Through these days of observation, Xiao Jin found that Nan Jin was truly a strange person.
She could slap the Consort Ning in the Palace just because she felt sorry for the tattoo on her shoulder.
But at the same time, she could not draw for months because of something the Consort Ning said.
One day, Nan Jin was painting in the mansion.
All the guests who presented their cards knew that every corner of the National Teacher’s mansion was filled with elegance.
Sitting in the small cottage, Nan Jin looked at the mountains, the water, and the flowers in the courtyard.
However, after seeing all the piled-up rocks and the competing flowers, she frowned and couldn’t start painting.
After a while, Nan Jin gave up and put down her brush.
A woman in a green dress stood by with her head down and asked, “Master, why don’t you paint when you’ve already opened the paper?”
Nan Jin shook her head and said, “I’m distracted. The mountains are not mountains, and the flowers are not flowers. It’s better not to paint like this.”
After speaking, Nan Jin lifted her finger and ran it over the flower pattern carved on the edge of the wolf hair brush.
A faint smile gradually appeared on the corner of her lips.
After a while, like the warm and cool water in a pond, the smile in Nan Jin’s eyes gradually sank.
In the end, nothing was left.
Nan Jin stopped smiling and said to the woman in green, “Maybe I should kill Shen Rong Lian.”
The woman in green was accustomed to Nan Jin’s capriciousness and replied, “Master, Shen Rong Lian is an insignificant person. If you want to kill her, you can kill her without much thought.”
It was then that Nan Jin realized what was wrong and smiled, “You’re right. If I kill Shen Rong Lian, it would only prove that I care about her. After all, she’s just an insignificant person.”
Looking at Nan Jin’s expression, Xiao Jin felt that the other person might have some kind of logic or compulsive behavior.
In an instant, she understood that Nan Jin was lying to herself.
Nan Jin was a very strange person.
After realizing this, she went to find Shen Rong Lian every day.
Emperor Yao had just rewarded a bonsai, and Nan Jin turned and went to send it to Jianjia Building.
Looking at the cool and indifferent girl, she smiled and shouted, “Rong Lian.”
The wound on Rong Lian’s shoulder had not yet healed.
Her eyes were cold, and her expression was faint: “Your Excellency, I am here.”
Nan Jin pointed to the bamboo made of jade and asked with a smile, “What do you think of these green bamboo shoots? I heard that these things are all carved from the best Hetian jade. In winter, when sunlight passes through the jade, it will shine like a candle and create warmth.”
Rong Lian was speechless.
After a moment, she replied, “Your Excellency, it is summer now.”
A few days later, Nan Jin heard that Rong Lian had eaten a few more bites of peach blossom soup during her meal.
So she smiled and said a word.
The ten miles of peach blossoms still blooming on the west mountain were instantly chopped into bare wooden stakes.
The summer was hot.
The servant was sweating profusely, holding a glass of glass, and tremblingly brought the bowl of peach blossom soup to Rong Lian’s front.
But only to see the beautiful woman in blue with silver sleeves reach out her hand, brushed the glass, and said coldly, “Boring.”
However, Nan Jin found it very interesting.
She sent gifts like flowing water to Jianjia Building and watched as each of them was returned.
Nan Jin smiled happily and looked at the green-clothed woman beside her, asking, “What do you think Shen Rong Lian really wants?”
The green-clothed woman thought for a moment and replied truthfully, “Subordinate thinks that Miss Shen probably wants to leave Jianjia Building and return to the Shen family village.”
Nan Jin shook her head, “But Shen family village is long gone. Moreover, the bird trapped in the cage has lost its wings. How can it fly back?”
But in Xiao Jin’s opinion, Nan Jin…
It seems like she’s getting a little obsessed.
Seems like it’s a bit too much.
Those beautiful jade dresses, gold and silver jewelry, for Nan Jin, they were just extremely vulgar and irrelevant things.
Whether tearing up silk fabrics or burning them.
Or sending them to Jianjia Building on a whim, whether to provoke a beauty’s anger or laughter, Nan Jin didn’t care.
Xiao Jin noticed.
Although Nan Jin had already become a high-ranking official and enjoyed all the comfort and glory of the world, she still pursued power and wealth in every aspect.
Because Nan Jin hasn’t changed.
She is afraid.
Moonlight shone on the land of Yao Country.
Thousands of households fell asleep peacefully, only the notorious traitor was still awake, with her eyes wide open.
Nan Jin looked at the gauze curtains swaying beside the bed.
She laughed softly.
Even the curvature of the corner of her mouth was full of deliberate and insincere intentions.
Many years ago, a black-topped carriage ran over corpses and stopped in an alley.
After that, Nan Jin didn’t know.
She didn’t know how to laugh naturally, or how to fall into a deep sleep.
Since then, everything she did was just to avoid repeating the past.
Nan Jin knew that she didn’t believe in anything, and couldn’t believe in anything.
She also always knew that the reason why the Jianjia Buildding owner saved her back then was not out of kindness, but because she had a hold on Chu Yu.
Moreover, she was a child.
An innocent little girl who grew up in the Prince Gong’s Mansion.
So much so that when Nan Jin killed her way to the top, stepping on the bodies of the Jianjia Building’s twelve courtyard masters –
No one could have imagined it.
In the end, it was the little girl who used to smile that pierced their hearts.
But now, Nan Jin is tired.
Because she has never changed.
From the beginning until now, everything she has done has been just to survive.
It’s a very humble and simple reason that supports Nan Jin to always look down on everything and treat anyone and anything cruelly.
But now, Nan Jin is a little lost.
Before, she was afraid that she would die quietly.
Now she is still afraid–
Afraid of the candles burning out, seeing the piles of corpses, and the blood on her hands.
More afraid of when she dreams at midnight.
The two most beautiful heads rolling at her feet.
That was Nan Jin’s attempt to bury the past with killing and forgetting, step by step climbing up to a higher position.
But in her dreams, her memories become confused.
When she climbs up step by step,
She falls from the highest point of the mountain of corpses and seas of blood.
Nan Jin lowers her head and sees the two bloody heads, still feeling trembling all over.
She can only smile and tell herself that it’s all in the past.
Then she picks up her sword.
And shatters the entire dream into pieces.
And when she wakes up again.
When she woke up again, Nan Jin didn’t have a sword or shattered dreams in her hand. She had schemed and cunningly survived, but in the end, she could only reach out her hand in confusion, tremblingly saying, “Mother, look, the peach blossoms are blooming.”
The night was boundless. As Nan Jin had anticipated, no one answered.
At the end of everything, there was only herself, and there could only be herself.
…
But on that day, when Nan Jin woke up, in a dazed state of consciousness, she reached out her hand in confusion. Yet, she didn’t expect that the next moment, her fingers were cut by a thin blade before she could grasp anything.
When Nan Jin saw that cold and indifferent face, she finally realized that she was currently staying in Jianjia Building. She had just gone through some experiences with her enemy’s sister.
Nan Jin was stunned, not because Rong Lian was preparing to kill her while she slept, but because…
She had actually fallen asleep.
She had fallen asleep peacefully next to a stranger.
Upon waking up, she had even spoken in her sleep.
After a while, Nan Jin looked at the blood seeping out of her fingers. She then looked at Rong Lian, who was holding the sword, and asked with a smile, “I saved you. Why do you still want to kill me?”
Rong Lian shook her head and replied, “I don’t know, but I really want to kill you.”
Nan Jin asked again, “Then why did you stop?”
Rong Lian paused for a moment and said in a slow voice, “Because of what you just said and the expression you showed, they gave me a feeling…”
Nan Jin looked at the slightly furrowed brow of Rong Lian.
She smiled with her lips slightly curved, as if she already knew what the other person wanted to say.
At the same time, she had made her own plans.
If Shen Rong Lian dared to show even a hint of pity, she would definitely kill the person on the spot.
But to her surprise, Rong Lian withdrew her sword and bit her lip.
Her expression was somewhat strange.
After a moment, she calmly said, “Give me a feeling… of a little heartache.”
Nan Jin was taken aback.
Then Nan Jin leaned against the bedpost and burst into laughter.
She laughed until her stomach hurt, and tears welled up in the corners of her eyes.
A person who had slaughtered an entire family.
Yet she said she felt heartache for her?
It was ridiculous.
Nan Jin found Consort Ning ridiculous, and Rong Lian even more so.
There were many things in the world that could make her laugh, but she herself was at a loss and could not be a laughingstock.
Nan Jin was very conceited.
But Xiao Jin, who stood by and watched her, felt that Nan Jin was actually very lonely.
Years passed, and on a certain day when the peach blossoms were blooming again.
That day, Nan Jin was in a good mood.
Sitting in the elegant pavilion on the high floor, she leaned against the window and watched the students in their spring clothes riding horses and reciting poetry.
Nan Jin looked down and suddenly felt that this scene looked pretty good.
She no longer resented those scholars, and instead went for an outing in the countryside.
The sun was not too strong in the countryside, and the sunshine was warm.
A thin layer of sunshine fell on her face, like silk.
Nan Jin drank some wine and casually picked a flower branch covered in dew.
Looking at the peach blossom buds, she seemed to think of something, so she rode her horse and took the food box to the Jianjia Building.
The sun shone on Nan Jin’s face.
She was drunk and felt like the boat of Jianjia Building was still far away.
To the point where, when she climbed the building and saw the stunned expression on Rong Lian’s face, her heart was filled with a mixture of surprise and joy.
Just like the stars and moon in the sky.
They hang so high, always suspended in an unreachable place.
But one day, when you open your hand,
You suddenly realize that these precious things have been in your palm all along.
After listening to Rong Lian’s performance of “Chang xiang si,” Nan Jin handed her the peach blossom branch and asked with a smile, “Do you like peach blossoms?”
Rong Lian nodded.
Nan Jin then took out the peach blossom soup from the food box and asked again, “Do you like peach blossom soup?”
Rong Lian nodded again.
The girls in the building were eavesdropping outside the door, and their jaws had already dropped in shock.
Nan Jin was drunk and naturally didn’t know about this.
She just lifted her hand lightly and pointed to the blue sky outside the window, the vast land between the mountains and rivers.
Her fingers were slender and graceful, brushing over everything.
Rong Lian looked at Nan Jin’s eyes, her expression indifferent, nodding one by one.
Finally, Nan Jin put down her hand and said with a smile, “Rong Lian, since you like this blue sky that makes people tired of it, and you like these trampled flowers and grasses, you like so many things, and they are so abundant…”
“So what about me?”
“Will your likes come to me someday?”
Rong Lian’s expression did not change much.
She just shook her head and said frankly, “No.”
“Your Excellency, I won’t like you.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author’s Note: Sorry darlings, I originally wrote seven thousand words, but felt that it wasn’t right, so I deleted four thousand words.
These few days, I haven’t been feeling well, and the things I wrote always felt inadequate and lacking.
Because I’m worried that too many classes will affect the quality of updates, and I don’t want to force myself to write unsatisfactory words, so I’m asking for a few days off here to learn and adjust. You can fatten up and come back to read. (Bows)
Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or irrigated nutrient solution during the period from 23:59:23 on April 13, 2022, to 23:09:46 on April 15, 2022~
Translator’s note: Ugh…this kind of phrase, “Your Excellency, I won’t like you,” really gives Nan Jin a heartache. But who knows, maybe Rong Lian regained her memory at that moment and said that sentence. Anyways, let’s find out in the succeeding chapters. As for how long it will take me to update again, it depends on how quickly the raw chapters are updated. I won’t be able to update the next chapters until the raws are available. So, today’s update will be the last one. Please be patient, as I am also waiting for the release of new chapters. Additionally, if you have a source for raw chapters of this story, please inform me. Thanks, and see you again!
TO BE CONTINUE…….Â
Comment