Tang Jiayu leaned by the window, knotting cords, when she saw Zhenchun return from outside, her face beaming with joy. After exchanging a few words with someone, Zhenchun slipped back into the side room as if nothing had happened.
Tang Jiayu sneered inwardly, knowing that the letter she had deliberately written for Wei Chengjun had already been sent out.
At dinnertime, a crowd of guards suddenly appeared outside Tang Jiayu's courtyard. Tang Guangcheng had inexplicably changed his mind—the house arrest that had already been lifted was tightened once more, forbidding Tang Jiayu from stepping outside.
With people standing watch outside, everything became inconvenient, and the maids grumbled endlessly. Yet Tang Jiayu, the one suffering most, merely acknowledged it with a sound, as if she had no opinion on the matter.
What opinion could she have? Eloping was the stupidest thing in the world—she would never do it. The time and place she had specified in the letter were deliberately written for Wei Chengjun to see.
The people around Tang Jiayu were a tangled web. The maids appeared to get along harmoniously, like close sisters, but in truth each harbored hidden motives, serving different masters. Tang Jiayu made use of their identities precisely to create gaps in information.
Because the letter she had truly sent to Li Zhaoji had arranged to meet the night before.
Last night, at the beginning of the hai hour.
Tang Jiayu threw on a cloak and paced back and forth beneath the wisteria trellis in the back courtyard. Whether Li Zhaoji would actually come, she had no confidence at all.
The appointed time had already passed. Tang Jiayu stood beneath the trellis, her heart sinking bit by bit. The autumn night was bright with moon and sparse with stars, the cold wind rustling, fallen leaves whispering throughout the courtyard as if mocking Tang Jiayu for her self-flattery.
It seemed he wasn't coming.
Tang Jiayu pulled her cloak tighter, chilled by the coldness at her fingertips. Not sleeping properly at night, scheming and sneaking out to wait for some foolish boy—she really must be sick in the head. Tang Jiayu turned to head back. Already in a foul mood, she hadn't taken two steps before something struck the back of her head with a clang, hurting terribly.
Tang Jiayu whirled around in fury and found fruit rolling on the ground. In the tree across from her sat a young man, knees drawn up, lazily tossing a crimson evening berry in his hand.
Clearly, he was the one who had just hit her head.
"I've been sitting here so long, and you didn't even notice?"
Tang Jiayu was about to explode with rage. Bastard—he had arrived long ago and deliberately kept silent, just to watch her make a fool of herself! Tang Jiayu bent down, picked up the fruit, and hurled it at him with all her might.
Li Zhaoji raised an eyebrow, evidently not expecting Tang Jiayu to have such a fiery side. At their last meeting, he had taken her for the good-natured, easily bullied, long-suffering type.
She had a temper—but that only made her more interesting. Li Zhaoji didn't even bother to dodge, sitting there at ease. Tang Jiayu's fruit fell to the ground without even grazing his foot.
Li Zhaoji let out a scoff. With a gentle toss of the fruit in his hand, he once again struck Tang Jiayu precisely on the forehead: "Not only are your eyes bad, your aim is too."
Thud—just from the sound, it was clearly a hard hit. Li Zhaoji waited for Tang Jiayu to erupt. Instead, Tang Jiayu covered her forehead, stood there for a moment, then silently sat down on the steps, picked up the fruit, wiped it, and took a crunching bite.
Li Zhaoji was surprised. Tang Jiayu focused on eating the fruit—he threw one, she ate one, paying him no attention at all.
At this rate, it made him look like the eager one. Li Zhaoji found it thoroughly uninteresting and jumped down from the tree of his own accord. "Is it good?" he asked.
He had just walked closer when a fruit came flying at him with lightning speed—she had actually hidden one in her sleeve. Tang Jiayu lifted her face with a triumphant smile and hurled the half-eaten fruit in her hand at him resentfully: "It's not even good, so sour it's killing me!"
The first time Li Zhaoji got hit, it was because he'd let his guard down. If he fell for it again, all his years of living would have been wasted. Li Zhaoji dodged it with ease and said discontentedly, "If I'd known, I wouldn't have come."
"Who told you to hit me in the head!" Tang Jiayu glared at him furiously, her tone utterly aggrieved. "It hurts so much."
She dragged out the tail of her words, delicate and petulant, making it seem like it was Li Zhaoji's fault—when she had hit him too! Tang Jiayu turned her back to him, and Li Zhaoji also kept a cold face and said nothing. After a while, he couldn't help but lean over to look at her: "Does it really hurt?"
Tang Jiayu knew well enough to quit while she was ahead. She shot him a glance that was half reproach, half complaint, and changed the subject: "Why didn't you tell me you were coming? I thought you wouldn't come at all—I was worried sick."
She scolded, threatened, and begged for mercy—Li Zhaoji knew how to handle all of it. Only when she spoke in that wronged tone, saying she worried about him, did he not know what to do. In his past life, no one had ever spoken to him like this. His father would rebuke him for being rash and impulsive; his subordinates only carried out his orders. No one had ever said to him, I worry about you.
Li Zhaoji was stunned for a moment, then asked in confusion: "What are you worried about?"
The entire city of Bingzhou—even all of Hedong—belonged to his family. Li Zhaoji had martial skills, attendants, and power. He could do as he pleased without restraint. What was there to worry about? It was Tang Jiayu, on the other hand, whose life hung by a thread, who had no strength to truss a chicken—she was the one who should be worrying about herself.
"There's plenty." Tang Jiayu counted on her fingers. "Worried you'd be discovered by my father, worried you'd run into patrol soldiers, worried you'd meet danger walking the night road… What I worried about most was that you wouldn't come."
Li Zhaoji didn't know how to answer. He truly hadn't planned to come. It was only when he was checking the stables before bed that he noticed Ziyan had eaten too much. He took it out for a run, and passing by the Tang residence, he dropped in to take a look.
Communication between men was always brief and clear, but Tang Jiayu was different. Her words always carried so much emotion, like water—impossible to grasp, impossible to cut. Li Zhaoji was used to giving orders and truly didn't know how to deal with a woman, so he could only stay silent.
Seeing that he didn't even know to seize the moment and say something sweet, Tang Jiayu pouted, thinking to herself: what a block of wood. But she could also tell he didn't have much experience with romance. If it were Wei Chengjun, he would know exactly when to give a woman sweetness, coaxing her into continuing to willingly give for him.
By comparison, better to choose the block of wood. Tang Jiayu could only offer him a ladder herself. She patted the stone step beside her: "Aren't you tired standing? Sit down already."
Li Zhaoji glanced at the step and sat down an arm's length away from Tang Jiayu. Tang Jiayu moved over to his side on her own, her red lips firing off questions like a string of firecrackers: "Do you live far from my house?"
Li Zhaoji felt the sudden closeness of her presence at his side, his body tensing unconsciously. He answered honestly: "Not too far, not too close."
"Then can you come see me often?"
Li Zhaoji fell silent, thinking: was there even going to be a next time? That would be a huge waste of time—he didn't have that much free time.
Tang Jiayu, angered, bumped into him: "Next time just say yes, if only to set my heart at ease."
"But…"
"No buts!"
Li Zhaoji fell silent again. Tang Jiayu sighed and said worriedly, "Father has confined me to the house again. I don't know if I'll be able to see you next time. Do you know how to do business?"
Li Zhaoji didn't understand what was going on in her head, or why her words had no logic whatsoever. Li Zhaoji thought about it seriously, then shook his head and said, "I've never tried."
Tang Jiayu looked at him, wanting to speak but hesitating, and furtively glanced around. Li Zhaoji felt compelled to remind her: "There's no one here."
Tang Jiayu breathed a sigh of relief and quickly unfastened her cloak. Li Zhaoji was so startled that he stood up and backed away, thinking, Surely she isn't planning to force things to happen between us? How could a young lady be so…
Li Zhaoji soon realized he was overthinking it. Tang Jiayu took out a golden hairpin, golden earrings, a golden step-shake hairpin, and a golden armlet from inside her cloak, laying them all out on the ground with a clinking and clanking. She counted them, then with great boldness pushed them all in front of Li Zhaoji: "This is my entire fortune. Next time I have guests over, I'm afraid I won't even be able to put together a full set of hair ornaments. Take these and do business with them. When you've made money, come to my house and propose!"
Li Zhaoji was stunned, unable to react: "What do you mean?"
"I mean for you to come marry me!" Tang Jiayu looked up at him, her eyes sincere and bright. "Isn't Father just disdainful of your family's poverty? These ornaments are all pure gold. If you pawn them, they should fetch quite a bit of money. Use that money as capital, find a business to run, and once you've made money, come marry me. By then, Father won't be able to oppose us."
Li Zhaoji looked at the golden ornaments on the ground, then at Tang Jiayu, and for a moment didn't know what to say to her: "How can you be so foolish? With this much gold, who would still marry into the family? Anyone would just take the stuff and run. What would you do then?"
"Would you abandon me?"
Li Zhaoji was taken aback: "I'm reminding you to take good care of your valuables and not to trust others easily, especially men."
"You wouldn't." Tang Jiayu smiled, wrapped the ornaments into a bundle with her cloak, and heedlessly stuffed it into his arms. "Once you've made money, come marry me. I'll wait for you forever."
Li Zhaoji looked at her, at a loss for words: "You completely didn't hear a word I said."
"I understood." Tang Jiayu said indignantly. "I've helped Father review account books too. I'm not a sheltered young lady ignorant of the ways of the world. But you're different. I could feel it from the first moment I saw you—you're an honorable, trustworthy, good man. I believe in you."
Li Zhaoji felt as if something had pricked him, stinging uncomfortably all over. With a dark expression, he pushed the bundle back into her hands. He was the Young Lord of Hedong—taking a woman's jewelry, what would that look like? But Tang Jiayu had already put her hands behind her back and said, "Men and women shouldn't touch each other's hands. If you touch me, you'll have to marry me right now."
Li Zhaoji's hands froze. He had originally planned to force it out of her—with Tang Jiayu's thin arms and legs, could she really resist him? But with her saying that, if he forcibly grabbed her hands, it suddenly felt strange.
As Li Zhaoji stood caught between a rock and a hard place, a warmth suddenly brushed past the side of his face. Li Zhaoji realized what it was and was struck dumb.
While Li Zhaoji was off guard, Tang Jiayu quickly pecked him on the cheek. It was her first time doing such a thing too, and her cheeks burned bright red. Tang Jiayu didn't dare face Li Zhaoji, so she covered her face and ran off quickly.
Li Zhaoji was still frozen in place, filled with disbelief. He had been too careless—he'd let his guard down just because the person in front of him was a woman, and she'd touched his face. If this were on the battlefield, it would have been enough to get him killed several times over.
Tang Jiayu had never expected that when she took the initiative to offer a kiss, what Li Zhaoji was thinking was that he needed to strengthen his defenses against women. Tang Jiayu skipped and hopped past the wisteria trellis, then after some thought decided she still had to say something. She turned back to Li Zhaoji and said, "Don't worry, I'm the only daughter in the family. Even if Father finds out, he won't have the heart to do anything to me—at most he'll just confine me to the house. I won't marry anyone. I'll wait for you forever."
"Wait for you to come back and marry me."
The memory dissipated, and before her eyes was still the boudoir piled with brocade and jeweled cosmetic boxes. In this entire scheme, the most dangerous part was Li Zhaoji—fortunately, he had come. Tang Jiayu had seen Li Zhaoji, and today she had deliberately let Zhenchun deliver the letter on her behalf. She knew Zhenchun would definitely peek, and would definitely tell Wei Chengjun first.
If Wei Chengjun could calmly exchange information with Li Zhaoji, he would discover that Tang Jiayu was sowing discord. There was a risk of her scheme being exposed, but it wasn't great, because people can never be truly honest with one another. Wei Chengjun's jealousy and rage would help Tang Jiayu destroy the evidence. Without that letter, who would know what Tang Jiayu had done?
She was just a good-for-nothing young lady who would do anything for love—what could she possibly do?
She glanced at the now-empty cosmetic box and thought to herself that this time she had paid a heavy price, so Heaven had better be on her side.
Candle shadows flickered, and the wolf head of Iron Kite Hall looked especially cold and vicious. Li Zhaoji sat beneath the lamp, slowly and carefully wiping his blade.
Not far away, Wei Chengjun was laying out the pros and cons to Li Jichen: "Uncle, you shouldn't indulge her any longer. Uncle, out of consideration for her status as a princess, you've been endlessly tolerant of her. She didn't want to learn painting, so you stopped making her. She didn't want to marry, so you let her have her way. Now she dares to go on a hunger strike in protest—who knows whether in the future she'll do something like eloping!"
"Eloping?" Li Jichen frowned deeply. "Even if she's bold and reckless, she's still just a sheltered young lady. It won't come to that."
Wei Chengjun gave a cold snort. It won't come to that? She had clearly already done it. Wei Chengjun's wicked anger surged up again uncontrollably, and he said inadvertently, "I heard from Pang Cheng that she seems to have pieced together The Lingyun Chart?"
Li Jichen did not conceal anything from Wei Chengjun, and nodded: "That's right. The maid has been guiding her to paint all this time, but she has no patience. She can't paint more than a couple of strokes before going off to do something else. Pang Cheng couldn't get anything out of her either—it's truly a headache."
"It's precisely because she's been given too much freedom that she dares to act this way." Wei Chengjun said slowly, "Since she can paint The Lingyun Chart, that means she must know the secret of this painting. A maid is a servant, a father is an elder—there's always a barrier. She won't speak her innermost thoughts. The most suitable person to draw her out is actually a husband. Why not let her marry me, to keep her from being fickle. After we're married, I will strictly control her and make her unravel The Lingyun Chart as soon as possible."
From the main hall came the clear, lingering ring of a blade. Li Jichen and Wei Chengjun turned back. Li Zhaoji unhurriedly picked up a cloth and said, "I lost my sense of proportion. Father and cousin, please continue. Don't mind me."
Wei Chengjun glanced at Li Zhaoji and felt inexplicably that Li Zhaoji was strange today. Wei Chengjun didn't take it to heart and continued urging Li Jichen to betroth Tang Jiayu to him. The blade's cold, clear surface reflected Li Zhaoji's eyes. Li Zhaoji gazed at himself, and beside his ears seemed to ring a woman's voice full of longing.
"Once I've earned money, I'll come marry you."
"I won't marry anyone. I'll wait for you forever."
"Will you leave me behind?"
Li Zhaoji could bear it no longer. With a backhand, he slid the Hengdao back into its long sheath. The candle flame was suddenly snuffed out by the draft, and a sharp clang of metal rang through Iron Kite Hall. Everyone in the hall turned to look at him. This time, even a blind man could tell that Li Zhaoji's mood was off.
Li Zhaoji knew that Tang Jiayu had nothing to do with him, and that The Lingyun Chart concerned the future of Hedong. No matter whom Tang Jiayu married, it was official business. But hearing Wei Chengjun's words, both overt and implied, treat Tang Jiayu as his exclusive possession, he was simply displeased.
She clearly liked him. If Wei Chengjun forced her into marriage, she would surely be heartbroken.
Li Zhaoji told himself that he was merely doing what a man ought to do. He spoke casually, his tone flat: "Since you don't like her, cousin, there's no need to force it. I'll go."