's just above the wrist bone, almost to the elbow, and it's longer than a palm."
At this point, Ji Linyou finally came to his senses and asked in surprise, "County Princess, you...you mean, could it be that my cousin is someone else's impersonation?"
"No, he was found by your clan, and he has a good hometown background. If there were any problems, the Ministry of Rites and the Inner Palace Bureau would have noticed it long ago." Qian Deng immediately denied it, lowering her eyelashes to avoid his scrutiny. "I just think... he's quite capable, and I want to get to know him better, that's all."
After all, she herself found the idea absurd—how could there be any problems with someone who had been screened so thoroughly?
But somewhere in her heart, she always felt that something was wrong with him.
I don't know if it was his body, his gaze, or the overwhelming aura, or the face of Prince Linhuai in my dream...
Could it be that all those under the command of the King of Linhuai would be influenced and transformed by him? Or is it that the King of Linhuai always prefers to recruit people of this type, so their temperaments are similar?
As Ji Linyou listened to her words and looked at her evasive expression, he felt a strange sour feeling in his heart.
He had been in the army since he was young, and whenever he was unhappy, he would just find a friend to fight with. He had never experienced this strange feeling, which was suffocating and sour. The thing blocking his chest made him feel that he would not be able to vent unless he ran around the battlefield for seventeen or eighteen laps.
Afraid of losing his composure, he took the box containing the military strategy, immediately said goodbye and went out, hurriedly catching up with the other six people who returned to the backyard.
He fell behind at the end and couldn't help but look at Ling Tianshui in front of him.
How come this guy is taller than him, with broader shoulders and stronger agility? He just entered the mansion and he already won the favor of the county lady...
When he thought of the county lady's appearance of lowering her head to cover up just now, and then thought of Ling Tianshui asking the county lady to take it in himself, he became furious and felt that he was even angrier than Jin Tang.
Then I thought, no, this mentality is what people call...
Jealous?
He was so shocked by this thought that he stood there in a daze. He looked at Ling Tianshui and then turned back to look at the study.
The lights were bright, casting the figure of the county lady on the window. The night wind disturbed the palace lanterns and made them sway slightly, so the county lady's graceful figure moved slightly on the window, and also rippled in his heart, floating and swaying like ripples, lingering and charming, and could not be shaken off.
Ji Linyou, who had never experienced the feeling of heartbeat in his life, took two steps back with the box in his arms, then turned around and fled in panic as if frightened.
The nightmare lasted for a long time and was full of complicated memories. This time, besides her relatives, Qiandeng dreamed of Yu Guangling again.
The handsome young man with a gentle smile turned into a rotting and green corpse in the charity cemetery in the blink of an eye.
He sat up from the bed, dripping with rotten water, held his hands to her, and said, "Look, County Lady, I died because of you..."
She looked down and saw a note in his hands, which were bare bones and red flesh. There were four words written on it:
The county lady's husband.
The notes were torn by a sharp blade and burned black at the edges. They were exactly the same ones found on Uncle Fu's body.
She looked up in fear, and saw Yu Guangling disappearing before her. Only the sound of sighs grew louder and louder in her ears, almost roaring.
"We died because of you... We all died because of you..."
In great fear and grief, she suddenly woke up and looked around with wide eyes.
She slept through the night in a deep dream, almost until noon. It was quiet outside, and she was sleeping in a brocade tent embroidered with a hundred different flower branches, clutching a cloth tiger.
Could those torn and burned fragments be the letter her mother asked her to find?
But why did her mother only tell her to make her own decision when she mentioned the letter, without mentioning any of the horrors?
When she calmed down and got out of bed to wash, she saw Liuli rushing in. Seeing that she was still washing, she hesitated to speak: "County Lady, I heard that Young Master Shang..."
Qiandeng had a splitting headache. He drank candied date millet porridge while listening to her talk about what happened today.
It turned out that Shangluo had fled to Yongyangfang, and was said to have been causing trouble and fighting in the neighborhood. Now he was hiding again and could not be found. Some curious people knew that he was one of the concubines in the county lord's backyard, so they ran to Changhua Palace to tip off the matter, probably with the mentality of watching the show.
Qian Deng couldn't help but hold her forehead in pain. It was so troublesome to have so many men. Things kept happening one after another, leaving her no chance to breathe.
Even the young man Shangluo has so many things to do.
Thinking about the idea she had just given him last night to avoid his father and grandfather, she felt that she had brought this upon herself.
She sighed inwardly, but thinking of last night's nightmare, and the scene where the deceased Yu Guangling said "We all died because of you", she was worried that something might happen to this innocent boy, so she could only pack up and go to see what he was up to.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com