Chapter 55 Accidental Injury.
When Ye Peixiu arrived at the old house in Xishan, the rain was already pouring down.
The family banquet had just ended, and the servants were busy cleaning up. Grandma Chengfei crossed her arms and inspected the place. She walked to the sandalwood four-legged incense stand, lifted the lid of the incense burner, smelled it, and said, "Change to sandalwood incense."
A servant replied, "Yes."
Turning around, he saw Ye Peixiu under the eaves outside the house.
Wearing a white shirt and black trousers, he stood with his back to the porch, smoking a cigarette while watching the pattering rain from the eaves.
She tightened her shawl and came out to greet him, "Pei Xiu, why don't you come in?"
Ye Peixiu raised his hand to indicate the cigarette in his hand.
"Your grandfather is in the study," Cheng Fei's grandmother said with a smile, "I'll go tell him."
She walked through the veranda to the west wing.
A short while later, a loud, angry voice came from the west wing: "Do I have to invite you in?!"
The sound of the rain is so clear even through the downpour, which shows that he is in good health.
Ye Peixiu walked through the corridor to the west wing. Before leaving, Grandma Cheng Fei turned back and kindly advised the grandfather and grandson, "Talk things out, Peixiu, don't upset your grandfather."
“I know,” Ye Peixiu said. “You can go ahead and get back to work.”
"Don't waste your breath on him! What does he know? He's not even as sensible as a three-year-old!"
The old man was indirectly criticizing Cheng Fei.
Cheng Fei wanted to say a few more words of advice, but Ye Peixiu slightly raised his chin, indicating: "Don't worry about it, just go out."
Grandma Cheng Fei closed the door and left.
The fragrance of agarwood wafted through the air, filling the room with a cool and serene atmosphere.
The old man walked to the desk angrily and casually flipped through the open book on the table.
Ye Peixiu seemed speechless and said with a smile, "What have I done to you? Why are you so angry with me?"
"Still pretending with me?"
Grandpa stood behind the desk and bluntly asked, "What's the deal with An'an's cousin?"
After receiving a call from the Chen family in the afternoon, the old man asked someone to come over and listened to the detailed report.
It's a routine project in academia, with the mentor group consisting of professors from the Chinese departments of several universities in Beijing. It's a minor matter, but the spot that Chen An'an's cousin took should have belonged to the young girl from the Xia family.
No wonder Ye Peixiu was angry.
However, in the old man's eyes, no matter how angry he was, things shouldn't have been done this way: directly sending someone to deliver the message to the old man of the Chen family, making him lose face.
Everyone knows that the Ye family always cherishes its reputation. Now that they have made a fool of themselves, the Chen family should take the initiative to distance themselves from the Ye family, both morally and logically. Sure enough, this afternoon, the old man of the Chen family called in person and said that the marriage between the two children should be called off.
The old comrades who have been friends for decades have ended up in such an awkward situation.
When Grandpa asked this, Ye Peixiu sat down on the sofa, lit a cigarette, and said in a very serious manner, "It was indeed my negligence."
He continued, "I didn't inform the mentor group beforehand so they could act impartially."
His righteous words only made it impossible for the old man to get angry. After a long silence, he could only say objectively, "... Such things will never be eradicated in any dynasty or generation."
Ye Peixiu raised his eyes to look at him, "I want to tell you that even without you deliberately making things difficult for her and without you trying to intimidate her, her life is already difficult enough."
"This afternoon, she was still reflecting on what she had done wrong and how she needed to learn more from the person in charge."
"The Xia family patriarch is dead, Xia Xili, who was most favored, is also dead, Xia Changping went bankrupt, and Xia's grandmother went to Shaoping... The Xia family has long lost all its voice. She is just a little girl, and everyone can bully her."
"Everyone can bully them?" the old man sneered. "Don't we still have you? You're showing off in front of Xia Changping and taking her to deal with Qiao Wu. Everyone's talking behind your back, and you still think you're not stirring up trouble enough?"
"It's me."
Ye Peixiu looked at him intently and said, "It's only me."
"What, at this age, you've learned to be a hero for girls?"
"That's right."
He contradicted everything he said, and the old man got so angry that he slammed the table and stood up, "Are you trying to piss me off to death?"
"We're not interfering with each other, I don't know what you're so anxious about," Ye Peixiu said, "Let my mother take Chen Anan to embarrass me—"
"Your face?" the old man said angrily, "You've been flaunting that little girl around all day. Have you ever thought about the Chen family's face?"
Ye Peixiu smiled speechlessly.
He didn't argue anymore about how the Chen family's reputation had anything to do with him; he just glanced at his grandfather quietly and didn't say anything.
Outside the red lacquered nanmu window with swastika pattern, there is the sad wind and rain of the autumn night.
In the distance, the mountains are shrouded in mist, and the night rain is drizzling, filled with bursts of coldness.
The old man found a white cigarette box on the coffee table and searched everywhere for a matchbox.
Cheng Fei kept asking him to quit smoking, and I wonder if she hid the matchbox again.
Ye Peixiu got up, walked around the coffee table, and lit his cigarette with his own lighter.
The old man took a puff and sighed, "I still can't get used to using a lighter."
They had just exchanged barbs, their words tinged with coldness, but now they had each offered a way out, and the atmosphere had returned to a peaceful and tranquil state, like a pool of green water pooling at the foot of a step after the rain.
Ye Peixiu sat on his own sofa.
Two wisps of smoke rose up.
In the silence, he spoke slowly and deliberately, "...I understand that you want to arrange a marriage for me. Everyone has gone through this, and I am one of them. As the eldest grandson of the Ye family, I have been nurtured by you, so naturally you should choose a suitable marriage for me."
“If I were to follow the same path as my father, then you wouldn’t need to say anything more. I would marry whoever you want me to marry. I know that everything comes at a price, and I can’t have both freedom and power.”
As he spoke, he stubbed out his cigarette, stood up, put his hands in his pockets, took a breath, and remained silent for a few seconds before saying, "But, Grandpa, I don't want to."
"She's still young and hasn't graduated yet. If she wants me in the future, I'm willing to give up everything else."
The old man was stunned for a long time.
I can hardly believe it.
After a long pause, he realized what was happening, and with trembling hands, he grabbed the purple clay teapot from the coffee table, saying, "Don't even think about it!"
Ye Peixiu stood still, and the purple clay teapot flew past his forehead, shattering instantly.
Two seconds later, a stream of blood meandered down his forehead.
What started as a thin, shallow trickle quickly grew into a thick stream, flowing down his chin and dripping onto his white shirt.
Cheng Fei was lingering under the veranda, trying to hear what was happening in the study. She listened intently for a long time but heard nothing. Just as she was about to leave in disappointment, she suddenly heard the old man roar, followed by the sound of something breaking.
She ran over and reached the door, but then she braked abruptly and asked outside, "Grandpa! What happened?"
"roll!"
The old man roared.
His shout, ironically, gave Cheng Fei ample reason to go in. She turned the doorknob, pushed open the door, and muttered, "What happened? Why are you yelling at me again?"
The old man pointed at her and said, "Get out!"
"Where do you want me to go?"
Cheng Fei pretended to be aggrieved and worried. "Look at you, why are you so angry again? Pei Xiu, you too—"
As she passed Ye Peixiu, she turned her head and was immediately startled, her eyes widening in shock. "What happened?!"
Cheng Fei turned around and walked out, calling the servant to call a doctor.
The old man slumped onto the sofa in anger, panting heavily, clutching his chest, muttering to himself, and then shouted angrily, "Unless I'm dead, or you're dead!"
Ye Peixiu closed his eyes.
He walked to the desk, opened the drawer, took out the first aid medicine, walked back and handed it to the old man.
The old man ate it and swallowed it with cooled tea.
When Cheng Fei returned with the maid and doctor, the study had already quieted down again.
When the doctor asked, the old man even smiled and said kindly, "Excuse me, I just had a few words with my grandson, it's nothing serious."
Ye Peixiu washed his face, changed his shirt, and put a Band-Aid on his forehead.
The nurse said, "Mr. Ye, you should go to the hospital."
It would be bad if I got a concussion.
"That's right," the old man, who was measuring blood pressure, turned around and said, "Pei Xiu, find some time to go to the hospital."
"Okay, I'll go another day."
Ye Peixiu said.
The two of them acted like a loving grandfather and grandson, and Cheng Fei smoothed things over from the side, smiling and saying, "Look, isn't this wonderful?"
-
It was late at night when Ye Peixiu left the old house.
He drove alone down the mountain road and all the way to Yeyuan on Fuyou Street.
After taking a shower and changing clothes, Xia Qingwan read for a long time in the study. Hearing the rain outside getting louder and louder, afraid of missing Ye Peixiu's return, she took her book to the living room and occasionally peeked into the entrance hall.
The sound of rain is most soothing, and drowsiness gradually crept in. Holding her book, she unknowingly fell asleep on the sofa armrest.
I don't know how much time passed, but I vaguely felt myself being picked up.
It was the familiar warmth of her embrace. She opened her eyes a crack, her vision blurry, and said, "...You're back."
Ye Peixiu lowered his head and kissed her, "Go to sleep."
When I put her on the bed, she turned over and buried her face in the pillow.
A moment later, she belatedly realized that Ye Peixiu seemed to have smelled of medicine on him.
She woke up immediately, ran out of bed barefoot and ran to the bathroom.
Ye Peizheng was shaving in front of the sink and looked at her in the mirror. "Why are you awake? Go back to sleep. I'll be there soon."
"Let me see you."
She approached him, looked him up and down, pulled open his collar, and touched him from left to right.
Ye Peixiu laughed and said, "That was molested."
She looked closely and finally saw the bloodstain on the corner of his forehead under his hair. She held his face and tiptoed closer. "What's wrong here?"
"The umbrella got pricked."
Thinking that if he didn't put on a band-aid, it would be less noticeable if covered by stray hairs, he tore the band-aid off in the car.
"Don't give me the runaround."
She was about to cry, "What happened? Who hit you? Your father? Your grandfather?"
"I knew you would overthink it."
Ye Peixiu half-sat on the sink, pulled her between his legs, and kissed the tip of her nose. "Our Ye family doesn't have a tradition of practicing martial arts."
“Nonsense,” Xia Qingwan pointed at his hand, “Then how did you get this scar?”
"It's really nothing," Ye Peixiu said, "It was an accidental injury."
It was indeed an accidental injury. The old man was angry and his hands were shaking. It was not intentional.
"You swear?"
“I swear,” Ye Peixiu leaned in to kiss her, “you’re here just in time to help me shave.”
Xia Qingwan licked his lips, suppressed his surging emotions, and picked up the razor.
He held her waist with one hand, tilted his chin slightly, and felt her soft hand gently supporting his chin, humming softly.
His eyelashes were half-closed as he gazed at her clear and focused eyes.
He was actually quite unsure of himself.
He always felt that she was going to leave.
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Author's Note: Sorry I'm late!
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