This time?

Could there have been a “last time”?

Zhou Shaojin said, “Just walking away like this—is Uncle Chi going to be all right?”

“What does it matter?” Ji Ying was somewhat unhappy and said, “Isn’t he Cheng Zichuan? How could such a small matter trouble him?” Then she pulled Zhou Shaojin. “Let’s go, let’s go! What are we standing here for?”

Zhou Shaojin still hesitated somewhat.

Ji Ying said, “Do you know what happened last time? Old Madam Guo suddenly decided to attend a wedding banquet at the home of a colleague of the old master who had been dead for who knows how many years and lived in Lai’an. She said something about the journey being long and inconvenient, and insisted that your Uncle Chi must escort her. Your Uncle Chi readily agreed, but just before leaving, he suddenly said he wanted to bring me along. At that time, I didn’t understand your Uncle Chi as well as I do now. I thought your Uncle Chi had changed his nature—seeing me confined at home until I was practically growing moss, his heart softened and he decided to take me out for a walk. I was so excited I even made several new outfits and happily went with him to Lai’an…”

At this point, her chest heaved with anger.

Zhou Shaojin quickly said, “What happened after? Did someone bully you?”

“Who would dare bully me!” Ji Ying spat and cursed, then said through gritted teeth, “Everyone took me for your Uncle Chi’s concubine!”

Aren’t you?

Zhou Shaojin almost blurted it out.

She quickly covered her mouth.

Thinking of her previous suspicions about Ji Ying, she couldn’t help but feel ashamed.

Ji Ying thought Zhou Shaojin was simply too shocked and didn’t suspect anything at all. She continued, “Tell me, why did Old Madam Guo insist on calling your Uncle Chi to Lai’an? It turned out to be for a matchmaking meeting. Your Uncle Chi knew perfectly well but kept only me in the dark. I was like a fool, running around at his beck and call. Even knowing others misunderstood, he didn’t explain. I really have the worst luck in eight lifetimes to have become Cheng Zichuan’s maid…”

Zhou Shaojin felt awkward.

Ji Ying looked somewhat embarrassed.

Speaking this way about Zhou Shaojin’s uncle in front of her was indeed inappropriate.

She quickly changed the subject, saying, “Let’s go to the tea room. Let’s go to the tea room.”

Zhou Shaojin didn’t want to stay here either. She smiled and said, “I’ll go tell my companions. Otherwise when they don’t see me, they’ll look for me everywhere.”

Ji Ying nodded.

From the opera stage came “clang clang clang”—the opera had begun again.

Fortunately, Zhou Shaojin had become familiar with the maids and pozis of the Hanbei Mountain Lodge these past days. She turned and found someone to help pass a message to Cheng Jia and Gu Shiqi, then went to the tea room with Ji Ying.

Two pozis were tending the stove in the tea room. Though the two pozis didn’t recognize Ji Ying, they recognized Zhou Shaojin and eagerly came forward to greet her.

Zhou Shaojin rewarded the two pozis with several hundred wen and had them brew tea for herself and Ji Ying.

The two pozis were skilled at reading situations. Knowing that many young ladies had come to the house today, and seeing that Ji Ying’s dress and bearing were not ordinary, they assumed Zhou Shaojin and Ji Ying wanted to avoid others and find a place to talk. They smiled and thanked her, brewed two cups of tea, brought out two plates of small pastries, and excused themselves saying they needed to go to the opera viewing area to see if anyone needed hot water. They left carrying two large copper kettles.

Once inside the tea room, the sound of drums and gongs suddenly diminished considerably. Zhou Shaojin’s ears found peace, and her heart felt lighter.

She sat down to drink tea.

But Ji Ying couldn’t sit still. She walked back and forth around the tea room, looking here and there, and somehow found a small bowl of broad beans.

She said with great interest, “Miss Er, shall we roast broad beans to eat?”

Zhou Shaojin saw that the broad beans had been cooked with five spices. She asked curiously, “Can these beans be roasted?”

“Why not?” Ji Ying smiled. “When we were little, Father would often roast five-spice broad beans in the brazier for us to eat. They were better than ordinary broad beans. But each time the beans were buried in the brazier, when they were done they would pop and crackle, bursting out and scattering charcoal ash all over the room. It took great effort to clean up. My mother was so angry she wouldn’t let us roast things in the brazier. Each time, Father had to do it behind Mother’s back.”

She wanted to recapture that feeling, not just eat roasted five-spice broad beans, right?

Zhou Shaojin smiled faintly.

Ji Ying removed the copper kettle from the stove, used tongs to take out some charcoal, then buried the beans in the charcoal ash. Patting the ash from her hands, she smiled and said, “Done. Soon we’ll have beans to eat.”

Zhou Shaojin, thinking of what Ji Ying had said earlier, asked, “Since Old Madam Guo specifically took Uncle Chi to meet a potential match, why didn’t it work out?”

In her view, Cheng Chi was tall, handsome, gentle in temperament, and had scholarly credentials. If he wanted to marry, it shouldn’t be difficult at all.

Ji Ying curled her lip disdainfully and said, “At that time, your Uncle Chi was already of advanced age and still just a xiucai. Others also saw that he had someone like me, a ‘concubine,’ at his side. Would parents who cherish their daughters still marry their daughter to your Uncle Chi?”

Zhou Shaojin laughed awkwardly.

“So your Uncle Chi is an extremely cunning person,” Ji Ying said. Her expression gradually became somewhat distant and wistful as she said, “But that time, I happened to run into Jiao Ziyang…”

Jiao Ziyang—that sounded like a boy’s name.

Zhou Shaojin’s gossipy heart blazed. She quickly said, “Who is Jiao Ziyang? Did you know him when you were at home?”

Ji Ying was silent for quite a while before gently nodding.

There’s a story here!

Zhou Shaojin probed, “Could he be your fiancé?”

Ji Ying remained silent.

Zhou Shaojin immediately grew anxious and said, “Didn’t you explain to him?”

“How could I explain?” Ji Ying said, her eyes suddenly reddening. “When he saw me, he ran away. I chased him for two streets but couldn’t catch him.” She suddenly began to cry. “That bastard Cheng Zichuan—I asked him to help me explain, but he didn’t say a word… I’ll remember his ‘kindness’ for the rest of my life…”

Zhou Shaojin didn’t believe Uncle Chi was that kind of person.

He even protected a stranger like her—how could he intentionally hurt Ji Ying’s feelings?

Zhou Shaojin thought of Cheng Lu.

If someone in her previous life had told her that Cheng Lu was deceiving her, she probably wouldn’t have believed it no matter what.

She asked Ji Ying, “You never saw this Jiao Ziyang again after that?”

“No.” Perhaps feeling it was too undignified to cry in front of a twelve-year-old girl, Ji Ying quickly controlled her emotions, wiped her tears, and said in a muffled voice, “Your uncle won’t agree. I can’t leave Jinling. And I can’t be wandering around outside every day…” At this point, she paused, her voice growing even lower. “Others might not know, but Jiao Ziyang should definitely know I’m in Jinling… If he had the intention, he would have come looking for me long ago. Why would I need to explain to him?”

That made sense!

Zhou Shaojin couldn’t help but say, “Could it be that there’s something wrong with this Jiao Ziyang, so Uncle Chi acted this way?”

Hearing this, Ji Ying glared at her indignantly and said, “What could be wrong with Jiao Ziyang? What problem could Jiao Ziyang have! I think the one with problems is your Uncle Chi! At such an advanced age and still not married, making Mother worry all the time. Other people at least go out seeking flowers and asking after willows, but not him—he stays home all day and goes nowhere. When people come to see him, he even pretends he’s not home…”

Zhou Shaojin felt very awkward and was just about to try to placate her.

But Ji Ying’s face suddenly paled as she stared at the tea room entrance, her words stopping abruptly.

“What’s wrong?” Zhou Shaojin asked while turning to follow Ji Ying’s gaze toward the entrance.

Cheng Chi stood straight at the tea room entrance, one hand behind his back, the other hanging naturally at his side.

The afternoon sunlight slanted down behind him, gilding his silhouette with a layer of golden light, making his expression impossible to see clearly.

“Uncle Chi!” Zhou Shaojin quickly stood up, instinctively pricking up her ears to listen for sounds from the opera viewing area.

Gao Huizhu’s clear voice and the ladies’ cheers drifted over, sometimes louder, sometimes softer.

The opera hadn’t ended yet at the viewing area—how had Uncle Chi come over?

Couldn’t Old Madam Guo keep him there? Or had he found an excuse to come out for some air?

As Zhou Shaojin thought this, she curtsied to Cheng Chi.

Cheng Chi walked in.

The golden light behind him disappeared, revealing his handsome yet refined face to Zhou Shaojin.

Ji Ying jumped up and backed away repeatedly, pressing herself against the wall.

That defensive posture made it seem as though Cheng Chi were some ferocious beast.

Zhou Shaojin looked at Cheng Chi in confusion, then at Ji Ying.

Cheng Chi smiled slightly and said, “Why aren’t you watching the opera?”

Just as Zhou Shaojin was trying to think of an excuse, the stove made a “pop” sound and a bean burst out, landing at Cheng Chi’s feet.

“So you’re roasting broad beans here!” Cheng Chi glanced at the burst bean at his feet and smiled faintly.

Zhou Shaojin’s face flushed crimson.

Uncle Chi seemed to regard her as a child caught stealing food.

“I…” She stammered, not knowing what to say.

The beans in the stove began popping and crackling.

Zhou Shaojin’s face grew even redder.

Cheng Chi chuckled softly and said, “Quickly get the beans out before they all burn.”

“Oh!” Zhou Shaojin fumbled with the tongs to remove them.

Ji Ying seemed to come back to her senses at this moment and also helped.

Before long, all the beans had been removed.

Cheng Chi then said to Zhou Shaojin, “They’re performing ‘Strolling in the Garden’ outside. Aren’t you going to watch?”

Zhou Shaojin felt as though Ji Ying had gently tugged at her.

She smiled and said, “I don’t like watching opera. How come Uncle Chi came over? Don’t you like ‘Strolling in the Garden’?”

Cheng Chi smiled and said, “I was about to leave. I didn’t see Ji Ying, so I came to look for her.”

Ji Ying said “Oh” and took her leave of Zhou Shaojin.

Zhou Shaojin could only watch helplessly as Ji Ying followed Cheng Chi out of the tea room.

She sat alone in the tea room for a long while.

From Ji Ying’s tone, she should get along well with Uncle Chi. So why did she become so frightened when she saw Uncle Chi?

Was Uncle Chi very fierce when he got angry?

Zhou Shaojin thought for a moment, then went to the opera viewing area.

The performance on stage was lively, and the audience below was engrossed—no different from when she had left.

Zhou Shaojin asked Cheng Jia, “Why did Uncle Chi leave?”

“I don’t know.” Cheng Jia stared fixedly at Gao Huizhu and said absentmindedly, “It seemed he had some matter to attend to, so he left.”

Zhou Shaojin felt somewhat uneasy.

She called Shi Xiang over and whispered, “Come with me to the Xiaoshan Conggui Courtyard.”

Shi Xiang glanced at the opera stage and said in surprise, “Now?”