Cui Yunchu touched her lips and let out a few silly chuckles. Puckering up, she blew several kisses into the air before lying back down.
She silently cursed someone for being shameless—though she did not know whether she meant Shen Xiabai or herself.
“Fine, I’ll go. Who’s afraid of whom?” A kiss was just a kiss. It was not as though they had never kissed before.
Hugging the letter to her chest, she let out a long breath. Staring up at the ceiling, she gradually grew drowsy and drifted off without realizing it.
A man’s voice suddenly sounded by her ear. Cui Yunchu tried to open her eyes, but no matter what she did, she could not.
Then a face of extraordinary elegance appeared before her. The man smiled with tender affection. “A Chu, kiss me.”
Cui Yunchu shot him a disdainful look, but still leaned forward with her red lips.
Her lips were pursed into an exaggerated pout.
“Lord Shen, kiss me.”
...
Inside the room, Xing’er, who had failed to stop Cui Qingyuan, stood trembling in terror. Cui Qingyuan, standing beside the bed, wore a livid expression.
Her body suddenly felt lighter, accompanied by a gust of wind sweeping past. Cui Yunchu jolted awake from her lovely dream at once.
Still bleary-eyed, she blinked and looked at the person standing beside the bed.
So close. She had been just a breath away from kissing him.
Thinking of the face in her dream, then looking at this one...
The contrast was simply too great to bear. Cui Yunchu’s mouth turned down, and she nearly wanted to cry.
Xing’er frantically gestured at her.
Cui Yunchu remained lying there, staring at Cui Qingyuan as her senses slowly returned. Then, unhurriedly, she climbed out of bed, put on her shoes, draped herself in her cloak, and looked up at Prime Minister Cui.
“How long am I to kneel?”
She had already gone to bed, yet he had chased all the way to her courtyard. It was freezing outside. For the sake of punishing her, the old man truly had worn himself out.
The anger filling Cui Qingyuan’s stomach caught in his throat. For a long while, he said nothing.
“At least you have some self-awareness.”
Cui Yunchu continued to pout. As though it would make any difference if she tried to argue.
“Whose idea was this?”
Cui Yunchu blinked, her eyes clear and innocent. “I don’t know.”
“When the matchmaker came to the door, I thought she had been sent on an imperial decree. How could I dare say no? But if Father is displeased and wishes to punish me, what can I possibly say?”
Cui Qingyuan frowned. He lowered his eyes to glance at her bulging cloak, then looked away in disgust.
As if he were blind.
“What official matchmaker would dare falsely claim an imperial decree?” Cui Qingyuan’s voice was stern, and Cui Yunchu deliberately gave a shiver.
“If the Prime Minister is dissatisfied, then just punish me. I’m used to it anyway.”
From Cui Yunchu’s words, kneeling in the ancestral hall sounded like the most ordinary thing in the world.
Yet he remembered that when Yunfeng had been little, threatening her with kneeling in the ancestral hall had always made her stop crying and behaving badly at once.
The ancestral hall was dark, which was why girls were all afraid of it.
But Cui Yunchu? Never mind frightening her—she would be lucky if she did not frighten the ancestors themselves in there.
Cui Yunchu’s cloak was nearly unable to contain everything hidden inside it. Growing impatient, she urged, “Prime Minister, if there’s nothing else, I’ll go to the ancestral hall and take my punishment.”
Rather than wasting time talking nonsense with her, he ought to think carefully about how to avoid having to marry her off to a princess.
Cui Qingyuan said, “The Grand Princess’s residence has sent an invitation. The day after tomorrow is the Grand Princess’s birthday, and a banquet will be held in the Empress Dowager’s palace. You will attend on behalf of the Cui family.”
Cui Yunchu nodded briskly.
She was rather obedient about that.
Cui Qingyuan continued, “After the banquet the day after tomorrow, I will arrange for you to meet a certain lord from court. Prepare yourself, and restrain that temper of yours.”
Cui Yunchu arched a brow. Slowly raising her eyes, she glanced at the ceiling beam and drew out a long, “Oh.”
Cui Qingyuan felt that every movement of hers was full of provocation and threat.
Cui Yunchu had the temperament of a dead pig unafraid of boiling water. As long as he was not afraid of losing face, she was not afraid of coming up with all manner of tricks.
Cui Qingyuan looked at her slightly bent waist and the strain clearly showing on her face. With a look of distaste, he turned away. “Kneel until tomorrow before getting up.”
“All right,” Cui Yunchu answered immediately.
Cui Qingyuan turned and left. He felt as though he had not punished her at all, but rewarded her instead.
#
At the entrance to the ancestral hall, Cui Yunchu greeted the two guards. They lifted their eyelids to glance at her, saluted, then resumed their duties with expressionless faces.
They had long grown used to Cui Yunchu’s comings and goings—so used to them that they had become numb.
The moment she entered the ancestral hall, Cui Yunchu collapsed onto a cushion in exhaustion. Then came the sharp clatter of something hitting the floor as a round object rolled out from inside her cloak.
Xing’er’s eyes widened. “Miss, you even brought a brazier?”
The brazier was small and delicate, but concealing it inside her cloak could not have been easy.
Sitting cross-legged, Cui Yunchu gave a smug smile. “That’s nothing.”
As she spoke, she pulled many more things from beneath her cloak, including, unbelievably, a storybook.
Xing’er’s mouth twitched.
When spread out, the cloak was thicker than a quilt. Who knew how many layers of cotton Nanny Zhang had sewn into it?
“Miss, even with a brazier, what are we supposed to do without charcoal?” Xing’er asked.
Only then did Cui Yunchu realize this was a serious problem.
After thinking for a moment, she turned to look at the two men guarding the entrance to the ancestral hall, then suddenly climbed to her feet.
“You two, go find me some charcoal.”
The two men turned to look inside the ancestral hall. Their mouths twitched in unison.
A brazier, a storybook, pastries, fruit, and things to roast—was this meant to be a punishment?
It was more like an outing in the countryside.
“First Miss, this... isn’t appropriate, is it? What if the Prime Minister finds out? That would be disastrous.”
Cui Yunchu planted her hands on her hips. “Are you going or not? If you won’t, I’ll chop up some firewood and burn that instead.”
What firewood?
The two exchanged a glance, then followed Cui Yunchu’s gaze toward the ancestral tablets inside the hall.
To be fair, they were made of wood.
Cui Yunchu might dare to say it, but they did not even dare imagine it.
“Give her some,” one of them said.
The other nodded. “All right.”
With First Miss’s temperament, she might actually do it. The Prime Minister would not beat her to death, but there was a good chance he would beat the two of them to death.
Cui Yunchu clapped her hands and returned to the ancestral hall.
Xing’er spread a fur blanket on the floor and laid out all their things.
Before long, the two men delivered some charcoal. Xing’er then handed one of them a teapot. “Bring us a pot of water too.”
The man replied with an “Oh,” then went and brought back a kettle of water, setting it over the brazier.
Cui Yunchu smacked her lips. Relaxed as though she were lounging in her own courtyard, she held her storybook and leaned against Xing’er, wrapped in a cloak thicker than a quilt.
Xing’er placed the pastries beside the brazier. Once they warmed through, she fed Cui Yunchu a few bites.
“Don’t take this set of things back tomorrow. Find somewhere to hide them. We’ll use them again next time.”
Xing’er nodded as she massaged Cui Yunchu’s head.
Cui Yunchu was utterly absorbed in her storybook.
Xing’er, however, could not focus on it at all. Worried, she asked, “Miss, what are we going to do if the Prime Minister refuses to approve your marriage to Lord Shen?”
Cui Yunchu said, “I never planned to marry him right now anyway.”
“Huh?” Xing’er’s mouth fell open. “But don’t you like Lord Shen?”
“Liking someone doesn’t mean you have to marry them.” Cui Yunchu sounded entirely justified. “Isn’t sneaking around like this quite nice for now?”
Xing’er could not understand the way her mistress’s mind worked. “But if you never marry, that’s no solution either, is it?”
“Who says we can never marry? Once that old bastard and the Emperor are dead, we can marry whenever we please.”
In short, if they had a clever scheme, she had a way around it.
If they refused to agree, then they simply would not marry. They could carry on in secret instead. After all, the two of them were still young; once they outlived those people, getting married would amount to the same thing.
“...” Xing'er was rendered speechless.
Cui Yunchu pointed at the storybook for her to see. “Look at this scholar in the book. He got someone else pregnant, then deceived his lawful wife into raising the child for him.”
“...”
“And what exactly does that have to do with whether you and Lord Shen get married?”
Cui Yunchu stroked her chin. “I just think it’s a good idea. If Shen Xiabai and I carry on in secret and end up with a—ah, no, ptooey—a child, we could have him bring the child back to the Shen family under the guise of adoption. No one would be any the wiser. It would be the perfect deception.”
As she spoke, she nodded repeatedly to herself, as though she found herself brilliant beyond measure.
Xing'er’s ramrod-straight kneeling posture crumpled. Her face went blank, and she did not want to say another word.
