Spring came early this year. Before the end of the first month of the lunar year, the air was already filled with spring. The carriage was moving in the drizzle. The road was lined with green grass and dotted with wild flowers. The nearby villages and distant mountains were shrouded in dreamy rain and mist, like a splash-ink landscape painting.
Xie Nanjia lifted the carriage curtain and greedily admired the beautiful scenery outside the window as the carriage swayed. The gentle breeze blew in the rain, blowing away her drowsiness, and she felt as if she was in the south of the Yangtze River.
"I heard that Jiangnan is very beautiful, but I have never been there." She said to Zhao Jingyu excitedly, "I once saw a painting of Jiangnan, and I really want to move there and live in the beautiful scenery every day."
"No matter how beautiful the scenery is, you will get tired of it after a long time. Besides, there is not only spring in Jiangnan, but also the musty rainy season and the cold and damp winter." Zhao Jingyu said slowly, pulling at the curtain on the other side.
"You're such a spoiler!" Xie Nanjia kicked him angrily, losing all interest.
Zhao Jingyu smiled, lowered the curtain and said seriously: "I am not spoiling your fun, I am telling you to look at things comprehensively, not just the good side and ignore the bad side. It's like you girls, when you see a good-looking guy, you fall in love with him, but what if the guy has bad breath, athlete's foot, or a hidden disease?"
Xie Nanjia: "… You're talking as if you men don't look at faces. Isn't the expression "lusting at the sight of beauty" used to describe you?"
"That's different." Zhao Jingyu argued, "Girls are beautiful no matter what, but most men are stinky, that's why they are called stinky men."
"…" What a eloquent mouth! Xie Nanjia didn't know whether to praise him or criticize him. She asked him with squinted eyes, "What about you? Do you stink?"
Zhao Jingyu raised his eyebrows and gave her a teasing smile: "Don't you know whether I stink or not?"
Xie Nanjia regretted asking the question the moment he asked it. For a frivolous person like him, this kind of question was simply an easy way for him to tease him.
With a mind full of philandering ideas, can he really govern the country well
Xie Nanjia expressed doubts.
"I don't know what's going on in the capital right now. There's blood and gore over there, but you, the person involved, are sitting in a carriage leisurely and enjoying the scenery."
"Isn't this good?" Zhao Jingyu stretched his body vigorously. "Isn't this what all big shots do? They plan and win battles thousands of miles away. Why would they need to go into battle in person?"
Xie Nanjia: "… You will die if you don't brag. What are you planning? If I hadn't used my connections to get you out, who knows where you would be right now!"
Zhao Jingyu looked at her deeply and smiled without saying anything.
It seems that my acting skills are pretty good, she didn't seem to notice at all.
But there are some things that there is no need for her to know, otherwise she won't be able to enjoy the scenery leisurely like she is now.
"What are you laughing at?" Xie Nanjia felt that his smile had a deeper meaning and immediately became alert, fearing that she was being deceived again.
"Nothing." Zhao Jingyu said, "My father said that he would hold a wedding for us when he got back. I was thinking about how you would look wearing the phoenix crown."
Xie Nanjia was stunned for a moment, then lowered his eyes and fell silent.
There was something she didn't know how to say to Zhao Jingyu. She actually didn't want to enter the palace. It wasn't that she didn't want to marry Zhao Jingyu, but if she entered the palace, it would go against her original intention of choosing Zhao Jingyu, and she would not be able to be with her son.
But they have come to this point now. It is impossible for her not to get married, and it is also impossible for her not to enter the palace. So what should she do with her son
"There will be a way." Zhao Jingyu took her hand and patted it twice, saying softly, "Don't worry too much about the future. When the time comes, everything will be solved."
Xie Nanjia was surprised: "Do you know what I'm thinking?"
"No matter what, as long as I am here, there will be a way." Zhao Jingyu said confidently.
Xie Nanjia stared at his determined eyes in a daze, and her inner worries suddenly disappeared. She didn't know why, but this frivolous man always gave her a feeling of being able to rely on him when she least expected it, as if with him around, she really could ignore everything.
"The Yingzhou Prefecture is ahead. What do you want to eat? Let's get off the carriage and walk for a while after entering the city. I'm almost falling apart from sitting in it." Zhao Jingyu said, "If I had known that the carriages of the Nanzhao Palace were so bad, I should have gotten my carriage out in advance."
"What do you mean?" Xie Nanjia keenly grasped the loophole in his words, "Did you know that the King of Nanzhao would provide you with a carriage? Or did you know that the emperor would let you go to Nanzhao?"
Zhao Jingyu's heart skipped a beat, and he quickly denied it with a smile: "You are really imaginative, but I am not a fortune teller, how could I have calculated these things in advance."
The more he acted like this, the more Xie Nanjia felt that he was up to something. She narrowed her eyes, put on a serious face and said, "Don't try to lie to me. Tell the truth now!"
"I don't know anything, what can I do?" Zhao Jingyu looked into her eyes very seriously and sincerely and said,
Xie Nanjia became more and more unconvinced. After a brief thought, he sneered and said, "Okay, since you won't tell me, I'll ask you questions and you can answer them. If you can't answer well, I'll get off the car and go back to Beijing!"
Zhao Jingyu panicked and tried to pull her with a playful smile, trying to get away with it.
Xie Nanjia didn't buy his tricks and slapped him on the back of his hand: "Did you tamper with the divination results of the Imperial Observatory?"
"Ah?" Zhao Jingyu didn't expect her to ask such a far-reaching question, and hesitated, "It's not me, I just gave the emperor a suggestion."
Xie Nanjia rolled her eyes at him and asked, "Have you already expected that the Queen and the Crown Prince would take action against you if they couldn't get the daughter of the Phoenix Fate?"
"Well… "
Xie Nanjia glared at him: "Don't think about it, say yes or no!"
"Yes, yes, yes." Zhao Jingyu nodded repeatedly in fear.
"Did you predict that the Queen would join forces with the King of Wei?"
"yes."
"Did you deliberately show up at the Lantern Festival so that they could assassinate you, and even use me as a cover?"
"No, no, this is really not true." Zhao Jingyu waved his hands quickly, "I thought they would kill me, but I really didn't expect them to do it at the Lantern Festival. I didn't expect Song Jingxing to disregard the safety of the people and even sacrifice the lives of innocent people in order to kill me. If I knew they would do it that day, I would never let Lanzhi ask you out."
"Humph!" Xie Nanjia sneered, "Since you knew they wanted to kill you, you must have already made a plan to deal with it. Are you just waiting for them to kill you, and then let the emperor hear the news of your murder and pretend to be sick from anger, so that the prince will be eager to sit on the dragon throne and listen to the government. If the King of Wei is really ambitious, he will definitely be ready to act. At this time, you can spread the news that the prince is the son of the King of Wei, let the prince and the King of Wei kill each other, and let the queen and Prime Minister Meng lose their prestige in front of the civil and military officials. You can reap the benefits, right?"
"…" Zhao Jingyu was shocked by her extraordinary wisdom. Just as he was about to praise her, he was frightened by her sharp eyes and shrank his neck. He answered honestly, "Yes!"
"Dengshi was attacked, and I took you to hide in Minister An's house. Did you secretly contact the emperor?"
"yes."
"Then you should have known that Prince Nanzhao was the emperor's man, otherwise you wouldn't have gotten on Song Huai's carriage so readily, right?"
"That's really not the case." Zhao Jingyu said, "I didn't know you were going to ask Song Huai for help, and I didn't have time to discuss it with the emperor. I left the city with Song Huai out of trust in you. I believed you wouldn't hurt me. You saw it too. When Prince Nanzhao suddenly chased after me, I was as shocked as you were."
"You lied. Since you have already contacted the emperor, why don't you just stay at Minister An's house until the matter is over? Why take the risk of going out of the city with me?"
"I… "
"to be honest!"
"Okay, I admit, I just want to take risks with you again. I like the feeling of escaping with you in Lantern City. You were especially charming back then..." Zhao Jingyu said with a chuckle.
Xie Nanjia: “…”
Zhao Jingyu watched her face grow increasingly gloomy and her chest rise and fall more and more. He got anxious and stood up from his seat, kneeling on one knee in front of her: "Nan Jia, I was wrong..."
"What did you call me?" Xie Nanjia gasped and her heart stopped beating.
Zhao Jingyu's heart skipped a beat, but the words he had spoken were like rain falling from the sky, and he could never take them back. He could only stare at Xie Nanjia blankly, his mind going blank.
"Stop the car!" Xie Nanjia shouted.
The carriage stopped in response, and the driver asked through the curtain: "What do you want, young lady?"
Xie Nanjia said nothing, lifted the curtain, jumped out of the carriage, and turned around to walk back.
"Miss..." The coachman was an agile guard, and he subconsciously wanted to jump down and pull her.
"I'll do it!" Zhao Jingyu stopped the driver in time and asked him to wait by the roadside. He got off the car and chased Xie Nanjia.
The drizzle was falling fast and heavily, like a big net covering the sky and the earth. Zhao Jingyu looked at the thin and stubborn figure in front of him through the rain and fog. He felt so regretful that he wanted to smash his mouth. Why did he have to shout out that name
He himself felt awkward for several days because of the awkward relationship between them, let alone Xie Nanjia.
Before he told her the truth, she might have been able to deceive herself, thinking that he didn't know who she was and that it didn't matter whether they were sister-in-law or brother-in-law. But now, after he called her that, she couldn't even deceive herself anymore.
She definitely doesn't have the face to be with him anymore.
But then again, he and Zhao Jingping are not blood brothers. If they look at things in a more positive light, it won’t be a big deal, right
The difficulty lies in the fact that it is not so easy to let go, and she must feel that she has been cheated again.
She didn't like being deceived, and she was already a little angry when she was asked the question just now, and this made her even angrier.
What should I do? Can he still coax her
"Xiu'er..." He shouted while running, but felt a little hypocritical after shouting it out, so he changed his words to "Nan Jia", but then he felt that "Xiu'er" was not as good as calling him, and for a moment he didn't know what to call him.
"Damn mouth, it's all your fault!" He finally couldn't help but slap himself in the face, ran a few steps to catch up with Xie Nanjia, and grabbed her arm from behind.
"Listen to me..." He didn't know what to call her, so he stepped forward and stood opposite Xie Nanjia. Just as he was about to explain, he suddenly noticed that Xie Nanjia's face was wet, and he didn't know if it was rain or tears.
His heart suddenly ached for no reason, and he hugged Xie Nanjia and pressed her against his wet chest.
(End of this chapter)