Chapter Forty-Four: Fleeting Years
In the Osmanthus Garden, time seems oblivious to the passing seasons; it flows on and on, oblivious to the regrets and sorrows in people's hearts.
Inside the ancient Five Pine Garden, the lady stood before the mirror. As her fingertips brushed against the mirror's surface, a chill crept up her fingertips and into her bones. In early summer, this cold was more biting than ice water in the twelfth lunar month. A fine line appeared at the corner of the person's eye in the mirror, much like the withered lotus stems she had seen in Jiangnan years ago, with unmelted snow still clinging to the cracks etched by wind and frost.
The lady sighed inwardly. In the mirror, her eyebrows were like sharp, cold blades piercing the snow, and her eyes like icy rivers cracking jade, but it was already the end of her life. She was unwilling to grow old and fade away, but she had no choice but to accelerate the planning for the family's future.
Meanwhile, in the Waterfront Mandarin Duck Pavilion in the West Garden.
Yun Yao stood before the carved window, the bamboo shadows outside filtering through his eyelashes. His gaze, as it passed through the windowpane, seemed to shatter into the melancholy rain of Jiangnan. His brows, locked with a timeless, ink-wash-like mist, held a beauty that had lingered for a thousand years. He had been in the North for three years, yet the misty rain of Jiangnan and the bygone days could only appear in his dreams.
"Teacher Yun!" A clear, youthful voice rang out. Yun Yao turned around and saw seven or eight teenagers, their eyes sparkling, looking at him from in front of the dance mirror as they practiced their dance.
In the past two years, with his wife's consent, Yunyao set up a large dance studio in the Mandarin Duck Pavilion in the West Garden. Butler Xing also recruited some children from the clan and other old friends who wanted to learn and had talent for dance, essentially creating a dance training class within the clan. Thus, Yunyao's days in the garden finally became more fulfilling.
At this moment, the eldest boy stood beside the barre, practicing the finishing move of the "lying fish" stroke. His knees were bent and flat on the ground, his buttocks firmly resting on his heels, yet his back was ramrod straight. As his right hand swept down from above his head, his fingertips almost touched the ground. The mirror reflected his taut neck, his Adam's apple bobbing gently with his breath, and beads of sweat sliding down his jawline. "Take your hips in half an inch more," Yun Yao's gentle voice came from behind the mirror, tapping lightly on his waist. "Imagine you're carrying a warm jade in your lower abdomen; don't let it wobble."
In the corner, the new boy was correcting his "point flip" in front of the mirror, always stumbling on the third rotation. He held onto the barre and repeatedly shuffled his toes, the wrist guards around his ankles gleaming from the wear. Suddenly, someone behind him patted his back lightly: "Open your hips half an inch wider, imagine you're a spinning top, with your center of gravity in your navel."
He turned his head and saw that it was Teacher Yun Yao. The boy's ears turned red, but he still gritted his teeth and tried again. This time, when he spun, the arcs of the two figures in the mirror finally overlapped.
Yun Yao watched the boys practicing their dance with satisfaction, and he couldn't help but think of his own youthful days.
At this moment, a boy looked at Yun Yao expectantly, "Teacher Yun, could you demonstrate that sea-exploring move again?" Two other boys chimed in from behind, not to be outdone, "Teacher, teacher, we also want to see demonstrations of the front and back bridge moves!"
Yun Yao smiled. He was a gentle yet strict teacher, but his students seemed very willing to be close to him. Yun Yao often practiced dancing with them after class and listened to their youthful and naive worries. At this moment, upon hearing the students' request, Yun Yao did not hesitate. He took off his coat and, wearing a vest-style moon-white practice uniform with the students, began to demonstrate the movements.
Time always flies when you're engrossed in something you love. By the time Yun Yao wiped the sweat dripping from her neck, it was almost time for class to end.
After seeing off the enthusiastic young men at the entrance, Yun Yao was about to turn back when he suddenly felt a burning gaze upon him. He looked outside and saw two men emerge from behind the artificial rockery of the covered bridge—the eldest and second young masters.
Yun Yao was wearing a moon-white training uniform, revealing his slender waist. The fabric was as thin as a cicada's wing, half-transparent with sweat, clinging to his back and outlining the shape of his butterfly bones, like two folded butterfly wings. His skin was so white it was translucent, but dotted with a few red marks from practicing, like cinnabar dots on snow.
The mirror reflected Yun Yao's slightly furrowed brows. His eyelashes were damp with sweat and stuck to his eyelids, but in the instant he turned his head, a cold light swept across the corner of his eye.
Seeing the two of them walking towards him, Yun Yao quickly turned around and put his coat back on, then tightened the collar.
"Young Master, Second Young Master, what brings you here?" Yun Yao looked up at the two men, his pupils like obsidian immersed in a cold pool, or like the cold light refracted when an ice crystal breaks, capable of pinning a person to the spot.
The second young master stared at Yun Yao, his gaze lingering on the exposed collarbone, where fine beads of sweat rose and fell slightly with his breath. He smiled absentmindedly, "Can't I come to see you if there's nothing wrong?"
At this moment, the young master's calm voice, as if it had been dipped in ice water, rang out: "We were just passing by, sorry to bother you." But compared to his indifferent voice, his gaze was even darker and deeper.
Three years have passed, and the young master has become even more unfathomable. He appears in the garden less often, but his imposing presence is increasingly intimidating. His jawline tapers sharply from his earlobe to his Adam's apple, like the angled edge of a Song Dynasty porcelain vase. His lips, which are always pursed, make him seem to be silently weighing the pros and cons, even when he is silent.
Yun Yao lowered his eyes. He often didn't dare to look the young master in the eye. Like some kind of animal's instinct, he instinctively avoided danger.
"Oh, Yunyao, don't be so serious. We're all so familiar with each other now." Second Young Master Xu Zhi broke the silence with a grin. He regained his normal expression, but the dark shadow still lingered in his eyes.
As if sharing a secret, Xu Zhi put his arm around Yun Yao's shoulder and whispered in his ear, "Actually, my brother and I have important business to attend to. Yun Yao, have you heard about the Tang family recently? The Tang family used to be a family with some standing in our circle, but I didn't expect the new generation of the head of the family to be so muddle-headed, actually getting themselves into the headlines because of a celebrity."
Yun Yao pulled Xu Zhi's arm away, took a few steps forward to create some distance, and then turned around and said, "I'm in the garden every day, I haven't heard anything, and I'm not interested in these things."
Xu Zhi smiled and raised an eyebrow, saying, "Staying in the garden all day, we need some gossip to have some fun." He then returned to the previous topic and sighed, "I have to say, those people really have no taste. They're just actors who rely on their looks and posing to gain some fame. It's one thing to have fun in private, but to have it exposed and implicate their family's reputation, and even affect their future if they're foolish enough to do so, is unacceptable."
Yun Yao knew that Xu Zhi and the others were talking about the hottest scandal on the internet recently. The protagonist of the incident was not the actress that Xu Zhi had belittled, but a young female star with considerable national popularity. She was very beautiful, had a large following, and had starred in several well-known films and television dramas.
A sensational scandal involving a second-generation rich kid and a popular female celebrity somehow made headlines. Even though it was quickly suppressed, it continued to be discussed online, even to the point of flooding social media feeds.
Those who have always held a high position are now being dragged into a situation where they can be constantly discussed and criticized by the public, which is completely unacceptable to people of this class. What threatens them even more is that the reputation of their entire family is also being tarnished within this class.
Even the young master, who rarely comments on his affairs, surprisingly expressed his agreement.
The second generation of the Tang family was regarded as a typical example of being muddle-headed, and was rarely ridiculed by many people in this circle.
But now, seeing Xu Zhi belittling celebrities and actors, and the young master tacitly agreeing with it, Yun Yao couldn't help but say, "Whether they are celebrities or actors, it's just a profession. Why discriminate against them?"
"Yun Yao, you don't know, which of those celebrities isn't vain and brainless? What wouldn't they do to become famous? Actors? That's just a nice way of putting it. They're just low-class actors, not respectable at all."
Yun Yao lowered her eyes and said calmly, "We who study dance also need to learn performance, and we are also called dancers. Since you look down on these things so much, Second Young Master, you don't need to condescend to come to me in the future."
Xu Zhi was stunned. He immediately whispered, "How can you be like them? You're so well-behaved, and you're a domesticated child..." He suddenly stopped talking and looked at Yun Yao with some guilt.
Yun Yao was both angry and embarrassed. He knew that Xu Zhi meant to say that he was "domesticated." He was afraid that in the eyes of these young masters and ladies, or even the madam, he was indeed essentially a domesticated child.
Yun Yao closed his eyes briefly and said coldly to Xu Zhi and the other man, "Excuse me, young masters, it's getting late. I have to go back now. Please make yourselves at home." As soon as he finished speaking, he got up and walked out without even looking at their reaction.
He heard Xu Zhi behind him seem to want to chase after him, but was stopped by the young master. Yun Yao didn't know what the two talked about in the West Garden. He only knew that he fled in a somewhat disheveled state.
Upon arriving at the main courtyard gate, Yun Yao encountered the Third Miss Ming Xiao, who was lingering at the gate.
Unlike her usual calm and composed expression, the Third Miss now wore an unusually conflicted and dejected look, her eyes filled with struggle, as if deciding whether or not to step into the Madam's main courtyard was a very difficult decision.
Although Yun Yao was feeling down, she still asked with some concern when she saw the Third Miss like this, "Third Miss, what... what's wrong with you?"
The third young lady looked up and saw Yun Yao. She was somewhat surprised, but faced with his concerned gaze, she couldn't help but sigh. After a moment of contemplation, she decided to confide her troubles to the most harmless person in the garden.
Faced with the rare moment of vulnerability and confiding from the Third Miss, Yun Yao treated her with great care, listening silently as she recounted the whole story. It turned out that the Third Miss wanted to go to a remote and impoverished country to participate in a six-month international humanitarian medical mission, but no one in her family supported her, not even her own parents.
But this was something she had thought about repeatedly for a long time, and it was also her true inner thought. She wanted to come to the main courtyard to ask the lady for help. If the lady showed a tendency to approve of this matter, then there would be much less resistance from the clan and relatives.
However, she was also worried about whether she should bother her wife, who was not feeling well recently, with her own little matter. Moreover, this was a time when the family needed the younger generation to work hard, yet she wanted to leave for half a year to fulfill her personal wishes... It was because of these concerns that she hesitated outside the door.
After listening to Miss Mingxiao's explanation, Yunyao understood her distress. He gently told her that he would inquire about Madam's opinion on the matter. He also told Miss Mingxiao that he thought her dream was remarkable. Doing such humanitarian aid was not meaningless, but a great thing. Few people had such a determination to make sacrifices. He admired her very much.
After hearing Yun Yao's words, the third young lady, Ming Xiao, stared at him blankly for a rare moment. Only when Yun Yao asked her what was wrong did she reveal a gentle and cheerful smile she had never shown before. She gazed at Yun Yao and whispered, "Thank you, Yun Yao. No one here understands and supports me like you do. Thank you..."
Yun Yao dared not accept the Third Miss's gratitude; these were merely his true feelings. After smiling and bidding farewell to the Third Miss, Yun Yao returned to the main courtyard.
Yun Yao couldn't wait to go back to her room and take a shower, washing away the sweat from her dance practice and also washing away the unpleasantness of meeting the two men at the Mandarin Duck Pavilion in the West Garden.
When he came out of the bathroom drying his hair, he was surprised to find that his wife, who had come out of the study at some point, was already sitting in a chair in his room.
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