“ Nanny Wu, do I have to go?”
Wen Yunwan tried to bargain a little.
“Good girl, she’s Madam’s closest friend. You have to show Madam some consideration, don’t you?”
Nanny Wu’s heart softened, and she could only coax her gently.
Wen Yunwan tried acting spoiled—and failed.
“All right, then. For Mother’s sake.”
Nanny Wu smiled with her lips pressed together. “It could only be our Second Young Miss. You’re the one who loves Madam the most.”
Wen Yunwan proudly lifted her chin. “Of course. I like Mother best.”
When Wen Yunwan arrived in the front hall, Nanny Wu watched her smiling face collapse before her very eyes. She drooped and called out, “Aunt An.” Liaoyi
“Oh, Yunwan’s here?”
Madam Zhou waved to her affectionately. “Come here and let Aunt An have a look at you.”
Wen Yunwan walked over and was immediately pulled into Madam Zhou’s arms. The other woman looked at her with a beaming smile, praising her to Madam Lin.
“This child has grown so quickly. When I saw her last year, she was only this tall.”
“She’s so fair and tender-looking, and she’s becoming more beautiful by the day.”
Madam Lin nodded along politely, growing increasingly puzzled as she looked at her daughter.
What was wrong with this girl today?
“This is your Brother Huai’an. Do you still remember him?”
Madam Zhou pulled over the young man who had been standing to one side. He smiled gently at Wen Yunwan. “Sister Yunwan, it’s been a long time.”
Wen Yunwan called him Brother Huai’an, but Liaoyi couldn’t help comparing him with someone else.
Why was he so short?
Even with Song Yanzhou’s malnourished body, she only came up to his shoulder. How was it that she reached Zhou Huai’an’s chin?
Looking more closely at his face, she found herself wondering: How could the legitimate eldest son, raised in such comfort at home, still not be as fair as Song Yanzhou? His face wasn’t as handsome as Song Yanzhou’s, either. Why had she ever thought Zhou Huai’an was good-looking?
Wen Yunwan was studying Zhou Huai’an with a critical eye, but in his eyes, that look took on an entirely different meaning.
Zhou Huai’an’s heart settled.
Wen Yunwan was still the same Wen Yunwan. The moment she saw his face, she could no longer tear her eyes away.
Madam Zhou lowered her head with a smile, then pulled over Zhou Shuangmian, who was standing nearby. “Come over and greet Sister Yunwan.” Liaoyi
Zhou Shuangmian called out to her obediently, raising gooseflesh all over Wen Yunwan’s body. Liaoyi
“All right, you young people go play on your own.”
Seeing the situation, Madam Zhou hurriedly ushered them outside.
Madam Lin glanced at Wen Yunwan. “Wanwan, do you want to go out and play?”
In other words, if she didn’t want to go, she could refuse.
But Wen Yunwan had her own plan. She smiled at Madam Lin. “I do.”
Seeing that she had no objections, Madam Lin said nothing more. After instructing her to bring more people along, she let the children leave.
Watching them walk away, Madam Zhou sighed as though casually. “Ah, the children have grown up. They’ve got little thoughts of their own now.”
Madam Lin agreed wholeheartedly.
Her precious daughter had been acting strange since yesterday.
Seeing her nod, Madam Zhou ventured, “Don’t you think our Huai’an and your Yunwan look rather well-matched?”
Madam Lin whipped her head around so sharply that she nearly strained her neck.
“Yunwan, where are we going?”
Zhou Huai’an asked her gently.
Wen Yunwan shot him a sidelong glance. “The racetrack.”
“What?!”
A shrill voice suddenly pierced her ear. Wen Yunwan rubbed it and frowned at Zhou Shuangmian. “Why are you shouting so loudly? Are you applying for a job with an opera troupe?”
With no elders present, Zhou Shuangmian dropped her pretense completely. “What do you mean? We came all the way from Yangzhou to visit you, and you’re taking us to a racetrack? Don’t you have any manners befitting a proper young lady?”
She gave a snort. “My brother has already passed the provincial examination, and next year he’ll be going to Shengjing to sit for the metropolitan examination. His future is boundless! The kind of woman he likes isn’t someone who spends her time riding horses.” Liaoyi
Zhou Huai’an followed quietly beside her without saying a word in protest.
Useless.
So Wen Yunwan said lightly, “I know.”
Zhou Huai’an liked quiet, delicate women. That was why the Zhou family had mistaken her for someone easy to handle.
Zhou Shuangmian snorted. “Good. Then hurry up and change it to boating on the lake or something.” As she spoke, she smoothed down a stray lock of hair. “A proper young lady goes boating on the lake and drinks tea. That’s what matters.”
“I’m not changing it.”
Wen Yunwan reached the carriage and looked at the Zhou siblings with a bright smile. “I like riding horses. It’s all I want to do right now, too. If you want to go boating on the lake, I’ll have the coachman take you there.”
“You…”
Zhou Shuangmian was so furious that she started rolling up her sleeves, but Zhou Huai’an stopped her.
His smile remained gentle. “If Yunwan wants to ride, then we’ll go riding.”
As he spoke, he took a step toward her.
Wen Yunwan raised a hand to stop him.
“The carriage for you two is behind this one.”
After saying that, Wen Yunwan climbed into the carriage briskly. She didn’t wait for them and simply ordered the coachman to set off.
The Zhou siblings, left standing there, gritted their teeth before climbing into the carriage behind them.
As soon as they got in, Zhou Shuangmian couldn’t help asking, “Brother, how could she…”
The gentle smile had already vanished from Zhou Huai’an’s face, replaced by vicious calculation.
“The racetrack has its own way of handling things. Listen to me in a moment.”
He had no idea what Wen Yunwan had been through, but he had plenty of ways to make her become utterly devoted to him.
“Jieyuan Song, you’re here.”
The racetrack owner smiled so broadly that he could barely close his mouth, but sweat had broken out all over his back. “As you can see, I’m a little busy. Your compensation has already been decided. How about I go attend to the guests over there first and have my steward discuss it with you?” Liaoyi
The young man was wearing the same patched clothes as always, and his face was unchanged. Yet the two words “jieyuan” made the racetrack owner feel an urgent sense of danger.
That danger came from the young man’s eyes.
In the past, whenever he came, he would simply lower his head and work. The racetrack was full of rough men, and their words were crude. They never stopped mocking him for being dirt-poor yet still trying to study. Some laughed at his wild fantasies; others laughed at him for daydreaming. But he seemed accustomed to such ridicule and had never paid it any mind.
Perhaps it was because the young man had become a jieyuan that the racetrack owner seriously looked at the eyes so often hidden beneath his long lashes for the first time.
The calm in those eyes did not belong to a young man—especially not to a young man who had become a jieyuan.
That calm made the racetrack owner extremely uneasy. Almost without thinking, he blurted out, “Oh, right. The compensation is forty taels of silver. If the steward deducts any of it, come straight to me. I’ll make sure you receive justice.”
Forty taels—twenty more than the original amount.
“That will do.”
With the young man’s agreement, the owner breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly summoned the steward who had dealt with him before. Liaoyi