0095 Guanyin Swallow (Eight)
After a less-than-pleasant polo match with Zheng Yuanzhu and his group, Shu Fu and the others found another opportunity and, as previously agreed, finally held a polo match of their own with the Liangzhou girls led by Qin Mi.
By then everyone had left, and with no one else watching, they fought even more freely, and finally happily settled for a draw.
Since both teams had previously achieved a minor victory over Zheng Yuanzhu and his group, they had already formed some camaraderie and were quite satisfied with the result.
Qin Youan alone showed a hint of displeasure on her face. She reached out and grabbed the begonia in her hair, tearing it into a few scattered petals.
At the end of the day, when the moon was high in the sky, most of the women had already gone home. Some who were close to Li Miao and those from Liangzhou stayed overnight at the villa.
These dozen or so women were all around the same age, and with no elders to restrain them in the villa, they were truly free and unrestrained.
Immediately, some people clamored to hold another small banquet, eat some roasted meat and drink some sweet wine, and drink until they were drunk.
Upon hearing this, Li Miao chuckled and agreed, leading everyone to the inner room where the banquet was to be held. He then ordered that lamps be lit inside, and that the wine and dishes be heated and brought up.
While waiting for their food, the young women gathered together and talked about everything from the popular acrobatics in Chang'an to the incident at the end of last year when Qin Mi led a troop of soldiers to ambush dozens of Tuyuhun people who were planning to sneak into the city to plunder the people. Everyone applauded and cheered.
Shu Fu initially listened with great interest, but she was quite tired today and gradually became drowsy, mistaking the bronze bird holding the lamp for a real bird about to take flight.
She lifted her eyelids and glanced around, noticing that their attention was completely elsewhere. So she quietly got up and avoided the crowd, leaning against a pillar in the shade, intending to take a nap.
Just as she was half asleep, she vaguely heard them, after they had finished eating and drinking to their hearts' content, clamoring to sing and dance.
Li Miao said, "I do not keep any dancers in my villa. If you want to listen to songs and enjoy dances, come by yourself."
They immediately started discussing again who should be chosen to dance.
At this moment, a thin, sharp voice came from among the people: "If you ask me, let Shu Erniang dance."
Everyone paused, instinctively looking in the direction of the sound. Even Shu Fu, who was dozing in the corner, was startled awake and looked over with the others, only to see Qin Mi sitting in the direction from which the sound came.
"Why are you looking at my cousin? I was the one who said those words. I said that Shu Erniang is beautiful and should be a good dancer, so she should be allowed to dance."
Qin Youan raised a slight eyebrow and moved forward half an inch, becoming fully visible in the dim candlelight of the room, which finally allowed people to see her figure clearly.
"Shu Erniang," Qin Youan's gaze swept over everyone and landed directly on Shu Fu, "would you like to join in the fun?"
Shufu was momentarily bewildered—
Because she can't dance at all.
Seeing that she didn't answer for a long time, Qin Youan asked again, "Are you scared?"
At this moment, even Qin Mi sensed the subtle hostility Qin Youan harbored towards Shu Fu in her words, and immediately turned her head and rebuked, "Youan!"
Shu Fu also sensed something, but she didn't intend to refute it. Instead, she stood up and said, "If you want to jump, then jump. What's there to be afraid of? Besides, it's rare for us to get together. If it's to liven things up, I'd be more than willing."
She walked to the center of the inner room and slowly paced a few steps: "However, none of you here can escape."
The girl raised her chin and pointed at the people present one by one: "Yu Liu, you play the konghou; Cheng Si, you seem to have brought your yu too, right? You play the yu; and Zhang, Zhang Shier Niang, you sing..." The candlelight floated on her face, as if coated with a layer of rosy light, bright and radiant.
The others remained silent at first, then Shufu muttered, "What's there to be shy about? If I'm not afraid, then you're not allowed to be either!"
Everyone then realized that Shu Fu was a little drunk, but who wasn't slightly tipsy at the time?
Yu Liuniang, who was called first, stood up and said, "Come on then! I've never been afraid of playing the konghou!"
The room became lively and cheerful. Cheng Si Niang said, "Good, good, this is how it should be. But what piece should we play?"
"The Mountain Spirit!" A voice came from the corner, and it was none other than the usually shy and gentle wife. "I can play the flute. I just learned this piece, so shall I compose it?"
Everyone readily agreed, and after the instrumental music began, someone pushed Shu Fu into the center of the room, and the music started flowing smoothly.
Shufie may not be able to dance, but she rides a horse very well, with a graceful and fluid gait.
She wore a white dress with a light blue overcoat. Her hair was not tied up completely, and her thick, black silk hair flowed all over her body, as if moonlight was shining in.
Zhang Shier sang first: "If there is someone on the mountain slope, draped in ivy and adorned with maidenhair fern..."
Those present whose ancestral home was in central Hunan also quietly joined in the singing: "With eyes full of longing and a smile that is both charming and delightful, you admire me for my graceful figure. Riding a red leopard and followed by a civet cat, in a magnolia chariot with a cassia banner..."
In the poem, the mountain god, draped in ivy and slender with ferns, strolls among the mountains with a smile on his face. The dancing girl smiles in response, her lips red and teeth white, her face radiant. She spins lightly on her toes, her skirt fluttering as if praying for a rain.
Even the young woman stared at her in a daze.
Shu Fu disliked having so many people staring at her, so she jumped two steps to Li Miao, pulled her up, and made her jump with her.
Li Miao couldn't dodge in time, and in his haste, he grabbed to the side, which also caused another person to get up, and eventually all the girls in the room started dancing.
A dazzling array of delights, truly a prosperous age.
Qin Youan was also pushed and shoved in, and finally, after being bumped by someone, she fell straight into Shu Fu's arms.
She was startled and was about to struggle to get up when Shu Fu glanced at her slightly pale face, frowned slightly, and led her away from the crowd.
Qin Youan finally breathed a sigh of relief. When she looked up, she saw that Shu Fu had a thin layer of sweat on her forehead, with a few strands of soft hair clinging to it, making her eyes look even more like they were about to burst into tears.
Her heart skipped a beat, and she felt a strange, indescribable feeling.
The song "Mountain Spirit" was short, and the women, not yet satisfied, started dancing to the next song.
Shu Fu was a little tired, so she went back to the corner where she had been resting and took a small sip of sweet wine.
Qin Youan hesitated for a moment, then walked to her side and tugged at her sleeve.
"Hey, Shu Erniang, you've figured it out, haven't you? I was just trying to embarrass you on purpose."
Shu Fu closed her eyes, intending to pretend she hadn't heard, but after a long while, she couldn't help but say, "You're so annoying. It's one thing to target me, but you still have to deliberately come to me and say this."
She, Shufu, wasn't some soft, yielding dough person; if others didn't like her, she would simply not like them either.
The girl snorted and pulled her sleeve back from her hand.
Qin Youan stared at Shu Fu with his dark eyes for a while, and when she still didn't respond, he grabbed her sleeve again.
"Even if you don't want to hear it, I'll still tell you. I hated you back then, all because you beat my cousin at polo."
Shu Fu suddenly opened her eyes and corrected, "It's a draw."
“For someone as formidable as my cousin, a draw is a loss.”
Shu Fu retorted, "You're being unreasonable! Polo is a team sport, and one of your cousin's teammates isn't from Liangzhou, but from Suzhou, so they don't have much chemistry. But we've rehearsed hundreds of times, which makes up for our lack of skill. It doesn't mean your cousin is really weaker than us!"
Qin Youan nodded: "I understand now, so I've come to apologize to you."
"What?" Shu Fu hadn't reacted yet.
"What? I do whatever I want. With my sickly body, I don't know how long I can live. Who am I trying to impress with my maturity? I was targeting you earlier because I disliked you then. I'm apologizing now because I like you and want to be friends with you."
Shu Fu felt much relieved, but deliberately pursed her lips and said, "What if I don't accept it?"
"...If you don't want to accept it, then you don't have to. I'm not some bandit, I won't force you," Qin Youan said, pursing her lips and making a face as if she was about to cry. "At most... at most I'll come looking for you again next time, that's all."
"You'an—" Qin Mi, who was dancing, noticed that Qin You'an was missing and immediately came over. Seeing the two girls squatting together, she touched her cousin's hair and asked, "What are you saying to Miss Shu here?"
Although Qin Youan admired her cousin, she considered this matter her own private matter and only wanted to resolve it herself, not wanting anyone else to interfere. So she carefully shook her head.
"It's nothing. Cousin, I just have a few questions for the Second Miss, then I'll be leaving."
As Qin Youan spoke, he wrote "I'll talk to you again next time" on Shu Fu's palm. Fearing that she wouldn't respond, he then used his fingertips to dab her palm twice more, as if making a few small kowtows, before reluctantly getting up and leaving.
After Qin Youan left, Qin Mi sat down in her seat, opposite Shu Fu.
“You’an was very offensive just now, and I apologize to you on her behalf.”
Facing Qin Mi, whom she liked very much, Shu Fu smiled slightly: "It's nothing, I stopped thinking about it a long time ago."
“I guess that girl You’an probably wants to stand up for me,” Qin Mi said. “This is because I didn’t like you much when I first met you in Liangzhou.”
Shufu was never before confronted by two sisters on the same day, who both said they hated her.
"How annoying... You two sisters are so annoying, why do you have to say these things in front of others!" Shu Fu's eyes were burning, and she was about to cry.
Qin Mi sighed: "I was jealous back then. I considered Miaomiao my best friend, but she valued you the most. So I had some biased thoughts about you. Knowing that your parents were from prestigious families, I thought you were a delicate and pampered young lady. When Miaomiao said she wanted to bring you into the new government, I really thought she was crazy."
"It wasn't until I read your policy essay that I realized how biased and one-sided my previous views were, how naive and foolish my own opinions were, and that what Miaomiao said was correct, that only things produced by us working together could be good."
"Afu, you are so kind, even better than I imagined. I like you very much."
Shu Fu suddenly felt a little embarrassed, or perhaps she was drunk; her vision became blurry, as if she were about to cry.
"The road ahead may not be smooth. Would Afu be willing to walk it with me?"
As Qin Mi spoke, she seemed to be lost in thought, and removed a gold thumb ring engraved with bamboo patterns.
Shu Fu asked instinctively, "What is this for?"
Qin Mi replied, “The ancients had a story about signing a marriage pact with gold, and they valued it highly. I think the weight of my words is no less than that of marriage, so I would like to formally agree with you and walk this path together. I wonder if you would agree.”
Shu Fu remained silent for a long time, then suddenly smiled, pulled out the jade hairpin from her hair, and gently tapped the hairpin head on Qin Mi's thumb ring, making a soft "clang" sound, which seemed to dissipate in the music and dance, yet remained in the hearts of the two of them.
"Having found a true friend, I would gladly die for him."
———
The next chapter will be all about romance!
And, this chapter has 3000 words... so I'm requesting a one-day break. The next update will be on the 30th... (flips fingers)
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