Chapter 6 Sharing wine to dispel sorrow, with Du Kang (a legendary figure associated with wine), the joyful moments are even more unforgettable. ...
Consciousness then drifted back into a hazy dream.
Tears welled up in her eyes, but she held them back.
A familiar figure walked towards me. Who was it? I couldn't remember, but I knew in my heart that this was someone I could rely on.
My heart was pounding with anxiety; the pain from those bruises, the fear of being tormented and threatened—all of it was stuck in my throat, threatening to burst forth.
Help me, look at my wounds, and take me away.
But his lips seemed glued shut, and he couldn't open them no matter what he did. His limbs were so heavy that he couldn't move them, and his fingertips were clenched so tightly that they turned white, and he couldn't utter a single sound of distress.
There seemed to be worry in the man's eyes, but she could only manage an expression more painful than tears, her voice as faint as the wind passing over water:
"It's alright, go back and get back to work."
The cry for help in my heart pounded painfully in my chest, but all I could say was this one sentence, which I sent out lightly, feeling cold even to myself.
"Young lady!"
A loud shout came crashing down, and Su Jinxiu trembled all over. Her vision was still clouded by the darkness of a nightmare, and her body slid off the stool uncontrollably, landing hard on the blue brick floor of Huayun Pavilion. She gasped in pain, her brows furrowing tightly.
Su Jinxiu looked up and her anger flared up immediately.
Ying Bumei squatted in front of her, fanning himself with a folding fan. He was handsome and charming, with a smiling eye. His dark robes were spread out on the ground like a spread-out raven feather.
The embroiderers nearby covered their mouths and chuckled, praising the Taoist priest's handsome appearance. Ying Bumei was quite pleased with himself, but they were the only ones staring at Su Jinxiu's furrowed brows. He was still holding a magnolia flower in his hand, about to put it in her hair: "I saw you weren't sleeping well, so I'm putting a flower in your hair to calm your nerves."
Still haunted by the nightmare, Su Jinxiu quickly turned her head away.
"Don't touch me!"
Ying Bumei laughed even harder, her peach blossom eyes curving upwards: "Why are you still so fierce?" With that, she reached out to help her up.
Su Jinxiu pushed his hand away, and slowly stood up, supporting herself on the stool. Her buttocks were still throbbing, and her voice was muffled: "What are you doing here?"
“The proprietress is an old acquaintance of mine,” Ying Bumei said matter-of-factly, tapping his palm as he closed his folding fan. “Am I here to buy something?”
Su Jinxiu glanced at him irritably and limped back to her embroidery table.
A few days ago, she entered Huayun Pavilion as an embroiderer. The pavilion stipulates that embroiderers are all addressed with two characters, so she used her original name, "Jinxiu". She embroiders from morning till afternoon and earns 150 coins a day. In ancient times, she even found herself a nine-to-five job. Thinking about it, it seems absurd.
She sat down, holding onto the edge of the table, picked up a needle and poked it into the embroidery cloth on the frame, her tone indifferent: "If you want to buy things, go to the front hall."
Ying Bumei suddenly leaned down and whispered in Su Jinxiu's ear, her warm breath tickling her earlobe: "Did you dream about me just now? You kept saying don't go."
Su Jinxiu almost pricked her fingertip with the needle in her hand, turned her head and scolded in a low voice: "Can you please not delay my work?"
"work?"
"...It means doing embroidery."
Ying Bumei refused to give up, so he draped a folding fan over his shoulder and pulled her behind the embroidery frame, where a screen blocked the view from outside.
"You were able to become a full-fledged embroiderer, wasn't it all thanks to my kind words?"
Su Jinxiu was about to open her mouth to refute, but then she stopped.
Ying Bumei and the landlady were old acquaintances. Although he had been hired based on his own abilities, he had only recently been promoted to a permanent position thanks to Ying Bumei's kind words. He was bound by the landlady's generosity, and besides, with Ying Bumei's rascal nature, arguing with him would only lead to him pestering him for even longer.
She paused for a moment, then decided to follow up and asked, "How should I thank you? Should I buy you a drink?"
Upon hearing the word "drinking," Ying Bumei's eyes lit up: "If you're treating, we should naturally go to Fanlou. Their Daughter's Red wine and drunken crab are a perfect match."
Su Jinxiu took out a few coins from her embroidery basket and showed them to him, her voice muffled: "I only have this much spare money. If you want to go, go to the grain wine stall at the end of the embroidery alley. If you don't want to go, then forget it."
"You really are..."
Ying Bumei had experienced her ruthlessness firsthand; she had considered the term "stingy rooster" repeatedly, but ultimately dared not utter it aloud.
"Never mind," Ying Bumei straightened up, straightened his robes, and resumed his nonchalant demeanor. "Grain brew it is. I'll go when you're done with your get off work... when you get off work."
He does know how to integrate and apply knowledge.
As dusk settled over the grain brewing stalls at the end of the alley, seven or eight low tables were crammed under the oilcloth awnings. Neighbors, fanning themselves with palm-leaf fans, sat around the tables, their rough porcelain bowls clinking together. The aroma of the grain brewing mingled with the sounds of laughter and conversation, creating a lively and bustling atmosphere.
Su Jinxiu led the way inside with practiced ease, while Ying Bumei followed behind. His gaze swept over the wooden stool stained with wine, and he unconsciously waved his folding fan twice, conveying a sense of uneasy distance.
"What are you standing there for?" Su Jinxiu had already noticed his disdainful look. She turned around and asked the shopkeeper for half a jar of sorghum and corn wine. Then she went straight to the low table in the corner and sat down, pointing to the small stool opposite her. "Sit down, do I have to offer you a seat?"
Ying Bumei then closed his folding fan and moved over, but only glanced down at the stool, like a proud peacock weighing whether the stool was worthy of him.
Su Jinxiu saw it clearly, picked up the empty bowl handed to her by the shopkeeper, put it on the table, and said with a smile, "Don't put on airs, the grain wine here is much more fragrant than the cold tea in your Taoist temple."
Once the mud seal is broken, the aroma of the liquor, mixed with the fragrance of grains, spreads out.
Ying Bumei wiped the stool and sat down. He frowned slightly as he examined the wine bowl, but he drank it down without hesitation. He finished the bowl without any hesitation, showing no trace of the austere demeanor of a monk.
Su Jinxiu rested her chin on her hand and looked at him, unable to help but ask, "Ying Bumei, are you really a Taoist priest?"
She could see clearly that, apart from being chased by soldiers in a sorry state when they first met, this man had always been very imposing whenever he came to harass the shop these past few days. Moreover, he was a close acquaintance of the proprietress of Huayun Pavilion. With such confidence, he didn't seem like an ordinary Taoist priest at all.
Ying Bumei paused upon hearing this: "What do you think a Taoist priest should be like?"
“Naturally, they wear Taoist robes, chant scriptures, and are detached from worldly affairs,” Su Jinxiu replied, following the lead of the conversation.
"Wearing Taoist robes and chanting scriptures?" Ying Bumei scoffed. "In this world, those real Taoist priests would have been skinned alive and fed to dogs long ago. Do you really believe in those superficial imitations?"
He was serious for no more than two seconds before switching to a flippant tone.
"However, if you prefer a proper Buddhist monk, I'll go to a Taoist temple to be ordained tomorrow, how about that?"
Su Jinxiu was tasting the grain wine when she heard this. Suddenly, the image of his bald head popped into her mind, and she couldn't help but spit out the wine she had just taken a sip of.
The initial animosity quickly dissipated, and the half-jar of grain wine was emptied.
Seeing Ying Bumei smiling brightly behind him, Su Jinxiu turned around curiously and saw the flower girl across the street running away with a blush on her face. He then said narcissistically, "Ah, even if I were to shave my head, I would probably be the most outstanding bald person in the world."
The two got up and walked outside. Su Jinxiu glanced at him sideways and said, "It must be the most beautiful peacock in the world with its tail feathers spread out."
Ying Bumei quietly approached: "A peacock spreads its tail feathers to attract a mate. Are you implying something about me, young lady?"
Previously, the two, one handsome and the other charming, had attracted several glances from the next table. Now, seeing them whispering intimately, some people even took the opportunity to secretly look over while picking up their bowls.
Su Jinxiu shoved him away with her elbow and walked forward with her head down. Ying Bumei rubbed his chest in pain, but still caught up with her and wouldn't let her go.
"If you truly wish for me to display my peacock feather... then tonight at midnight... at the Hongyun Inn?"
His tone was ambiguous, and his smile was frivolous.
These words thoroughly enraged Su Jinxiu. Who did she take her for? Turning her head, she wished she could pluck the feathers off this peacock. She reached out to grab the jade hairpin that bound his hair, but Ying Bumei quickly smiled and begged for forgiveness: "I was wrong, I was wrong. I misspoke."
Su Jinxiu was too lazy to deal with Ying Bumei anymore. She had already repaid the favor she owed him, so there was no need to pester him any further. She walked quickly ahead, but unexpectedly bumped into Aunt Feng, a neighbor from Xiuxiang.
Aunt Feng, who used to always smile when her son came home, looked worried today.
Su Jinxiu stepped forward to greet her, and Aunt Feng sighed and said, "The school here will be closed down in another month."
"Huh?" Su Jinxiu looked surprised. "How come I didn't know? Aqin never mentioned it to me."
"This school was kindly established by the teacher, and most of the students are children from ordinary families like us. It has always been unable to make ends meet, and we really can't keep going any longer," Aunt Feng said helplessly.
Su Jinxiu became even more anxious: "Then what will happen to the children in our Xiuxiang who want to study?"
Aunt Feng glanced in the direction of the Xie residence, her tone tinged with envy: "Only the young master of the Xie family is lucky to be born into such a family. I heard that the Xie family has spent money to pull strings and is preparing to send him to Bailudong Academy. That private academy is so popular that even the sons of high-ranking families are vying for it; it's not something we can afford to support."
Su Jinxiu knew perfectly well that Bailudong Academy did not charge tuition fees. The expenses that Aunt Feng mentioned that she could not afford were mostly the round-trip travel expenses. From Bianjing to Jiangzhou, the mountains were high and the roads were long, and the cost of carriages, horses, and lodging was all high.
But she understood even more clearly that the academy was mostly filled with children from wealthy and powerful families. If Aqin really went, how could he possibly have enough money for the journey? The books those young masters carried weren't ordinary printed editions; they were mostly finely edited rare editions, each one worth half a month's expenses for their families. Their writing materials also had to be Xuan paper and Huzhou brushes; ordinary coarse ink and paper would inevitably make them look inferior. And when classmates pooled their money for a feast, or when buying a decent new outfit for the changing season, these unseen expenses, each and every one of them, were more burdensome than the tuition fees.
After Aunt Feng finished speaking, she went into the house, while Su Jinxiu remained standing there, torn between her inner turmoil and her own thoughts.
She knew that Wen Shiqin always studied by the light of dawn and practiced martial arts under the moon at night. When she went to pick him up from school, the teacher would pull her aside and praise him, saying, "Shiqin has the talent of a general and prime minister. We must not delay his studies." So she couldn't bear to cut off his path to success and thought that she should do more embroidery and save more money so that she could send him to continue his studies.
But then the thought changed, and I worried that if he really succeeded in his studies and entered officialdom, he might repeat the same mistakes and become the infamous villain in the book, recorded in miscellaneous records. In that case, all my hard work would become a source of trouble.
In a daze, a tall, slender figure leisurely followed from the side.
Ying Bumei had overheard everything that had just been said. Seeing Su Jinxiu's furrowed brows and worried expression, he instinctively raised his hand, wanting to smooth away the sorrow between her brows.
Su Jinxiu was startled by his action and took a step back, a look of wariness flashing in her eyes.
Ying Bumei raised an eyebrow and asked with interest, "Are you short of money?"
Su Jinxiu turned her head away, her tone indifferent: "What's it to you?"
Ying Bumei ignored her cold face and said slowly, "I am so poor that all I have left is money. If you have any difficulties, just ask me for a loan."
Is this for real?
She suppressed the glimmer of anticipation that had been stirred within her, her expression calm, and asked indifferently, "If you're lending money for no reason, what are your conditions? Just say it."
"It's simple, all I need is for you to come with me to see someone."
Upon hearing this, Su Jinxiu sneered inwardly. He only said he was going to see someone, but didn't say who it was. What if he went to a den of dragons and tigers?
Thinking of this, I became too lazy to argue with him any further. As I turned away, I waved my hand dismissively and tossed out a remark:
"Thank you for your kindness, but I will find a way to earn the money myself, so please don't worry about it!"
Ying Bumei watched her resolute back as she walked away, gently tapping her jade thumb ring, lost in thought.
A note from the author:
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