She simply sat there, neither impatient nor angry, quietly watching the back of her son’s head as Shen Jinghong buried his face in the pillow.
The room was so silent that they could hear birds chirping in the old locust tree outside the window.
“…I really just went there to drink.”
Shen Jinghong repeated himself in a muffled voice.
This time, his voice was even lower, as though he were trying to convince himself.
Liu Yunshuang remained silent.
After waiting a long while without getting any reaction from his mother, Shen Jinghong cautiously tilted his head and peeked out through a gap beside the pillow.
Liu Yunshuang was still watching him.
There was even the faintest smile on her lips, an expression that plainly said:
Let’s see how long you can keep this up.
Shen Jinghong buried his face back into the pillow and let out a miserable groan.
“Mother, could you stop looking at me like that?”
“How am I looking at you?”
“Just… that look.”
He spoke vaguely.
“The kind that makes it seem like you can see every thought in my head.”
“I don’t know whether you’ve got worms in your stomach,” Liu Yunshuang said leisurely, “but as for you, I can guess quite a few things.”
Shen Jinghong’s back stiffened again.
“I’m not thinking about anything.”
“Did I say you were?”
Rendered speechless, Shen Jinghong shoved his face deeper into the pillow.
“I just wanted to see the flower spirit again…”
The room fell silent.
Liu Yunshuang looked at her son as if he had lost his mind.
“What did you say?”
Shen Jinghong buried his face deeper into the pillow.
“I said… I want to see the flower spirit.”
Liu Yunshuang was silent for three seconds.
Then she reached over and touched his forehead, then her own.
Frowning, she muttered,
“No fever…”
“Mother!”
Shen Jinghong jerked his head away and protested.
“I’m not sick!”
“Then why are you talking nonsense?”
Liu Yunshuang folded her arms and looked down at him.
“A flower spirit? Have you been reading too many ghost stories?”
“I’ve never read those stories.”
“Then where did you hear about a flower spirit?”
He hesitated before answering in an even softer voice.
“Last time at Peach Blossom Village, Fang Ziheng told a story. He said there was a peach blossom spirit there that seduced young men and stole their life force…”
Liu Yunshuang’s expression shifted from concern to disdain, then to a helpless look that seemed to ask:
How did I give birth to this child?
“So you believed him?”
Her voice rose slightly.
“You’re the legitimate son of the Zhenbei General’s residence, and you were frightened by a ghost story you heard in a teahouse?”
“I wasn’t frightened!”
Shen Jinghong lifted his head.
His face was bright red, whether from lying face-down for so long or for some other reason.
“I just… I just…”
He stammered several times without finishing the sentence.
Finally, he buried his face in the pillow again.
His voice was so quiet it was almost inaudible.
“…I wanted to see her one more time.”
Liu Yunshuang frowned.
There was something different in those words.
Not his usual carefree nonsense.
Something she rarely saw in Shen Jinghong.
Sincerity.
“Jinghong.”
She sat back down beside the bed, her voice gentler now.
“What exactly are you talking about? What flower spirit? What do you mean, see her again? Explain clearly.”
Shen Jinghong lay silently for a long time.
So long that Liu Yunshuang thought he had fallen asleep.
Just as she was about to nudge him, he suddenly spoke.
“The last time we were at Peach Blossom Village, everyone was drinking tea and chatting in the pavilion. I wandered off by myself.”
“Mhm.”
“When I got to the peach grove in the back, I saw someone.”
Liu Yunshuang listened quietly.
His voice grew even softer, almost as if he were speaking to himself.
“She was standing beneath an old peach tree, looking at the blossoms. She wore a pink dress. When the wind blew, flower petals fell all over her.”
He paused.
“She turned and looked at me once…”
Another pause.
“I think I…”
Liu Yunshuang waited.
“But after that one glance, she left.”
He continued softly.
“That look in her eyes…”
“So you decided she was a flower spirit?”
Liu Yunshuang’s tone was complicated.
“What else could she be?”
Shen Jinghong turned his head enough to reveal one eye.
“How can a normal person be that beautiful?”
Liu Yunshuang took a deep breath and slowly let it out, suppressing the urge to strangle her son.
“So,” she said carefully, “you went to find Fang Ziheng because you wanted to ask him how to see that flower spirit again?”
Shen Jinghong buried his face back in the pillow and gave a muffled:
“Mhm.”
“Fang Ziheng knows all kinds of ridiculous stories,” he explained. “I thought… since he knew about peach blossom spirits, maybe he’d know how to find her again…”
“And that’s why you ended up drinking at a brothel?”
“It wasn’t my idea!”
Shen Jinghong hurried to defend himself.
His voice echoed through the pillow.
“When I went to find him, he was already meeting some friends at Yicui Pavilion to listen to music. He said some new girls had arrived who were skilled at playing the pipa, and that people were easier to talk to after a few drinks… so I followed them…”
“Easier to talk to after a few drinks?”
Liu Yunshuang’s voice cooled noticeably.
Realizing he had slipped up, Shen Jinghong froze.
“Mother, I was only trying to get information out of him…”
His voice grew smaller and smaller.
“I had a few extra cups… Who knew the wine was so strong? Before I knew it, I was drunk… and then Father showed up…”
“And then you announced in front of everyone that you’d rather marry a courtesan than a sickly woman?”
Shen Jinghong buried his face so deeply into the pillow that it seemed he wanted to suffocate himself.
“…I was drunk. I couldn’t control my mouth.”
Liu Yunshuang stared at him for a long time.
Finally she said:
“Jinghong.”
“Mhm?”
“Lift your head and look at me.”
After a moment’s hesitation, he slowly raised his face and turned toward her.
The pallor left by his injuries still lingered on his face, and his eyes were faintly red.
Looking at him, Liu Yunshuang’s heart softened.
The boy really did look like her.
Sharp brows, bright eyes, a straight nose, red lips, white teeth a strikingly handsome young man who attracted attention wherever he went.
But his brain…
She sighed inwardly.
Whose side of the family did that come from?
“Jinghong.”
Her voice softened.
“I’m going to tell you some truths. Listen carefully.”
Shen Jinghong obediently nodded.
“First.”
She raised one finger.
“There are no flower spirits in this world. The girl you saw at Peach Blossom Village was a person, not a spirit. There are many beautiful people in this world. You simply haven’t seen enough of them.”
Shen Jinghong opened his mouth to argue but closed it again.
“Second.”
She raised another finger.
“Even if she really were some flower spirit, you wouldn’t find her by drinking at a brothel. Fang Ziheng is half a fool. Why would you take his stories seriously? If he truly knew how to find flower spirits, why hasn’t he found one himself?”
Shen Jinghong looked as though he wanted to defend Fang Ziheng, but ultimately remained silent.
“Third.”
She raised a third finger and looked directly at him.
“Your father didn’t beat you because you went drinking with courtesans.”
Shen Jinghong blinked.
“Then why?”
“Because you’ve made no progress.”
Her voice wasn’t harsh, but every word landed clearly.
“Your father spent three months pleading with the Grand Tutor on your behalf. He put his own reputation on the line to guarantee you.
“And what have you done during the past month?
“You sneaked out drinking. You fell from a horse at the racetrack. You spent a night kneeling in the ancestral hall.
“Tell me which of those actions belongs to a man preparing to take a wife?”
Shen Jinghong pressed his lips together.
“Now the entire capital knows that General Shen’s son was drinking at a brothel.
“What do you think the Grand Tutor thinks of that?
“What do you think Miss Fu thinks of that?
“Your father struggled to earn those three months for you, and you’ve wasted nearly all of it in just one.”
“I never wanted to marry her anyway,” Shen Jinghong muttered.
Liu Yunshuang did not get angry.
She simply looked at him quietly.
“Then tell me. Who do you want to marry? That flower spirit?”
Shen Jinghong’s face instantly turned crimson.
The blush spread from his cheeks to his ears, down his neck, even coloring the exposed nape of his neck pink.
“I I never said I wanted to marry her!”
His voice was flustered and defensive.
“I just want to see her one more time! Just one more time!
“I don’t even know whose daughter she is, what her name is, or where she lives. How could I marry her? Marry what?”
Looking at his reddened face and evasive eyes, Liu Yunshuang understood everything.
After a moment, she sighed softly.
“Jinghong.”
“Mhm?”
“You’re nineteen this year.”
Her voice was gentle.
“There are some things you should be able to distinguish by now.”
He looked at her, confused.
“There are no flower spirits in this world.
“The girl you saw at Peach Blossom Village wasn’t some supernatural creature. She was a living, breathing person.
“A respectable young lady.
“Just like Miss Fu.
“Raised quietly within the inner chambers, minding her own business and harming no one.”
Something flickered in Shen Jinghong’s eyes.
“You don’t even know who she is.
“Yet just to see her one more time, you went drinking at a brothel, got completely drunk, babbled nonsense in that kind of place, and got beaten halfway across the city by your father.
“Don’t you think the entire thing is absurd from beginning to end?”
Shen Jinghong said nothing.
The redness gradually faded from his face.
In its place appeared something entirely unfamiliar.
A bewilderment he had never experienced before.
A feeling of not knowing what to do.
Looking at him, Liu Yunshuang sighed inwardly again.
She reached out and gently patted the back of his head.
This time it wasn’t a smack.
It was comforting.
“Enough.”
She stood up and pulled the blanket higher over his shoulders.
“Think about it carefully.
“You still have two months left.
“You know what that means.”
Turning toward the door, she walked away.
At the doorway she paused.
“Take care of your injuries.”
Then she lifted the curtain and left.
Her footsteps gradually faded into the distance.
Shen Jinghong remained motionless on the bed for a very long time.
At last, he slowly lifted his face from the pillow, rolled onto his back, and stared up at the canopy.
The movement pressed against the wounds on his back.
He winced in pain.
But he didn’t move again.
He simply lay there stiffly, staring at the ceiling above.
“Flower spirit…”
he murmured softly.