Translator – Xiao He Lian
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Chapter 48.1
The moment Shen Shu walked out of Chengyuan, raindrops started falling outside and the streets of Chang’an were shrouded in shadows, like a dream.
Qingli raised an oil-paper umbrella and held it over Shen Shu’s head, “Madam, did you see her?”
Shen Shu nodded and said, “Yes, let’s go.”
When she arrived at Li Mansion, she sat on the round rosewood bench and thought over and over again what Lu Yan had said. She didn’t know how long it had passed before a wry smile of resignation appeared on Shen Shu’s lips.
What a brilliant man.
The breeze blew by, and she thought about the conversation just now.
The man’s expression was deep and his tone was firm, as if he had a natural bewitching power that made people unable to help but guess and think along his words.
His words will make you have endless reveries, making you mistakenly believe that everything he does is for Shen Zhen.
But so what?
He didn’t actually promise anything.
If she thought about it carefully, how could the Heir Apparent of the Zhenguo Duke participate in a party struggle for a daughter of a criminal minister? Looking for a doctor for the Crown Prince was just because the Emperor wanted to support the Crown Prince.
If everything he did could be summed up in four words it would be to, go with the flow.
Shen Zhen’s two fingers tightly grasped the edge of the cup. With Shen Zhen’s temperament, to be that person’s mistress was no different from a sheep entering a tiger’s mouth.
But what qualifications does she have to blame Lu Yan?
His stance was that it was right to follow with the flow and even what he said to her in the end was not wrong- if Shen Zhen fell into the hands of others, her life will not be better than it is now.
Heh.
Shen Shu laughed at herself.
Many things were her fault from the beginning.
As night fell, Qingli walked in with a basin of water, “Madam, the curfew has started and Master won’t be coming back today.”
Shen Shu said “Hmm” and said, “Please wait for me to change my clothes.”
Shen Shu took off her jacket.
Looking at the bruises on her arms, she was transfixed, these were all left by that man on her body.
Since he had done something like this, how could he come home?
Shen Shu pushed her hair behind her ears, looked at the flickering candlelight in the room and thought back to five years ago.
She was only sixteen when she met him.
It was a summer day when she went with several sisters to enjoy the flowers at Shumi Pavilion by Mulan Lake. Perhaps it was because it had just rained and the bluestone path was too slippery, she accidentally fell in the lake.
The pool water choked her and just then a “plop” sound was heard and someone entered the water.
Under the gaze of everyone, she was picked up by Li Di.
What happened next, even a fool could guess – Li Di went to the Yunyang Marquis Mansion to propose marriage.
Shen Shu didn’t believe there was such a coincidence in the world. On that day, Shumi Pavilion was surrounded by female relatives. How could there be such a coincidence that a poor scholar passed by this place without any rhyme or reason?
How could it be that a poor scholar came here for no reason, sang poetry, enjoyed the flowers, saved her from falling into the water, and then made a big fuss all over the city?
Do they think she is stupid?
Marquis Yunyang sent people to investigate him but the news that came back proved that he was just a poor student from Jingzhou who came to the capital to take the exam and had no backing.
Even so, Shen Shu was unwilling to marry him. She once threatened that she would rather become a nun than enter the Li Mansion.
But Li Di refused to give up no matter what.
He actually spent a whole year seeking to marry Shen Shu.
On the day of the Lantern Festival, Shen Shu took her two younger sisters to take a stroll in the streets. When she looked at the lanterns with the character “shu” written on them hanging on Chang’an Street and floating by the Jingshui Lake, she blushed.
“Shen Shu, be my wife, and I, Li Di, will never let you down in this life.”
She doesn’t know if it was because she was too stupid back then, or if Li Di was too cunning but she actually believed it.
When Li Di became a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations, Shen Shu was just seventeen.
When the sedan chair of the Li family stopped outside the gate of the Yunyang Marquis Mansion, most people were lamenting, saying that the eldest daughter of the Shen family was getting married.
But wearing a phoenix crown, in her eyes there was no difference in family status. She naively thought that weal and woe in life require self-awareness and that being good to herself is more important than anything else.
In the next four years, Li Di did not disappoint her.
Although Li Di comes from a poor family, his appearance was no less than that of others and he deserves the title of “stately and handsome”. Coupled with the fact that he was so kind to Shen Shu as if he had no bottom line, which made many Chang’an noble girls envy her.
“Shen Shu, you have indeed been wronged by marrying me.”
“Only by treating you well in this way can it not be in vain that you married me.”
In the past, she would cover his mouth every time she heard such words. How could a man who studied all night long for her have no self-esteem?
Later on, she forbade him to say such words as “marrying down” anymore.
The past was like smoke, which will be scattered when the wind blows.
When the twenty-one-year-old Shen Shuo looked back at her seventeen-year-old self, she only had one thought in her mind: misunderstanding people would lead to suffering.
He held her like a pearl in his palms for four whole years. In the end, the mutual affection was fake, but the wolfish ambition was real.
There was no love at all in his eyes, she was just a ladder for him to climb higher.
All the secrets sunk in the deep sea surfaced one by one the moment the Shen family fell…
In the fifteenth year of Qingyuan, on the tenth day of the ninth month, this was the seventh day after Marquis Yunyang was imprisoned…..
Shen Shu looked anxiously at the letters on the table.
She paced back and forth in the house, thinking about how to deliver the letter to the border.
At this moment, Li Di returned home, walked to her side, picked up the letter and said, “Who is this for?”
“The Marquis of Changping, Su Lian.”
The Su family and the Shen family were family friends. Even though Su Lian was a military attaché and Shen Wenqi was a civil servant, the two of them had grown up together.
The Su family is Shen Shu’s last hope.
“Marquis Changping?” Li Di frowned, “I have something that I haven’t told you yet.”
“What is it?” Shen Shu asked.
“At the beginning of this month, Marquis Changping personally led troops to fight against Goguryeo, but he was ambushed by the enemy.”
Shen Shuo was shocked, “Ambushed? What about General Su now?”
Li Di shook his head, “The Emperor’s posthumous title has been announced. Wife, I express my condolences.”
Shen Shu’s eyes were red with pain, “How could this happen…”
Li Di held the letter in his hand and said in a deep voice: “I heard that Su Heng, the Heir Apparent of the Marquis of Changping, is about to go on an expedition with his uncle. If you want to deliver the letter, you must send it off tonight, otherwise it will be too late.”
“Let’s go to the post station now,” Li Di said again.
Shen Shu said: “No, I can’t trust the people at the post station. In case this letter gets intercepted halfway through.”
Li Di narrowed his eyes and replied, “Then why don’t you give me the letter? I do have a candidate.”
Shen Shu said: “Who are you planning to send it with?”
Li Di said seriously: “I know some people who would do things for money, they are quite reliable.”
Shen Shu nodded. Without thinking much, she handed the letter to him…
Blessings never come in pairs, misfortunes never come alone1(Blessings never come in pairs, misfortunes never come alone).
Before one storm subsided, another storm arose.
On the fifteenth day of the ninth month, Jin Family’s money shop suddenly took out a piece of paper with the Shen family’s seal, which read a debt of Eight thousand copper coins.
Shen Shu took a breath of cold air.
Eight thousand copper coins. How could she pay back this money?
That night, she stayed alone in the empty room, it wasn’t until dawn that Li Di wandered back.
Shen Shu stepped forward, supported him and said in a trembling voice: “Where did you go yesterday?”
Li Di took advantage of his drunkenness and said, “Shen Shu, it’s none of your business.”
He had never spoken to her in such a tone.
Shen Shu’s face changed slightly and a thought flashed through her mind that she couldn’t even believe.
But this was not the first time he has stayed out all night lately…
