Return quickly after feigning death at midnight tonight.
Gu Ning’s fingers traced the handwriting on the note as she lifted her gaze to watch the slowly receding streets. Every household was adorned with bright red lanterns, firecrackers occasionally crackled, and children were building a snowman at the alley entrance.
The snowman was lopsided, with a stone picked up for a nose—utterly ugly. Yet the children clapped around it, laughing joyfully.
Come to think of it, she had built a snowman like that last winter too, with…
Never mind.
Gu Ning sighed and lowered the carriage curtain.
No point dwelling on it. The urgent matter now was to choose a proper “way to die” for herself.
“Miss,” Hong Yao keenly sensed her change in mood, “are you… still a bit reluctant to leave?”
“What is there to be reluctant about?” Gu Ning smiled. “I was just thinking about what we need to buy later.”
To ensure a smooth escape by feigning death tonight without arousing suspicion, Gu Ning spent a long time wandering the market, buying various items like fireworks and firecrackers.
By the time they returned to the Gu residence, it was already dark. As soon as she entered, Gu Ning was “invited” by a maid to Chunxi Courtyard, where Madam Gu resided.
“You wretched girl, you finally remember to come back?!”
The moment Gu Ning stepped over the threshold, before she could utter a single word, Madam Gu launched into a furious tirade. Gu Ning was slightly taken aback.
“I think you’ve truly lost your mind! How dare you come back so late?! Tell me, where have you been fooling around with those unsavory characters?”
Madam Gu’s scolding wasn’t enough to vent her anger, and she actually hurled a teacup straight at Gu Ning’s head!
Gu Ning quickly sidestepped, and the teacup shattered into pieces on the floor with a crash. A small shard flew up and grazed her ankle, making Gu Ning hiss softly in pain.
“Hiss what? You’re nothing but a bastard, yet you’ve learned to act like a delicate young lady?” Madam Gu said coldly. “Kneel!”
“I haven’t done anything wrong. I won’t kneel.”
Gu Ning pulled over a chair and plopped down. Was she joking? She was going to “die” tonight—why should she endure this nonsense?
“You’ve truly rebelled!” Madam Gu slammed the table and stood up. “You wretched girl, what exactly did you say to Young General Shen? You made Lin’er come back with eyes swollen like walnuts from crying.”
No wonder she was so furious the moment Gu Ning returned. It was all because of this.
“Walnuts?”
Gu Ning glanced up at Gu Lin. Gu Lin’s eyes were red at the corners, tear stains still wet on her face, as she tugged pitifully at Madam Gu’s sleeve, adding fuel to the fire.
Gu Ning sneered. “That’s perfect. They can be peeled and eaten.”
As she spoke, she picked up a walnut from the fruit tray nearby, cracked it open, and popped it into her mouth.
“Hey, you wretched girl, you’re going to be the death of me!” Madam Gu was so angry she kept patting her chest to calm herself. “Servants! Slap her mouth for me!”
Two old maids at the door hurriedly acknowledged the order, walked in with their hands hanging, and one of them clamped down on Gu Ning like an iron vise while the other raised her hand high!
“Are you sure you want to hit me, Madam Gu?”
Gu Ning lifted her head and declared loudly, “If you hit me, no one will speak up for you about changing the marriage arrangement!”
The general’s residence likely wouldn’t agree to switch the bride at such a critical moment.
If they had agreed, Gu Lin wouldn’t have cried like this.
But after what happened, they still wouldn’t agree? A flicker of mockery passed through Gu Ning’s eyes. Hah, men.
“If I’m not mistaken, it was General Shen who insisted on not changing the person,” Gu Ning paused as she caught Gu Lin’s resentful glare from the corner of her eye, deliberately letting out a light laugh. “He simply doesn’t think much of your precious Lin.”
“What are you so smug about?!” Madam Gu sneered. “You’re nothing but a fake! If it weren’t for the Gu family’s status as a noble house, do you think you could have…”
Madam Gu was about to continue her tirade when Gu Lin suddenly tugged at her sleeve.
Gu Lin spoke timidly, “Sister Ning, is what you said true?”
Gu Ning peeled another walnut, raising an eyebrow to look at her without saying a word.
Gu Lin gritted her teeth, her eyes welling up with tears once more. “What happened during the day was indeed my fault, but my admiration for General Shen is genuine!
“Sister, you’ve stayed at home all these years, cultivating so many talents. Those who admire you are as numerous as fish in the river, unlike me…”
“Don’t try to guilt-trip me with that moral coercion,” Gu Ning interrupted impatiently. “Fine, I’ll help persuade him.”
Once she was “dead,” Shen Jinyan would have no moral obligations. There would be no need for persuasion—he would agree to the change himself.
She pulled a jade pendant from her waist and placed it on the table. “A token. Keep it safe.”
With that, she turned and left.
The mutton-fat jade pendant was intricately carved with a design of two fish playing among lotus flowers. The two small fish, one biting the other’s tail and the other connecting head to tail, appeared intimate, just as they had once been.
Gu Lin hurriedly reached for it, but in her haste, the pendant slipped from her hand and fell to the ground. A crack now separated the two fish, like an impassable chasm.
…
The matching jade pendant lay quietly in Shen Jinyan’s hand.
He rubbed the two small fish carved on the pendant, his eyes reddening.
“Young General,” the attendant Qingshu entered. “The Gu family has sent someone to ask for the third time this month about the engagement… Should we change it to the Second Miss Gu? After all, she is the true…”
“No change!”
Qingshu hesitated, then ventured cautiously, “And what about the Eldest Miss Gu…”
“From now on, consider her dead. Do not mention her again!”
The thought of the secret letter he had received a few days ago filled Shen Jinyan’s heart with bitterness.
Did she think he didn’t know? She had approached him only for the Purple-Sight Grass from their general’s estate. Her childhood sweetheart, far away in Jiangnan, needed that herb to save his life.
Her kindness, her smiles, their engagement—all of it was for…
Hmph, if she didn’t care for him, he wasn’t going to cling to her either!
Qingshu dared not speak further.
On the desk lay a stack of wedding invitations, some already inscribed with names. All of them had been written by him over the past few days. Shen Jinyan set down the jade pendant and picked up one of them. The red paper, splashed with ink and faintly scented, shimmered with specks of gold under the candlelight.
Staring at the handwriting, Shen Jinyan suddenly gripped both ends of the invitation and tore it apart. Rip— The invitation split in two, though a part remained connected. Suddenly feeling it was pointless, he tossed it aside.
He slumped over the desk, resting his face on the jade pendant, his hand covering his expression.
“…Did she send any message?”
After a long silence, a muffled, faint voice emerged.
Qingshu almost thought he had misheard. It took him a moment to realize “she” referred to Gu Ning. Hesitating, he replied, “Perhaps it’s too late now… There hasn’t been any.”
“It’s late now, but what about during the day?”
“Eldest Miss Gu seemed to go shopping. She bought quite a few… fireworks and firecrackers. Perhaps she intends to… to…”
“To what?”
“To bid farewell to the old and welcome the new.”
As if to confirm Qingshu’s words, firecrackers suddenly crackled outside, mingled with the exclamations of the crowd. Fireworks burst one after another in the night sky, and the festive atmosphere of the New Year washed over them.
“…What’s there to welcome? Can’t we just live well with the old?”
In a brief lull between the firecracker explosions, Qingshu faintly heard these words.
A capable servant should take the initiative to share his master’s burdens.
The capable servant Qingshu thought for a moment. “Then… should I go tomorrow and hint to the maidservant by Miss Gu’s side?”
Otherwise, with the young general’s stubborn temperament, he might never find his way out of this dead end.
“Don’t you dare go!”
He buried his face in his arms. “And don’t mention her again.”
From now on, he would consider the Gu Ning who had once liked him as dead.
They were back to square one.
Qingshu sighed and was about to persuade him further when a sudden commotion erupted.
Someone was shouting loudly as they ran past on the street, their footsteps chaotic. The noise grew louder until Shen Jinyan finally made out the words.
“Fire! Quick, put out the fire!”
“The flames are too big! They can’t be extinguished!”
“Where’s the fire?” a servant keeping watch outside the window asked curiously.
“They say it’s at the residence of Minister Gu on Chuiyu Street in the west. The fire is raging—probably many will die. What a tragedy!”
“Screech—” The legs of a chair scraped sharply across the floor.
The study door swung violently as a figure rushed out of the room. By the time Qingshu regained his senses, Shen Jinyan had already vanished.