Chapter 4

  After a good sleep, I woke up to find that it was already broad daylight. Thinking that Brother Bei should have gone to court, I called Yingtou to serve me in washing and dressing. After finishing, I hurriedly went to pay respects to my sister. When I entered the room, I saw my sister staring out of the window in a daze. I sat down beside her, thinking about last night's events, also feeling depressed.

  After a while, my sister suddenly asked without turning her head, "What are you thinking about?" I squeezed closer to her and held onto her arm, asking back, "Sister, what are you thinking about?" She didn't respond, just staring out the window. After a while, she said, "Nothing." For a moment, both of us fell silent, my face leaning against my sister's shoulder as we gazed out the window together.

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  A delicate pavilion sits on a small hillside, with three sides surrounded by green bamboo and the other side connected to a winding corridor that descends down the slope. With my back to the corridor and facing the lush bamboo, I sit slanted on the stone bench in the pavilion, one hand supporting my head and the other holding a scroll of Song Dynasty poetry. Before finishing reading one poem, I am already entranced.

  "Reunion at the Peach Blossom Land, all things are not as they were before; why have you come together again, yet depart in different ways?"

  Wutong half dead after frost, white-headed mandarin duck lost its mate in flight.

  The dew is gone from the grass on the hill,

  The old nest and new platform are side by side.

  Suddenly, the book in my hand was snatched away, and a cheerful voice shouted: "What are you looking at? People have come, don't you know?" I was startled and jumped up from the stone bench. I saw that Tenth Brother was staring at me. He had successfully teased me and was delighted, but when he saw tears in my eyes, a sorrowful expression on my face, and a hint of fear, his cheerful expression froze. Ninth Brother standing beside him, and another handsome young man who didn't look very old, also looked surprised.

  I bowed my head to greet him, and at the same time adjusted my facial expression. When I lifted my head again, I had a calm face. The tenth brother was still stunned there, but the ninth brother's shocked expression had already faded away, and he said to me: "This is the fourteenth master." I thought to myself, the fourteenth master! Someone I've always wanted to meet. But now is not the right time, and I couldn't get excited about it. For a moment, everyone was speechless. I saw that the tenth brother had already recovered his energy, so I asked: "Why are you here, tenth brother?" He said: "We came to see eighth brother, and from afar we saw you sitting here motionless, so we turned over to take a look at what you were doing." He paused for a moment, looked at my face, and asked: "Who gave you a hard time?" I smiled calmly and said: "My sister is the secondary lady of this mansion, who do you think could give me a hard time?"

  He patted the stone table beside him with a rolled-up book, just as he was about to speak, Ninth Brother said: "Let's go, Eighth Brother is waiting!" Tenth Brother gave me a deep look, put the book on the table, and walked past me with a gloomy face. Ninth Brother turned around and followed Tenth Brother down the corridor. Fourteenth Brother, however, smiled and walked to the edge of the table, glanced at the book on it, and asked coldly: "How old is he?" I replied in confusion: "Thirteen!" He nodded slightly with a smile, then turned and left.

  I waited a bit, watching them walk away, and then picked up the book on the table to head back. But Cui Hui's words from yesterday were still swirling in my mind. "Before the young mistress got married, she was very close to one of the old master's soldiers. He was the one who taught her horseback riding. Although he was a Han person, his horsemanship was exceptional and well-known throughout the entire military camp. However, later on, the young mistress ended up marrying Master Bei Le. At first, when she married Master Bei Le, although she didn't smile much, everything else seemed normal. Three months later, she even became pregnant with a child. But then, unexpectedly, news came from the north that the soldier had died. At that time, the young mistress fainted and struggled to hold on for several days before falling ill. The child was lost as well. Although her illness eventually got better, her body remained weak! From then on, the young mistress would recite scriptures every day and became increasingly cold towards others. Di Fu Jin may have entered the household two years after the young mistress, but now she's already pregnant with a child, while the young mistress still...

  At that time, I was still angry and asked: "Didn't sister ask Amma before?" Qiao Hui smiled bitterly and replied: "How could she not? But the old master said, don't even think about it in your dreams, she is already promised to Brother, if you keep thinking like this, everyone will be finished." I asked again: "Does the Beile know about this matter?" Qiao Hui said: "I don't know, the old master handled it very secretly at that time, only the old master, the master and I knew in the mansion!" But I remembered the expression of Eighth Brother under the big tree by the lake at that time, and felt that perhaps Amma and Qiao Hui were both wrong.