Chapter 28 has nothing to do with her... it was just a spur-of-the-moment decision by me...
"Why did you deliberately embarrass me?" Lou Xueying asked, sitting on the swing in the garden, feeling annoyed.
"When did I deliberately embarrass you?" Li Pan leaned against the swing set and laughed. "You were the one who wanted to hit me, so why are you blaming me? Your father and brothers were too embarrassed to ask me directly how I treated you, but now that they've seen it for themselves, they can finally rest assured."
Lou Xueying: "During lunch, you...you touched me! My whole family was here!"
“Nobody saw it, so how did I embarrass myself?” Li Pan shrugged. “Besides, it was clearly you who mocked me first.”
Lou Xueying turned her face away: "I was just smiling, I wasn't laughing at you, you're overthinking it."
Li Pan: "Fine, fine, then I'll take it as my petty act and assume I took advantage of you. You can get your revenge next time."
"...Who wants to take advantage of you!"
"You're really turning your back on me. If you don't want to take advantage of me, then why did you insist on marrying me?" Li Pan chuckled.
Lou Xueying: "..."
"Are you angry?" Li Pan walked behind her and gently pushed her. "I won't tease you next time."
The swing swayed gently, and Lou Xueying's skirt fluttered in the wind. She turned her head and asked Li Pan, "Didn't you eat enough for lunch?"
Li Pan remained silent.
Lou Xueying curled the corners of her lips slightly: "I knew it."
Li Pan pursed his lips.
It wasn't that the Lou family didn't have enough food, but rather that they ate slowly and meticulously. Li Pan didn't want to be looked at with such a surprised gaze by this large family, so he also slowed down his eating speed.
As a result, by the time his family had gradually put down their chopsticks, he was only half full. But he couldn't let his family see him eating alone, so he had no choice but to put down his chopsticks as well.
Lou Xueying said, "I'll have Cailing bring over some more snacks later."
Li Pan countered, "Are you not used to the food at the Marquis's residence?"
"No." Lou Xueying blinked.
Li Pan: "You don't need to worry about upsetting me, just say it directly."
"Really not," Lou Xueying said. "Although the dishes at the Marquis's residence are a bit different from those at the Lou family's, they still have their own unique characteristics. Besides, the chef's skills are quite good. How could I not be used to them? Does the Marquis really think I would hold a grudge over a single dish?"
Li Pan: "I noticed that your sister always has a maidservant busy around her, so I guess you were raised with the same meticulous care when you were little. The Marquis of Wu'an's mansion sounds prestigious, but it doesn't have nearly as many rules as it does. I'm afraid you'll feel too much of a sense of loss."
Lou Xueying smiled and said, "Don't worry, my lord. I won't make myself suffer. If I'm really unhappy, why would I compromise?"
“That’s true.” Li Pan nodded.
Lou Xueying sat on the swing, her voice rising and falling with the swing's movements, sometimes near, sometimes far, sometimes high, sometimes low: "Did you think about what you wanted to be when you were a child, Lord Marquis?"
Li Pan: "No, I'll just honestly farm the land."
Lou Xueying: "Have you thought about what kind of wife you'll marry in the future?"
Li Pan answered honestly, "I've thought about it. There's a girl at the east end of our village. She's tall and strong and very capable. Every time I come back from fetching water at the village entrance, I can see her working in the fields. I thought to myself that I should marry someone like her so she can help my family a lot."
Lou Xueying: "Why didn't you get married later?"
"Later, when the Quanrong invaded, I felt that I could no longer cultivate this land, so I joined the army."
"And what about her?"
“She must be married. I’m not even that close to her,” Li Pan said. “I just said I wanted to marry someone who could work as well as her, not that I had to marry her. Besides, my family was poor back then, and her family seemed to be a bit better off than ours. If I had actually proposed, she might have looked down on me.”
Lou Xueying then asked, "Did the Marquis meet the daughter of the prefect who was later engaged to him but then broke off the engagement?"
“I’ve never met him,” Li Pan said. “To be honest, I’ve only met the prefect a few times. It was all thanks to General Hu who acted as matchmaker back then.”
"If the Marquis had been able to get married smoothly back then, he probably would have been promoted even faster."
Li Pan grabbed her swing rope.
The swing swayed violently twice and then stopped beside him.
Lou Xueying looked up at Li Pan.
Li Pan said with a half-smile, "Why are you asking these questions? Are you jealous?"
Lou Xueying: "The Marquis has no feelings for them and is not close to them, so why should I be jealous? I'm just a little curious as to why the Marquis hasn't thought about getting married for so long, even when I first came to him, he didn't want me. Was it because he was heartbroken when he was rejected?"
Li Pan raised his hand and stroked her chin: "Besides my mother, you are the first person who dares to ask me this question."
Lou Xueying said innocently, "So much time has passed, surely the Marquis wouldn't be so petty as to not even allow it to be mentioned?"
Li Pan pinched her cheek and said, "Since you want to know, I might as well answer you. When the engagement was broken off, I wasn't heartbroken, but I was still a little angry. However, I thought about it later. She was a perfectly respectable young lady, but she almost lost her life at the hands of the Quanrong because of me. It's understandable that she didn't want to marry me anymore. Why should I hurt her again? It's good that the engagement was broken off. It's easier for both of us. She can go and marry a handsome and talented man she likes. She doesn't have to submit to a country bumpkin like me."
"So after that, the Marquis stopped thinking about getting married?"
"Yes, the Quanrong are not yet pacified. What use would it be for me to get married? If I die in battle, she will have to be a widow."
"But what if something really happens to the Marquis? Wouldn't that mean there's no more incense offering?"
"Our Li family is just a bunch of poor farmers. If we're gone, we're gone," Li Pan sneered.
"But after the Quanrong were pacified, why did the Marquis still not want to get married?"
“It’s not that I don’t want to marry, it’s that I don’t want to rush into marriage,” Li Pan said. “I’ve just arrived in the capital and haven’t even figured out the relationships here yet. How can I easily arrange a marriage? Even the royal family wouldn’t allow it.”
Lou Xueying: "If we set aside social background and only consider the person himself, what kind of woman does the Marquis like?"
Li Pan thought for a moment: "I really hadn't thought about it."
“I don’t believe it,” Lou Xueying said. “The men in your military camp must talk about women.”
"We do talk about it, but I'm not particularly interested in women themselves. If I had to say, I could only say what kind of woman I want to marry, not what kind of woman I like—it's simply someone who can help with the family. Before, I thought about women who could work and farm, and later I thought about women who would be beneficial to my career." It was a very pragmatic answer, yet Li Pan spoke frankly, "But later I realized that it's not enough for me to just think about it myself; I also have to be someone others look up to. So I might as well be more down-to-earth and make a name for myself through my own abilities. Then, I can marry whatever kind of woman I want, and not marry whatever kind of woman I don't want."
Lou Xueying snorted softly, "You don't want to marry me."
Li Pan turned her face around: "You spent so much time trying to get information out of me, and it turns out you just wanted to scold me."
“I didn’t insult the Marquis, I was just stating a fact,” Lou Xueying muttered. “Besides, I don’t think the Marquis is uninterested in women at all; in fact, he seems quite interested…”
Li Pan laughed and said, "When have you ever seen me interested in other women? It's just you, isn't it? It's not okay if I'm interested in you, and it's not okay if I'm not interested in you. What more do you want from me?"
He leaned down, whispered in her ear, "If I had known earlier that there was a Miss Lou waiting for me in the capital, I would have seized the time to wipe out the Quanrong and enter the capital as soon as possible, so that Miss Lou wouldn't fall ill from missing me."
"Who's lovesick for you! Stop spreading rumors!" Lou Xueying turned her head angrily, her lips brushing against his cheek and stopping at his earlobe.
Li Pan paused for a moment.
Lou Xueying shrank her neck, wanting to jump off the swing, but Li Pan pressed down on the back of her neck, forcing her to turn her head.
He moved closer and bit her lip.
Her breathing suddenly became erratic, and she unconsciously gripped the swing ropes on both sides.
"Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!" Suddenly, a scream rang out. Lou Xueying shoved Li Pan aside and saw a figure dart out from behind the bushes, covering its eyes and stamping its feet, yelling, "I shouldn't have come! I'm leaving!"
"Fourth Miss!" A maid rushed up from the end of the road, apologizing repeatedly to Lou Xueying, "Third Miss, I'm so sorry! Fourth Miss asked where Third Miss had gone after her afternoon nap and insisted on coming to see her, but I couldn't catch up with her..."
Lou Xueying: "..."
Pengpeng covered her eyes and was pushed away by the maid. She secretly opened her fingers a little to peek at Lou Xueying, then quickly covered her eyes again.
"Come back here!" Lou Xueying shouted.
Pengpeng immediately put down her hand, ran over quickly, and grinned at Lou Xueying.
Lou Xueying's face darkened, and she said, "How could you sneak over here without saying a word?"
Pengpeng's playful grin vanished, and she nervously twirled her fingers, saying, "I just wanted to come and play with my sister... If I had known you were here... well... I wouldn't have come..."
As she spoke, she secretly glanced at Li Pan again.
Li Pan didn't care; he just found it funny.
So it turns out all the young ladies in the Lou family are like this. The fourth young lady seemed quite well-behaved at the banquet, but it turns out she's actually quite bold. That makes sense; if she weren't bold, her sister wouldn't have pushed her out as the vanguard of these scams.
"What do you mean by 'this' and 'that'!" Lou Xueying's scalp tingled, fearing that the maid beside her might overhear and misunderstand something. "Sister and brother-in-law are having a private conversation, and Pengpeng shouldn't disturb them, understand?"
Pengpeng pouted and said, "Okay."
The maid said, "Fourth Miss, let's go back to our room. We shouldn't disturb Third Miss and the Marquis's conversation. The zither lessons the teacher assigned haven't been finished yet. The teacher will be coming again in a few days. If he finds that Fourth Miss isn't practicing well and complains to Madam, Fourth Miss will be scolded again."
Pengpeng cried out, "I don't want to practice the piano!"
Maid: "If you don't practice today, you'll have to practice twice as much tomorrow. Why bother?"
Pengpeng: "Third sister hasn't practiced the piano in a long time, why do I still have to practice?"
The maid smiled and said, "Third Miss's zither skills are already quite good, and she no longer needs a teacher to give her lessons. No one cares whether she practices or not. But Fourth Miss, you are still learning. How can you not practice?"
Li Pan quietly asked Lou Xueying, "Have you not practiced the piano in a long time?"
Lou Xueying mumbled, "Before... I was busy preparing for the wedding, so naturally I didn't have time to practice."
Li Pan stroked his chin: "I don't think there's a zither in the Marquis's residence. Did you forget to bring it, or are you planning to buy another one?"
Lou Xueying didn't want to say that she never wanted to play the zither again in her life, and she didn't even bring the zither with her when she got married. But everyone knew that she was an outstanding zither player. If she said that she would never play again, it would definitely arouse suspicion.
"We can pick out a new one when we have time later." Lou Xueying took advantage of Li Pan's ignorance and said casually, "The zither will get old after being played for a while and you'll need to change the strings. It's better to just buy a new one."
Li Pan responded with an "oh".
Pengpeng was still struggling: "Let's practice later. Third sister has come back for a long time. What's wrong with me playing with her for a while?"
The maid looked at Lou Xueying helplessly.
Lou Xueying sighed and patted Pengpeng's head: "Don't you like playing the piano?"
Pengpeng shook her head repeatedly: "I don't like it."
Lou Xueying said, "If you don't like it, then forget it. I'll talk to my mother tonight and tell her not to force you. It's just something to pass the time anyway. Since you don't like it, why force the child for the sake of a good reputation?"
"Sister, you're so kind!" Pengpeng exclaimed, deeply moved. "Did you also experience a lot of pain during your training?"
Lou Xueying was momentarily dazed, and said softly, "Practicing the zither is never easy... It's just that you genuinely loved it back then, so you were willing to endure the hardship."
"I don't like practicing the piano, but I love listening to it." Pengpeng tugged at Lou Xueying and said sweetly, "Sister, it's been so long since I've heard you play the piano. Play some for me!"
Lou Xueying's expression hardened slightly, and she refused outright: "I've been busy lately, and my piano skills have become quite rusty, so I won't play."
Pengpeng retorted, "Even if my sister is rusty, how rusty can she be? Anyway, she plays much better than me!" She rolled her eyes and looked at Li Pan, "Brother-in-law, have you never heard my sister play the zither before?"
Li Pan smiled.
Everyone in the family calls him Lord Marquis. Even Lou Xueying's two older brothers didn't dare to call him "brother-in-law." This little girl is quite interesting; she called him "brother-in-law" right away.
“Hmm, I’ve never heard of it,” Li Pan said. “I don’t like listening to the zither.”
Sometimes when he was having a banquet at a restaurant, there would be a musician playing music, but to him it was all just decadent music, and it didn't matter what tune he played.
Pengpeng: "That's because you haven't heard your sister play the piano. If you had, you would definitely love listening to her!"
Hearing this, Li Pan became interested: "Oh? Is that so? Then I really want to hear it. Everyone outside says that your sister is proficient in all the arts, but I've never seen any of them. Why don't I see her perform the first one today?"
Lou Xueying bit her lip, still wanting to refuse: "Forget it, I haven't been feeling well lately..."
Li Pan: "Anyway, I can't tell the difference, so just play it for me and let this rough man have a moment of elegance."
Seeing his keen interest and Pengpeng's expectant expression, Lou Xueying knew that she probably couldn't avoid it today.
She hesitated for a moment, then said to the maid, "Go find Cailing and have her bring me my most frequently used zither."
The maid left as instructed, and not long after, Cailing returned with her, carrying her zither.
“Miss has finally remembered to play the zither again,” Cailing said. “I was wondering for a long time why Miss said she wouldn’t be including a zither in her dowry.”
Lou Xueying: "From now on, we'll buy new ones and keep the old ones at home."
She got off the swing, walked into the pavilion, sat down at the stone table, took a deep breath, and placed her ten fingers on the strings of the zither.
The zither in front of her was her favorite zither before she received the one from Emperor Jinghui.
This zither accompanied her through the happiest period of her girlhood, during which she played many famous works and also the new scores revised by Emperor Jinghui.
She half-closed her eyes, lightly plucked the strings with her fingers, and produced a short, clear note.
She hadn't played the piano in a long time, but when she touched those familiar strings again, those memories seemed to flood her mind all at once. Without her having to think, her fingers moved naturally.
She was playing a famous piece that every piano student knows, and even beginners like Pengpeng could play it fairly well.
This piece is simple and straightforward, without any complicated fingering techniques. But it is precisely because it is a piece that everyone knows that it is the best test of skill when played.
Under her fingers, the music seemed to breathe, its variations in volume and intensity, rising and falling in layers, flowing endlessly. At times, it was like pearls falling onto a plate, round and full; at other times, it was like the cry of a crane in the sky, clear and bright.
Outside the courtyard wall, in a sparsely populated alley, a carriage suddenly lifted its curtain.
The person in the carriage stared blankly at the high courtyard wall, the crumpled letter in his hand slowly falling. It was spotted in time by Eunuch Zheng, who was standing by, who caught it with both hands and quietly placed it back on his lap.
“It’s her…” Emperor Jinghui murmured to himself, “It can only be her. No one else in the Lou family has such skill.”
Eunuch Zheng remained silent.
After meeting with the Marquis of Wu'an and his wife this morning to express their gratitude, the emperor became distraught. He couldn't even finish his lunch, let alone review any memorials. Eventually, he couldn't sit still any longer and left the palace incognito, staying outside the backyard wall of the Lou family's residence until now.
To be honest, even Eunuch Zheng didn't know what the emperor wanted to do.
He clearly knew that his actions were contrary to common sense, which was why he didn't stop near the main gate of the mansion to avoid attracting attention. But since he was standing outside the backyard wall, he couldn't see anything at all, and because of the trees inside the wall, he couldn't even hear any sounds coming from inside.
The emperor's trusted bodyguards and Eunuch Zheng had been standing there for over an hour, with nothing in sight, yet the emperor refused to leave, and they dared not try to persuade him.
The emperor looked at the letters over and over again, as if only by looking at them outside the Lou residence could he truly feel that Su Jun, the one he was corresponding with, was the eldest daughter of the Lou family.
The music started at that moment.
Both Eunuch Zheng and the guards were startled, and the emperor abruptly lifted the carriage curtain.
Still nothing could be seen, yet clear piano music pierced through the trees and courtyard walls, reaching the ears of everyone in the alley.
The emperor's face showed a mixture of joy and sorrow, and one hand gripped the windowsill tightly, his knuckles turning white.
Hearing the increasingly disordered and heavy breathing inside the carriage, Eunuch Zheng said with concern, "Your Majesty, no matter what, you must take care of your health and not worry too much!"
Before he could finish speaking, the emperor suddenly frowned, clutched his chest, and coughed up a mouthful of blood.
Eunuch Zheng was terrified and scrambled onto the carriage, supporting Emperor Jinghui: "Your Majesty!"
The guards driving the carriage were also greatly alarmed. They leaped onto the carriage, cracked their whips, and hurriedly turned back to the palace.
"No, nothing..." Emperor Jinghui leaned forward, grasping Eunuch Zheng's hand, and said in a trembling voice, "It has nothing to do with her... I just lost my temper..."
Eunuch Zheng was covered in sweat: "How could this be? How could this be?!"
His Majesty's health is indeed not as robust as it was in his youth, but he is still generally healthy. At most, he might catch a cold or fever occasionally, which he recovers in a few days. He has never been so frightened before, actually spitting out a mouthful of blood!
Emperor Jinghui took a breath and said, "Keep the news under wraps, summon the imperial physicians immediately. What happened today must not be known to outsiders. Not even the Empress and the Crown Prince... absolutely not!"
After saying that, he fainted.
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Author's Note: Everyone is so enthusiastic! Thank you all for your comments and donations. I've decided to add an extra chapter. [shy]
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