Pei Huaian, would you like to marry my Third Sister…
Fengle Pavilion had an expansive facade, adorned with colorful archways and festive gates at its entrance. Inside, winding corridors and side rooms created an elegant, secluded atmosphere, enhancing the convivial mood of the drinking scene.
Shen Yunshu sat in a small private room, where an appetizing soup and several platters of wine-accompanying fruits were already laid out on the table. She had also ordered a pot of yellow wine. Taking advantage of Lu Yi’s absence, she retrieved a packet of powder from her waist, trembling as she shook it into the wine.
It was her first time doing something like this, and her heart pounded like a drum, her hands shaking uncontrollably. She took several deep breaths before gradually calming down.
Just before noon, Lu Yi arrived as promised.
He had changed out of the clothes he wore earlier, deliberately choosing a rain-washed sky-blue hue he knew she favored. His tall, imposing figure seemed to shrink the small room, lending it an air of oppression.
As he sat down, a trace of tenderness flickered in his sharp, narrow eyes. “A-Shu, I’m glad you took the initiative to invite me…”
Shen Yunshu had no patience for idle chatter and cut straight to the point. “I know your proposal to Youran is insincere, and she has no wish to marry you. I hope you will show mercy and cease troubling her.”
Her cold tone slowly extinguished the warmth in Lu Yi’s gaze, allowing his possessiveness to surface as he stared intently at her. “I can leave her alone, but only if you do something in exchange…”
“What is it?”
“Break off your engagement with the Pei family.”
“Impossible!”
Her immediate refusal did not anger him. “You know how I feel about you. Since I can’t have you, and I can’t bear to destroy you, I’ll have to settle for a substitute. Your Third Sister’s eyes and brows resemble yours so closely. Once I marry her, I’ll take my time molding her…”
“Enough!” Shen Yunshu interrupted sharply. Her Third Sister was pure and gentle, and she would not tolerate such vile intentions. “Abandon this idea. Youran will never marry you.”
“Oh?” Lu Yi’s lips curved into a faint, low chuckle. “A-Shu, I care for you too much to resort to underhanded tactics with you. But your Third Sister is different—I have far less patience for her. She often visits the estate to mourn her late mother. With just a little maneuvering, I can make her submit to me. Once that happens, whether she marries me or not will no longer be her choice…”
The more Shen Yunshu cared for her Third Sister, the more confident Lu Yi felt in controlling her.
In his view, she now had only two choices: break off her engagement or sacrifice her sister.
Clearly, she was unwilling to abandon her Third Sister.
Lu Yi waited calmly for her response.
Had she not already known his despicable nature, Shen Yunshu might have been left helpless with rage. But having dared to confront him alone today, she would not be thrown off balance by his threats.
She picked up the wine pot and poured a cup of yellow wine for him.
The amber liquid swirled in the glass cup. She then poured a cup for herself, adopting a pleading demeanor as she raised her cup to him. “I beg you, show mercy and spare my Third Sister.”
Seeing her earlier bravado fade, Lu Yi assumed he held the upper hand. He glanced leisurely at the wine cup and said, “If I let her go, how will you compensate me, A-Shu?”
Her hand trembled slightly as she held the cup. “I am willing to break off the engagement.”
“Good,” Lu Yi said, finally lifting his cup. “It’s settled.”
Shen Yunshu drank her wine, her gaze fixed on him until he finished his cup, only then looking away.
Lu Yi set down the wine cup, gazing intently at Shen Yunshu, who appeared somewhat nervous. “This wine tastes unusual. I wonder what you’ve put in it, A-Shu?”
“Brother asks only after finishing it—isn’t that a bit late?”
“As long as it’s wine poured by A-Shu, even if it contains poison, I would savor it gladly…”
Shen Yunshu sneered, “Brother has only had one cup, yet he’s already speaking drunken nonsense.”
She rose to leave the small pavilion, but her wrist was suddenly seized. “Where are you going?”
“To hurry the dishes.”
“You stay seated. I’ll go.”
“Very well.”
Shen Yunshu sat back down, watching as Lu Yi left the pavilion. A few moments later, she quickly retrieved a pill from the pouch at her waist, swallowed it, and then stood up to leave as well.
Lu Yi had been gone for no more than the time it takes to write a single character. When he returned to the pavilion and lifted the beaded curtain to look inside, Shen Yunshu was indeed no longer there.
What needed to be said had been said, and the promises had been made. She could avoid him for a moment, but she couldn’t avoid him for a lifetime.
Lu Yi’s mood lifted, and he was about to leave when a sudden warmth surged through his body, accompanied by an indescribable restlessness.
Just then, he caught sight of Shen Yunshu’s figure not far down the corridor.
She was still here after all.
Lu Yi quickened his pace to follow her. Sensing his approach, she reached the end of the corridor and lifted her skirt to ascend the stairs.
Whether it was his imagination or not, Shen Yunshu’s graceful figure seemed to carry an unusual allure today—a hint of seductiveness that burrowed into his heart, compelling him to unconsciously quicken his steps. He finally caught up with her on the second floor.
He grabbed her wrist with some force, pulling her into his embrace.
The heat within him clashed with his reason. Driven by desire, he tightened his arms around the person in his embrace, his voice hoarse. “A-Shu, since you’ve already agreed to be with me, why do you still avoid me?”
In the next instant, a sharp, piercing scream erupted from his arms. “Help! Someone is trying to assault me…”
It was not Shen Yunshu’s voice.
Lu Yi shuddered and hastily pushed the person away, only to find a woman dressed in the same clothes as Shen Yunshu, now pointing at him in terror and shouting loudly.
It was midday, and the restaurant was bustling with guests. Soon, several stern-faced men rushed over and seized him.
The woman trembled as she hid behind a gentleman, clamoring to report the incident to the authorities.
Before long, patrolling soldiers arrived from the street. With numerous witnesses present, they questioned the situation, bound him, and escorted him to the magistrate’s office.
Lu Yi had no defense.
It was at this moment that he finally realized why Shen Yunshu had invited him to the restaurant today.
Shen Yunshu had not originally intended to go this far. After all, Lu Yi was like a half-brother to her, and having a brother imprisoned was not a good thing for the Lu family or for her.
But he was truly despicable—he had outright declared that if she married into the Pei family, he would take action against Third Sister.
In that case, she could hardly be blamed for taking action against him first.
What she had put in the wine was a drug that could cloud one’s judgment. To entice him to drink it, she had also taken a cup herself. Although she had quickly taken the antidote, perhaps because it was formulated into a pill, it did not take effect immediately. She now felt somewhat dizzy and feverish.
However, Shen Yunshu was clear-headed at this moment and confident she wouldn’t be affected by the drug’s effects. After Lu Yi left the small pavilion, she returned there and poured the remaining rice wine from the pot into a pre-prepared bamboo tube, planning to discard it somewhere on her way back.
When she emerged from the small pavilion again, she happened to hear a woman’s scream from the second floor, immediately throwing the upper level into chaos.
The woman was someone Shen Yunshu had paid handsomely to hire from a brothel three days earlier to stage this scene. As long as the woman refused to settle the matter, Lu Yi would inevitably end up spending ten days to half a month in jail.
Hiding behind a corridor pillar, Shen Yunshu endured her physical discomfort while briefly enjoying the sight of Lu Yi’s flustered embarrassment. Then, before the patrol soldiers arrived, she left the place.
Still, sending Lu Yi to jail was merely a temporary solution that didn’t address the root cause. Once he was released, he would surely seek revenge with doubled intensity. To completely sever his designs on Third Sister, she needed to arrange a marriage for Third Sister as soon as possible.
If Pei Huaian hadn’t interfered during the temple fair that day, Third Sister might already be engaged to the sixth son of the Liang family and wouldn’t have been dragged into her conflict with Lu Yi.
Shen Yunshu concealed the bamboo tube in her wide sleeve and walked with her head down toward the tavern’s rear courtyard.
The physical heat gradually faded, but her head grew increasingly dizzy. Suddenly, a wave of drowsiness washed over her like a flood.
She abruptly recalled the medicine seller saying that after taking the antidote, one needed to sleep it off.
She hadn’t pondered those words carefully at the time, but now she realized the medicine seller meant the antidote would cause drowsiness.
Shen Yunshu couldn’t help feeling some regret: had she known about this side effect, she wouldn’t have stayed behind the pillar to watch the spectacle.
Dark spots clouded her vision as Shen Yunshu fought against the sleepiness, making her way toward the stables in the tavern’s rear courtyard.
Her carriage was parked there, and Tinglan was waiting for her there too.
Shen Yunshu walked unsteadily and was accidentally bumped by a passing guest. Her already precarious balance failed, and she fell to the ground.
The person who bumped her seemed to have been drinking too, reeking of alcohol. He muttered an apology and walked away.
Shen Yunshu tried to stand up, but lacking strength, she fell back to the ground in disarray.
Footsteps approached her, and then a pair of strong hands helped her up.
A young man’s clear voice asked, “Sister-in-law, how did you fall? Have you had too much to drink?”
It was Pei Huaian.
In her weak and embarrassed state, encountering someone familiar, Shen Yunshu instinctively grasped his hand. “I’m not feeling well. Could you please take me to my carriage?”
“Oh, sure.” Pei Huaian waved to several friends nearby, signaling them to go into the tavern first, then turned back to Shen Yunshu. “Where is your carriage? I’ll take you there…”
Shen Yunshu lifted her face, peering blankly in search of her carriage.
But with dark mist obscuring her vision, she couldn’t distinguish anything clearly. Moreover, not daring to use her family’s carriage today, she had instructed Tinglan to hire one temporarily—how was she supposed to find it now?
“Find… Tinglan…” Shen Yunshu managed to utter Tinglan’s name with great effort before losing consciousness.
“Find who?” Pei Huaian hadn’t heard clearly. “What Lan?”
Previously, he had only seen her maid Qiong Zhi at the estate and didn’t know she had another maid named something Lan.
But Shen Yunshu had already gone limp and fainted in his arms. No matter how he questioned her, she wouldn’t respond.
Given the distinction between men and women, he found himself in a dilemma—to hold her or not to hold her. Moreover, she was his future sister-in-law, so he couldn’t just leave her be. Gritting his teeth, he resolutely carried her to his own carriage, then stepped down to search for the “Xiao Lan” she had mentioned.
But after looking around, he couldn’t find anyone by that name and had no choice but to return to the carriage.
Unwilling to enter the compartment, he sat outside instead, unfurling a folding fan to gently waft a breeze toward Shen Yunshu inside. He murmured to himself, “How did she get so drunk? I don’t smell any alcohol on her, and her face isn’t flushed either…”
Most intoxicated people have rosy cheeks, but the woman in the carriage showed no such blush. Instead, her skin was translucent and clear, radiating a serene aura.
With her eyes closed, she leaned quietly against the carriage wall, her honey-colored pleated skirt pooling around her like a blossoming flower. The understated hue accentuated her tranquil, almost ethereal beauty. Though he had seen her many times before, this was the first time he had witnessed her graceful sleeping countenance, and the sight briefly captivated the inexperienced young man.
Realizing he had overstepped, Pei Huaian quickly averted his gaze, focusing on the flowers, the trees, the horses—anything but another glance into the carriage.
The autumn sky was a clear, profound blue, and a few osmanthus trees planted in the backyard wafted intermittent waves of fragrance.
When Shen Yunshu awoke, she opened her eyes to see the handsome profile of the young man outside the partially drawn curtain, bathed in sunlight.
He had plucked a blade of grass from somewhere and was chewing on it idly, tilting his head back to gaze at the sky.
She casually glanced up at the vast, high sky and noticed the sun had shifted significantly westward. She estimated she must have slept for about two hours.
As she stirred, he immediately heard the movement and turned to look at her. His bright, phoenix-like eyes were clear and alert: “Sister-in-law, you’re finally awake. If you’d slept any longer, I would have starved to death…”
He had originally arranged to meet friends here to sample the restaurant’s new dishes but ended up stranded by this carriage. His friends had come by several times to hurry him along, but he shielded the carriage, urging them to go ahead and eat.
A quarter of an hour earlier, his satisfied friends had all departed, not even bothering to bring him back a bite to eat—not even a simple biscuit.
“Didn’t I ask you to take me to find Tinglan?” Shen Yunshu rubbed her stiff neck as she stepped out of the carriage.
“I didn’t catch her name clearly. So, she’s called Tinglan,” Pei Huaian said, leaping down from the carriage in one fluid motion. He adjusted his sleeve and offered his arm for her to steady herself, making sure she held onto the fabric of his sleeve. He couldn’t help adding a few words of caution, “Sister-in-law, you really shouldn’t drink so much in the future, especially when you’re out alone. It’s fortunate you ran into me this time. If you’d encountered some ill-intentioned scoundrel, the consequences would have been unthinkable…”
“I wasn’t drunk,” Shen Yunshu replied, not wanting her future brother-in-law to mistake her for a woman fond of drink. After a moment’s thought, she explained, “I must have eaten something bad. Yes, a mild poisoning…”
“Poisoned?” he exclaimed in surprise. “Should I take you to a clinic then?”
“No need. I feel fine now, so it should be alright.” Though the young man before her was dressed in luxurious silks, his nature remained simple and sincere. Shen Yunshu couldn’t help but feel her fondness for him grow.
She looked at him steadily, and a brilliant idea suddenly occurred to her.
“Pei Huaian, how would you like to marry my Third Sister?”
The young man, who was so hungry his chest was pressed against his back, was startled and looked at her incredulously: “Sister-in-law, although I helped you today, there’s no need for your sister to pledge herself to me in marriage, is there?”