In Shaoshang’s previous life, if a national heartthrob got engaged to some little bitch with a bad reputation, the news would spread in about three hours. In this life, news of her engagement to Ling Buyi took three days to spread through the capital’s noble and aristocratic circles.
The calm of the first three days led the Cheng father and sons to mistakenly believe the worst consequence after the engagement was dining with the new son-in-law. Starting the fourth day, they suffered opinion attacks like volleys of gunfire when out in public. Aside from long-time good friends like Wan Songbai and kindhearted onlookers, the rest cast acidic and barbed glances. The shallow ones directly made passive-aggressive remarks about Captain Cheng having the good fortune to climb up to noble relations and not forgetting them in the future and such. The deeper ones offered congratulations to the face while turning around to mock the Cheng family for social climbing.
“Father, don’t pay them any mind. They’re just jealous of you,” Shaoshang consoled him thus.
“Nonsense! How could I not know? If Ling Buyi proposed to their daughters, they’d prepare dowries overnight and marry them off! ” Cheng Shi angrily nearly smashed his wine vessel.
The three Cheng brothers fared somewhat better—
Cheng Yong had always believed in gentlemanly friendship being pure as water. His close fellow students and friends were either bookworms who paid no attention to gossip or those genuinely happy for the Cheng family’s marriage arrangement.
Cheng Song’s military camp was already within Wan Songbai’s sphere of influence, and he himself was always bold and cheerful. Even when someone came with acidic words, the group quickly suppressed them.
To avoid being assigned by his mother to accompany his youngest sister and Ling Buyi, Cheng Shaogong worked very hard outside, arguing left and right, not falling behind in the slightest. The academy master, fearing things would blow up, soon ordered students not to discuss this matter anymore.
In comparison, Madam Xiao was much wiser. As if she had anticipated this, these past days she simply didn’t go out. Either she hid at home teaching Shaoshang to read and write or went with Cheng Yang to the estate to arrange summer grain matters with the tenant farmers. As for why she didn’t bring her daughter to the estate too? This time it wasn’t favoritism, but because the new son-in-law came to visit daily. If she took her daughter away, should she let Ling Buyi go frighten her husband and sons to death?
Actually, Shaoshang was also very uncomfortable with the situation.
Regardless of her and Lou Yao’s physical ages, her psychological age was always somewhat older. In her eyes, Lou Yao was more like a follower little brother from her hometown town, or a shy junior from the lab. Though she had no intention of lording over others, in daily interactions she could always grasp the general direction. But Ling Buyi was different. At such a young age he could already stand on his own. Whether pursuing learning or leading military campaigns, he had his own views. Not only would he not defer to Shaoshang in everything like Lou Yao, he conversely required Shaoshang to defer to him.
For example, back in Hua County when Shaoshang wanted to secretly drink wine, though Lou Yao also knew drinking cold wine in early spring wasn’t good, under Shaoshang’s sophistry he would still trot off to find some for her to drink. But when Shaoshang made the same request now, Ling Buyi flatly stated that drinking cold wine in early summer was detrimental to health cultivation, speaking from harm to the five internal organs and six hollow organs all the way to how Shaoshang should exercise more diligently. Shaoshang’s sophistry about ‘wasting youth if not living freely’ was completely ineffective on him. Instead, she was fed a bunch of classical Chinese about ‘indulging in small matters leads to major delays.’
However, he clearly understood the art of negotiation well. Seeing Shaoshang about to explode, he would relent and allow her just one cup, then drink half the cup from hers first. The result was that after all Shaoshang’s efforts requesting for ages, she only got to drink one and a half mouthfuls of cold wine!
She was half-dead with anger. The young man across from her lowered his long lashes and sighed lightly: “Today I’ll compromise.”
—Shaoshang really wanted to hit someone. But she knew she couldn’t, because she couldn’t beat him.
Simply put, Shaoshang had strong opinions, but Ling Buyi’s opinions were even stronger. Shaoshang was naturally resolute and decisive, but Ling Buyi was even more decisive and unstoppable in action. Shaoshang was a diamond drill bit, and Ling Buyi was a diamond drill press.
The Great Sage Equal to Heaven had profound magical powers but was still pressed under Five Finger Mountain. So Shaoshang wondered—now that the Supreme Lord’s furnace fire blazed, the Lingxiao Palace’s imperial plaque was secure, and the Queen Mother of the West’s peach garden flourished, why did that ruthless old scoundrel Tathagata Buddha still have to oppress this obedient and law-abiding girl?
—Damn it, Ling Buyi had forced her to the point she could compose doggerel poetry! Thinking back now, her baseless desire to keep distance from Ling Buyi before knowing his temperament was truly little monster-like intuition.
Though they’d only spent four short days together, Shaoshang had already perceived that Ling Buyi was not happy.
He was silent, not because he had nothing to say, but because he didn’t want to speak. That day when he was verbally rude to the various noble ladies, it wasn’t because he was naturally mean, but because he was too lazy to deal with them repeatedly—better to be sharp-tongued once and for all. When he wanted to be courteous and polite to someone, he could be like gentle spring rain, considerate in every way.
Like Lou Yao—seeing his household’s newly woven brocade was beautiful, he would straightforwardly pick out several pieces he thought looked good and bring them over. But the things Ling Buyi sent ranged from Mother Cheng’s beloved dried meat and gold vessels down to exquisite and sturdy soft bows and small arrows for little Cheng Zhu and little Cheng Ou. He even gave summer brocade in colors that best suited her complexion to Cheng Yang, to whom he’d never spoken a word. Everything perfectly matched what everyone in the Cheng household loved.
Shaoshang truly couldn’t understand why this beautiful young man in the prime of his youth, who could have wind when he wanted wind and rain when he wanted rain, was still so unhappy, depressed and cheerless. If it were her, she could show off all the way to the high seas!
She didn’t understand her fiancé. Couldn’t read the meaning in his eyes like deep ocean undercurrents, couldn’t fathom his actions either.
However, from childhood she didn’t like probing deeply into others’ matters. If she dug to the bottom investigating, knowing that group of gossipy women in town had even worse things to say about her in private would only add to her annoyance. Knowing that the white moonlight next door actually found her quite annoying as a girl with a bad reputation but maintained warm treatment due to good upbringing—wouldn’t that make her vomit blood?!
So, as long as she didn’t anger him it would be fine—Shaoshang thought secretly.
However, actually Ling Buyi had never spoken harshly or severely to her. Most of the time his expression was gentle, his words mild and slow. But little monster intuition made her not dare to act presumptuously. Taking the cold wine incident as an example, when she threw a tantrum insisting on drinking, Ling Buyi didn’t lose his temper with her. He just had someone report to the Cheng couple, and all cold and hot wine was forbidden to her. She wasn’t even allowed to lick sweet fermented rice wine until she gave in—when reason wasn’t on her side, Shaoshang usually wouldn’t be stubborn for long. Knowing when to stop was her life-preserving secret over many years.
Besides this, Ling Buyi accommodated her in everything else and didn’t control what she did or didn’t do.
Sometimes he would patiently watch her practice calligraphy, grinding ink and laying out paper for her, guiding her brush strokes and wrist use. Often he would watch for most of an hour, causing the Cheng couple next door to always have Lady Qing Cong come urge him it was time to go home.
Sometimes Shaoshang would make small wooden models of things like waterwheels and farming implements based on drawn diagrams. But her palms were small and her fingers soft. Without handy tools, she couldn’t cut and shave large blocks of wood into the shapes she wanted.
Ling Buyi only glanced a few times on the first day, then told her to practice calligraphy these next couple days and do that handicraft later. After one day passed, he sent her a set of small and exquisite refined iron tools wrapped in deerskin—small axe, small knife, ink marker, iron ruler, claw hammer, wood file, drill, even two small long and short handsaws, plus a pair of soft and fitted leather gloves…
“I thought you would help me make them.” Shaoshang beamed with joy, stroking each small tool lovingly, as if the heat from casting the iron hadn’t yet faded. Only now did she learn Ling Buyi also kept several skilled blacksmiths.
“Tasks requiring strength I’ll do for you. When I’m not here you can find servants to do them. The rest you do yourself.” Ling Buyi pulled over her small hand and lowered his head to carefully put on the gloves, checking if they fit properly.
“This is what you want to do, what you love to do. You should always be able to fulfill your wishes. However…” His tone changed, speaking lightly: “If you hurt yourself, all of these will be forbidden.”
Shaoshang knew he meant well and nodded vigorously with joy—whenever times like this came, she felt Ling Buyi warmed her heart even more than Lou Yao who obeyed every command. She felt he understood her, didn’t consider her strange, and didn’t use staying away from danger as an excuse to dissuade her. Where in this world was there absolute safety? People could even choke to death eating!
Ling Buyi seemed to particularly like her vivid and bright appearance like this. Sometimes even when the girl stamped her feet in anger, he would watch with a smile. Once again Shaoshang vaguely perceived he was relatively tolerant toward her, so in many matters she was willing to endure, letting him correct her various habits—for example drinking cold wine, for example not liking to eat vegetables, for example walking barefoot in the corridors…
But there were always some things that couldn’t be endured.
On the fifth day, the Lou family hesitantly sent over a wedding invitation. Ling Buyi was also among those invited and called his fiancée to go with him, but was flatly refused by Shaoshang.
“I already told Father and Mother that I won’t go that day. You all go.” Shaoshang pouted. Actually the Cheng couple also agreed she shouldn’t go. If not to show the Lou and Cheng families hadn’t become enemies, they didn’t want to go either. It was truly too awkward.
Ling Buyi looked at her for a while and said: “You should still go. I’ll come fetch you then.”
Shaoshang lowered her head and said sullenly: “I’m not going.”
Ling Buyi glanced left and right. Looked at until her heart went cold, A’Zhu immediately understood and hurriedly led all the maids away, leaving only the two of them in the room.
Shaoshang watched this clearing-the-field-before-battle action and stubbornly turned her body to the side: “Whatever you say is useless. I’m not going anyway!”
Ling Buyi slowly walked to her side, turned the girl’s small shoulders around, and looked at her fixedly: “Speak properly. Give me a reason and I won’t make you go.”
At this moment Shaoshang extremely missed her previous life’s powerful physique. Now being gripped by the young man’s strong hands she couldn’t move, so she could only say: “What’s there to ask about this? I was previously engaged to A’Yao. Now he’s marrying someone else. If I go to his door to congratulate him, what does that amount to? How embarrassing! What would Lady Ancheng’s family think—they’d think I came to make trouble!”
Ling Buyi looked at her: “So you want to never associate with A’Yao until death?”
“Of course not!” Shaoshang blurted out. “It’s just, just wait a bit, wait a bit…”
“According to what you’re saying, I also shouldn’t go to the Lou family wedding banquet. After all, I just got engaged to you. It’s also embarrassing for both parties to meet. When Lou Yao sees me, he’ll think I came to make trouble.” Ling Buyi spoke slowly.
“How can it be the same! Don’t use my words to block me again!” Shaoshang said anxiously. “The entire Lou household values you so much. A’Yao especially regards you as an elder brother. How can you not go? A’Yao always thinks the best of people. He would never speculate about you with malice!”
Ling Buyi stopped talking. He quietly looked at the girl, then suddenly smiled self-mockingly: “…Do you still think about A’Yao in your heart? Still reluctant to give up the Lou family marriage arrangement?”
Shaoshang squirmed uneasily. She couldn’t very well say, oh my you guessed right, you’re so clever.
“Outsiders say I’m good in a thousand ways, ten thousand ways, but in your heart I’m probably not as good as Lou Yao.” Ling Buyi’s expression was indifferent. “You’ve even thought it would be best if I married He Zhaojun to fulfill your marriage with Lou Yao…”
“No! I’ve never thought that!” Shaoshang shouted out loud.
After these words left her mouth, she herself was stunned for a moment.
Thinking back, when desperately trying everything in her desperation, she had thought of Yuan Shen marrying He Zhaojun, thought of the Emperor having an imperial prince marry He Zhaojun, even thought of one of the Lou family’s elder brothers divorcing and marrying He Zhaojun, but she had never thought of having Ling Buyi marry He Zhaojun.
“You’re just giving lip service.” Ling Buyi said coldly.
“No, no, it’s true.” Shaoshang said urgently. As casual as she was, she knew this kind of thing couldn’t be joked about. “I think, I think…” She had a bellyful of reasons. “I think you’re a very, very good person. You’ve saved so many people, helped me so many times. You should be matched with the very best wife in the world! Not those mean and petty so-called noble ladies, not He Zhaojun, and not me either…”
Ling Buyi’s brows relaxed, his gaze warm and gentle, like an ice river suddenly thawing.
“Now I only regard A’Yao as my, my close friend, intimate good friend!” Seeing him not speak, Shaoshang thought he still misunderstood and said anxiously: “If I have half a word of falsehood, let me be like this vessel!” As she spoke, she picked up the ceramic vessel for washing brushes from the writing desk and forcefully smashed it to the ground.
Only hearing a loud crash, the ceramic vessel shattered into pieces scattering everywhere. Shaoshang’s skirt hem was also splashed with quite a bit of water.
“Don’t move!” Ling Buyi shouted sharply.
Of course Shaoshang didn’t dare move. In this era, people indoors took off shoes and wore only socks. Stepping on ceramic shards would be no joke.
Hearing the sound, A’Zhu frantically wanted to come in. Ling Buyi said toward outside: “It’s nothing. Don’t come in. Give me a broom.” A’Zhu very much wanted to break in but remembered Madam Xiao had said to follow Ling Buyi’s instructions as much as possible.
Ling Buyi received the rattan and bamboo broom from outside. With his left hand he gave a light flick, wrapping the long wide sleeves like flowing clouds around his left arm, gripping the end in his palm, while his slender and strong fingers also lightly lifted the right sleeve robe. Then, under the girl’s dumbstruck gaze, this young powerful minister famous throughout the capital for his beauty, nobility, and difficulty to approach, actually swept the floor before her?!
Shaoshang was dumbfounded.
Though Ling Buyi had been independent from childhood, clearly his ten fingers had never touched menial work. At first, his sweeping movements were quite clumsy, unable to coordinate left and right. But as someone capable, there was nothing he couldn’t do. After just a couple tries he figured out the essentials. In three to five strokes he swept the ceramic shards to one side, then laid cushions over the wet area for Shaoshang to step on and come out.
Shaoshang lifted her skirt and stepped carefully, finally jumping out with difficulty, pulled by Ling Buyi to sit on the other side.
“Lou Yao is your intimate good friend. Then what about Miss Thirteen of the Wan family?” Ling Buyi slowly unwound his left sleeve circle by circle. “If you don’t explain clearly today, I’ll go tell Miss Wan what you said.”
“You, you—how can you do this?” Shaoshang was exasperated. “I just think, alas, A’Yao isn’t having it easy either. To say something that might anger you, he was wholeheartedly devoted to me. Now he’s not only being forced to marry someone he once detested, but on his wedding day he’ll also see you and me appearing as a couple. He’s too pitiful…”
Ling Buyi pulled over the girl’s two tender little white hands, opening the palms to inspect for cuts.
Shaoshang felt his slightly cool palms, her heart momentarily embarrassed. But she saw his hands had slender and strong finger bones, the joints round and full, the skin pale like a high pavilion scholar who held brushes all day. She suddenly remembered that day before the hunting lodge when he raised high that giant weapon radiant as a golden crow and split that bandit in two… Were these the same hands?
“If you have no misgivings in your heart, you should go.” Ling Buyi raised his head to look at her. “If Lou Yao decides to have no more misgivings in his heart henceforth, he shouldn’t avoid seeing you with anyone. On the contrary, he should be happy you got engaged so quickly, so you won’t become the laughingstock in those mean people’s mouths.”
Actually in some ways, Shaoshang truly should be grateful to Ling Buyi. If not for getting engaged to him, those old adversaries didn’t know how they’d mock and pity her behind her back—back then her engagement to Lou Yao was social climbing, now finally knocked off the branch and so forth.
“Now people won’t mock me anymore.” Shaoshang let out a small sigh, looking at Ling Buyi helplessly. “At this moment, who knows—those young ladies who admire you are probably cursing and hating me behind my back!”
Ling Buyi smiled slightly: “Before you met Lou Yao and me, did no one slander or bully you?”
Shaoshang was stunned.
“Human nature is inherently good, human nature is also evil.” Ling Buyi smiled at her, his ten fingers interlaced with the girl’s tender small hands. “We cannot lose our guard and become fish and meat on the chopping block because we believe in inherent human goodness. Nor can we shrink back and hide forever, never daring to face things directly, because of human evil.”
Shaoshang looked into his deep brown pupils, profound as an ancient pool, ripples unmoving.
After a while, she forcefully pulled her hands away and turned her back in a sulk: “Fine, fine, everything you say is right. I’ll listen to you! I’ll go to the Lou family—going is okay, right?!”
So the conclusion was: even if the Monkey King didn’t rebel against heaven, old Tathagata would still come press him down, otherwise who would protect Monk Tang on the ten-thousand-mile journey for true scriptures? No matter who she married, having been born with such bad luck, there would always be gossipy women to gossip.
“Ling Buyi.” Shaoshang suddenly said in a low voice.
Ling Buyi was quite surprised. The girl had never called him by his full name before.
“Why don’t you marry those young ladies who admire you like a celestial being?” Shaoshang lowered her head. “If it were them, even if you said the sun was square, they’d agree.”
Ling Buyi tilted his head in slight contemplation and smiled faintly, like pearls and jade dazzling the eye: “I know not.”
“You’ve also seen my temperament.” Shaoshang said dejectedly. “Both stubborn and willful. Why exactly do you want to marry me?”
Ling Buyi pondered again for a moment and said: “I also know not.”
Shaoshang became annoyed and said resentfully: “You make me explain everything, yet you yourself say nothing!”
Ling Buyi smiled, soothing the small girl whose fur was standing on end. After contemplating for a moment he said: “His Majesty always says I live without human warmth, like a wandering ghost.”
Shaoshang thought privately: Hey, the Emperor and our Director Xiao share the same heroic view.
“When you enter Changqiu Palace, His Majesty will see that when I’m with you, I have the most human warmth.”
…
Moments later, A’Zhu ran to Jiuzhui Hall to inform the master and mistress of her young lady’s decision to attend the Lou residence wedding banquet. Who knew the three young masters were also there?
“What did I say? Earlier when I learned Ling Buyi wanted to bring Niaoniao to the Lou family, I knew it would be this result.” Cheng Shi slapped his thigh and said to his wife.
“Didn’t they say the quarrel was quite fierce and things were even smashed?” Madam Xiao asked. “Was anyone hurt?”
A’Zhu answered: “Just the water vessel for washing brushes. Lord Ling said he accidentally knocked it over.”
She looked at the mistress and said methodically: “But this servant thinks it was the young lady who knocked it over, because the young lady’s clothes were splashed wet in several large patches, while Lord Ling’s robes only had a few splash marks.”
The Cheng family members looked at each other again.
A’Zhu said: “Mistress, if there’s nothing else, this servant will return now. Lord Ling brought an extremely precious curved-hem long dress today, covered in woven gold and embroidered silver, with a row of snow-bright sea pearls sewn at the collar. Lord Ling asked the young lady to change into it to show him, so she can wear it to the Lou residence. This servant fears the maids won’t know their strength and might accidentally damage it…”
“Go, go, go ahead.” Cheng Shi waved his hand irritably.
After A’Zhu quickly withdrew, Cheng Shaogong said with a dark face: “Niaoniao is so useless. Usually she talks back to Mother, argues with her brothers, acts all fierce, but when she meets Ling Buyi she wilts.”
“Shaogong, do not speak wildly.” Cheng Yong rebuked in a low voice.
“I think Niaoniao has already tried her best.” Cheng Song came out to mediate, looking at his parents, then at his brothers. “You see, she even dared to throw things at Ling Buyi. Eldest brother, third brother, do you dare? Ha ha ha, anyway, I don’t dare.”
Cheng Yong let out a long sigh, worried: “In the future, what will Niaoniao do?”
Old Master Cheng thought about it and said optimistically: “Looking at the bright side, maybe Niaoniao will become the kind of gentle and dignified young lady your mother likes most.”
Having said this, he deliberately looked at his wife. Madam Xiao sighed in her heart. Actually she now felt her daughter’s current state wasn’t bad. Though somewhat crude, with an impatient temperament, she was full of life and fearlessly flourishing, like the first ray of sunlight at dawn. Every day according to her own ideas and arrangements, she busily and diligently studied and practiced writing, cultivated soil and sprouted seeds, never slacking off.
Watching her made one’s heart feel bright and open.