Chapter 8
Chapter 8
“Jiang Youze!”
Her voice escaped through the gap in the curtain, filled with anger and embarrassment she could not suppress.
“Then why did you kiss me?”
From outside came Linghe’s startled voice. “Miss? You… Just now…”
“Oh! He’s a bastard!” Mortified, Si Yan covered her face with her handkerchief.
She bit her lower lip, then remembered halfway through that he had just kissed it, and hurriedly let go.
Her shy, indignant words reached Jiang Youze’s ears clearly.
He paused. The corner of his mouth lifted of its own accord, his eyes still warm with the tenderness of a moment before.
His Qingqing’s lips were soft and sweet.
A pity he would never kiss them again in this life.
He lowered his eyes, forced the hint of a smile away, and turned toward the mule cart.
Inside the carriage, Si Yan secretly parted the fingers covering her face.
She peered out. Through the shifting gap in the curtain, her gaze followed that gray-blue figure.
The morning light at the mouth of the lane was fully bright now, outlining him with particular clarity.
He was so thin she could make out his shoulder blades, yet he held his back perfectly straight as he walked.
When he kissed her, his hand had pressed against the back of her head so hard it was as though he wanted to fold her into his very bones.
Now he simply walked away without so much as looking back.
Fine!
Jiang Youze, how very impressive of you!
“Home!” Si Yan tore the handkerchief from her face. Her voice was clear and sharp. “Hurry!”
The driver answered. His whip cracked in the air, and the carriage turned back.
Beside her, Linghe tilted her head and stole a look at her mistress’s expression.
At first, her mistress was leaning against the carriage wall, arms folded in indignation.
Her cheeks puffed slightly, as though someone owed her eight hundred taels of silver.
Then the corners of her mouth slowly rose. She could not press them down, and her eyes shone.
Linghe hastily lowered her head and sat demurely with her eyes down, pretending she had seen nothing.
Young Master Jiang was far too bold. But Miss… did not seem truly angry, either.
Si Yan leaned against the carriage wall. Her fingers unconsciously touched her lips, then quickly dropped.
She looked down at her fingertips, Jiang Youze’s final words still circling in her mind.
“Don’t wait for me.”
He had sounded so serious, so resolute.
As though he could really bear to let her go.
“Linghe.”
Linghe immediately leaned closer, her expression somewhere between shock and a thirst for gossip.
“Yes, Miss!”
Si Yan gripped her crumpled handkerchief, turning it over and over and kneading it for a long while before she spoke.
“Do you think he was testing me when he told me not to wait?”
Linghe blinked. Her mouth opened and closed again, her face blank with confusion. “I don’t understand…”
“You know!” Si Yan sat upright, gesturing quickly and haphazardly.
“Saying he doesn’t want something when he wants it desperately! That sort of thing. Playing hard to get! Saying the opposite of what he feels! Taking a step back to move forward!”
Linghe plainly did not quite understand, but had the sense to nod.
“Oh… I see!”
Satisfied with this agreement, Si Yan leaned back against the carriage wall.
The thought of what had happened in her dream when she truly did not wait for him sent a shiver through her.
“If I really stop waiting, I’ll be the first person he deals with once he gains power!”
Linghe considered this. Her mistress seemed to have a point, though something about it also seemed wrong.
“Then will you still wait?”
“Of course!” Si Yan closed her hand around the pendant at her waist.
She lifted her chin, her eyes brighter with certainty than ever.
“I’ll wait him out if it takes forever!”
And so she waited for three years.
Three years was neither a very long time nor a very short one.
In her dream, Jiang Youze had needed eight long years to rise to the position of Lord Jiuqiansui.
Now, not even half that time had passed, and Si Yan had already grown a little numb from waiting.
Sometimes she would stare into the mirror for a while, then ask Linghe,
“What do you think he looks like now? Has he grown thinner? Or…”
Every time, Linghe gave it serious thought before answering, “He must still be handsome. Someone like Young Master Jiang could never be ugly.”
Si Yan would nod in satisfaction and go on powdering her face.
“Miss, an invitation from the Marquis of Yongning’s residence. They invite you to a poetry gathering the day after tomorrow. Shall we accept?”
Jihe came in with a gilt invitation and held it out to Si Yan.
Before she could take it, Linghe’s expression changed.
She slapped her feather duster onto the table, her voice rising.
“Again! How many times has it been now?”
Resentment filled her voice. The memory of every poetry gathering made her grind her teeth.
“Those people only want to humiliate you! Even listening to them makes me want to tear their mouths apart!”
The noble young ladies of the capital were forever sending invitations under the pretext of poetry gatherings, flower parties, or musical entertainments.
Once seated, they all made fun of her and the eunuch.
They framed it as a joke, but every word stabbed straight at the heart.
Si Yan took the invitation, glanced through it, and casually tossed it beside her dressing case. Her expression was indifferent.
“I’ll go. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Miss!” Linghe stamped her foot in anger, her eyes turning red.
“Every time you go, you come home so angry you cry! Why put yourself through it again?”
“Crying is one thing. Going is another.” Facing the bronze mirror, Si Yan changed her earrings and turned her head to look at both sides.
“If I don’t go, they make up stories behind my back. If I do, they do it to my face.”
For three years, the noble young ladies of the capital had treated her humiliation as an appetizer to enjoy with their wine.
At first, mindful that her father was a minister, they had phrased things more delicately.
Later, after seeing him reprimanded by the emperor several times at court, they had abandoned even that pretense.
They asked her outright when she intended to bear the eunuch a son.
She picked up the little box of lip color on her dressing case, touched a fingertip to it, and dabbed it onto her lips.
“At least if I go, I’ll know who’s saying it.”
After all, ten years was not too long for a patient person to wait for revenge.
Si Yan rose and went to the wardrobe, looking through one dress after another. None pleased her.
She had not had a single new garment made in three years.
It was not that the minister’s residence could not afford it. She had told her mother herself that she needed none.
Whenever her mother took out her monthly allowance to have new clothes made for her,
she said her old ones were still wearable, and asked for the money in banknotes instead.
Her mother would weep with distress, holding her hand. “Yan’er, why must you do this to yourself…”
Her father sighed over it again and again, pacing his study for half the night.
He said raising a daughter was like feeding a bottomless pit. All the money went pouring into the palace.
Yet every time he finished complaining, he took the banknotes all the same.
After court, he would make a detour to the Imperial Household Department and ask a eunuch he knew to pass them on.
Back home, he would tell Si Yan sternly, “Just this once.” Then he would do it again the next time.
“Miss, what will you wear to the poetry gathering?” Jihe helped her search through the clothes.
Si Yan looked at the wardrobe once more and pulled a somewhat worn apricot-colored long jacket from the very back.
Though a little old, it was made of fine fabric. Only the edges of the skirt had frayed slightly.
She looked slender and graceful in it. Without a close look, the wear was scarcely noticeable.
“This will do. They aren’t coming to see what I’m wearing, anyway.”
Even if she went dressed in a sack, they would find something to laugh at.
They would say she was in mourning for the man in the palace.
Since they would mock her either way, what did her clothes matter?