The two sisters stared at each other, their eyes wide, and the atmosphere fell silent for a moment.
Cui Yunchu rested her chin in her hands, looking as if she was thinking hard. "A relic. Didn't Consort Liang give you a relic from your mother? Take it out."
"Oh, right, right," Cui Yunfeng reached into her robes and took out a fine mutton-fat jade pendant.
Its texture was clear and translucent. Cui Yunchu's eyes went wide, and she couldn't help but reach out to touch it.
Mmm, it felt warm and smooth to the touch; it must be worth a fortune.
"Your mother was quite generous." To be able to give such a thing away—if it were her mother, even if she didn't sell it for silver, it would probably be kept as a family heirloom.
Cui Yunfeng felt helpless. "Eldest Sister, don't talk about this at a time like this."
Cui Yunchu ignored her and took the jade pendant from her hand. "You keep crying. Let me feel the jade pendant."
Cui Yunfeng, "..."
Watching Cui Yunchu repeatedly stroke the jade pendant, she wailed, "Father, my marriage is also my mother's wish. She left the jade pendant with Consort Liang as proof."
Cui Yunchu turned the jade pendant over and indeed saw Cui Yunfeng's name engraved on it.
She couldn't help but chuckle softly. "Consort Liang certainly knows exactly what to use to manipulate Father most effectively."
Sure enough, a faint sound seemed to come from inside the room.
Cui Yunchu urged, "Quick, keep crying, victory is right before our eyes."
Cui Yunfeng cried even harder, causing Steward Wang behind the door to twitch at the temples.
He stealthily glanced at the Lord Prime Minister, not knowing if the Lord Prime Minister had heard the words the Eldest Miss used to instruct the Second Miss.
Being so far away, he probably couldn't hear it.
During a pause in her sobbing, Cui Yunfeng secretly asked Cui Yunchu, "What's going on? Didn't you say victory was right before our eyes? Why is there no sound again?"
Cui Yunchu said, "You have to believe that Father's fatal weakness is your mother."
"Do you remember what Grandmother said just now in Songhe Garden?"
Cui Yunfeng nodded.
Cui Yunchu lowered her eyes and whispered, "Ask him if he ever regretted marrying your mother."
Cui Yunfeng nodded again. "Father, you don't want your daughter to marry Prince An for my own good. But what about you back then? Everyone disapproved of you marrying my mother, yet you still married her. Later, my mother passed away early. Have you ever regretted it?"
In the study, Prime Minister Cui behind the desk looked down at the scroll on the table, his eyes feeling dry and strained.
The woman in the painting smiled beautifully, holding a book of poetry in her hands, leaning back in a lounge chair. Above her head were peach blossoms in full bloom, fluttering down...
Just looking at it gave one a sense of peaceful years, as if being in a fairyland. That woman seemed to have some magic that could inexplicably calm one's mind.
Cui Yunfeng's final words were like a knife, forcefully scraping the flesh off his heart, leaving it dripping with blood.
The atmosphere in the study stagnated, and Steward Wang's face turned pale with fright.
He advised through the door, "Second Miss, you mustn't say such things."
The sky over the Cui Manor would collapse.
As soon as Cui Yunfeng heard this, she knew there was hope. Under Cui Yunchu's guidance, she cried even more vigorously.
There was movement in the study...
The corners of Cui Yunchu's lips curled up slightly, revealing an indiscernible emotion. She seemed to still be observing the jade pendant, but also seemed not to be looking at it at all.
"Eldest Sister, it worked."
Cui Yunchu hummed in agreement and returned the jade pendant to Cui Yunfeng.
The study door creaked open.
Cui Yunchu sprang up from the ground with lightning speed and dodged to the side.
To avoid implicating the innocent.
Prime Minister Cui stood on the steps, dressed in a pale green casual robe, standing with his hands behind his back, gazing at Cui Yunfeng kneeling on the ground.
His expression was unprecedentedly cold and stern. At least in Cui Yunchu's memory, every time he saw Cui Yunfeng, he was joyful and proud.
Cui Yunchu swallowed hard, her footsteps imperceptibly shifting backward.
Cui Yunfeng had played a bit too big, and her small frame truly couldn't bear the consequences.
"Cui Yunchu."
"???" Cui Yunchu halted her steps and froze. "Fa... Father."
He was calling her?
This was something Cui Yunchu had absolutely never expected.
Prime Minister Cui's gaze swept over, very heavy and very cold. "Go kneel in the ancestral hall. You are not allowed to get up until dawn tomorrow."
Time paused briefly for a few breaths.
Cui Yunchu blinked, nodded, and complied very obediently, not even asking why.
Cui Yunfeng said, "Father, my matter has nothing to do with Eldest Sister. Why are you punishing her?"
Prime Minister Cui withdrew his gaze from Cui Yunchu and said indifferently, "As to why, your Eldest Sister knows in her heart, and you should also understand. Her being punished is even more because you implicated her."
Cui Yunfeng had thought she would be punished.
"Father, Yunfeng will bear it alone. Eldest Sister just feels bad for me."
Prime Minister Cui remained silent. Steward Wang on the side immediately advised, "Second Miss, since the Lord Prime Minister has decided, it cannot be changed. Please don't plead for mercy."
Prime Minister Cui was indeed always true to his word in the manor. Otherwise, if his family was not peaceful, how could he govern the country?
Cui Yunfeng's tears flowed even more fiercely, crying until the corners of her eyes and brows were red, looking quite similar to the woman in the painting in the study.
His gaze fell on the jade pendant in Cui Yunfeng's hand for a long time before he stepped down the stairs.
Cui Yunfeng immediately handed the jade pendant to him. "Father, this is also my mother's wish. My marriage with Prince An is a heaven-destined match."
The mutton-fat white jade lay quietly in Prime Minister Cui's hand. He looked at it for a good while.
Cui Yunfeng's name was still engraved by his own hands back then. He never expected that this jade pendant would actually be in the hands of Consort Liang.
"Father, please fulfill your daughter's wish."
Prime Minister Cui tightly gripped the jade pendant and looked down at Cui Yunfeng. "Do you know what marrying into Prince An's estate means?"
Cui Yunfeng nodded. "I know. Grandmother has already explained it to me."
"Father, you were also young once. Your daughter is no longer a child now and has the right to decide how to walk her own path. I beg Father to fulfill my wish."
Prime Minister Cui closed his eyes and did not respond to Cui Yunfeng's words, but instead said, "Get lost and go kneel in the ancestral hall."
Cui Yunfeng got up and left, like a little beast that wouldn't turn back until it hit the south wall, her back looking resolute.
Prime Minister Cui stood in the courtyard for a long time. When he turned around, he suddenly realized that Cui Yunchu was actually still there. He couldn't help but frown. "Why haven't you gone?"
Cui Yunchu curled up a smile and curtsied. "Yunchu also has a question I want to ask Father."
"Back then, when you brought my concubine mother back to the manor, did you ever regret it?"
"Have you ever regretted giving birth to me?" The smile on her face never faded, as if she was wearing a mask, and no one could discern what kind of face was truly beneath that mask.
Her voice was low and light, and paired with her smile, it inexplicably made one's heart feel heavy.
Prime Minister Cui gazed at her without saying a word.
Cui Yunchu's smile seemed a bit hard to maintain. She curtsied. "It's getting late. Yunchu will go kneel in the ancestral hall first. Father, please rest well and don't ruin your health from anger."
Clutching her chest, she left Prime Minister Cui's courtyard with steps as fast as the wind.
"Scared me to death," Cui Yunchu comforted herself while stroking her chest.
"Miss, if you can't smile, then don't smile. There's no one else here. No one will see, and certainly, no one will laugh at you."
Cui Yunchu's expression was indifferent. "Why shouldn't I smile? He didn't like my concubine mother, and he doesn't like me, but I was still born, wasn't I? He can't stuff me back in, so isn't that worth being happy about?"
"..."
Xing'er sniffled, her eyes stinging with unshed tears.
"Alright, why be so sentimental? If I took every little thing to heart, I would have withered away and died long ago. Who cares what others think or do? Cui Yunchu already exists in this world, and what anyone else thinks simply doesn't matter."
She had just suffered a momentary lapse in judgment to even ask such a foolish question.
But just as she had said, looking at it from another perspective, even if he didn't like her, she had still been brought into this world. The very fact that she was born was an incredibly fortunate thing in itself.
"Even the heavens are watching over me. Tell me, do you think I might be a little attendant beside the Bodhisattva Guanyin? Or, perhaps even more likely, an immortal from heaven who descended to the mortal realm to face a trial? Don't you think so?"
