Song Jiyun turned back.
The man standing in front of her carriage appeared to be in his mid-twenties, of average height, with fair skin and delicate facial features. He was dressed in a purple-red robe adorned with a pattern of auspicious clouds and trailing flowers, and his waistbelt inlaid with gold and jade sparkled dazzlingly in the sunlight.
Song Jiyun nodded to him without changing her expression.
Yuan Yunzhong had never mentioned Wei Jie to her.
Was it because in his heart Wei Jie was not considered a close childhood friend, or was it that their time together had been too short, and he had not yet had the chance to mention him?
"Young Master Wei!" she greeted politely.
Wei Jie didn’t say anything for a long while, his gaze filled with barely concealed amazement as he looked at her.
But after his brief amazement, he frowned, looking somewhat irritated, and said, "Miss Song, I have long admired you!"
Then he lifted his chin as if she were some poor relative begging for scraps, and with a tone suggesting he was doing her a favor, he pointed to the teahouse at the corner of the alley, "I have something to discuss with Miss Song, please move to the teahouse."
Song Jiyun laughed in irritation.
Even if he was Yuan Yunzhong’s close childhood friend, with such disrespect, why should she listen to what he had to say?
"Sorry!" she retorted sharply, "I have urgent matters to attend to and am afraid I don’t have the time to waste in a teahouse with Young Master Wei. If Young Master Wei really is in a rush, you may write a letter and have it sent to where I reside. If I find it necessitates a response, I will naturally reply to Young Master Wei."
Her implication was clear: if it was not necessary, she would not bother with him.
Wei Jie was furious. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎
Song Jiyun, however, couldn’t be less bothered and strode away with Zheng Quan.
Yet halfway through, the more she thought about it, the angrier she got. Upon returning to Pocket Alley, she sent a letter to Yuan Yunzhong informing him of her encounter with Wei Jie.
Yuan Yunzhong arrived soon after.
Xiang Zhan, who came to pass the message, cautiously observed Song Jiyun’s mood and stutteringly asked, "Miss, should I open the door for him?"
Song Jiyun, annoyed, replied, "No need. Tell Young Master Yuan that he can state whatever matters he has in the letter."
Xiang Zhan cautiously relayed the message before tiptoeing back in, "Miss, Lord Yuan is at the Weeping Flower Gate and refuses to leave. He says that some things are clearer when discussed face to face."
Song Jiyun, after a moment’s thought, went to the Weeping Flower Gate and spoke through the lacquered bronze door leaf, "Speak! If there is anything that couldn’t be clarified in the letter, clarify it now."
Outside, Yuan Yunzhong remained silent for a while before his deep voice came through, "Yun Duo, regarding the matter of simultaneously honoring separate ancestors, I was wrong. I’ve always wanted to apologize to you in person."
He began recounting the incident, "After the spoon dance, my family started to make marriage arrangements for me. While he was alive, my uncle spoke of a marriage match. After he passed away, my maternal grandfather took his fiancée as his goddaughter and arranged a grand marriage for her personally. Upon hearing about my marriage plans, she and her family wanted to rekindle the connection with our family. My father had also discussed marriage with others before, and in order to marry my mother, he went to great lengths, offending several families with whom the Yuan Family had been allies for generations. My grandfather wanted to mend relations with those families, hoping I would choose a bride from among them."
"My maternal grandfather and grandfather were both unwilling to give ground secretly. My father didn’t want to offend my maternal grandfather nor make things difficult for my grandfather. In a bout of madness, he found a Book of Clan Laws from somewhere and proposed that I could honor both ancestral lines."
"My maternal grandfather and grandfather both originally disapproved. But I don’t know what those families were thinking, after hearing the rumors, they actually all agreed, and even persuaded my maternal grandfather and grandfather that this was the best way."
Hearing this, Song Jiyun was curious and barely restrained herself from asking why Yuan Yunzhong had not been promised in marriage.
Fortunately, Yuan Yunzhong seemed to have found a rare opportunity to talk about this and continued without pause, "To form marriage ties with our family, those families found various excuses to send their daughters of marriageable age to our home, openly claiming it was for my mother to meet and understand them, but privately one would send me pastries, another would come to ask me about learning, and occasionally someone would play a game of chess with me or help me repair a musical instrument."
Amidst a flurry of beauty and a riot of colors, one performer ends and another takes the stage.
Song Jiyun almost laughed out loud.
However, Yuan Yunzhong’s voice suddenly became very somber, "Later on, something happened. One girl plotted to make another girl fall into the water and nearly drown."
"Ah!" Song Jiyun was startled.
"Afterward, I asked that girl why she did that, and she said it was because she wanted to marry me. I then asked her why she wanted to marry me. She said I was handsome. I asked again whether she knew what I liked or disliked. She said she didn’t know. I told her, you don’t understand me at all, but just because I’m handsome, you want to marry me. She replied that being handsome was enough. I asked a few other girls, and they all said I was handsome." Yuan Yunzhong’s voice was filled with bewilderment, "They don’t care who I am, what kind of person I am; just by seeing my appearance, they claim to like me and are willing to hurt others for their own affections. What does such affection mean to me? What am I in their eyes?"
Images of a lonely small figure, utterly lost in a crowd and wandering aimlessly by himself, surfaced in Song Jiyun’s mind.
"I convinced my maternal grandfather and grandfather to let go of the idea of multiple marriage alliances, and then went door to door to explain the downsides of such a practice, finally calming down those families. Yet I didn’t want to just find someone to spend my life with in this way. I even convinced my maternal grandfather and grandfather to agree to let me choose my own wife. At that time, my father also agreed." His voice grew even more somber, "I thought that would be the end of it, but I didn’t expect... he never gave up on that idea."
It wasn’t that he had never given up on the idea.
Song Jiyun guessed.
It must have been that his father never expected Yuan Yunzhong would become betrothed to her.
Her father was simply dissatisfied with her as a daughter-in-law and decided to find another match that would satisfy Yuan Yunzhong.
Song Jiyun said, "Then can you be sure I’m not with you just because you are handsome?"
"I know you’re not," he said, "Every time you see me, you are full of schemes, it’s definitely not because you like looking at my face."
As he spoke, he even sounded somewhat embarrassed, "You even changed your clothes in front of me without any regard for me as a man."
Song Jiyun burst into laughter and opened the door.
As Yuan Yunzhong heard the laughter and looked at the door with surprise, his gaze instantly fixed upon her bright face upon hearing the movement.
"Yun Duo!" he exclaimed with delight, his eyes sparkling brilliantly, and even his face seemed to brighten, "You, you’re willing to see me at last!"
Song Jiyun snorted coldly, "I’m just letting you in for a drink of water because you said you were thirsty. Until you sort out the mess in your house, I still won’t see you."
"Okay!" Yuan Yunzhong nodded with a smile, his handsome brows and eyes particularly striking, "You’ve said you don’t want to be wronged. I remember it all."
Song Jiyun asked him, "So what’s the deal with Wei Jie?"
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