The Legend of Concubine's Daughter Minglan

Chapter 44

When she returned to the capital to reunite with the Sheng family a few months later, Minglan was asked what kind of person He Hongwen was.

Pondering for quite long, Mingan answered, "A good person."

Hes was an aristocrat family, the ancestor of which had set up the Baishitan Academy as an honest and upright pioneer among all scholars around the country for decades. Though the descendants were less outstanding as their ancestors, they were in possession of both wealth and nobility titles. Old Madam He had married to a collateral branch of the He family. Her third son passed away at a young age, left with only one son, He Hongwen, who was much loved by his grandparents.

He Hongwen had studied medicine since he was a child. As soon as the boat started to sail, he began to boil medicine tea for Minglan to comfort her stomach. Though the tea tasted bitter, it took effect soon. One dose of it made Minglan feel much better. Yet, she believed in the end she had to build up to resist sickness, so she planned to take no more of it. However, since it was not polite to turn down his kindness, she had to secretly dumped the tea away.

One day, He Hongwen came to visit Minglan and asked casually, "Did you take the medicine tea I sent?"

Minglan responded with a serious face, "Yes, I took it just now." To her surprise, at this moment Xiaotao came in from outside with a cup in her hand, saying "Relax my lady; no one saw me..." The sentence stopped halfway at the sight of He Hongwen.

Minglan followed He Hongwen's eyes, only to see stains of the green drug liquid of familiar smell on the white porcelain tea cup with lotus pattern. He Hongwen slowly looked back at Minglan who tried hard in pretending to be cool, "Xiaotao, how come it took you so long to wash a cup?" Xiaotao, in shock, could only make an excuse, "The cup...is hard to wash."

Minglan, feeling her scalp shuddering, forced some laughter and said to He Hongwen while avoiding his eyes, "Haha, it's hard...hard to wash."

He Hongwen pretended to act as usual and smiled, "Of course, things get harder on boat."

Minglan...=_=. Danju, standing next to her on call, was less brazen and looked away.

The next day, He Hongwen sent two bowls of herbal tea. Before him, Minglan held up undauntedly the bowls, gurgled in one breath, and showed him the empty bowls for inspection.

He Hongwen smiled like a teacher praising a pupil who just finished the homework that had been procrastinated.

Strictly speaking, He Hongwen was the first unrelated man Minglan knew. Their grandmothers were confidants that hadn't seen each other for decades, so they hid in the compartment chatting and making up for decades of years' loss. With the company of a group of servants, young or old, Minglan and He Hongwen indeed met several times.

The first meeting between ancient boys and girls started normally with, "What books have you read?"

The question was familiar to Minglan because this sentence was quested to recite in Lin Daiyu Moving to Jia Mansion from the high school textbook, so she imitated the character in it and answered in a shy manner, "I only know a few words trying not to be illiterate."

Having answered his question, Minglan felt herself behaving like a real lady.

He Hongwen picked up his eyebrows and made no comment about it but he looked right to stare at a pile of papers for practicing calligraphy on the desk. The papers were stained with ink, apparently having been written with characters. Minglan was a bit embarrassed and added, "I have just read Female Rules and Filial Piety."

He Hongwen still kept silent and turned to left where on the shelf piled out of order several used books whose covers were open. On topics of medical astrology, astronomy, geography among others, they were light readings sent here by Changbai and Changdong at Minglan's begging.