Contemplating Crane Notes

Chapter 20: Moon Hiding Apricot Formation (IV)

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Yang Wan and Li Yu confronted each other outside the direct house by the moat for two days.

Li Yu crossed his arms, looked at Yang Wan squatting at the door of the main room, and said disdainfully: "I heard from my sister that there is a maid in the Shangyi Bureau who is crazy about Deng Shaojian. It's you."

Yang Wan sniffed, "Who is your sister?"

"My sister is the maid of your Shangyi Bureau, Song Qingyun."

Yang Wan stood up and said, "Song Qingyun is your sister, how come her last name is Song and yours is Li."

Li Yu raised his head and said, "This is because my godfather loves me. He is a clerk in the Imperial Household Department. It is very prestigious to have his surname."

Yang Wan looked at Li Yu's smug and silly look, and thought to herself that this guy was a natural fool, and it would be nice for Deng Ying to be with him.

"Huh?"

"What?"

"How many days has it been since Young Master Deng came back?"

"About ten days. But you did come back last night, but it was a pity that you didn't stay. I don't know where you went this morning. By the way..."

He looked into Yang Wan's arms and said, "I heard you have some delicious food there."

"Who told you that?"

Li Yu looked at Yang Wan seriously, "Deng Ying has a cabinet with a bunch of bottles and jars locked inside. Every time he comes back from outside, he will grab something from the jars to eat, and he also eats when he is looking at blueprints at night.

I asked him for it once, but he refused to give it to me. Later, he even avoided me when we were eating. My sister said, you brought bottles and cans to see him before, so they must have been given to him by you.

Although Li Yu was young, the scene he described was very vivid. Yang Wan immediately had an image of Deng Ying sitting in the room eating nuts.

Moreover, he could actually hide.

For some reason, she suddenly found this person a little cute.

"That's some walnuts, peanuts, and raisins. Mix them together and throw them into your mouth. It's really delicious."

Li Yu's face fell after hearing this, "Huh... that's all. I thought it was some kind of meat jerky..."

Yang Wan leaned against the door frame and laughed at him.

As he was speaking, he suddenly saw Deng Ying coming back.

He was wearing a white and grey cross-collared undershirt with a robe of the same colour over it. His hair hung loosely on his back, and the material on his shoulders was a little damp.

When he saw Yang Wan, he was stunned and stopped in a daze.

Li Yu looked back at him and asked directly, "Did you take a shower?"

"Um."

Although he responded to Li Yu's words, he was looking at Yang Wan.

Then she hesitated, thinking that this outfit seemed disrespectful to her.

Since the fall of the Deng family, he has become a person in his life. Although he still maintains his previous habits, he is no longer served by servants. Trivial things like eating, changing clothes, and bathing have lost their former rituals and gradually become a necessity in his difficult life.

"Didn't you say I would go tomorrow after I got the perfume from my sister?"

Li Yu didn't know what he was thinking, so he became more specific.

Deng Ying stretched out her hand to straighten her collar and said to Li Yu, "Oh, I saw there was still half a piece of pancreas in the room, so I went there."

After saying that, he lowered his head and walked to Yang Wan's side, raised his hand, unbolted the door and gently pushed it open.

"you… "

"Can I come in?"

She asked directly.

This made Deng Ying feel less embarrassed.

"I just came back yesterday and didn't have time to sort it out."

"It's okay. If you let me in, I'll go in. If you don't let me in, it's the same if I stand here and talk to you."

Deng Ying glanced at Li Yu, who rolled his eyes at her and said with a smile, "Don't look at me, I know everything."

Yang Wan turned around and said with a smile: "You little brat, what do you know?"

"Hey! My brother-in-law told me!"

He jumped up hastily.

"Li Yu!"

Deng Ying suddenly spoke in a deep voice, and Li Yu waved his hand, "Okay, okay, I'm leaving now. I'll be on duty soon."

After saying that, he ran away like the wind and disappeared.

Yang Wan looked at his back and smiled, "I think it's good for you to be with this kid. He's so silly and makes people happy."

She was talking to herself, but the voice of the person behind her was lowered.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know he said that."

Yang Wan turned around and said, "Didn't you yell at him? He didn't say anything."

Deng Ying leaned over to block the door for her, lowered her head without looking at her, and said softly, "Come in."

Yang Wan walked into the room.

Compared to the last time I came, there are more furnishings in the room. Although they are all made of new wood and the quality has not yet come out, it can be seen that the craftsmanship of the people who made these cabinets is excellent.

The bed was a simple elm frame bed with a gray bed curtain. Under the bed were his two pairs of shoes, and the bed was neatly covered with a dark blue mattress. At the head of the bed was a chest of drawers, and as Li Yu had said, it had a lock on it.

Deng Ying walked to the drawer almost out of habit, unlocked it, and was about to take out the jar when he suddenly realized that Yang Wan was behind him and quickly withdrew his hand.

"Eat, this is a good habit."

"If you don't eat it now, there won't be much left."

"I'll bring it to you tomorrow."

She stood in front of the door, with a bright smile on her face and her delicate eyes and eyebrows looking around with spirit.

Just as Yang Lun said before, a woman like her can be picked and chosen slowly in the capital.

"These are all gifts from Empress Ning. Deng Ying doesn't dare to ask for more."

"no."

She walked up to him, took out a jar, and shook it at him. "This is my kindness to others. The queen is just a financial sponsor. When I save money in the future, I will ask them to go out and buy us more. Then you can read books, draw pictures, and I can write, and you can eat slowly."

This was a sentence that couldn't be any plainer, but Deng Ying was almost cut.

Yang Wan is such a bright and straightforward person.

It was more warmth than he could bear given the situation he was in.

He admired Yang Wan's good qualities, but this admiration almost made him think of himself as a lowly person.

With the body of a mayfly, I dare not desire the spring flowers.

I want her, but I know I shouldn't, and I even start to worry about her meaninglessly.

That's not right.

How dare he

"Why do you treat me like this?"

When Deng Ying blurted out this question, she was also stunned.

He had asked Yang Lun the same question not long ago in the Ministry of Justice.

"You... know that Deng Ying is in danger, so you don't..."

"I'll give you a few cans of nuts, and that's all you tell me."

Yang Wan interrupted him with a smile, "If you want to thank me, why not build me a box too. This one is really beautiful."

After she finished speaking, she put the jar back unnoticed, turned around and walked towards the chair. Just as she was about to sit down, she was stopped by Deng Ying.

"Wait, put something under me. I have a lot of dust here."

After he finished speaking, he walked over to Mu Shi, took off his robe, folded it on the chair, and then said, "Sit down."

Yang Wan looked down at his clothes and said, "I'm not that particular."

"I know, but I don't want to dirty your skirt."

After that, he poured a glass of water and placed it in front of Yang Wan. He turned around and looked at the drawer at the bedside, "Do you really like it?"

"Yeah. I like it. Very delicate."

"This was made for me by a craftsman from the Hall of Supreme Harmony. If you like it, I will ask him to make one for you."

Yang Wan took a sip from the cup, then looked up and asked, "Can you make it?"

"Yes."

"Then make one for me."

Deng Ying hesitated for a moment, "I'm not as good as them in this aspect."

"fine."

Yang Wan held the cup in one hand and supported her chin with the other. "Well... I can draw a picture for you, but... I might draw it ugly, and I don't know if you can understand... the perspective in it?"

She used a word that she was not sure whether Deng Ying could understand, and then asked:

"Do you understand 'perspective'?"

Deng Ying shook her head. "Maybe I can understand it if you draw it."

“That’s great.”

Yang Wan stood up and asked, "Do you have paper and pen?"

"have."

He moved towards the desk and said, "Come here."

Yang Wan really liked Deng Ying's desk, which had only a tabletop, a black stone pen holder, a piece of nameless ink, a plain stone inkstone, and a foot-high file. There were also two books he used to teach in the inner school. Just like Deng Ying, it was so clean that apart from dust, there was only skin and flesh.

She didn't want to tinker with Deng Ying's things, and she was a little nervous when she spread the paper and ground the ink.

"Can't you grind ink?"

"ah?"

Yang Wan looked at her own technique and said that she didn't know how to grind ink. Her doctoral supervisor was a master of calligraphy. Although there were a lot of senior brothers and sisters serving her with pens and ink, and it was not the turn of her, the always unpopular rebel, but Yang Wan still watched it many times. After coming here, she recalled the techniques she had seen before and tried her own tricks. She didn't care about the quality, as long as the juice was black.

"Isn't this right?"

Deng Ying raised her arms and rolled up her sleeves to her elbows. "Come on, put them down."

"good."

Yang Wan obediently put down the ink block and stepped aside. Deng Ying walked to her side, and a faint soap scent wafted from his body. Yang Wan couldn't help but turn her head to look at him.

He hadn't tied his hair yet, and a strand of hair fell down and hung on the back of his hand. Yang Wan saw the old crescent-shaped scar again. She couldn't help but ask, "When did you get this scar?"

Deng Ying was grinding ink. When she heard her question, she lowered her head and replied, "Seven or eight years ago, I think it was when the Shouhuang Palace was being renovated. I forgot."

"Things from the past... you forget them pretty quickly now, don't you?"

Deng Ying's hand sank.

"Why do you say that?"

Yang Wan took a fine brush, pressed it on the paper and dipped it in the ink that Deng Ying had prepared. "I just feel that what you said is becoming more and more vague. I actually don't know whether this is good or bad for you..."

She shook her head and lowered her head to write.

"You haven't changed at all. Look, your handwriting is still as beautiful as before, and your life is still as peaceful and clear as before. And you know everything. You can take care of me, build boxes for me, protect my brother and your own teacher, and you are even willing to be attentive to those eunuchs who have listened to your lessons for a few times."

She raised her head and looked at Deng Ying with the pen under her chin. "Right, you can still do what you want to do. Look how great you are."

Because she was right in front of her, Deng Ying couldn't think too much about what she said, but she sincerely wanted to smile at her.

Yang Wan held the pen, pinched her ears, and began to worry as she looked at the picture she had drawn.

"What am I drawing?"

After hearing her complaints, Deng Ying put down the inkstone and gently dragged the paper an inch towards herself.

"I can understand that."

"No way, you can understand this."

"Yeah. Almost. I need to think about some things. I haven't seen this style before."

After hearing what he said, Yang Wan suddenly gained confidence.

“This is called a ‘rouge and powder storage cabinet’”

After saying that, he felt that he was being too immature, so he quickly lowered his voice to explain: "It's just some makeup. Just do it casually. Don't worry too much, I just did it for fun. It's not so ugly..."

"yes."

Deng Ying looked at the paper and said, "I don't know when it will be made. I..."

"Does the Ministry of Justice still want to take you away?"

In a split second, she accurately hit the vital point.

Deng Ying bowed his head and replied, "Yes. They let me back because the main falcon of the Hall of Supreme Harmony is being re-mounted these days."

"They didn't torture you!"

"No."

Yang Wan breathed a sigh of relief.

"I told Yang Lun. I don't know how much Yang Daniu understood, but I bet he still has some conscience. If he does something stupid with those people, I will let His Highness scold him to death next time."

Deng Ying couldn't help but turned around and laughed out loud.