After returning from Floating Light Temple, Gu Jinzhao did not leave the residence for several consecutive days.
It was not that she had been grounded. Madam Gu only knew that she had gone to the temple to offer a lamp and had returned in a carriage from Changxing Marquis Residence. Though she asked a few more questions, they were brushed off by Jinzhao with the explanation that Lady Gao had simply given her a ride, and she did not press further.
Concubine Song, however, could not resist making a few sarcastic remarks, saying that “the eldest miss now climbs high branches and no longer needs the household to arrange a carriage,” but she was silenced by a single look from Madam Gu.
Jinzhao did not bother with it. Her thoughts were elsewhere entirely.
She had finished going through The Registry of Gentry Families. In the area north of the city, behind Qingfeng Academy’s back mountain of purple bamboo, several officials’ private residences were indeed recorded. But none of those names seemed to have any connection to Ji Minzhong—at least not on the surface. She copied the entries and placed them beneath her dressing table, planning to find an excuse to visit the northern part of the city later.
But before that, something else concerned her more.
He had told her that before she went to Floating Light Temple again, she should report to the marquis residence first. The wording was awkward, but the meaning was clear—he was worried about her going alone.
As she thought about it, the comb in her hand wound through her hair three times before she even noticed.
“Miss,” Qing Pu said as she brought breakfast in and set it down. She glanced at the comb in her hand. “You’ll end up breaking your hair if you keep twisting it like that.”
Jinzhao came back to her senses and calmly set the comb aside.
“Is there porridge today?” she asked.
“Yes. Red bean porridge, and steamed jujube cakes.” Qing Pu arranged the tableware as she spoke. “Oh, right—earlier the gatekeeper sent word. Second Young Master will return home this afternoon.”
Jinzhao paused mid-bite of a jujube cake and looked up.
“Jinrong? Isn’t he still in school? It’s not a break yet.”
“The instructor’s family has a celebration, so they gave a few days off,” Qing Pu replied. “Madam has already sent people to clean his courtyard.”
Jinrong was her younger brother, two years her junior. When they were children, they had been very close. Later she was sent to her maternal grandmother’s home in Jiangnan, while Jinrong stayed in the capital to study. After that, she returned to the capital, but he went to the academy, and they rarely saw each other—once a year at most. The last time they met was during the New Year; he had stayed for only three days before leaving in a hurry, tugging at her sleeve like a child and saying he would bring her the sesame candy from outside the academy next time.
In the afternoon, just past the hour of Wei, Ye Xian indeed returned home.
He made quite a commotion upon entering—not because he intended to, but because of how much he brought back. Two book chests, a cage of pigeons, a broken-stringed qin, half a sack of wild chestnuts from somewhere, and the dust of travel along with the vigorous energy of youth.
“Sis!” he called out as he stepped into the courtyard. When he saw Jinzhao standing under the corridor, he immediately waved. His voice, still rough from adolescence, carried a bright smile.
Jinzhao walked out from under the corridor and looked him over.
“You’ve grown taller,” she said.
“Of course!” He patted his own head proudly. “More than an inch since last time. My teacher says I might still grow.”
“You’re only growing in height, not in sense,” she said with a smile, patting his shoulder and brushing off a stray blade of grass. “Did you ride a horse back? You’re covered in dust.”
“Yeah! The official road outside the academy is under repair—dust everywhere, like fog.” He grinned, then had the servants bring in his things. From his sleeve, he suddenly produced a paper-wrapped parcel like magic. “Here. Sesame candy. I promised you last time.”
Jinzhao took it and opened it. The candy still carried his warm body heat, fragrant and sweet. She ate a piece. The sweetness and sesame aroma melted on her tongue, and suddenly she thought of another candy from many years ago.
Back then, she was probably only half Jinrong’s height, crouching somewhere crying. Someone had placed a piece of candy into her mouth.
Who was it?
She thought for a long time but still could not remember the face. She only remembered that hand—its fingertips were cool, the kind of coolness that felt pleasant in summer.
“Sis?” Ye Xian waved his hand in front of her. “What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” she said, wrapping the candy back up. “Let’s go. Mother is waiting for you.”
The siblings went to greet Madam Gu together. Madam Gu held her son’s hands and asked him everything—whether the food at school was good, whether the teacher was strict, whether he was cold at night. Ye Xian answered one by one. Gu Lan also came out upon hearing the news, asking what her second brother had brought her. Cousin Gu Lian followed behind with her sewing basket, glanced at him a couple of times, and seeing he had brought nothing for her, merely curled her lip.
The courtyard was lively, almost like the New Year.
After dinner, the sky was still bright. A gentle breeze stirred the bamboo curtains under the eaves. Jinzhao sat outside her room, reading account books. Concubine Song had handed her household purchasing accounts last month, supposedly to “train her in management,” but in reality it was to embarrass her. Instead, she verified every entry meticulously, leaving Concubine Song with nothing to say.
Ye Xian dragged over a small stool and sat beside her, eating a pear.
“Sis, do you have something on your mind?”
“Hm?” She did not look up. “What makes you think that?”
“I can’t explain it,” he said, tossing the pear core into a flower bed. “You just seem different after coming back from Jiangnan.”
Her hand paused slightly. She had thought she had hidden it well. The matter of rebirth could not be spoken of, nor could the past life. She had assumed others would only think she had matured. But Jinrong was her own brother—born of the same mother, the one who had grown up with her. What others could not see, he might not fail to notice.
“How am I different?”
“You used to fight me for candy until the last piece. Now you don’t.”
She couldn’t help but laugh.
“You just miss the fighting,” she said.
“It’s not that,” he replied, suddenly serious. “Sis, are you unhappy in the capital? Is Concubine Song bothering you again?”
“No. She just asked me to manage the kitchen accounts. Nothing difficult.”
Ye Xian looked at her. “You used to have everything written on your face when you had something on your mind.”
She closed the account book and turned to face him. The dusk had already deepened; the lanterns under the corridor had not yet been lit, so their faces were half in light, half in shadow.
“Jinrong,” she said softly, “I was thinking about childhood.”
“Which part?”
“The parts I can’t quite remember.”
He paused, then pulled his stool closer.
“Sis,” he lowered his voice, “you don’t remember, but I do. You lived in the capital before you were six. Father was still an Imperial Academy compiler then, and our family lived in the west district for several years.”
She blinked.
She knew she had lived in the capital, but she had thought it was only for a short time—before she was five or so. Madam Gu had been weak, and she herself had been ill several times. Memories before six were like a dusty bronze mirror—unclear, unpolished.
“Do you remember the neighbor next door?” he continued, increasingly animated. “There was an older brother there. You used to follow him everywhere. He didn’t like it, always ignored you, but you kept grabbing his sleeve. Once he shook you off, and you cried in the corner until nightfall.”
Something in her chest tightened slightly.
A corner? Crying?
Someone had once placed a pine nut candy in her mouth. That hand… cool fingertips.
“What happened after that?”
“Later, you tried to climb a tree with him and scraped your hand. You cried again. He blew on your wound and said—” Jinrong imitated carefully, “‘Stop crying… I’ll marry you someday.’”
She fell silent.
She should have laughed. She had planned to tease him, ask which storybook he had picked that up from. But she didn’t.
Because she had heard those words somewhere before.
Not with her ears—but somewhere deeper, at the edge of memory.
“Sis, are you spacing out?” Jinrong waved his hand. “Anyway, later you were taken to Jiangnan by Grandma. You fell seriously ill right after arriving, had a fever for half a month. Mother was terrified, writing letters every day. After you recovered, no one mentioned the capital anymore. You seemed to forget it too.”
She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
That little brother… “A-Xian brother,” they had called him.
And then Jinrong suddenly frowned. “Wait… I think that neighbor was surnamed Ye? Or was it…?”
West district. Old residence. Ye. A-Xian.
The words struck like a key turning in a rusted lock.
She suddenly understood.
Her so-called “first meeting” with Ye Xian had been in the garden this spring. But perhaps their true first meeting had already happened many years ago.
So what was her current feeling toward him—before that meeting or after it?
She could no longer tell.
That night, she dreamed.
In the dream, she was crying in a corner of a blue-brick wall. Someone placed candy into her mouth. Pine nut candy—sweet, with a faint bitterness of pine seeds.
“Don’t cry… I’ll marry you someday.”
When she woke, the sky was still dim, pale blue light reflected on the window paper. Her pillow was slightly damp. She touched the corner of her eye—there was still moisture.
She remembered.
Those eyes… were identical to the young man standing in the Jin Garden that day.