Baili Weisheng, sorrowful?
Jun Buli looked at him in surprise. “What does sorrowful mean?”
“It means troubled.” Baili Weisheng seemed to be genuinely affected, a hint of restlessness and impatience visible on his face. As her master, shouldn’t he be happy that his disciple was fine? What was wrong with him?
Jun Buli had stayed behind because he wanted to ask about Baili Xiaosheng.
He’d thought it over and over—Mother wouldn’t have taken up the matter of Baili Xiaosheng’s marriage prospects without reason. It had to be this annoying scholar who’d been putting ideas in her head all along.
He’d originally intended to interrogate the annoying scholar, to make him drop the idea and hurry up and take Baili Xiaosheng away. But seeing him in such a heavy mood, the words he’d meant to say stuck in his throat.
Though he usually joked around with this fellow without much regard for status, deep down, Uncle Scholar was still an elder to him, and there was a limit to how far any joke should go.
Jun Buli honestly couldn’t recall much about how things had been as a child—only that Baili Xiaosheng had been older than him back then, more worldly, and had disguised herself as a boy. He seemed to remember enjoying tagging happily along behind her. And after that… there wasn’t really much of an “after that.”
As for Baili Xiaosheng, if he had to say whether he’d liked her, he wouldn’t deny that he had, as a child—but that had been a misunderstanding, a young child’s fondness for an older brother figure.
Beyond that, nothing else.
It was only on this return trip that Jun Buli learned Mother had been intentionally trying to match him with Baili Xiaosheng. But he genuinely felt nothing for her—more precisely, to this day, he’d never felt anything for any woman. Feelings like that couldn’t be forced! How could anyone be matched together like that?
He’d always believed that a relationship formed through matchmaking could never be true affection—it was nothing but a forced compromise.
He didn’t lack for women, and if he wasn’t interested, he simply wasn’t interested. Even if it upset Mother, there was nothing he could do about it.
Jun Buli sank into thought, and Baili Weisheng propped his chin on both hands, brow furrowed tight. He, who was always carefree and unrestrained, unattached to anything or anyone.
The memories he’d just relived inside that room had left him deeply unsettled. He disliked that feeling of deep, weighty affection, disliked that feeling of being unable to let go!
And of course, he had even less desire for Baili Xiaosheng, once she remembered everything, to go back to clinging to him every day like before, chasing after him, even bossing him around!
Back then, that girl had been young, and the two of them together had looked like father and daughter. But now, everything was completely different—that annoying girl had blossomed into a graceful young woman, and standing beside him, with his own ageless face, people would surely get the wrong idea!
That kind of misunderstanding was enough to give him chills just thinking about it.
So he wondered—shouldn’t he just leave?
Leave before that annoying girl woke up, so he wouldn’t get stuck and unable to escape!
Thinking this, he slowly turned to look at Jun Buli, about to speak, just as Jun Buli, having finished untangling his own thoughts, ventured to ask, “Scholar, have you noticed my mother’s changed?”
“Hm?” Baili Weisheng was puzzled, not expecting Jun Buli to bring up Ziqing with him.
“She used to be so open-minded, never used to meddle in my personal affairs. But now, she wants to control everything—even the women around me,” Jun Buli complained.
What he really meant to talk about was still the matter of Baili Xiaosheng, just approaching it obliquely.
Baili Weisheng laughed. “I’ll teach you a trick, guaranteed to make her stop meddling with you.”
“Hm?” Jun Buli was all ears.
“Go send Consort Li back to the Li family for good. I guarantee your mother will never again meddle in any of your affairs from then on—she might even leave the capital entirely!” Baili Weisheng said with complete certainty.
If it weren’t for this whole business with Consort Li weighing on Ziqing’s mind, given her temperament, she’d probably have already whisked Jun Beiyue off to some faraway place long ago.
Baili Weisheng’s answer was so cleverly deflecting that Jun Buli didn’t even get the chance to circle back to bringing up Baili Xiaosheng.
He couldn’t be bothered talking to Baili Weisheng any further and stood up to leave.
Baili Weisheng had originally meant to say a few parting words to Jun Buli before slipping away quietly, but seeing how much the boy cared about his own marriage prospects, he decided against saying anything at all.
Watching Jun Buli’s retreating figure, Baili Weisheng broke into a mischievous grin, murmuring under his breath, “If you don’t let go of Consort Li, you can look forward to your mother playing matchmaker with you at her leisure once the baby’s born. I guarantee she’ll try to push every girl in the realm onto you!”
Baili Weisheng chuckled quietly to himself, glanced up at the sky, and lazily rose to his feet. The sky was nearly bright now—it seemed like it was time to go.
He gently pushed open the door and walked to the desk, picking up a brush and leaving only a few words behind: “Master has left. Don’t miss me, don’t look for me. Go get married.”
After setting down the paperweight, he finally turned to look at Baili Xiaosheng on the bed. Unconscious, her expression and color were different from usual—the girl slept peacefully.
After a long moment gazing at her, Baili Weisheng finally said quietly, “Girl, we had a deal, remember? Now that you’ve grown up, Master won’t be taking you home anymore. Go find your own home…”
He paused, a faint trace of reluctance still lingering in his eyes, but it quickly vanished without a trace, replaced instead by a sense of release.
“Farewell, my girl!”
With that quiet goodbye, he gently closed the door, and truly, without a shred of lingering hesitation—remarkable, considering this disciple hadn’t seen him in a full decade.
Ten years ago, she’d been waiting at the Xiao family estate, waiting for him to come find her.
Over those ten years, she’d forgotten everything.
Now, ten years later, just as she was about to remember it all, just as she was about to see him again—he chose to leave before she woke.
No one could see the expression on Baili Weisheng’s face, only the graceful ease of his movements as he leapt onto the rooftop and vanished into thin air.
But almost immediately, a figure darted out from the side, chasing after him.
“Baili Weisheng!”
At such a late hour, it could only be Meng Duo’er.
Baili Weisheng landed on a tree branch and turned back, frowning. “Are you tailing me?”
“I’m chasing you, not tailing you!” Meng Duo’er blurted out. She’d originally come with kind intentions, meaning to bring him some pastries, only to catch him in the act of leaving.
Did this man have no conscience at all?
Just abandoning his disciple like this without a word? Did he have any idea how devastated Baili Xiaosheng would be if she woke up and found out everything?
This utterly unreliable man!
“Something wrong?” Baili Weisheng asked, arching an eyebrow.
“You’re leaving? You’re not taking Baili Xiaosheng with you?” Meng Duo’er didn’t even know why she was asking this—she just found herself asking it anyway.
“She’s not mine to take,” Baili Weisheng said, startled, the words slipping out before he could stop them. He immediately felt how strange that sounded and quickly corrected himself. “What business is it of yours, the affairs between master and disciple?”
That question genuinely left Meng Duo’er at a loss—the affairs between him and his disciple really had nothing to do with her at all, did they?
If this had been before, Meng Duo’er might have kept silent, might have retreated in embarrassment. But she’d been wrestling with her feelings for so long now, she’d grown almost sick of her own hesitation!
“Where are you going?” Meng Duo’er asked loudly. Tonight, she was determined to hold nothing back.
“Where I go isn’t your business either, is it?” Baili Weisheng said again. This man appeared easygoing on the surface, but underneath, he was cold clear through to the bone.