Miss and farmhand

Huang Xingtong knew that he could not leave the room now.

If Shen Yurui is left here, she will never be able to get out and will eventually become a terrifying thing.

She'll go crazy.

Huang Xingtong thought for a moment and said, "Back then, no man of the same age in the city didn't know the eldest daughter of the Shen family. When we learned 'There are beauties in books' in the school, everyone said that was you."

He admitted it.

Just as Shen Yurui was about to burst into laughter, she heard Huang Xingtong continue, "It's like pursuing Huzhou pens, Wuyuan ink, Zhaoqing inkstones, and Xuanzhou paper. We scholars are just naive and arrogant; we only want the best."

She was stunned, not understanding. Was Huang Xingtong putting her on the same level as those things?

"Whatever the teacher said was good, we, in our youthful naiveté, thought we should pursue it. A golden house was something for future success and fame, but a beautiful woman was right there in the city. My fellow students and I studied hard for years, and the old teacher was strict, so we only had a chance to put down our books during festivals. As long as we weren't studying, everything was fun, let alone girls. We admired you and followed you, but we never thought that our willful behavior might bother you. You never paid any attention to me; only the older students among us received your favor. But I also realized that you were just going through the motions; you didn't like us swarming around you like this. You were annoyed, and that's not so hard to understand."

Huang Xingtong laughed too, "You are the eldest daughter of the Shen family, the eldest daughter of the eldest branch. You have so much, have you ever cared about a few boys?"

Shen Yurui was stunned.

Does she not care? It seems so. Apart from Huang Xingtong, all those boys are now blurry in her memory, and she doesn't remember a single word they said to her.

How could that be? How could she have remembered something she didn't care about back then for so many years?

Huang Xingtong, unaware of what she was thinking, continued speaking on his own.

"That's when I realized that what the teacher said wasn't necessarily true. Those good things are good, of course they are. The Huzhou brush that I begged my parents to buy for my birthday was smooth and shiny, with a sharp tip, but I wrote with trepidation and couldn't write a single good character."

He paused, as if recalling something, and said, "Even beauty isn't something everyone can just praise."

That year, on the Lantern Festival, Huang Xingtong slowed down his pace, moving from the middle of the group to the very back, until he could no longer see the group at all.

The temple fair was crowded, with people and lanterns everywhere. The young boy realized for the first time the mistakes of adults, and his heart was filled with mixed feelings. He deliberately distanced himself from the noise and avoided the most crowded vendors, hiding among the rows of lanterns, each with a riddle hanging under it.

For Huang Xingtong, these amusing items posed no challenge whatsoever. He walked with his hands behind his back, looking at each one and answering them one by one, without removing a single riddle. It was said that answering more than ten correctly would earn him a free lantern from the lantern vendor, but Huang Xingtong had no interest in that.

Then, he encountered Shen Xuying and her old woman under a riddle.

Shen Xuying was quite young back then, almost a generation younger than her older sister who already exuded youthful charm. Yet, she was incredibly stubborn. She could stand below a riddle that Huang Xingtong could answer with a single glance, without complaining or getting tired, only taking it down after figuring it out correctly.

Her mother, Han, couldn't stand for long. She leaned down and pleaded, "How about I buy it for you? Don't spend your money, young lady. I'll buy you the prettiest goldfish lantern, it'll be free. Please have pity on me, young lady, I'm so old, I get dizzy just looking at words. Let's go."

Xiao Shen Xuying was very principled: "How can that be? Han Mama's money didn't come from nowhere. Go and rest over there, I'll be done in a minute."

However, principles cannot prevail over knowledge, and it still took her quite a while to solve a riddle. Huang Xingtong, who was watching her solve the riddle, also grew impatient and casually pointed to an answer, just to help the little girl out.

As a result, Shen Xuying was still unhappy. Even though she knew the answer, she didn't take down the riddle. Instead, she dragged the despairing Han's mother away from Huang Xingtong and went to another row of riddles to continue guessing.

Huang Xingtong found it interesting and followed her, no longer interfering but just watching from the sidelines, wanting to see how much she could guess in the end.

To his surprise, Shen Xuying didn't try to avoid him when he caught up. Instead, she seemed to have figured out how to use him. Every time she guessed a clue, she would take it off and run to ask him. If he shook his head, Shen Xuying would put the clue aside and try again. If he nodded, Shen Xuying would put her hands behind her back and nod like an adult, then return to Han Mama's side with satisfaction to continue guessing the next clue.

That evening, Shen Xuying solved sixteen riddles and exchanged them for a lantern depicting a jade rabbit pounding medicine. She didn't specifically come over to thank Huang Xingtong, but simply nodded to him from afar across the rows of bright lanterns and riddles, and led Han's mother away in a seemingly cooperative manner.

In that instant, Huang Xingtong thought of that rather cliché line: "...Looking back, I find that person there, where the lights are dim."

Later, he formally met Shen Xuying, fell in love, and got engaged. Her parents wanted him to pass the imperial examination before marrying her, and he always agreed, passing the exam as promised.

Having washed away the superficialities of life, he finally married Shen Xuying, and his heart was at peace. Holding Shen Xuying's hand, he only thought that things would fall into place naturally, and he had found his perfect match.

The phrase "things will fall into place naturally" seemed to be a curse, pinning Shen Yurui to her feet and making her struggles and demands over the years appear so distorted.

Huang Xingtong cupped his hands in greeting and said, "I cherish Yingniang, and I believe that my sister-in-law will not have any complaints about Yingniang. However, please stop saying those things. I don't like to hear them, and I don't want them to reach Yingniang's ears."

"...You just won't admit it..."

Huang Xingtong ignored her final arguments, saying, "Sister-in-law is just furious because of brother's infidelity. I will definitely not cover for brother in this matter, and I will convey what sister-in-law said. However, the future is sister-in-law's own business, and if I say anything out of line, please consider our past relationship."

Shen Yurui gave a bitter laugh: "You don't even try to hide it. A sense of obligation?"

"Yes, in this situation, it is the eldest brother's responsibility as a husband. Women have it tough, and men should always take responsibility for their wives, and should not add fuel to the fire. If the eldest brother does not repent, the sister-in-law should divorce him to avoid being dragged into an even more painful situation by him."

Shen Yurui's eyes widened. Even after hearing Huang Xingtong's recollections, she still couldn't believe what he was saying.

"...Divorce?"

……

Huang Chu saw the man again in the garden. He pretended to be holding a book, but didn't see it because he had it behind his back. He was looking down, seemingly lost in thought.

She didn't want him to think she was afraid of him and would run away whenever she saw him, so she sat still.

The man walked over, his footsteps clearly audible, but she didn't look up.

"I have something to tell you."

Huang Chu didn't look at him. "Did you tell my dad when you were leaving?"

The man seemed to choke on her words, frowning. The anger that had been building up inside him was about to dissipate, but her words provoked him back.