vstars Chapter 859 A familiar scene
Chapter 859 A familiar scene
Feeling the warmth and faint fragrance coming from the girl in his arms, Xu Zize's throat choked, and an indescribable bitterness and warmth mixed together and surged into his heart, and he couldn't help but feel hot and moist in his eyes.
He hurriedly buried his head in her thin shoulder, as if he wanted to imprint all his vulnerability and dependence on her at the moment and let her be infused with his scent.
He took a deep breath, tried to calm his surging emotions, and then continued to concentrate on recalling, his voice with a barely perceptible hoarseness.
"Regarding this Princess Mansion... the Imperial Grandmother did give strict instructions. She repeatedly warned us not to let that bastard give it to anyone else, and certainly not to allow any outsiders to live here and defile this peaceful place left by my aunt."
He paused slightly, looking hesitantly into Jing Chunxi's clear eyes, as if making some kind of resolution. After a while, he continued in a low voice, "Actually... the Empress Dowager once said that if... if Brother Xiaokang were fortunate enough to return to the capital in the future, she hoped that I would get married in this house, raise children here... and live here for generations, never leaving."
"Ah?" Jing Chunxi was stunned when he heard this. He raised his head suddenly and looked at him in disbelief, his eyes full of shock and confusion. "Then...then you took the initiative to ask the emperor for permission to reward this house to us?" Doesn't this go against the empress dowager's last wish?
"If Brother Xiaokang directly proposed to give the house to you, Xier, and renamed it 'Anping Princess Mansion', would you agree?" Xu Zize knew her too well. He looked at her with burning eyes and a firm tone, as if he had already anticipated her answer.
Sure enough, Jing Chunxi blurted out almost without thinking: "I've already said that Xier won't set up another mansion. I must protect my brother and there's no way I can let him move into the Princess's Mansion." Her responsibilities and concerns have never been just for herself.
"That's it!" Xu Zize raised the corner of his lips with a smile that showed understanding and a bit of domineering.
"Anyway, you and your sister have never been outsiders to me. What's yours is mine. Even if you and I can't get married for the time being, in brother Xiaokang's heart, you and Pu Ge'er have long been close relatives." He said this in a firm tone, leaving no room for doubt, and she would not be allowed to refute anything.
This straightforward and passionate declaration instantly made Jing Chunxi's cheeks red. She felt the heat on her face, her heartbeat was like a drum, her legs softened slightly, and she almost couldn't support her body.
Xu Zize seemed oblivious to her distress as he continued to paint a picture of the future. His voice was gentle yet powerful. "When the opportunity arises in the future, Brother Xiaokang will find a suitable excuse to move Pu'er to a more spacious and elegant house. As for this place... you and I can often bring the children back to stay for a while and enjoy the old place. This way... we can fulfill the painstaking efforts of the Empress Dowager."
The imagination about the future and "children" contained in these words made Jing Chunxi even more upset and his heart was pounding. After a long while, his pounding heart gradually calmed down.
She gently pulled herself out of his embrace, trying to bring her attention back to reality. She once again raised her eyes to the silent rockery and asked softly, "Then... Brother Xiaokang, have you ever truly considered why the Empress wants you to stay in this house? Is it simply to preserve her memory?"
"Xi'er—" This question, like a morning bell, finally brought Xu Zize's mind back to normal, having been slightly lost in the warmth. His expression froze. "You mean... this house itself might be hiding some secrets?"
He once again followed the direction indicated by Jing Chunxi, and examined the rockery in front of him, as well as the grass, trees, stones and scenery around it, scanning every detail with his sharp eyes.
Suddenly, a vague sense of familiarity swept through his heart, and he couldn't help but murmur, "This layout...this scenery...Brother Xiaokang seems to have seen it somewhere. Is it...some noble family's mansion in the capital also built like this?"
He frowned tightly and tried hard to search his memory for the courtyard scenes of all the dukes' and marquises' mansions in the capital that he had ever stepped into, comparing them one by one.
However, after thinking hard for a long time, when he opened his eyes again, he could only shake his head in confusion, without any clue.
"Brother Xiaokang, come with me." Jing Chunxi said no more, took his hand and led him out of the shadow of the rockery, walked through the winding and quiet path, and went straight back to the "Xichungui" courtyard where she lived.
Just when Xu Zize thought that she would take him up to the small attic where he could overlook the lake, he saw her holding his hand, walking around a winding corridor, and coming to an inconspicuous back door deep in the courtyard.
As the wooden door was slowly pushed open with a creak, the scene outside suddenly became clear - a vast expanse of water instantly came into view, which was the same rippling blue lake that they could usually see from the attic.
Looking closely, the foundation of the house is several feet above the lake surface, but the slope facing the lake is not vertically steep, but extends downward at a gentle slope. After dozens of steps of relatively flat earth and stone paths, the terrain suddenly drops, forming a significant drop.
Jing Chunxi still pulled him and stepped onto the soft and fine sand by the lake without hesitation. Then she led him to a clump of extremely dense and vigorous golden bamboo, knelt down first and sat down, not caring at all whether her clothes would be dirty.
The bamboo leaves are swaying, the green shade is refreshing, and the cool breeze with moisture blowing from the lake blows away the afternoon heat, making people feel no heat at all.
This scene was all too familiar—the same sitting posture, the almost identical bamboo forest by the lake, and the gentle breeze. Xu Zize felt as if he had sat side by side with the person next to him in this way at some distant moment.
He tried hard to recall, but his mind was like a mess filled with paste, so chaotic that he couldn't grasp the vague memory.
"Brother Xiaokang," Jing Chunxi said softly, helplessly, seeing him struggling with his thoughts, "Imagine it's the dead of night, and the lake before us has transformed into a river. And on the other side... a few fishing lights and lanterns are reflected in the water, swaying with the waves."
She connected the two scenes by chance, and at this moment she couldn't help but feel that her "wooden head" seemed to be a little smarter than his.
"Do you remember, Brother Xiaokang?" The person beside him fell into a long silence, as if his soul had drifted far away. After a long while, Jing Chunxi couldn't help but speak again and asked softly.
"Jian'an County! Cui Mansion, the Cui family's mansion! The Empress Dowager's maiden home."
Xu Zize suddenly unraveled his memory and captured that crucial scene. He turned abruptly, excitedly grasped Jing Chunxi's shoulders with both hands, and twisted her to face him, his eyes gleaming with disbelief and surprise. "Under the rockery over there, there's a cleverly designed underground river that leads directly to the outer river! Could it be... could it be here too...?"
A huge epiphany struck him like lightning, and what followed was the heavy and lingering protective heart that the Empress Dowager had buried deep beneath the arrangement.
I don’t know whether this strange feature existed when the princess’s mansion was built, or whether it was added later for her own use out of necessity.
Xu Zize suddenly broke down in tears, his scalding tears streaming down uncontrollably like beads from a broken string. "Grandmother…Grandmother had long anticipated the dangers of the capital, worried that we would one day be left with nowhere to escape if we encountered danger… She had even…even planned a final escape route for us…"