I quickly lowered my head and glared at her without good humor. “You little brat.”
“Embarrassed and angry,” my sister pouted, leaning close to my ear with wide eyes. “Second Sister, what’s the story of my brother-in-law?”
His story? I thought to myself, probably a tale of childhood sweethearts confessing and being rejected, then working hard to ultimately marry the foolish girl who was going to marry a rich man. The process was quite bumpy, but fortunately, the ending was quite satisfactory.
My sister sighed.
My brother-in-law is indeed very handsome, but who would stare at their own husband so dreamily?” She rolled her eyes and asked teasingly, “Is he the one who’s worth it for you?”
I couldn’t help but steal another glance at An Jin. This time he didn’t look up, and from my angle, I could only see his side face, half-lit in the lamplight, serene and leisurely.
“You should ask him this question.”
When returning home that night, An Jin was with me, and I was with Yuan Qing, our three shadows of different lengths cast on the ground, quite warmly resembling a family out for a walk. Yuan Qing was quite happy, darting between me and An Jin, occasionally poking his head out, nestled between our legs.
Having inadvertently confessed to An Jin, I hadn’t yet recovered, and although holding his hand, I didn’t dare look at him.
After walking a short distance, he suddenly bent down to pet Yuan Qing’s neck, pointing to the An family gate and softly saying, “Go back first.”
Yuan Qing was clearly dissatisfied but hesitated, ultimately respecting his always authoritative tone. He looked reluctantly at me, tail tucked pitifully, walking to the gate and slipping through a crack in the back door.
With just the two of us, I suddenly felt nervous. His finger traced my palm.
“Why aren’t you speaking? Still shy?” “No… not at all.” He opened my hand and pressed something cool and hard into my palm. Looking at it in the moonlight, it was a bright red seal, blood-like in color. The seal knob was carved with a long, slender dog shape, very much like Yuan Qing. Six small seal script characters were carved at the bottom: Yuan Qing, Thirteenth Young Master. Among seal materials, Tianhuang was imperial, and chicken blood stone was secondary; this seal was made of chicken blood stone. I happily played with it for a long time. The previous seal was damaged during the conflict with the Seventh Princess, and I had been thinking about re-carving one, but he had remembered it in his heart. “Do you remember what day this is?” he looked down at my face. I thought carefully. “Your birthday?” An Jin’s face darkened. “My birthday is December 8th.” “Then – my birthday?” His face grew even darker. “You don’t even remember your own birthday? Wasn’t it just last month?” I glanced at him secretly, seeing he was truly annoyed, and then seriously said, “It’s the anniversary of our marriage two years ago.” An Jin finally relaxed his brow and reached out to embrace me. At this time, with household lights still burning and the cool autumn breeze gently blowing, the warmth in his arms made me not want to leave for a moment. “You must have hated me when we got married, right?”
While I certainly had some opinions about him at the time, I could hardly say I hated him. So I honestly shook my head.
“Who?” I was puzzled. The one I loved?
“Who you had in your heart before, from now on, you can only be my wife.” After saying this, he seemed to finally breathe a sigh of relief, lowering his head to kiss my lips, extremely gently.
On our second wedding anniversary. The two of us embraced and fell asleep. An Jin was in an unusually good mood, mumbling incoherently all night. I listened in a daze, only understanding one thing: before our marriage, all the strange incidents in my family – my father’s evaluation being sabotaged; my mother being robbed; my older brother being rejected in marriage; my younger sister being mocked… were all the work of the Seventh Princess.
An Jin patted my back, comforting me that the Seventh Princess would soon stop troubling us, and the matter of the Eastern Palace would eventually be resolved. I listened, feeling somewhat puzzled. How could he be so certain? Not long after that day, the Western Liang country changed hands. The new ruler sent an envoy to Qi Kingdom seeking marriage and promised to consider releasing Prince Xia Zhichun, who was in Western Liang, to return home. The Qi Emperor was overjoyed, promising to marry the Seventh Princess to Western Liang to forge an alliance between the two countries. This news was unexpected to many, including myself. Although Western Liang’s gesture seemed like a goodwill initiative, the two countries had ongoing conflicts, and no one knew how long this superficial peace would last. The Qi Emperor had over a dozen princesses, and any could have been sent to Western Liang, but he chose the Seventh Princess, the empress’s legitimate daughter who was much beloved. I heard the empress desperately pleaded with the Qi Emperor not to marry the princess to Western Liang, and the Seventh Princess herself protested by going on a hunger strike, yet ultimately could not change the emperor’s decision. The Seventh Princess indeed would no longer be able to trouble us. This was good news for us, but I couldn’t understand how An Jin could be so prescient.
Did he already know that Western Liang would send someone to request a marriage alliance? What puzzled me most was how the Eastern Palace’s issue would be resolved if the Seventh Princess could be married off. Would they also be “married” to Nan Rui? An Jin smiled mysteriously, casually brushing off my questions. After this news spread, the Seventh Princess and the Eastern Palace never appeared again, seemingly caught off guard by these events. My younger sister quickly recovered from her second heartbreak and started hanging out with Song Sitian. The two girls became obsessed with playing the zither, spending their days in the music hall taking lessons. However, peace did not last long. My elder brother found me and stammered out a shocking piece of news. He might have been targeted by a cut-sleeve.
Chapter Eighteen: Xiao Wangzhi’s Confusion
This cut-sleeve was named Xue Yin, a new scribe at the Hanlin Academy, reportedly having entered through some connections with higher-ups. My brother had few friends, so finding someone he could talk to naturally made him genuinely friendly, frequently visiting each other.
After he moved to the official residence, they would occasionally drink together under the moonlight, their relationship growing deeper. Recently, however, my brother gradually noticed something was off about Xue Yin’s attitude.
My brother had always been slow in matters of the heart, so if even he noticed something was wrong, it must be quite obvious. At first, Xue Yin’s gaze became increasingly affectionate, often deliberately getting close, leaning softly against him. The most frightening incident was one night when they were drinking heavily, and my brother, extremely drunk, fell asleep. When he awoke, he found Xue Yin lying in his arms, arms tightly wrapped around his waist.
When I heard this, I instinctively looked at my brother’s buttocks. Unexpectedly, my brother understood, blushing and covering his buttocks, saying, “You little brat, what are you thinking? We just slept in the same bed, nothing happened.”
Then, my brother said hatefully, “Even if something happened, I would never submit!”
