Even though he had already steeled himself, Yan Feng'an still froze for a moment when he turned around.
As the saying goes, fine clothes make the man, just as a saddle makes the horse. Seeing Wen Xi now, Yan Feng'an truly felt the truth of those words. Wen Xi's old clothes had been ragged, worn, and ill-fitting, and wearing them had always given him a strangely comical air.
The new clothes had been made to Yan Feng'an's own measurements, tailored with care, the length just right, subtly accentuating Wen Xi's waist. The pale blue was elegant without being dull, brightening even his formerly drab appearance.
Wen Xi blushed under his gaze, head lowered, hands awkwardly clutching his sleeves as he stammered softly, "H-how… how is it?"
Yan Feng'an walked over with a smile. "The clothes look lovely, and so do you."
Wen Xi, long accustomed to playing the timid quail, couldn't bear such direct praise. The flush burned all the way down his neck, and he wished he could bury his head in the ground.
Yan Feng'an gently pinched his chin, forcing him to lift his head, his tone gentle yet firm. "When you wear new clothes, you should show them off openly. Stop hunching your shoulders and hanging your head. Such a beautiful, well-fitted outfit—no one is going to laugh at you."
The old Yan Feng'an would never have spoken to him in such a tone, nor looked at him with such tender eyes.
Their eyes met, impossible to avoid. Wen Xi pulled his hand away and voiced the grievance long buried in his heart: "You used to love laughing at me. You even said I was an ugly little duckling."
Wen Xi was not one for temper, and he had long grown used to others' malice. But whenever he thought of the things Yan Feng'an had once said and done, his heart ached as if pierced by needles.
Yan Feng'an had only meant to give a compliment—who knew it would stir up Wen Xi's painful memories? He reached up and slapped his own mouth. "What a worthless, babbling mouth. Someone as lovely as you—how could you ever be an ugly duckling?"
Aside from the Four Books and Five Classics, Yan Feng'an also read all sorts of other miscellaneous books, but in all his years, he had never once seen the words "ugly duckling" in any of them. That phrase, no doubt, had been brought along by the person who had taken over his body.
Stealing his body was bad enough, but to deliberately bully people on top of it—what a truly despicable piece of work.
"What happened before was my fault…" Don't take it to heart—he couldn't even bring himself to say that second half, empty as it was.
The harm this body had inflicted on Wen Xi was real. If he himself felt wronged, wasn't Wen Xi just as innocent? Some things Wen Xi kept hidden and never said, but Yan Feng'an could not pretend not to know. This marriage had, for Wen Xi, been nothing but an accident from the start. Without making his stance clear, Wen Xi would never be at ease.
He thought that compared to those weightless apologies, what Wen Xi wanted was a promise. He took Wen Xi's hand and said, "Just consider that Yan Feng'an who bullied you dead. You are the husband I married with a proper matchmaker and full rites. No matter how things were between us before, from now on I will live a good life with you."
His hands held tightly in another's grasp, Wen Xi felt shy and awkward, yet he didn't shrink back as he once would have. He bit his lip, eyes red, staring straight at Yan Feng'an, as if waiting to hear what else he might say.
Yan Feng'an did not look away. He said earnestly, "From this day on, for as long as I live, I will never let you suffer the slightest grievance, the slightest harm."
Wen Xi's lips moved, a whole pile of words stuck in his throat, and only a single tear fell.
Yan Feng'an was too good at changing his face; Wen Xi didn't know whether he should believe him or not.
Even though a voice in his heart kept reminding him to stay rational, Yan Feng'an's words still stirred a thread of hope in Wen Xi.
Since marrying into the Yan family, Yan Feng'an really hadn't let him suffer any grievances. Perhaps he would keep being this good in the future?
The tear on his cheek was wiped away by Yan Feng'an, who said helplessly, "I say a few nice words to coax you, and somehow I coax you to tears instead?"
Wen Xi sniffled and muttered quietly, "Easy enough to say. But what if you can't do it?"
A gentleman's promise is worth a thousand gold—if he couldn't even keep that, what kind of man would he be? Yan Feng'an didn't want the atmosphere between them to grow so heavy. Glancing at the green bamboo embroidered on his sleeve, he smiled and said, "If I can't do it, then from now on you can embroider turtles on my clothes whenever you like."
"Why?"
"Someone who doesn't keep his word—what is he if not a turtle and a bastard?"
Wen Xi laughed through his tears and shook his head. "I don't know how to embroider turtles."
After a moment's hesitation, he turned and walked to the wooden bed, pulled out the shoes hidden underneath it, and, gathering his courage, placed them in Yan Feng'an's hands.
As Yan Feng'an took the shoes, the corners of his mouth curved up. "I thought you weren't planning to give them to me."
Wen Xi didn't answer aloud, but thought to himself: I already made them—how could I not give them?
At this moment, Yan Feng'an's mood was much like Wen Xi's upon receiving new shoes. He couldn't wait to put them on and said happily, "Now I have a husband to make shoes for me too. No more troubling the others in the family, and no more envying Big Brother and Second Brother."
Perhaps infected by his joyful mood, Wen Xi unconsciously showed a hint of a smile as well.
The young couple spent a good quarter of an hour trying on their new clothes. Just as He Jin and Li Wan were beginning to wonder what was going on, the two finally emerged from the bedroom.
Dressed in matching new outfits, one was elegant as jade orchid, the other delicate and lovely—they made quite a well-matched pair.
He Jin's eyes lit up, and she spun Wen Xi around in a circle. "What did I tell you? Xiaoxiao looks absolutely beautiful in these clothes."
Chen Lanfang looked at the two of them with indescribable delight. There was no need to say anything about her own son's looks, but she hadn't expected Wen Xi to have such fine features as well.
Perhaps it was that air of meekness about him that was so conspicuous, it made everyone overlook his appearance. When he first married into the Yan family, not only was he thin and small, his face was so pale it was nearly gray, and he was always hunched over with the look of someone used to being bullied—who would have the heart to care what he looked like?
But this past month or so, with the family feeding him well, his health and complexion had recovered considerably. Now his face had a healthy glow, and the red mole on his forehead stood out a little more than before. On closer look, his features were quite striking—especially those eyes, round and clear. If he looked at you with tears welling in them, even the hardest heart would soften.
But Wen Xi rarely met anyone's gaze. Just like now, when he noticed everyone studying him, he awkwardly hunched his shoulders again.
A person's temperament can't be corrected in a short time, and it wasn't realistic to expect him to be as open and at ease as the other two daughters-in-law in the household. Chen Lanfang didn't press him too hard, thinking that with time, everything would come right.
After the group had showered Wen Xi with praise for a while, He Jin's eyes darted slyly as he said, "I'm almost out of embroidery thread for the clothes I'm stitching. Xiao Xi, you're good friends with Yun-ge—could you help me buy some from his house?"
Shen Yun's older brother was a peddler, and he carried all sorts of little household odds and ends. Such a small request—of course Wen Xi wouldn't refuse.
Li Wan said, "The weather's quite nice today. Third Brother, if you've got nothing to do, why not come out for a stroll with us?"
Yan Feng'an had the same idea. He took Wen Xi's hand and said, "I'll go with you."
The two of them didn't even change clothes—they simply headed out together in their new outfits.
Once they had walked some distance away, Chen Lanfang chided, "You two little schemers—what tricks are you plotting behind everyone's backs?"
Li Wan laughed. "Nothing gets past your eyes."
He Jin said meaningfully, "If we don't let our Third Brother and Xi-ge'er go out and show themselves off a bit, some people are going to stare their eyes right out of their sockets."
Seeing that Chen Lanfang was utterly baffled, Li Wan continued, "These past few days, whenever Jin-ge'er and I went out, I spotted that so-and-so at least three times around our neighborhood, all dressed up to the nines. Who knows who she's trying to impress."
He Jin curled his lip. "Isn't that the truth? Her little schemes are laid out in plain sight. Does she really think everyone in our family is blind and stupid?"
Chen Lanfang's brow furrowed. "When the marriage was settled, it was agreed that our two families would go our separate ways and never meddle in each other's affairs. What's gotten into her, coming around to disgust us?"
He Jin said ruefully, "I suppose it's my fault too—for not watching my mouth."
He recounted, from beginning to end, his encounter with Wen Liu at Aunt Zhang's place. Hearing this, Chen Lanfang scoffed, "What was wrong with anything you said? Just because another couple gets along well, it gets in her way?"
Li Wan said, "Exactly. That's why Jin-ge'er and I made up an excuse to send Third Brother and the others out for a stroll—so she'll give up on that idea sooner and stop doing things meant to disgust people."
Lately, Yan Feng'an never mentioned his past with Wen Liu. He was attentive and considerate to Wen Xi in every way, and he was no longer distant and cold toward his family. It truly looked as though he intended to settle down and live a quiet life.
But everyone in the family had seen with their own eyes just how infatuated he had once been with Wen Liu. Who knew—if that person crooked a finger at him, whether he might come scurrying back again?
She and He Jin had deliberately sent the two of them out to buy things partly to show off, and partly as a test. Only if Yan Feng'an truly remained indifferent to Wen Liu could everyone finally set their minds at ease.
Of course, Li Wan couldn't say any of this in front of Chen Lanfang. A mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were different from mother and son after all. If a daughter-in-law wanted to get along with her mother-in-law, the first thing she had to learn was the art of choosing her words—otherwise who knew how much discord would spring up in the family.
The Shen family and the Wen family were in the same direction, on the east side of the village, some distance from the Yan household, so Wen Xi and the others had to walk a while before reaching Shen Yun's home.
By virtue of his status as a xiucai, Yan Feng'an was something of a prominent figure in the village. Add to that the fact that his injury and his marriage had both been the talk of the village, and now, seeing him out and about, everyone couldn't help but study him—and when they caught sight of the ge'er walking beside him, their curiosity only deepened.
The men didn't dare look too closely face-to-face; only after the two had walked some distance away did they lift their eyes to size them up.
Each of them muttered to himself: everyone had known the Wen family's eldest ge'er was good-looking, but who'd have thought this younger one, all dressed up, would turn out so striking too? How had they never noticed before?
Wen Xi knew others were watching him. If Yan Feng'an weren't holding his hand, he would have fled long ago—there was no way he'd let people stare at him like this.
Seeing him shrink back again, Yan Feng'an gave his hand a gentle squeeze and said, "Don't be afraid. Lift your head boldly. If people want to look, let them look their fill. And if you feel offended, then stare right back."
With that, he fixed his gaze steadily on a young man ahead.
The man had been watching Wen Xi, but sensing Yan Feng'an's expression, he realized he'd been rude. He lowered his head and walked a couple of steps forward, but after putting some distance between them, he glanced back, watching their retreating figures with a trace of wistfulness and loss.
Wen Xi didn't notice. He only whispered to Yan Feng'an, "What if someone thinks I'm deliberately provoking them and hits me?"
Hearing this, Yan Feng'an didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Who would hit someone just for a single glance? But since Wen Xi asked, he must truly have experienced something like that before.
At the thought, Yan Feng'an could no longer smile. He wanted to change Wen Xi's temperament, but he would never force him to do something he disliked.
He pulled the man into his arms. "Forget it. If you really can't get used to it, just hide in my arms."
Wen Xi thought that wearing these clothes already made them conspicuous enough, and now Yan Feng'an was doing this on top of it. Even as a married couple, they weren't familiar to this degree. Blushing, he pushed him away, took a deep breath, and slowly lifted his head to look straight at the road ahead.
The hand in his palm grew slightly sweaty. Yan Feng'an said nothing, only smiled faintly and held Wen Xi's hand as they quietly walked on.
Just as Yan Feng'an had said, once Wen Xi carried himself openly, fewer gazes fell on him. It was the first time he realized that the road he had walked countless times before was actually this wide.