CH 53.1

Yuan Ci Xian moved the low stool to her side, and leaned over to signal her to hurriedly speak.

Lu Shuang Yu wanted to confirm first: “We have agreed on three baskets, you can’t miss even one root.”

Yuan Ci Xian nodded: “If you talk good and nice, I can teach you how to cut tofu strips tomorrow.”

This was what she learned in Shuzhou.

Lu Shuang Yu calmed down, and slowly narrated: “Brother is afraid of dogs because of an accident when he was fifteen years old. Seven years ago, brother won the top marks in the imperial examinations, and passed brilliantly as Tanhua . According to the regulations, he must parade through the street on a horse. When I heard this, I made a noise to come to Chang’an from Luoyang, just to see my triumphant brother. The so-called ‘Spring breeze blew the proud horseshoe, and I can see all the flowers in Chang’an in one day, this street parade is really a huge thing, and it’s not an exaggeration that the whole city came out.”

“On that day, the Zhuangyuan and Bangyan who rode horses with my brother are all elderly, so all the girls in Chang’an City stared at my brother, the only young one. They threw flowers and silk handkerchiefs at him along Zhuque Street.”

Yuan Ci Xian listened silently, for some reason, she suddenly felt that this story was familiar, but she couldn’t remember it for a while, so she asked first: “Your brother caught it all?”

She waved her hand: “It was thrown to my brother over and over again, how could he catch it, there are too many!”

“Then what caused the accident?”

Lu Shuang Yu gritted her teeth with hatred when she said this: “It’s after that, I don’t know which naughty little girl actually hit my brother’s horse with a slingshot! The horse galloped out after being frightened. After all, my brother was still young and his horsemanship skill was still not good, so he couldn’t rein the horse no matter what.”

Yuan Ci Xian bit her lip quietly. The beginning and turn of this story was so familiar, as if she experienced it personally.

She thought for a while, then hesitatingly asked, “Your brother… did he fall from the horse later?”

“That’s right!” Lu Shuang Yu said angrily, “Brother was thrown down, and coincidently, I don’t know whose dog was not tied properly, before he had time to get up, it leaned over and sniffed at him, and then stretched out its fat tongue and licked his mouth!” Lu Shuang Yu felt so aggrieved for her brother, “This kind of scene not only make him lose face, but brother has always been obsessed with cleanness since he was a child, after returning he vomited his gut out. Since then, it leaves a shadow on him, and he will feel uncomfortable when he saw a dog approaching.”

Yuan Ci Xian’s face was green, she asked: “That year Zhuangyuan, is it an old man in his fifties, with gray hair and his horse barely moved?”

Lu Shuang Yu nodded: “That person is Supervisor Zhang, who is now one of the prime ministers, and has always been at odds with my brother.” After she finished answering, she asked strangely, “How do you know this?”

How did she know this? Because she was the very naughty little girl who shot Lu Shi Qing off the horse with a slingshot!

She was just nine years old at that time, and was about to move to Yaozhou with her parents. Before she left, she heard about the Zhuangyuan parade this grand event, and thought that she would never see it again in the future, so she ran to join in the fun. She was really naughty when she was young, and in her impression, that year’s Tanhua was particularly cocky, so she wanted to tease him, took out her slingshot and shot him with a small stone.

But can she talk about it? No, no, Lu Shi Qing would strangle her to death if he found out.

“I randomly guessing.” She got up indignantly, “It’s too much, this evil little girl is simply outrageous! If your brother clearly saw her face, I’m going to seek justice for him!”

Seeing her reaction was so fierce, Lu Shuang Yu blinked twice, and then said: “There are too many people, my brother said he didn’t see clearly, but only knew it was a little girl of eight or nine years old.”

Yuan Ci Xian was overjoyed, but showed a lot of regret on the face: “Oh, that’s a pity, that’s a pity.”

Two days later, the winter solstice arrived. There was a saying that “winter solstice is as big as the new year”. According to the tradition of the Great Zhou, on this day a sacrificial ceremony must be held in front of the Jinshui Bridge of the Daming Palace. The emperor would bowed down and presided over it, and all officials gathered together to pray for the prosperity of the country and the common people, and pray for the good weather in the coming year. After that, all the civil and military officials of the court would have seven days holiday.

Lu Shi Qing went to Daming Palace early in the morning and came back after a busy day. At dinner, he ate soup made by Yuan Ci Xian herself, as well as the wontons she made with Xuan shi and Lu Shuang Yu.

Yuan Ci Xian’s so-so soup was acceptable, but the wontons she made were really ugly, most of them were crooked melons and cracked dates, and many of them were leaking, it was worse than Lu Shuang Yu’s. Lu Shi Qing could tell at a glance that it was her handiwork, but deliberately pretended not to know, and when his sister got angry and asked him why he only ate Yuan Ci Xian’s wontons, he was surprised: “I thought such rotten wontons should be wrapped by you. I wanted to give you some face, but it’s not?”

Lu Shuang Yu was so angry that she ate all the wontons she made, and afterwards she kept crying to Xuan shi that her brother had sister-in-law and forgot about his sister.

However, Yuan Ci Xian was a guest after all, and there was no need to do all these. But since she learned about what happened seven years ago, she had been feel guilty and troubled, fearing that Lu Shi Qing would look at her face too much, and one day he would suddenly remember the past. So she wanted to please him in every possible way, to plan for a rainy day. And to be able to get praised as “virtuous” by Xuan shi, making soup and wrapping wontons was really not a big deal.

But Lu Shi Qing couldn’t help feeling that there was a ghost inside. After all, he could tell when Yuan Ci Xian was sincere or when she was fake. Therefore, after eating the dinner that was lavishly offered to him, and he went to the mansion’s ancestral hall to make up for ancestor worship ceremony before the sun set, he began to wonder if she wanted to ask something from him again. He secretly waited for her in the study for a long time, and when he didn’t see her coming, he thought that it was too difficult to say, so he prepared to take the initiative to send himself to her door.

Lu Shi Qing bathed cleanly, stepped out of the door, and was about to go to the Dongkua courtyard that was separated by a wall, but when he looked up, he saw a person sitting on that black clustered wall——Yuan Ci Xian was wrapped in a cream-colored winter coat, his blue-crane cloak draped over her shoulder, her pair of feet that was wearing lotus shoes were swinging back-and-forth, and her hands supported on the edge of the wall while she looked at the sky. She looked like she was bored and wanted to climb over the wall to go out to play.

He stopped in his tracks, feeling that her habit of climbing the wall was very bad. After all, the wall had been a very dangerous existence since ancient times, and it was not unreasonable for the poem to say, “The garden is full of spring and cannot be closed, and a branch of red apricot comes out of the wall.”

He frowned and said, “What are you doing climbing the wall?”

There was silence all around, although Lu Shi Qing was far away, Yuan Ci Xian could immediately hear him. She turned her head to look, then saw him standing under the courtyard’s stone steps since unknown time, looking at her from a distance.

She carefully jumped off the wall, walked towards him, and replied, “I’m so bored…”

If bored, why not look for him?

Lu Shi Qing wanted to sting her with a few words, but felt that her voice sounded muffled, not as cheerful as she was at dinner just now. After thinking about it, in the middle of the night during the winter solstice festival, she must be homesick.

In previous years during the winter solstice, she spent most of her time in Yaozhou with her parents. Right now, if she was accompanied by her brother, she probably would not feel lonely, but because of Jiang Bi Rou’s troubles, she instead lived in his Lu Mansion as a guest.

After all she had not part of this family yet, and due to this awkward identity, it was impossible for her to take the initiative to participate in the ceremony at the ancestral hall during the day. And although his mother treated her well, it was not good to take her to “meet the ancestors” before she passed the door, and during the sacrificial ceremony, she should also tacitly stay in Dongkua Courtyard.

She never seemed to tell him about these things that might make her feel wronged, and she even seemed to be in a good mood during dinner, without revealing anything at all.

Lu Shi Qing secretly regretted for his carelessness and how he didn’t consider her emotions, so his tone was a little softer than usual when he asked: “Bored? Then what do you want to do?”

Yuan Ci Xian thought he would say “Go to bed if you’re bored” Hearing this, she was pleasantly surprised: “Will you accompany me?”

He subconsciously ready to nod, but then thought about what to do if she asked him to hold the dog again, so he left some leeway: “Tell me, I’ll think about it. ”

When she heard this, she felt interested, she said bluntly: “I want to play Wumu.”

Lu Shi Qing choked. Wumu was a gambling game, and people in private gambling houses often play it to gamble money. This thing could make people squander their family fortune.

Seeing him choking, Yuan Ci Xian said aggrievedly: “In previous winter solstice, Father and I played Wumu.”

Lu Shi Qing’s heart softened when he heard this. In the past Zheng Zhuo also like to play this thing, and he left a Wumu set at his place, so he sighed and agreed, then said: “Don’t let my mother know.”

She nodded her head three times: “Let’s go to your study and play secretly.”

The two slipped into the study, then turned over the wooden equipment. Lu Shi Qing asked her: “You have copper coin on you?”

Yuan Ci Xian shook her head: “I don’t bet using money, it’s so boring to bet for money. Father and I used to bet for wine.”

Lu Shi Qing choked again. When he was Xu Shan, he had already learned of her terrible drunkenness. At that time, he was forced by his identity to calm down. But if she repeated her old trick now, pretending to be drunk and teased him as Lu Shi Qing, he might not be able to stand it.

So he made an excuse: “Do you want to wake up smelling of alcohol tomorrow morning, and let my mother know?”

Oh, that’s a problem.

Yuan Ci Xian shook her head: “Then replace wine with tea.”

Lu Shi Qing continued to refuse: “Drinking tea at night is easy to cause insomnia.”

She found him annoying, so simply gave him the opportunity to set the rules: “Then what do you want to do?”