Chapter 11: Cold Moon Ghost
The Governor's Mansion is surrounded by mountains on all sides, and there are strange peaks standing in some places. Jiaoran and other maids have to take turns to keep watch in the young master's outer room at night.
Jiaoran, who grew up in the wild, has the sensitivity of an animal and vaguely feels that there is a danger here, but she cannot detect where exactly it is.
The sharp-tongued governor frightened Jiaoran first. His eyes looked at her like a wild beast, as if he wanted to gnaw at her flesh and bone marrow. Jiaoran felt hairy all over, fearing that he would point at her and say, "Who is this thief?" and ask her to get her out!
Fortunately, Mu Jin is here, he still looks like a normal person.
The servants in the mansion were like wild beasts, each as small as a palm, with two pavilions in front and back, and twenty or thirty maids, each of whom was more cunning than a lotus pod. If she said something wrong and offended one of them during the day, when she returned home at night and touched the quilt, it would be guaranteed to be wet, with people glaring at her left and right, and she would not know who it was.
When birds fly by here, there is only the sound of flapping wings at night, without even a single cry.
The lights in the outer room were off, and only a candle was still lit beside the young master's bed. He leaned against a high pillow and read a book, his long black hair falling on the silk quilt and wrists. There was only a jade ring on his hand that he had not taken off. It was said that it was a relic left to him by his mother. He would only take it off and put it beside the pillow when he wanted to close his eyes to rest. The green ring made his skin look whiter.
Another maid walked slowly to the opposite side of Jiaoran. Tonight, only the two of them would be on guard here.
The candles in the room soon went out. The maid who had been keeping watch with Jiaoran smiled and said, "The young master has fallen asleep. You stay here first. We will take turns keeping watch. You can sleep in the second half of the night."
Jiao Ran looked at the thin cushion under his knees and sat on his heels and asked in surprise, "You can fall asleep while sitting?"
"Why not?" she said. "We're all lazy like that."
Jiao Ran sighed softly and murmured, "If you practice internal energy, meditation won't be a problem for you."
"say what?"
"Uh, it's nothing. I mean, if you want to sleep, go ahead and I'll watch."
Jiaoran watched her slowly close her eyes, and kindly moved the oil lamp a few inches towards her. Her original intention was to move the light away so that she could have a good sleep, but she didn't expect that this move would annoy her.
"Why, do you want the Master to find out that I'm slacking off?"
Jiaoran really didn't know how she came to this conclusion, "I'm worried that the light will be too bright..."
"You want to light up my sleeping face?" she said. "Bah! You want the young master to get up in the middle of the night to relieve himself and see you working peacefully under the lamp while I hide in the dark. He'll naturally guess that I'm asleep."
Jiaoran listened to her talking to herself and remembered that there was a madman in the small town of Mianyuan who often got up in the middle of the night to sing and say incomprehensible things.
"It's up to you," she said.
The girl cursed under her breath, and soon yawned and fell asleep.
The charcoal fire in the stove in the room burned fiercely, and from time to time there was a slight charcoal sound, which reminded Jiaoran of the kitchen in Huiying Inn cooking porridge on a low fire, making the sound of slight wind-swirling flames.
The room became increasingly quiet. Behind two screens and a door, the young man was sleeping.
There was also a maid opposite who had fallen asleep with her head down.
Jiaoran listened to the silence in the room, as still as a small town on a winter night. There were still patches of snow on the mountain that hadn't melted. There was no floor heating in the young master's room, and the cold rose from his feet, drilling straight into his knees.
Jiaoran looked at the sleeping girl, wondering if she was afraid of cold legs. He lowered his head and saw a bulge in her skirt at the knees. It turned out that she had been prepared and had padded it with cotton.
She was just a fool, kneeling on this thin cotton mat, enduring this long night.
Jiaoran was dazed for a while and was about to fall asleep, but the cold was like a shadow following her, making her force herself to stay awake.
Being a maid in a wealthy family is also very hard!
After another hour or two, Jiaoran pounded his almost numb legs, stood up tremblingly from his seat, and opened a window in the outer room. Through the window he could see the cold moon shining on the bamboo shadows outside.
After taking a breath of cold air, Jiaoran suspected that he had seen it wrong. He rubbed his eyes and saw that there was indeed a person standing in the yard.
This person was standing in the yard, and outside the yard were the shadows of distant mountains, dark and hazy. The moonlight could not illuminate the mountains.
It was dusk and the sky was blue-black.
The distant mountains are also blue-gray. Spring seems to be coming and not coming. There is an indescribable melancholy between heaven and earth, and the back of this person is also full of melancholy.
He had his back to Jiaoran, but Jiaoran recognized him as the young master at a glance.
She opened the door and ran quickly behind him, whispering, "Sir, why are you standing here?"
He was not wearing an outer robe, but only a spring dress.
He heard her call him and turned around and said, "Hmm?"
His eyes were as desolate and confused as the night.
Before Jiaoran came, he stood with his hands behind his back, gazing at the distant mountains.
He is still like this now. Jiaoran is standing beside him, but for a moment, she feels that he seems to be very far away, farther than the Cangshan Mountains and farther than the world.
Although he was so thin, his back was straight, like an orchid emerging from a crevice in the rock.
Jiao Ran grabbed his arm without explanation and dragged him into the house. "It's so cold, sir, don't stand here looking around."
He was held by Jiaoran, whose hand was very warm.
She noticed that the young man's body stiffened, but he did not force his hand back, nor did he scold her for her rudeness.
He thought that this must be a very common thing for her.
The two men walked past the maid, but she still hadn't woken up. Jiaoran took him to the bed and asked him to lie down in the quilt, but he shook his head and refused to go in.
"What's wrong?" Jiaoran lifted the quilt, but there was nothing inside.
He pretended to be mysterious and said, "I dreamed that there was a snake and a scorpion hiding in the quilt, and they wanted to bite me to death."
Jiaoran checked the bed from head to foot, spread his hands and said, "No, how could there be a snake? Snakes haven't woken up yet at this time of year. As for scorpions, there are even fewer."
She had been keeping watch until now and had been feeling sleepy frequently. Her voice was a little hoarse when she spoke, but it sounded particularly intimate to him.
At her persuasion, he crawled into bed. In the dim light, Jiaoran saw that his red knuckles had turned purple and blue, and she was sure it was an injury and not frostbite.
But why did he say it was red from the cold? Jiaoran didn't understand.
He must have fallen and hurt his hands and face, but he was too embarrassed to tell others. It would be embarrassing if he fell down at such a grown-up level.
Jiaoran took out the medicine box, fumbled in the bottles, and sniffed them one by one.
"This is the taste." Jiaoran thought to himself.
"What are you going to do with the Honghua Sanqi pills?" he asked her.
Jiaoran poured out a few pills, crushed them and mixed them with a few drops of tea. "It's for frostbite. You've been standing outside for a long time, I'm afraid you might get frostbite."
He held out his hand and didn't doubt what she said.
Fenghuangchu said he was a very gentle person, but Jiaoran had noticed recently that he also had a cool aura that made him respectful. At night, with fewer people waiting on him and fewer eyes watching, his coolness blended into the darkness, and Jiaoran felt less afraid.
In fact, it was not difficult to take care of him. Jiaoran started taking care of the young disciples when he was eight or nine years old. By the time he was twelve years old, dressing and washing their faces were common tasks, as it was common for children to be disobedient.
The young master was different. He was much easier to take care of than a child. Even if I helped him get dressed in the morning, he wouldn't throw a tantrum because he didn't get enough sleep. He wouldn't blame anyone if the food wasn't to his liking. When he got tired of writing, he would just sit in a chair, prop his head up with his hands, and close his eyes to rest.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
