The Noble Woman's Guide On How to Tease One's Husband

96-100

Chapter 96 – Grievous New

The perfectly round and bright moon hung high in the sky radiating silvery light all around at dusk.

Distant sound of horses' hooves clattering and trampling stardust on the ground came through the main road. The dark clothes riders were galloping relentlessly against the wind, leaving a streak of long black shadows in the darkness which were gone in a flash at staggering speed.

They soon reached the small town where they would stay over. There was no longer superfluous smoke from the village houses besides the narrow winding trail. Small orange lights illuminating the grass and gravel through the paper windows were soon trampled by rushing footsteps. Though in a hurry, the destination was obvious — the shop inscribed with the Ye word at the end of the alley.

Ten days ago, Ye Huaili had notified via homing pigeons to all the Ye family members in Wangdu's nearby prefectures to pay close attention to the movements in Wangdu while he and Chu Jinglan would get reports throughout their journey in order to grasp the latest situation in the palace.

They have now arrived in Cangzhou which is only a day's journey away from Wangdu. Though they have almost reached their physical limit, they do not want to stop even for a step just because the person they both yearn for is not far away.

They will soon be able to see Yang'er.

In these past few nights, Chu Jinglan would dream of Ye Huaiyang as soon as he closed his eyes. Wearing the phoenix coronet with embroidered tassel cape, she sat and smiled on the wedding bed. With Lan-lan in her arms, she rolled into a ball like a small child in the backyard and there was also her laying coquettishly in his arms that every frown and smile were as distinct as yesterday, as if he could touch her with a stretch of his hand.

Only then did he realize he misses her crazily.

He didn't have this kind of feeling in Shuzhong previously. Perhaps he was overly tired or maybe because the letters that arrived on every fifth day imperceptibly gave him comfort but once everything changed, only then did he feel how big the contrast was. It was so big that he could no longer calm down.

He simply could not imagine a life without her at all.

Restraining all these emotions, Chu Jinglan walked alongside Ye Huaili to the Ye family's shop. Not a soul was in sight on the narrow street but the presence of the moonlight. Ye Huaili looked up and spoke all of a sudden, "It's the Mid-Autumn Festival next month."

Chu Jinglan was silent for a moment before he replied hoarsely, "Yang'er has told me to go back and celebrate it with her."

"She has always been like that." Ye Huaili's expression immediately turned particularly gentle when he spoke of Ye Huaiyang, "Every year when I left Wangdu, she would earnestly ask me to come back for the Mid-Autumn festival, saying that the family cook had made many new flavors mooncakes that regrettably no one partake, which were all nonsense. She never touched mooncakes again after getting sick from being gluttonous when she was nine and she thought I had forgotten about it."

"She is gluttonous." The corners of Chu Jinglan's lips lifted slightly when he recalled she wouldn't let go of the syrup jar on the Ghost Festival's day.

"Contrarily the family indulges her, because she usually handles matters maturely with a calm manner and rarely has such childish moments. Mother would have this argument whenever I mentioned this to her. Mother also said it's not that the family has no money so even if she wants to eat the peach of immortality, we should pluck it for her which really made me not know whether to laugh or to cry. After Father and Mother left home for a long trip, I placed her under much stricter control that even my Uncle and Aunt said I didn't love her but she was not the wee bit upset at all. She would glue herself to me whenever I came back just like when she was a child."

Ye Huaili spoke of this with a touch of melancholy that Chu Jinglan heard clearly and asked with slightly raised eyebrows, "Regret?"

"Yes, I do regretted it." A faint sigh escaped from his throat as Ye Huaili responded sadly, "I am not a qualified elder brother."

"Then accompany her more in the future."

Chu Jinglan's words sounded nothing at first but it eventually felt like entrusting Ye Huaiyang to him after careful discernment. Ye Huaili knew very well the danger of this trip too without a complete certainty in his heart, so he didn't say anything.