In her previous life, Song Qinghe had come to beg him as well.
He had gone to ask the old madam. The old madam said the match was good—the only son of Lord Li, Vice Minister of the Court of State Ceremonial. The family had a clean reputation, a simple household, and the man himself was proper. It was considered a decent marriage.
Song Qinghe was already sixteen. It really was time to think about marriage. Since the match sounded good, marrying her off seemed reasonable enough.
So he didn’t interfere.
Matters of marriage within the inner household were never something he was meant to handle anyway. The old madam had always doted on Song Qinghe, and since she was personally overseeing the marriage, there was nothing for him to worry about.
But only after Song Qinghe married did he learn the truth. The Li family looked clean on the surface, but in reality, it was a den of wolves.
Later, Song Qinghe came crying to him. Li Ming drank, gambled, and frequented brothels every day. He even seized all of her dowry. If she refused to give him money, he beat her. The Li family spoiled their only son, so all they did was indulge him.
“Brother Shiji, I’m begging you… please help me.” Song Qinghe’s tears hung in her eyes, ready to fall.
Lu Shiji finally spoke. “I will speak to the old madam about this.”
Song Qinghe’s eyes trembled, and hope flared instantly. “Brother Shiji, I—”
“If you don’t want this marriage, forcing it has no meaning,” he said calmly, cutting her off. “But a woman must marry eventually. You can choose for yourself, or let the old madam help you look again. Either way, you will have to marry.”
His indifferent voice stopped her words cold.
Song Qinghe’s expression stiffened. Her tear-filled eyes stared at him blankly. “But I don’t want to marry. I just want to stay in the Duke’s household. I want to…”
…stay by your side.
When she saw the cold distance in Lu Shiji’s eyes, the rest of her words lodged in her throat. She couldn’t say them.
“You should go,” he said.
Lu Shiji lifted his foot and walked straight into Wenlan Courtyard.
Song Qinghe stood there in a daze, tears falling without her even noticing, as she murmured, “Brother Shiji… doesn’t want me to stay in the Duke’s household?”
Huashan quickly said, “The heir is thinking of what’s best for you. He just wants you to marry into a good family. If you don’t want this marriage, he’s even willing to help you refuse it. Who else has the heir ever cared about like this?”
Song Qinghe’s gaze flickered. She tightened her grip on her handkerchief. “Brother Shiji has always treated me the best.”
“Of course. At least right now, because you don’t want it, the heir is willing to step in for you. His feelings—don’t you understand them?”
Song Qinghe wiped her tears with the handkerchief and took a deep breath. “Of course I understand.”
From beginning to end, they had always been the most important people to each other.
As long as she stayed by his side until the end, he would understand one day.
Song Qinghe turned around and suddenly saw Shen Lichu walking toward her.
Lichu was holding her handwritten pages, happily coming to ask Cousin Brother for guidance. She hadn’t expected to see Song Qinghe in tears just outside Wenlan Courtyard, and she froze.
“Miss Song, what’s wrong…?”
Song Qinghe wiped her eyes and said coolly, “Nothing. The wind got in my eyes.”
“Oh…” Lichu didn’t press further.
Everyone had things they couldn’t talk about. It wasn’t her place to pry.
“Then, I’ll go look for Cousin Brother,” Lichu said. Not wanting to linger and make things awkward, she hurried into Wenlan Courtyard.
Song Qinghe turned back and watched as Shen Lichu entered Wenlan Courtyard without any trouble at all. No one stopped her.
Her expression changed slightly.
If it were someone else’s courtyard, coming and going freely wouldn’t mean much. But Brother Shiji—she knew him best.
He liked peace and quiet and never allowed people to enter his courtyard casually.
Even she had to wait outside if she came without prior notice.
So why did Shen Lichu get special treatment?
A ridiculous thought quietly surfaced in Song Qinghe’s mind—only to be rejected at once.
How could that be possible?!
Shen Lichu was a daughter of the Shen family. How could Brother Shiji treat her differently? He practically wanted her dead.
There had to be another reason. Brother Shiji must have his own plans. It had to be that.
Repeating this to herself, Song Qinghe finally managed to calm her restless heart. She turned and left.
Lichu knew nothing about any of this. She walked in with light, eager steps.
She had already said the day before that she would come to ask Cousin Brother for guidance on her writing, so the servant at the gate didn’t stop her. When he saw her, he simply ushered her inside.
Lu Shiji was in the study by the lakeside pavilion. It was June, but the weather wasn’t too hot yet, and the breeze by the water was cool. All four sides of the pavilion were open, and the wind passed straight through, fresh and soothing.
Lu Shiji stood by the window with his hands behind his back. He wore a pale jade-colored robe, his hair tied with a brocade band, the fabric and ribbons gently stirred by the breeze.
Lichu looked over and felt as if she were seeing a banished immortal who had stepped down from the heavens. She froze without realizing it.
Lu Shiji noticed her gaze and turned to look at her. His dark, deep eyes seemed to see straight through her.
Lichu snapped back to her senses, her eyes flickering. She quickly walked in. “Cousin Brother.”
She offered up the pages she had written as if presenting a treasure. “I stayed up late last night copying several pages of your writing. I’d like to trouble Cousin Brother to give me some guidance. Do you think I wrote them well?”
Lu Shiji took them casually and looked at the crooked, uneven characters covering the page.
Xiping, standing to the side, glanced over and couldn’t help but twitch at the corner of his mouth.
Written like this, and she was still asking if it was good?
Lu Shiji wasn’t surprised at all. He had long been familiar with Shen Lichu’s terrible handwriting.
In his previous life, he had once tried to teach her calligraphy. She never had the patience for it, went through the motions, and after more than half a year, there was still no improvement at all.
Now, though, she seemed motivated.
These pages were still a mess, but at least it was clear she had written each stroke seriously.
“Not bad,” he said.
Xiping’s eyes widened instantly. He almost wondered if he had misheard.
Lichu’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
Lu Shiji set the pages on the desk, then picked up a wolf-hair brush with long fingers and dipped it in red ink. He circled a few spots on the paper.
“Here, your strength is too heavy. You need to hold back a bit.”
He wrote a horizontal stroke beside it. “When you finish the stroke, gently draw the tip downward.”
He wasn’t sitting stiffly at the desk. Instead, he stood casually beside it, bending slightly as he sketched on the paper.
Because he leaned down, Lichu could easily see his face up close.
His eyes were lowered, hiding their clear sheen. She stared without blinking at his eyelashes. They were so long.
“Do you understand?” he suddenly lifted his gaze, those dark eyes looking straight at her.
Caught completely off guard, Lichu hurriedly looked away, focusing on the paper he had marked. “Y-yes, I understand!”
“What do you understand?” he asked.
Lichu: “…”
What did she understand? She hadn’t been listening at all.
She held it in for a long moment but couldn’t say a word. Her cheeks flushed red, and she didn’t dare look at him.
He was still slightly bent over. She stood beside him, the distance between them very small.
So close that he could see the faint blush on her small face, her trembling lashes, and the tiny jade earring hanging from her delicate earlobe.
His gaze lingered on the gently swaying earring, and he remembered the way her body trembled.
The fingers holding the brush tightened slightly, his eyes darkening.
He wanted to bite it into his mouth.