Chapter 278: Chapter 278: Brother Was Not Late This Time
The night fell into tranquility.
Wei Yingying left, and Yingwu ate and drank his fill, sleeping soundly in the small cot.
It was already the third period of the night!
Shen Hua stared with open eyes, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep no matter what.
She pursed her lips, donning a heavy outer garment, with a charcoal brazier burning inside the room, the girl descended from the bed.
The moonlight was bright and clear, shining through the window lattice, leaving only a scattered frost on the ground. Shen Hua cupped her face, walking over despondently with lethargic steps, and barely cracked the window open when she heard a noise from outside.
In the next instant, the window flung wide open, and Xie Xun leaped in.
He still carried the chill of the night on him.
Shen Hua, invigorated from her previous listlessness, immediately raised her head, her beautiful features struggling to contain the joy within her heart. She controlled her glamorous and aloof posture tightly: "Heir Xie, what brings you here?"
The girl pondered slowly: "I was thinking, since we’re not familiar, that maybe it seemed rude of me back at the inn’s entrance."
Listening to her sarcastic tone, Xie Xun suddenly felt a wave of emotion and his lips curved into a smile.
"It was my mistake, I was momentarily distracted."
In fact, it wasn’t his fault—that time, he saw Ms. Shen Chun’s hairpin on Shen Hua. How could his heart not be tumultuous?
...Yangyang has seen Aunt You?
Could it be that...
In the end, he feared Shen Hua learning of those sordid, unspeakable details that even he could not accept.
When he came back to his senses, he saw Shen Hua making her meticulously cautious rounds around him, which made him unable to hold back a laugh.
"Brother will take you out for a walk."
Shen Hua was proud and aloof.
Xie Xun smiled indulgently.
"If you really don’t want to go, it’s also fine to talk here."
He turned around, took out a Fire Stick, and lit the candles inside the room.
The light was bright, completely dispelling the darkness.
Shen Hua’s eyes widened: "Yingwu is right here, aren’t you afraid of being overheard?"
After she spoke, she felt something was not right. Normally, Yingwu would wake up at the slightest disturbance, but now... she was sound asleep.
Xie Xun gently explained: "She snuck a chicken leg from the kitchen at night; I used a sufficient dose of Knockout Drug."
It wouldn’t do any harm, but it would ensure she’d sleep till dawn.
As for Cui Yun in the next room, he was called for questioning by the officials earlier.
Shen Hua: ...
So, eating chicken at night might not bring great luck, but unconsciousness.
The room fell into silence.
After an indeterminate amount of time, Shen Hua heard Xie Xun’s voice again, light and slow.
"On the day of the Xuan Family’s celebration banquet, I overheard Ji Huo mention your visit, and only then did I set out."
That time, his intention wasn’t just to pick up the Duchess and Xie Yinong; he specifically went to see Shen Hua.
He gently caressed the girl’s face with his fingertips, his gaze soft and tender.
"This time, brother probably hasn’t arrived too late."
Shen Hua coveted that bit of warmth.
Actually, she was an easy girl to coax; in fact, Shen Zhi did not have to say anything—his very presence was the greatest kindness heaven could offer Shen Hua.
The girl fought back the warmth welling up in her eyes.
She drew closer to Xie Xun, her fair fingertips clutching onto his clothes without notice.
Xie Xun indulged her tentative gestures.
"Our Yangyang is now a grown girl."
As he had done so often before, he bent down close to her to observe her brows and eyes meticulously.
"You also look so much like Mama."
Had he not mentioned this, it might have been alright, but once he did, the girl’s tears broke through like a dam.
Her eyes were red, even the tip of her nose was pink. She looked up at her brother, who was close at hand.
"It must have hurt to fall from such a high cliff, brother."
"It doesn’t hurt, I’ve forgotten about it."
"You’re lying to me."
Shen Hua: "But I was so scared back then."
Shen Hua bit her lower lip, hot tears rolling down her cheeks in huge drops.
"Mama’s not here to coax me to sleep anymore."
"All I see is her cold ancestral tablet."
"Mama assigned you to copy scriptures before she passed, and there were still three volumes left. I feared she would chide you for being lazy, so I completed them all."
She knelt before the coffin as she wrote with great difficulty. At that time, the girl’s grasp on the brush was far from standard, let alone the characters she produced?
Illiterate as she was, from the scriptures, she probably recognized only one word in ten. The strokes were numerous, leaving a large blot of ink. It was truly too ugly to bear looking at.
Nevertheless, she was writing very carefully at the time.
Even more devoutly.
In the end, she cast them into the brazier, letting the flames consume them freely.
"I regret it again."
"My brother excelled in his studies, the most outstanding among teacher’s disciples. Not to mention becoming a Scholar, he could have achieved fine results in the imperial examinations."
"How could the scriptures I copied be worthy of him?"
A sharp pain pricked at Xie Xun’s heart, his voice hoarse and harsh.
"Yangyang."
Shen Hua sniffled.
"Initially, I found it hard to adjust."
"I always ran to the Shen Family ancestral graves. To see you, to see Mama."
"But later, they claimed it was my fault and I dared not visit anymore."
"I thought you wouldn’t want to see me either."
Xie Xun’s expression darkened: "Nonsense."
Shen Hua whispered very softly.
"Later on, Daddy married a stepmother."
"I did not want it."
"Yet everyone called me headstrong; they reprimanded me until they left me feeling worthless."
"In truth, no matter how others wagged their tongues, I wouldn’t have cared. How could they feel pain with no knife at their hearts? If I didn’t want it, I simply didn’t want it."
"Daddy was strongly against it at first."
But after he met Shen Xue-shi, he changed.
"He revised the words ’Yangyang, in the future, we will rely solely on each other as father and daughter’ to ’Yangyang, Daddy can’t possibly be alone forever. When you’re married off, there might not even be someone to talk to.’
As the girl’s choked sobbing continued sentence by sentence, Xie Xun’s face grew increasingly grim.
Xie Xun wiped the tears from the girl’s face with his fingertips, but the more he wiped, the more they flowed; they seemed endless.
He asked, "Did he... treat you poorly afterwards?"
Shen Hua nodded, then shook her head.
"Not as well as brother did."
Shen Zhi loved her because she was his only legitimate sister.
But Shen Wei was different.
He had a new wife and would soon have legitimate daughters.
Indeed, Shen Wei did love her, wishing upon stars and moon was but asking.
But... his first priority upon returning to the estate was no longer visiting Shen Hua’s chambers; instead, he went to see the newly-wed Shen Xue-shi.
"That’s why he feels guilty."
"In terms of Silver Coins, he gave me plenty."
Shen Hua had long seen through it. But she never tore off that final veneer of dignity, instead growing to detest Shen Xue-shi more, resorting to the most wretched child’s play to vie for Shen Wei’s attention.
"But eventually, he died too."
In the end, Yangyang was still alone.
Shen Hua pursed her lips, noticing Xie Xun’s heartache, then dramatically changed her tone and began to complain.
"Do you remember Shen Qu?"
Xie Xun nodded.
"He became quite something."
"He didn’t hesitate to smash a heavy porcelain piece right at my face."
Shen Hua pointed to her forehead where there was hardly a scar left healed.
"Right here, the blood wouldn’t stop at the time."
"He intended to crush me to death!"
"The clan elders were no good either, and yet they live long lives."
"Shen He Wen, too!"
As Shen Hua spoke, she suddenly fell silent.
She then realized something and asked word by word
"What did you mean by ’this time, brother didn’t arrive too late?’"