Chapter 17 The heavy rain was almost exactly as he had imagined.
As evening approached, it began to rain. It started as a drizzle, then turned into a heavy downpour that seemed to wash the entire street clean.
"Did you find it?"
Most of the servants in the Sheng Mansion were outside, looking for the young lady who had sneaked out of the house.
“No!”
"Hurry and keep looking!"
Jiang Keyu and Chang Yunbai met under the eaves of Sheng Mansion. The former frowned, "Why are you here? Where is my child?"
"What happened today happened in my house, how can I deny my involvement?" Chang Yunbai sighed deeply, "Don't worry, I hired a reliable person at a high price to send Chengcheng and Suisui home before the rain started."
"hire?"
Chang Yunbai raised his eyebrows but did not say anything explicitly.
Jiang Keyu had already guessed it, so she changed the question, "Since you can't get away from it, why don't you go find someone?"
"Aren't you just standing here?"
The two stood side by side at the gate, watching the servants of the Sheng Mansion come in and out.
Chang Yunbai shook his head. "I was just saying I had a bad feeling these past few days, and now something has happened. You said your sister-in-law is also worried about Chengcheng, and I understand that. As a mother, it's normal for her to be anxious to protect her child, but you can't put the blame on Xiao Si! Xiao Si was just taking Chengcheng out to play with good intentions, and..."
Noticing the cold gaze beside him, his eyelids twitched and he stopped talking.
Jiang Keyu's tone was emotionless. "Have you asked the servants present in your house about the whole story?"
"Of course." Chang Yunbai scratched his head. "But there's something I just found out. My wife said that the Marquis of Weiyuan once took a merchant woman as a concubine. After that concubine came into the family, she aborted the child that the Marquis' wife was pregnant with. Although the merchant woman later died, the Marquis' wife never conceived again. So the Marquis' wife has always hated merchant women. After she found out about my brother's sister-in-law's identity, her words might have been... a little too harsh."
The merciless rain fell, and the footsteps of the passers-by were wet and heavy, making Jiang Keyu's ears noisy.
"Now that things have come to this, I certainly can't shirk my responsibility. I'll definitely visit you someday and apologize to you and your sister-in-law." Chang Yunbai's eyes were filled with worry. "But the most important thing right now is to find Xiao Si first."
He turned his head, "Do you know where she is?"
"Should I know?" Jiang Keyu asked back.
Chang Yunbai was speechless for a moment, as if it wasn't right, but his intuition told him that this guy would guess it.
"Are you not anxious at all?"
Jiang Keyu looked up at the cloudy sky, feeling worried.
If he had known it was going to rain so horribly, he should not have left his wife alone at home.
"Let's go." He suddenly said, picked up the oil-paper umbrella at hand, and walked quickly into the rain.
Chang Yunbai was a little slow to react, "You... weren't in a hurry just now."
Confused, he cursed in his heart, but he did not stop and trotted to catch up.
We didn't walk far, just to the nearby Guandu River, where the surface of the river was splashed with water by the rain one after another.
"What are you doing here?" Chang Yunbai looked around, but his vision was not clear and he could not see anything, let alone a human figure.
Jiang Keyu ignored him and walked down the irregular steps to the bottom of the bridge. After a few steps, he could see half of a sky-blue figure curled up under the bridge.
He stopped there and went no further.
"Why aren't you leaving?" Chang Yunbai, who had been confused, asked again. He walked to his side and followed his gaze, full of doubts, "Is that Xiao Si?"
Under the bridge, a frail girl sat on the ground, hugging her knees, her clothes half wet. Rather than looking shabby, she exuded a fragile, broken beauty.
"Xiao Si?" Chang Yunbai called out tentatively, "Xiao Si!"
Hearing the shout, Sheng Qinyin turned her head suddenly and caught a glimpse of a tall and slender figure in the rain. She immediately stood up and ran over despite the heavy rain.
“Second brother!”
She folded her hands over her head and when she got closer she realized there was more than one person. "Brother? Why are you here?"
"I was just about to ask you something." Chang Yunbai stuffed the umbrella in his hand into hers, then he squeezed under Jiang Keyu's umbrella, his arm around hers, and asked with a puzzled look in his mind, "Why are you here?"
He stared at Jiang Keyu, "How did you know she was here?"
Sheng Qiyin looked up in shock at the indifferent Jiang Keyu. Through the rain, she couldn't see his expression clearly, let alone see through him.
Six years ago, when they were traveling together, in order to play a trick on Chang Yunbai, Sheng Qiyin took Jiang Keyu and hid under this bridge, and swore: "I hide here every time I run away from home, and I've never been discovered."
Jiang Keyu couldn't help but laugh when she heard Chang Yunbai's anxious shouts on the bridge because he couldn't find them.
Sheng Qiyin tilted her head, "You are the first one to know. You must keep it a secret for me and not tell anyone else."
"OK."
"Let's make a pinky promise!"
Jiang Keyu rolled her eyes at her, "Childish."
"snort!"
Six years later, he still remembered this place, but brought someone else with him. Sheng Qinyin didn't know whether she should be happy or not.
"Found it." Jiang Keyu said lightly, turning around first, "Let's go back."
"Second brother!" Sheng Qinyin called him in panic.
Jiang Keyu paused, but didn't turn around. Chang Yunbai glanced back and forth, confused.
"Do you also think that I am the one who slandered Chengcheng?"
Jiang Keyu felt complicated, feeling both ridiculous and helpless.
"Jiang Chengyou is indeed naughty, but he has a mother who is very tolerant of him, even doting on him. So his greatest strength is that he dares to take responsibility for his actions."
Sheng Qinyin opened her dazed eyes wide.
"Besides, he is my own child and I am his father. How could I not trust him and trust an outsider?"
outsider?
These two words were like needles piercing her heart, causing Sheng Qiyin pain.
Jiang Keyu leaned slightly to the side, speaking sternly, "Could I also ask you to explain why you teased my child and targeted my wife?"
"I..." Sheng Qiyin walked up the stairs anxiously and approached him, "It's not like that!"
"How is that?"
Facing the unfamiliar and cold Jiang Keyu for the first time, Sheng Qinyin was speechless.
"What do you mean?" Chang Yunbai was stunned. "Xiao Si, you..."
"That's not the case!" Sheng Qiyin shouted, "I just, just, she was the one who mocked me first, she was the one who targeted me first!"
This was simply unbelievable. Jiang Keyu sneered, "I told you that you misunderstood. She is not that kind of person."
"She is!"
"Do you think you know my wife better than I do?"
Sheng Qiyin's voice trembled with anxiety, "Of course she would pretend in front of you. After all, you didn't marry her willingly back then!"
“That’s enough!”
Jiang Keyu suddenly raised his voice, startling Chang Yunbai who was leaning on his shoulder.
"Why should you interfere in my family affairs? She is my first wife, and that will never change. Husband and wife are one. You deliberately bully and humiliate her, which is no different from being mean to me!"
Sheng Qinyin was stunned.
Jiang Keyu tightened her grip, "This time, for the sake of the teacher, I won't pursue the matter any further. But if there's a next time, don't blame me for not considering our past friendship."
As soon as he finished speaking, he quickened his pace and left.
Sheng Qinyin froze in place as if her soul had left her body, her feet taking root, unable to move.
"Huh?"
Chang Yunbai was in a dilemma, not knowing whether to leave or not. After hesitating in the rain for a moment, he became a completely soaked chicken.
*
The heavy rain showed no sign of abating, and the two children had not returned home yet. Song Baoyuan waited anxiously in front of the mansion gate.
Finally, in the heavy rain, a slowly approaching carriage stopped at the foot of the steps.
Jiang Chengyou lifted the car curtain, showing his little head, and shouted, "Mom!"
"Madam, don't move! Let's go." Qiao Yin stopped Song Baoyuan from going forward to greet her. "If you get caught in the rain, you will definitely have a headache at night."
Qiao Yue echoed, and together with Qiao Yin, they walked down the stairs holding an umbrella to pick up the two young masters.
Jiang Chengyou and Jiang Suisui returned with a young man who covered his head with his sleeves, ran up the stairs in two steps, and hid under the eaves, breathing a sigh of relief.
Song Baoyuan didn't look at him. She squatted down and hugged the two children. "Are you cold? Are you wet?"
"I'm not cold!" Jiang Suisui happily threw herself into her mother's arms and twisted around.
Song Baoyuan laughed and pulled Jiang Chengyou, who looked less happy, into her arms. "So, did you have fun today?"
"Super happy!" Jiang Suisui chirped, counting on her fingers, "Sister Yangyang and I fed the birds, picked flowers, and ate baby cakes. When we came back, Uncle Gao told my brother and me stories!"
"Uncle Gao?" Song Baoyuan was surprised.
Gao Luoshu stood behind her, grinning and making faces to tease Jiang Chengyou.
When Song Baoyuan stood up and turned around to look at him, he was suddenly stunned, his eyes paused, and his heart skipped a beat.
The person he had been looking for appeared before him without any warning.
Her eyebrows and eyes are picturesque, she is as quiet as an orchid, and she is so beautiful that it cannot be described in words.
"Thank you, Master Gao. They are noisy and must have caused you a lot of trouble."
Song Baoyuan bowed slightly, but the man in front of her ignored her for a long time.
Song Baoyuan's heart sank. Although she was sure that this was the first time she had seen this Mr. Gao, she had seen the portrait of Jiang Keyu's classmate and had also heard of this person from him.
As the only son of a censor, his mother a daughter of a military officer, he was truly pampered and spoiled. He had high standards, was unbridled in his romantic life, and had a free-spirited nature. Unwilling to be bound by constraints, he refused to enter the government and spent his years wandering the world. Even when he wasn't doing anything serious, his family coaxed and indulged him.
It's only natural for such a person to look down on her background.
"Uncle Gao!" Jiang Chengyou raised his little face and pouted, "My mother is talking to you!"
"Ah?" Gao Luoshu came back to his senses, bowed hurriedly, and retracted his offending gaze, "Sorry."
His mind suddenly became a mess, and he briefly lost the ability to think. He asked a very stupid question in a sad voice, even his voice trembling, "Are you, their biological mother?"
Song Baoyuan glanced at him inconspicuously and replied, "Of course."
"Then you are not, are not Jiang Keyu's..."
Gao Luoshu felt like he was struck by lightning at this moment.
The fairy he thought about day and night turned out to be his best friend's wife?
With a sincere heart, he had never tired of sketching her face in his mind, and had imagined countless times the romantic scenes of them together. But at this moment, all of them became extremely dirty.
Gao Luoshu suddenly felt his scalp tingling.
"Mr. Gao, what's wrong with you?" Song Baoyuan felt a little strange.
"I……"
Gao Luoshu forced himself to swallow the frustration back into his stomach. "Sorry, I lost my composure. I just feel...sister-in-law?" He squeezed out the name through his teeth. "You seem to be different from the rumors."
Song Baoyuan wasn't sure what he meant. Seeing that he was soaking wet, she invited him, "Mr. Gao, if you don't have anything important to do, please come to the mansion to take shelter from the rain, change your clothes, and have some hot tea."
"I, this..." Gao Luoshu stammered, "Well, thank you very much."
Song Baoyuan chuckled, turned around, and took the two children by the hand, walking towards the right corridor. She said, "Qiaoyin, go get a piece of clothing that your husband doesn't wear often, and then take Master Gao to the guest room to change."
"yes."
"Qiaoyue, make a pot of hot tea."
"yes."
Gao Luoshu followed her in a daze.
She is calm, elegant, has a gentle voice, and looks even more beautiful when she smiles.
The natural grace of her every move, the liveliness of her every frown and expression, even the curve of her skirt as she walked, were almost exactly as he had imagined.
How could this be?
At the fork in the road, Qiao Yin was stunned to see Gao Luoshu, who was following behind her wife and looked even more obedient than the young master.
Seeing him about to follow into the inner courtyard, he hurriedly said, "Master Gao! The guest room is over here!"
Gao Luoshu shuddered and quickly looked away, looking at the heavy rain pouring down in the courtyard.
Is it raining now?
It's clearly tears...
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