The Mouse Sachet
As May arrived and the weather began to warm, the palace maids all changed into thin blouses.
Because the Peony Courtyard had fewer duties, the maids working here had a rather leisurely time.
Every day, guards would patrol past the area. Some idle maids would gather together to discuss which guard was the most handsome and who had the best figure. The bolder ones would secretly give pouches or handkerchiefs to the guards, carrying on a clandestine romance.
Su Zhenzhen remembered the favor of Mu Dan getting her out of the imperial prison last time. A jar of cherry jam certainly could not express her gratitude; it would be best to pledge herself to him in marriage (just kidding).
Su Zhenzhen took out all her savings, only to find that she couldn't even afford a decent gift.
Well, it's the thought that counts, not the price.
Su Zhenzhen saw that her roommates would embroider pouches and sachets themselves to give to the guards they fancied.
After thinking about it, she decided to follow the trend and embroider a kitten-shaped sachet.
The thought of the little eunuch walking around in front of his colleagues every day wearing her sachet made Su Zhenzhen feel inexplicably shy yet happy.
Sigh, her little romantic thoughts wouldn't be discovered, would they?
Su Zhenzhen secretly thought happily as she embroidered.
"Miss Su," a voice sounded behind her.
Su Zhenzhen turned around and saw Shen Yanci, who had appeared behind her at some unknown time.
He was wearing a casual purple silk robe, which perfectly accentuated his naturally refined temperament.
He looked very showy.
"My Lord," Su Zhenzhen lowered her head and curtsied.
"I heard that Miss Su was mistakenly arrested and put into the imperial prison a few days ago?" The man's face showed concern. "Are you alright? I was so worried that I didn't sleep well for several nights."
I think you slept perfectly fine with that glowing face of yours.
Su Zhenzhen shook her head, showing fear on her face. "Fortunately, the lords in the prison were reasonable and knew that this servant was wronged, so they let me out."
Shen Yanci's gaze swept across her face with an evaluating look.
Seeing that the woman's tearful expression didn't seem fake, he believed her words. "I had actually pulled some strings, but I didn't expect to be a step late. Fortunately, Miss Su is fine."
Ha, as if anyone would believe you.
Su Zhenzhen looked at Shen Yanci with a grateful expression. "Thank you, My Lord. I didn't expect someone like you to keep this servant in your thoughts..."
Shen Yanci looked at the woman full of gratitude in front of him, his smile deepening. "A woman like you, Miss Su, I have never forgotten since the first time I saw you."
Something was wrong.
What was Shen Yanci trying to do?
Su Zhenzhen kept her head down and didn't reply, as if shocked that she would actually be favored by the lofty Lord Shen.
"The weather is hot, and there are many mosquitoes and insects in the room. I give this sachet to you, Miss Su."
A sachet is a rather intimate item between a man and a woman.
Su Zhenzhen paused for a moment, then raised her hand to take it.
I'll sell it to raise my beautiful boy.
After intense rushing, Su Zhenzhen spent three days and finally finished making the sachet.
She added dried mint and mugwort inside to repel mosquitoes and soothe the nerves.
The tiny sachet, although the stitches were a bit messy, smelled very nice.
After finishing her day's work, Su Zhenzhen first went to bathe and wash up. She washed her hair, which hadn't been washed for a few days, and then carefully applied fragrant osmanthus hair oil. After it dried, she combed it into a fashionable palace maid hairstyle.
When the moon rose above the willows, Su Zhenzhen sat in front of the dressing table, picked up some lip rouge, and carefully applied a little to her lips. Then she took a little more, rubbed it in her palm to blend it, and applied it to both sides of her cheeks to make herself look more radiant.
Sigh, reeking of work, but fortunately, the original body was beautiful.
The moonlight was nice today, and Su Zhenzhen paced back and forth under the eaves of the Little South Palace.
It was her first time giving a gift to a boy.
As the weather got hotter and the daytime grew longer, the time Mu Dan appeared also got later and later.
Su Zhenzhen sat there waiting for quite a while, until the sky turned completely dark, before she saw the little eunuch arriving late.
Su Zhenzhen quickly hid the sachet behind her back.
At the entrance of the Little South Palace, the little eunuch walked in carrying a lantern.
Seeing Su Zhenzhen's hiding motion, Lu Hexu shifted his gaze upward and saw her guilty expression.
"Ahem, you're here, sit down." Su Zhenzhen raised her hand and patted the small stool beside her. "I made red bean buns."
Su Zhenzhen was not someone with a sweet tooth. She had steamed a few small red bean buns.
The round ones were for Mu Dan to eat, and the red bean paste inside was very sweet.
The long ones were kept for herself, and the paste inside was only a third as sweet.
Lu Hexu sat down and ate the red bean bun. The soft red bean paste flowed out from the white outer skin, yet distinct red beans could still be seen inside. With one bite, the grainy texture of the bean paste mixed with the sweet richness of the flowing filling.
Because Mu Dan didn't like acupuncture, Su Zhenzhen continued to brew medicine for him.
After he finished eating the red bean bun, she handed the medicinal soup to Mu Dan.
When she bent down, she accidentally dropped the sachet hidden behind her back. Su Zhenzhen quickly picked it up and hid it away.
Lu Hexu bit into the red bean bun in his mouth, watching the woman hurriedly and nervously hide the item.
The youth looked nonchalant. After drinking it all in one gulp, he continued to grab another red bean bun to eat.
Su Zhenzhen suddenly stood up nervously.
She felt that she was standing straighter than a telephone pole.
She couldn't help it; she was single since birth and an extreme introvert.
Lu Hexu raised his eyes to look at her. Before his gaze could focus, something appeared in front of him, almost hitting his face.
It emitted a fairly pleasant smell, though its shape was somewhat bizarre.
He raised an eyebrow. "A mouse sachet."
Su Zhenzhen: "...It's a cat."
Okay, her craftsmanship was indeed a bit poor.
"It's getting hot, and there are easily mosquitoes and bugs. There is mugwort inside to repel insects, and mint to soothe the nerves and clear the mind."
Although the craftsmanship of the sachet was poor, the herbs inside were absolutely genuine.
"Smell it."
Under the woman's eagerly expectant gaze, Lu Hexu raised his hand, his fingertips hooking the thin string on the sachet.
The sachet dangled in front of his nose. He tilted his head back slightly and caught the sachet. The scarlet sachet rested against his extremely pale skin, creating a sharp color contrast.
The faint scent of mugwort mixed with mint rushed into his nasal cavity, diluting the restless gloom that had lingered in Lu Hexu's heart during the transition from spring to summer.
Lu Hexu narrowed his eyes, letting the sachet rest in the hollow between his nose and cheek.
Looking at his appearance, Su Zhenzhen felt he looked like a lazy, enjoying kitten smelling catnip for the first time.
Well, actually, it wasn't that calm.
A kitten sniffing catnip would roll on the ground and yowl, as if entering a new world.
Although the beautiful youth enjoyed it, he still maintained an elegant posture.
Wei Heng found a very ugly sachet in Lu Hexu's sleeping quarters. At first glance, it was obvious that it was not something sent by the palace's Directorate for Imperial Accouterments.
After all, if such a thing were sent by the Directorate, then the Directorate would have no reason to exist.
This ugly sachet would sometimes appear on the throne, sometimes on the imperial desk, and sometimes on the dragon bed. It seemed to be casually tossed next to the pillow, yet the very next day, it would appear on the little ancestor's belt.
"Forget it," Lu Hexu said, pinching the sachet and examining it up and down. "Ugly as it is, it does have a certain rustic charm once you get used to looking at it."
A few days later, the scent of the sachet had faded a bit. Lu Hexu frowned at it, his slender white fingers squeezing it hard a few times.
He summoned Wei Heng and ordered him to stuff some new herbs inside to match the original contents of the sachet.
Wei Heng went to the Imperial Hospital to fetch the herbs as requested, but the little ancestor took one sniff and declared it wasn't the right smell.
Yet Wei Heng couldn't smell anything wrong.
It was clearly exactly the same, wasn't it?
As the weather gradually grew hotter, Su Zhenzhen noticed that Mu Dan was just like a little cat in the dead of summer—increasingly lethargic. He would often sit on that little wooden stool for two whole hours without moving an inch, and he lost his appetite.
Although he didn't like eating much to begin with, compared to the wintertime, he was now practically relying on a single cat-sized bite of food a day just to maintain his bodily functions.
The little bit of flesh Su Zhenzhen had painstakingly managed to feed him over the winter had also melted away.
"If only we had ice, I could make you some Su Shan to eat."
"Su Shan?" Lu Hexu, who was leaning back lazily, suddenly showed a hint of interest.
"Right, this thing has lost its scent." The sachet she had given the young eunuch last time appeared before her eyes.
Su Zhenzhen hadn't seen him wearing it when they met at night and assumed he disliked it. She hadn't expected it to reappear after all these days.
Seeing something she had gifted being cherished by someone she cared about, Su Zhenzhen couldn't help but blush slightly.
"I'll change the herbs for new ones."
Su Zhenzhen deftly stuffed new herbs inside for Mu Dan.
The little eunuch sat there tilting his stool, raising his hand to hook the sachet and press it against the tip of his nose to sniff.
Mmm, this was the exact scent.
Rumor had it that the tyrant went to the summer palace every year to escape the heat, and every year he had to kill a few people there just to enjoy himself.
Therefore, when the list for this deadly entourage came down, Su Zhenzhen's legs went so weak she couldn't control herself and almost dropped to her knees.
The palace maids sharing her room all cast sympathetic glances her way.
At nightfall, Su Zhenzhen arrived at the Little South Palace with a miserable face and told Mu Dan about the matter.
"There is a very large ice cellar at the summer palace. You can make Su Shan for me to eat."
Su Zhenzhen was speechless.
"What if... what if that tyrant accidentally kills me?"
The little eunuch looked her up and down. "He won't."
"But I heard that several palace maids were killed by him just last year."
Lu Hexu frowned as he recalled.
He had killed too many people; he couldn't remember.
"I'll have my godfather assign you to my side. We'll stay far away from that tyrant."
Su Zhenzhen looked at Mu Dan with puppy-dog eyes.
She loved him even more now.
The day of departure arrived. Su Zhenzhen and Mu Dan sat in a very inconspicuous little carriage within the procession. She looked at the dense crowds of guards and carriages ahead and behind them.
It seemed that many people were heading to the summer palace this time.
"Why are there so many people?" Su Zhenzhen asked curiously.
"In order to win over the newly minted scholars who just entered the Hanlin Academy, my godfather brought them all along to vacation at the summer palace." Lu Hexu leaned lazily against the carriage wall. The sunlight outside made him feel extremely uncomfortable.
Didn't Wei Heng say the Imperial Astronomy Bureau calculated today would be cloudy?
Lu Hexu furrowed his brow, his gaze falling on the royal carriage at the very front, where Wei Heng was currently sitting all alone.
There was ice in there, so it should be much more comfortable.
Su Zhenzhen nodded.
So that was why.
"Are you very hot?" Su Zhenzhen noticed the sweat beading on the little eunuch's forehead.
Lu Hexu's brows were tightly knit, his temples twitching slightly. Because of the swaying carriage curtains, sunlight occasionally leaked in from outside, making the hostile aura on his face increasingly difficult to conceal.
Seeing the youth's face growing paler and paler, Su Zhenzhen thought for a moment, pulled out her own handkerchief, and gently draped it over his face. With her other hand, she supported the back of his neck to help him lean back.
The carriage was too small. Once the little eunuch half-lay down, he took up almost half the cabin.
Su Zhenzhen squeezed to one side and pulled over a soft cushion to place behind his back.
The handkerchief covering his face carried a faint herbal fragrance. It was a cotton handkerchief that didn't let much light through.
"Don't move. Open your mouth."
Su Zhenzhen suspected the little eunuch might be suffering from mild heatstroke. Fortunately, she had brought some heat-relief pills she made herself. Tailoring them to Mu Dan's tastes, she had mixed in honey, so the flavor shouldn't be too bad.
The cotton handkerchief blocked out the sunlight, and the pill in his mouth was sweet and refreshing. That violent hostility within Lu Hexu was gradually smoothed away.
His lips were so soft.
The hand pressing against his lips pulled away, leaving behind a sweet pill.
Su Zhenzhen stared at her fingertips.
The little eunuch lay there with the cotton handkerchief over his face, seemingly fast asleep.
He couldn't see, right?
Su Zhenzhen curled her fingers, quietly brought them to her lips, and touched her own mouth. Then, overwhelmed by shame, she couldn't help but bury her face.
It was so hot, she was going to explode.
The procession continued forward in an orderly manner. Wei Heng sat inside the royal carriage, a copper basin placed beside him containing a large block of ice. Reed blinds and sheer silk hung all around the carriage, completely blocking out the sunlight from outside.
Even though the Imperial Astronomy Bureau had miscalculated the weather, Wei Heng had already finished setting up the inside and outside of the carriage.
Wei Heng thought that given that little ancestor's temper, he wouldn't last long in that small carriage.
To his surprise, all throughout the journey, right up until they reached the Qingliang Mountain Summer Palace, he never saw the little ancestor return.
When Lu Hexu woke up from his sleep, the sky outside had already turned dark.
He hadn't slept this long in a very long time.
Especially not during this damned, sweltering summer.
Lu Hexu yanked the handkerchief off his face and saw the palace maid sitting beside him with her knees drawn up.
She was wearing a simple pink summer maid uniform. Her slender body was curled into a ball, her arms resting on her knees as she slept with her head tilted to the side.
It was very stuffy inside the carriage. A crimson flush tinted her fair skin, resembling fresh flower petals blooming in the summer.
Because the air was stagnant, the herbal scent lingering on the woman was even richer. It was a faint scent like mint, carrying a hint of mugwort.
Lu Hexu subconsciously leaned closer. The scent grew stronger, even heavier than the smell on that cotton handkerchief.
The two were extremely close, yet the woman did not wake up.
Lu Hexu tilted his head slightly, his nose brushing against the patch of skin on her neck exposed by her tilted sleeping posture.
The woman's skin was a beautiful warm white, flushed with a delicate, subtle pink from the heat.
Lu Hexu inhaled her scent. It seemed to seep right from her bones and blood. It wasn't unpleasant to smell; in fact, it smelled even better than that ugly sachet.
"Mu Dan." Wei Heng's voice came from outside.
Lu Hexu raised his hand and lifted the curtain, revealing half of his face. His eyelids drooped, looking thoroughly displeased at being disturbed.
Wei Heng subconsciously took a step back, his eyes darting around.
Because it was a carriage near the end of the procession, no one lingered around here.
Lowering his voice, Wei Heng said, "We have arrived. You can step out of the carriage now."
