Chapter 141: Royal Concubine, Noblewoman Becomes Concubine
As winter passes, the weather gets warmer day by day.
By the end of April, the old locust tree, half of whose crown extended from Xue Mansion, began to bloom.
The branches are covered with dense small flowers, like a piece of snow hidden among the leaves.
"Xia'er, get some baskets under the tree and collect the petals."
Pei Shu arranged for someone to collect the locust flowers, and then walked towards her mother's yard.
She is going to learn winemaking from her mother this year.
Mrs. Pei is a mistress who is good at managing household chores. She is always dignified and calm in front of outsiders, but in private she is actually a woman who loves wine.
Every year, Mrs. Pei makes her own wine.
Peach blossom wine, pear blossom wine, osmanthus wine...any flowers that bloom in the mansion will inevitably be picked and made into wine.
Pei Shu had watched her mother make wine since she was a child, but this was the first time she had done it seriously.
Nine-year-old Pei Xuan heard about it and ran to her mother's yard to see:
"I want to learn too."
Pei Shu knew that her younger sister Xuan'er always took the petals she picked and dipped them in sugar when her mother wasn't paying attention.
She turned a blind eye to it, but Pei Lingyun, who had just entered the yard, happened to see it.
Pei Lingyun took the flowers from Pei Xuan's hand and said, "The flowers have all gone into your stomach. Mother and sister have no more flowers to make wine."
Pei Xuan argued: "There are still many flowers, I only ate a few petals. And mother has already brewed a lot of wine. Our wine cellar is half full, and we can't drink it all."
"Who said we can't finish it?" Madam Pei moved the candy away from her youngest daughter. "That's the daughter's red wine that Mother made a few years ago. When you two sisters get married, we'll serve it to the guests."
Pei Shu was picking up the flower petals, and two red clouds appeared on her cheeks.
Pei Xuan said shamelessly:
"Enough to drink. Give all the daughter's red wine to my elder sister. When I get married, I won't need wine. Just buy a lot of lychee paste water."
After she finished speaking, Mrs. Pei and Pei Shu both laughed.
Pei Lingyun joked, "Then I'll ask Chang'an if there's any young man who likes lychee paste water. He'd be a perfect match for Xuan'er."
"You dare?" Pei Xuan chased Pei Lingyun and beat him.
Pei Lingyun stepped back upon seeing this: "Let's talk it over, don't hit me. I'm your brother..."
The brother and sister ran around the yard.
Pei Shu and her mother were brewing wine while telling her younger brothers and sisters to stop making noise.
After learning for a few days, Pei Shu learned how to make wine.
She returned to the yard and tried to brew her own locust flower wine.
If it can be made, I will give it to my mother as a birthday gift next year.
She was not very skilled, and she and a few maids worked in the yard for most of the day before they could fill a jar.
Just as I was about to seal the jar, a figure appeared on the wall:
"Pei Jiaojiao, let me show you something!"
Pei Shu looked to the west and saw Xue Yuzhuo climbing the wall against the rays of the setting sun, holding an animal in his arms.
"What are you looking at?"
Before Pei Shu could see clearly what it was, she saw a shadow jump out from Xue Yuzhuo's arms, jump into Pei Shu's yard and run all over the floor.
It turned out to be a fox.
Xue Yuzhuo: "I caught this while hunting today. I'm leaving it here for Chujiu to keep him company."
The fox is quite pretty, with shiny fur, but it doesn't match the ninth day of the first lunar month.
As soon as Chujiu and the fox looked at each other, they became tense and started yelling.
A cat and a fox were running around in the yard, and no one could catch them.
Bang!
The wine jar on the table was stepped on and overturned, and the flowers and wine base spilled onto the ground.
The fox whimpered twice and ran away.
Chujiu seemed to know that he had done something wrong. He meowed softly and quickly ran back to the house.
The two little troublemakers ran away, leaving a few people in the yard stunned.
Pei Shu felt angry and distressed as she watched her hard work turn into a mess on the ground in an instant before it could bear fruit.
Xue Yuzhuo was also stunned. He had never expected such a scene.
"Then...how about we brew a new one and I'll compensate you." Xue Yuzhuo's voice was a little low.
Pei Shu glared at him. "That's easy for you to say. The wine in this jar is decades old. My mother had someone buy it from Jiangnan. How could it be that easy to find?"
Mrs. Pei used most of the aged wine and gave the remaining amount to Pei Shu.
Xue Yuzhuo scratched the back of his head, and his eyes lit up as if he had thought of something:
"I know where to find it. I'll give it to you tomorrow!"
Xue Yuzhuo hurried down from the wall again.
Pei Shu just thought he ran away out of guilt.
But the next day, Xue Yuzhuo actually brought a jar of wine over the wall.
"Here you go. I, Xue Yuzhuo, am a man of my words."
Pei Shu asked someone to take the jar of wine, opened it and took a sip to taste it.
The wine has a rich aroma and is as mellow as pulp.
Even better than the old wine that was spilled yesterday.
It would be strange if the wine brewed with this kind of wine as the base is not delicious.
Pei Shu looked at Xue Yuzhuo in surprise: "Where did you buy it?"
Xue Yuzhuo looked mysterious: "I won't tell you."
"We have wine, and we also have locust flowers." Pei Shu pointed to several empty baskets on the ground.
“This is easy!”
Xue Yuzhuo pushed himself up with both hands, jumped onto the top of the wall, and held onto the branches of the old locust tree:
"Pei Jiaojiao, do you want to see snow?"
Then he grabbed the branches of the locust tree and shook it.
The huge tree crown shook, and snow-like flowers fell from the branches, just like snow.
Pei Shu stood in the rain of flowers, her head and body covered with the sweet and fragrant locust flowers.
She raised her head and smiled brightly:
"Enough is enough, it's too much to handle."
"Okay, stop shaking..."
A year later, Pei Shu found out that Xue Yuzhuo had actually dug out the imperial wine that General Xue had buried for more than 20 years and gave it to her.
The following year, General Xue returned to Beijing to visit his relatives. When he returned home and found out what Xue Yuzhuo had done, he punished him.
When Pei Shu learned about this, she had the wine buried in the yard dug out and took the initiative to confess to Mrs. Pei.
Mrs. Pei sent the locust flower wine to the Xue Mansion next door and explained the whole story.
The next day.
Xue Yuzhuo, with a big bump on his head, lay down against the wall and said to Pei Shu:
"Don't worry, your Sophora japonica wine is safe in our house and no one has touched it. Consider it as keeping it for you. We will find a chance to return it to you later."
Pei Shu saw that the bump on Xue Yuzhuo's head was severely swollen:
"Is General Xue so cruel?"
Xue Yuzhuo: "My father didn't do anything. He just punished me by making me kneel in the ancestral hall and reflect on my actions."
Pei Shu: "Then what's going on with your head?"
Xue Yuzhuo: "I was kneeling at night and got tired, so I hit my head on the corner of the altar."
Pei Shu: ...
Xue Yuzhuo had a bump on his head, but it did not prevent him from practicing sword every day.
Pei Shu could often hear the faint sound of swords striking from next door.
When Xue Yuzhuo was practicing sword, Pei Shu also held a sword in his hand.
Fourteen-year-old Pei Shu has a nimble figure, her childishness has faded away, and she is as beautiful as a lotus emerging from water.
On the other side of the wall, one person was practicing swordplay and the other was dancing with swords.
Pei Shu was frail when she was a child. She fell ill every other day and didn't like to go out of the house.
In order to let her daughter go out of the house more often to exercise, Mrs. Pei invited a sword dance master to teach her.
I don't want my daughter to dance all over the capital, I just want her to walk and dance more and bask in the sun every day.
Pei Shu was not very interested in sword dancing originally, but after seeing Xue Yuzhuo practicing sword, she was greatly inspired and also wanted to practice to have the same momentum of chasing the wind and shocking the clouds.
The idea is good, but it is too difficult to implement.
She practiced in the yard every day and put in a lot of effort.
After Xue Yuzhuo finished practicing sword, he climbed over the wall to watch Pei Shu practice dancing and gave her some pointers:
"Your body is tilted, that's not right, your lower body is unstable..."
"Hand, hand, hand! Your hand isn't straight..."
"Your neck is too stiff. You'll definitely have a sore neck later..."
Pei Shu felt a little discouraged after hearing this. Sword dancing was much more difficult than reading and writing.
"Xue Yuzhuo, when can I become as good as you?"
Xue Yuzhuo simply asked her, "I started doing horse stance at the age of three and picked up a sword at the age of five. I've been practicing for over ten years. How many more years do you plan to practice?"
Pei Shu held the sword: "I don't know."
Xue Yuzhuo suddenly curled his eyes and said, "Then when you pray for skill, ask the weaver girl and ask her to bless you to practice faster."
July 7th is the Qiqiao Festival.
There is a custom in Dayu that girls in the boudoir worship the fairy weaver girl on the Qiqiao Festival, praying for dexterity and a good husband.
When Pei Shu heard about the Qiqiao Festival, her crow-like eyelashes trembled, and she warned Xue Yuzhuo in a somewhat arrogant tone:
"On the day I pray for wisdom, you are not allowed to lean over the wall and watch."
"Why?"
"No reason."
On the day of Qiqiao Festival, the Pei family sat together to have dinner.
Madam Pei asked, "Have Shu'er and Xuan'er thought about what you want to ask Zhiniang for tonight?"
Pei Xuanxian said, "I ask the Weaver Girl to bless me to become better and better at whip training, and it would be best if she could give me a secret manual."
"You might as well ask the Weaver Goddess to bless your painting skills, otherwise you can only draw turtles." Pei Lingyun found out this morning that Pei Xuan had secretly drawn a turtle on his book, and he was still angry.
Pei Xuan said without hesitation: "Then I will ask Zhi Niang to find me a good and capable second sister-in-law to control my second brother. I asked Zhi Niang to find me an eldest sister-in-law last year, and I found one now, didn't I?"
My eldest brother Pei Lingfeng just got engaged this year.
Pei Lingfeng poured some lychee paste water for his younger sister: "Yes, yes, thanks to Xuan'er. However, if Xuan'er wants to seek a marriage this year, she should help Shu'er first. It's too early for Lingyun."
Pei Shu was suddenly called, and her hand holding the chopsticks paused.
Madam Pei: "Shu'er will be coming of age next year, and it's time for her to look for a marriage."
Pei Lingfeng: "Does mother have a choice in mind?"
Mrs. Pei looked at Pei Shu, whose cheeks were rosy, and then looked at Pei Dingli, who was eating in silence. The words on the tip of her tongue were not spoken.
Pei Xuan put down his chopsticks, took Pei Shu's hand, and said proudly:
"Sister is the most beautiful lady in Chang'an, so she should be matched with the most beautiful man."
Pei Shu was embarrassed by her sister's words. She pulled her hand back and picked up a piece of fish for her sister: "Eat, don't talk for now."
In the evening, she returned to the yard.
A table for worship was set up in the yard, with fruits and vegetables placed on it.
The moon is high in the sky.
The clear moonlight makes the light and shadows on the ground distinct.
Pei Shu knelt on the cushion in front of the altar, folded her hands before her forehead, and bowed devoutly:
"I pray that the Weaver Goddess will have mercy on me and protect my family from illness and worries."
"May the weaver girl grant me the blessing of a clever mind and dexterity, and may I meet a loving partner whose eloquence is as vast as the sea and as graceful as the orchid, so that we may live in harmony for a hundred years."
She bowed three times, stood up from the mat, turned around and saw the young man in the moonlight.
Pei Shu suddenly felt a fire burning under her skin, burning her face:
"Xue Yuzhuo, didn't I tell you not to peek today?"
Xue Yuzhuo said innocently, "I didn't peek. I was watching openly. I wasn't leaning over the wall. I was sitting on it."
Pei Shu: "So, you heard everything?"
Xue Yuzhuo pretended to sigh:
"Alas, when you were praying to the Weaver Goddess just now, you placed your left and right hands the wrong way up. Now you're praying the wrong way."
Pei Shu really didn't pay attention to the ups and downs of her left and right hands:
"What happens if it's put upside down?"
"It won't be a big deal. You just can't find a gentleman who is well-mannered. The Weaver Girl will probably give you a gentleman who is good at wielding a spear or a club."
When Xue Yuzhuo said this, his handsome face was hidden in the shadow of the locust tree, hiding the tension and blushing on his face.
Pei Shu's head buzzed, and she was so shocked by Xue Yuzhuo's words that she felt a little dizzy.
She fumbled to hide her panic, picked up a round pear and threw it at Xue Yuzhuo:
"You're just talking nonsense. I'm ignoring you!"
Xue Yuzhuo raised his long arm, caught the pear, brought it to his mouth and took a bite:
“It’s quite sweet.”
Pei Shu covered her face and went back to the house.
The moon rose higher and higher.
Pei Shu lay on the bed, tossing and turning for a long time and couldn't fall asleep.
In the silent night, she heard her rapid heartbeat amplified infinitely.
Meow~
Chujiu rubbed onto her bed, his emerald eyes as crystal clear as if washed with water.
"Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"
Pei Shu climbed out of bed, walked to the window, and bowed to the moon again.
This time, I carefully reversed the order of the left and right hands.
The moonlight made her face look even paler, and her voice was so soft that only she could hear it:
"Please don't blame me, I just lied."
"I don't need my husband's literary talent to travel the world, as elegant as a zhi orchid."
"I only want a husband who loves to laugh and eat fruit, who will pick flowers and steal wine for me, just like him."
The girl's shadow as she knelt down was cast on the ground, like a rabbit escaping from the Moon Palace.
She carried Chujiu back to bed quietly:
"Chujiu, you heard the secret between Zhiniang and I, but you can't tell anyone."
Pei Shu buried her face in the pillow, her shoulders shaking with laughter.
A long time later, Pei Shu recalled this night.
She thought to herself with self-mockery that it must be because Zhiniang blamed her for lying that she took such a lively young man away from her.
Half a year later, bad news came from Tingzhou that General Xue died in battle.
When the news reached the capital, the Xue Mansion next door was hung with white banners overnight.
Xue Yuzhuo wore mourning clothes and was about to go to the frontier to inherit his father's business.
The Pei family went to the Xue Mansion to pay their respects.
Pei Shu saw Xue Yuzhuo kneeling in the mourning hall in mourning clothes. He looked thinner and his eyes were bloodshot.
The flamboyant and passionate nature in him was taken away, leaving behind the toughness and silence of a rock.
Xue Yuzhuo has grown up.
From a willful boy to a calm man.
During that period, Xue Yuzhuo never came to the wall of Pei Shu's yard again.
But Pei Shu would take the initiative to go to the yard to practice swordplay every day, and her eyes would always drift towards the west wall.
There was nothing there except the shadow of a tree.
Xue Yuzhuo didn't come yesterday.
Xue Yuzhuo didn't come today.
Xue Yuzhuo didn't come the next day either.
The day after tomorrow...
On the day when Pei Shu decided to climb up the wall to look around, Xue Yuzhuo appeared.
The timing was perfect.
The two of them climbed up the wall at the same time.
"Why are you here..." Pei Shu looked at Xue Yuzhuo in surprise.
Xue Yuzhuo looked better than the last time they met in the mourning hall.
He was still a little thin, with dark circles under his eyes from fatigue, but his eyes had become bright and determined.
He said he was going to the northwest and would leave early the next morning.
Maybe I'll be back in two or three years.
Maybe I will never come back.
"I'm going to be a thousand miles away, don't wait for me."
Xue Yuzhuo hid his hands behind his back and clenched his fists:
"We, the descendants of the Xue family, are destined to spend our lives in the military. We may not see each other again. Pei Jiaojiao, you are the best girl in Chang'an. I cannot let you down for the rest of my life."
"You will be coming of age next year. Remember to find a handsome man who can write poetry and speak sweetly. Don't be clumsy like me, who always makes you cry and angry."
"Xue Yuzhuo, you are so stupid!"
After hearing this, Pei Shu's hands that were holding the ladder were shaking and she almost fell off the ladder.
"Xue Yuzhuo, are you kidding me?"
"I am the eldest daughter of the Pei family. Our Pei family is a noble family. When choosing a marriage, we look for people of equal status and family connections. How could I possibly indulge in romantic relationships? How could I possibly wait for you?"
Tears as big as beans overflowed from her eyes and fell straight down.
Pei Shu scolded Xue Yuzhuo for being stupid while wiping her tears until her sleeves were wet.
Xue Yuzhuo just looked at her steadily, then suddenly raised his hand and touched her cheek, crushing a tear.
He said in a hoarse voice: "Pei Jiaojiao, you are the person who is least likely to lie I have ever met."
Although they usually played and fought across the wall, they never touched each other.
The boy's warm fingertips touched the girl's smooth and soft cheek, and then left.
Pei Shu's tears flowed even harder, and she took out a amulet from her arms.
She obtained it from Ciguang Temple.
"You take it, I'll wait for you to come back. If you come to propose marriage, I will definitely ask my parents to agree."
She is a shy girl, but she expresses her feelings so frankly.
Xue Yuzhuo gave a sad smile.
Xue Yuzhuo said he would leave the next day, and he really left.
Pei Shu said she would wait, and she really waited.
In the first year after Xue Yuzhuo left, Pei Shu began to copy Buddhist scriptures.
She knelt in front of the Buddha statue, kowtowed devoutly every day, praying for the safety of Xue Yuzhuo who was thousands of miles away.
Her best young man is at the border.
She will be of marriageable age next year, and she is waiting for him to come back and propose marriage.
The next year, Pei Shu came of age.
The Pei family held a coming-of-age ceremony, and many people, seeing how beautiful and graceful Pei Shu had grown into, wanted to become her in-laws.
So many people came to propose marriage that Mrs. Pei's ears were almost callused.
Mrs. Pei and Pei Shu talked about this matter, and Pei Shu only said:
"Mother, my daughter is not feeling well and needs to rest. It is not appropriate to talk about marriage."
Sister Pei Xuan lay beside Pei Shu's desk, shaking her little head:
"Sister, my parents and my elder brother will find you the best man in Chang'an. Why don't you want to get engaged?"
Pei Shu's eyes were filled with tears: "Because there is no better husband in Chang'an anymore."
No one knows a girl better than her mother.
How could Mrs. Pei not understand her daughter's thoughts?
"Shu'er, mother knows who you're thinking of. Yuzhuo is a good child, but he faced many dangers on the battlefield. Old Madam Xue has been a widow for decades, her husband and sons all dead, and she's lost her youngest. You're my darling, how could I bear to let you marry into the Xue family and watch you live like that?"
Pei Shu continued to copy Buddhist scriptures attentively, without even moving the corner of her clothes.
Mrs. Pei continued to persuade:
"If he was just from a small family, it would be fine, but Yuzhuo is from the Xue family. Our Pei family is the head of the civil officials, and the Xue family is famous in the military. How can we marry?"
The sunlight fell on the desk, stretching into a bright river, washing over the tip of Pei Shu's pen.
The pen tip wrote lines of small words on the paper:
...Only after all sentient beings are saved can one attain Bodhi...
A tear fell, blurring the word "life".
Then one drop after another.
The paper was soaked.
Pei Shu raised her head, tears streaming down her face:
"Mom, I want to wait for him to come back. Even if I can't marry him, I want to wait for him to come back alive. Mom, I want to wait for him a little longer. Maybe he will come back soon."
"You silly girl, you are as stubborn as your father." Mrs. Pei sighed and left.
The Pei family had received one or two letters from the Xue family sent from the border, which were ostensibly written by Xue Yucheng to Pei Lingyun.
But there were two letters in the envelope, and one of them was to Pei Shu.
The letter written by Xue Yuzhuo was not long.
But Pei Shu saw from the letter the lonely smoke in the desert, the biting cold wind, and the thousands of troops that were unable to return home after a thousand miles.
Pei Shu kept the letter carefully and went to the yard to practice swordplay.
She looked up at the locust tree above her head.
The locust tree is in full bloom, pure white, like the wind and snow blowing from the northwest.
It’s a pity that there will never be another young man picking flowers and stealing wine appearing on the wall.
The third year after Xue Yuzhuo left.
Pei Shu's copied Buddhist scriptures filled up the bookshelf. Her sword dancing movements became more and more light and smooth, and she became more beautiful.
The matchmakers were about to break down the threshold of Pei's house.
The Pei Mansion received another letter from the border.
One letter per year.
This is the third one.
The handwriting on the letter was a bit sloppy, and there were traces of dried mud on the paper.
Pei Shu could imagine that when Xue Yuzhuo wrote this letter, he might have just returned from a battle with the Hu people, and the words were full of helplessness and sorrow.
He said, "Do you know that the Hu people have invaded repeatedly and caused countless casualties on the border?"
He said, do you know that the soldiers' bodies were not intact, and every corpse was torn apart by the north wind and trampled by the Hu horses?
He said, do you know how many dead bones and souls are needed to support a prosperous Dayu era?
…
Pei Shu looked at the letter, tears welling up in her eyelashes.
She doesn't know.
She only knew that her young man had righteousness in his heart and morality in his eyes.
She stood in the quiet shadow of the locust tree, and all she could hear was the weeping of the soldiers.
At the end of the letter, Xue Yuzhuo said, don't wait for him anymore.
Really not.
And Pei Shu didn't wait any longer this time.
Because she couldn't hide.
At the end of the fourth year of Yongjia, a selection of concubines was held in the harem, and all the girls of marriageable age from the families of officials in the capital were on the candidate list.
Pei Shu was taken away by the palace maid in a sedan chair.
The palace gate is as deep as the sea, there is no turning back.
That year, the Hu people invaded the south with a large force. Fighting raged on the border for several months, and the Xue family army defended Tingzhou to the death.
The blood in Tingzhou flowed like a long river, and corpses were scattered everywhere.
The city of Chang'an is bustling with fireworks, wishing you a happy new year.
She was dressed in gorgeous clothes and walked up the white jade steps step by step amidst the sound of wine and music.
He was wearing armor and fighting his way through the wind and snow.
The ninth day of the first lunar month is an auspicious day, when the royal family accepts marriage proposals and noble ladies are crowned as concubines.
Her young man, whose sword was as sharp as frost, was covered in snow on the battlefield and never woke up again.
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