Against the Current - Chapter 338

Chapter 338 - Pondering (Part 2)

Lin Zhaoxiang gave a cough, handed the birdcage over to Ruizhu, and said, "You have so little patience. The older you get, the more childish you become!"

"It's not that. My dad doesn't know what's gotten into him—he's actually starting to fret over women's matters and is set on arranging a marriage for me..." Seeing Lin Zhaoxiang look over, Lin Jinlou immediately added, "Your grandson has already figured it out. I only want Xianglan. Whoever gets brought in as a wife later on, I can't guarantee she won't be wronged. If I let her be wronged again, I might as well just end my own life." With that, he dropped to his knees and said, "You've seen the person, and you've bestowed the gift. Whether this works out or not is entirely up to a single word from you, Elder."

Lin Zhaoxiang squinted slightly at the trees in the courtyard and remarked after a long silence, "You're grown now, and I can't control you; as for your father, I'm even less inclined to manage him. In any case, I'm staying out of this mess. Go hash it out with your dad if you've got the ability." Having said his piece, he picked up his teacup, making it abundantly clear that it was time for his guest to leave.

Lin Jinlou still wanted to plead further, but Lin Zhaoxiang had already stood up. Ignoring Lin Jinlou's calls, he leaned on his cane and walked inside.

Lin Jinlou was left looking rather dumbfounded. He had been at odds with Lin Changzheng since childhood; the old man never found a single thing about him pleasing to the eye, valued noble lineage above all else, and had even gone out of his way to drag a colleague's daughter home. For him to agree to this marriage would be nothing short of a miracle—and to top it all off, the old family patriarch was taking a completely hands-off stance. Lin Jinlou let out a long sigh. As long as the patriarch didn't actively oppose or scold him, that much was already a blessing, but the thought of his father gave him an inevitable headache.

Meanwhile, when Lin Jinting returned to his own courtyard and entered his bedchamber, he collapsed straight onto the bed. A moment later, Li Miaozhi walked in. Seeing Lin Jinting sprawled out all crookedly, she sat down on the edge of the bed and asked, "Is there any news of Third Sister?"

Lin Jinting wiped a hand across his face and replied, "No. Things are looking grim."

Li Miaozhi let out a sigh and rubbed her eyes. She had spent the entire night over at Madam Wang's quarters. Even though Amber, Inula, and the others were there to tend to things and she had slept inside the gauze-curtained alcove, she still couldn't avoid getting up twice in the night to make inquiries, and consequently hadn't slept well either.

Lin Jinting asked, "How is Mother?"

Li Miaozhi answered, "I heard that upon hearing Third Sister went missing, she wept bitterly all over again, and her illness has grown even heavier and more muddled. She just took her medicine a moment ago, threw up half of it, barely managed a couple of spoonfuls of congee, drank some warmed yellow wine, and took her nourishing pills before finally closing her eyes just now."

Lin Jinting sat up abruptly, pounded the mattress in fury, and cursed, "It's all because of that cheap wretch making trouble! I truly wish I could grind her bones to dust and scatter the ashes!"

Li Miaozhi hurriedly cautioned, "Keep your voice down. Be careful someone might overhear." She then added, "Eldest Uncle had Concubine Su moved out to recuperate in the small temple to the north, and Father-in-law didn't object either. Out of sight, out of mind—let's just leave it at that. The child in her belly is already gone; what kind of storms could she possibly whip up now?"

Lin Jinting gave a cold laugh. "Don't underestimate her. Who knows what kind of fresh trouble she might stir up? Young master here has seen plenty of her kind. It's just that Father dotes on her, otherwise she would have been dealt with long ago."

Though they had been newly married for only a short while, Li Miaozhi already knew that this husband of hers was all bark and no bite. She herself was a fiercely ambitious woman who had always harbored dreams of rising to glory and earning praise. With several distressing events piling up back-to-back over the past few days, her mood was already deeply sour. Coupled with the fact that not a single soul in the second branch was capable of taking charge—leaving Lin Changzheng and Lin Jinlou to handle everything—Li Miaozhi felt a surge of defiant pride. "There's no need to talk about 'dealing with her early' or 'dealing with her late,'" she snapped. "Now that Third Young Master is supposed to be standing on his own and running things, it's about time you stiffened your own backbone. If you had even half of Eldest Brother's competence, things wouldn't have reached this miserable state. Leaving everything else aside, I am the Third Young Madam whom the entire household must address with respect, yet I have to drop my status by three notches right in front of Xianglan and end up walking on eggshells around her. What kind of logic is that?"

Lin Jinting flopped back down, spread-eagled, and retorted, "What logic? That's the logic of our household. Don't talk about you dropping three notches—even brilliant, dashing young master here has to drop three notches in front of her. If I say a single wrong word, Big Brother glares daggers at me. I've already humbled myself like a grandson, so why wouldn't you?"

Hearing him speak with such frivolous nonchalance, Li Miaozhi grew so infuriated that she gave him a fierce jab with her finger.

Lin Jinting yelped and bounced up like a spring, clutching his chest. "Why did you jab me?!"

Li Miaozhi swiped at his face with her handkerchief, gritting her teeth. "No reason! You just need to study hard and win some honor for yourself!" With that, she stood up, flicked her sleeve, and stormed out.

Fuming with indignation, Lin Jinting flopped back down, buried his head in his arms, rolled over, and muttered to himself, "So annoying. This isn't a wife; she's clearly a mother."

To dispense with tedious details.

After dodging away for half the day, Lin Jinlou sent Jixiang back to scout out the situation. Upon learning that the Wei family guests had departed, he finally returned. Once back in his quarters, he didn't look at official business, ignored his letters, and refused to see any subordinates or visiting guests. Instead, he simply sprawled out on the large brick-bed, his brows furrowed in deep thought. Xianglan sorted the incoming letters and documents by category on the large mahogany desk, then picked up a brush to help him draft a few replies. Seeing that Lin Jinlou was in a foul mood, the maids all held their breath, treading as lightly as if walking on thin ice. Lingsu stepped in to replace Lin Jinlou's cup of tea, scurrying out with tiny, hurried steps like a wisp of smoke, not daring to linger for even a second.

Unable to resist any longer, Xianglan put down her brush, glanced at Lin Jinlou, and brought over the letters she had just finished, blowing gently on the ink. "I'm done writing them. Have a look, Master." Noticing that Lin Jinlou was thoroughly distracted, she asked, "Is something weighing on your mind?"

Lin Jinlou let out an "hn", caught Xianglan's hand, pushed the paper aside without looking at it, and smiled wryly. "Are you worrying over me?"

Xianglan was startled. Her lips moved, but no words came out.

Lin Jinlou looked her up and down before saying, "The weather is turning warm, you should have some new clothes made. I'll have the tailor summoned today; wonder if they can stitch together a set in two or three days."

Xianglan shook her head. "Why go making new clothes out of the blue? I have more than enough to wear." Most of Xianglan's spring tunics were still in Jinling, though she had brought a few along when coming to the capital, newly made two more sets, and received several rewards from Madam Qin; altogether, she had an entire chestful.

"Those won't do. You don't understand—the old man can't stand the sight of flashy beauties. He'd prefer eighteen or nineteen-year-old girls to all dress like crows, wrapped in sackcloth-like robes, thinking that kind of plainness is the height of solemn dignity. Hmph, truly no idea what kind of bizarre quirk that is."

Xianglan couldn't help asking, "The old man?"

Lin Jinlou replied, "Mm, my dad."

Xianglan pressed her lips into a smile. Many scholarly aristocratic families prided themselves on dressing with austere simplicity. No matter how many bolts of fine silk and satin garments the young ladies possessed, they never wore them, keeping them locked away at the bottom of trunks, and presented themselves on ordinary days in indigo skirts to project a family tradition of rustic plainness and adherence to Confucian teachings. Lin Jinlou, however, had always favored women dressed in charming, vivid colors—rouge pink, apricot yellow, leek green, and peach red, wearing narrow-sleeved jackets and fine gauze skirts—filling his eyes with a riot of colorful allure.

Lin Jinlou pulled Xianglan down to sit beside him, gazing into her face with a half-smile. "Still, you're naturally gorgeous, so anything you wear looks stunning. The very first time I saw you, you were singing a little tune by the lake, wearing old clothes, and your little face was still flushed pink—you were the prettiest little doll I'd ever laid eyes on. I kept wondering, 'Which household's maid is this, how come I've never seen her before?'" As he spoke, he lowered his head and planted a kiss on Xianglan's cheek. "Right then and there, I decided—no matter whose she was, I was going to bring her to my side."

Xianglan looked up. Lin Jinlou's arm was wrapped around her; his thick dark hair was secured with a jade-inlaid green-cloud hairpin, and his usually sharp, electric gaze was exceptionally tender. A lazy smile hung on his face—the quintessential portrait of a dashing, untamed young master in the prime of his vigor. Xianglan felt a sudden sense of unreality. She had never imagined that after all these years of turbulent ups and downs, things would end up this way, nor had she ever dreamed she would actually be here with Lin Jinlou, held tightly in his arms as they exchanged gentle, idle whispers. "Actually, I saw the Master on the very first day I entered the Lin estate. Back then, the Master was renaming all the maidservants, but when he reached me, something came up and he left." What she didn't know was that because Lin Jinlou had walked away at that moment, he had absentmindedly drawn a circle around her name on the roster, which ended up arousing Zhao Yuechan's jealousy and plunging Xianglan into a desperate predicament.

"Oh? Such a thing happened? Talk about the playful twists of fate. If I'd spotted you earlier that day, I would've kept you by my side right then and there, and we wouldn't have had to go through all these twists and turns and added all this heartache." He smiled softly down at her. Her eyes resembled twin pieces of green jade, or perhaps two deep pools of water; once he gazed into them, he could never escape, as if he were about to drown within them. His smile faded slightly; lowering his head, he pressed a gentle kiss to Xianglan's lips, followed by another a moment later, and murmured, "From now on, the two of us are going to stay together for a long, long time. We definitely will." He spoke in an extremely quiet voice, yet his tone carried a plea and an ingratiating supplication. He was genuinely terrified. Though Xianglan appeared gentle and delicate, her inner resilience was immense—she was like a willow branch, repeatedly bent and strained, yet refusing to snap. Unlike other women who relied entirely on him for survival, even in the most wretched circumstances this woman would rather straighten her spine and endure it on her own without begging a single word from him. He was terrified that one day she might quietly vanish without a word. From childhood to adulthood, he had always been the one giving orders, acting tyrannically, and commanding the wind and rain; he had seen plenty of rouge and powder, mostly treating them as passing playthings of sympathy and affection. All the heart-baring, sugary sweet-nothings he spoke were spoken solely to the woman in his arms, yet he had no clue whether she truly believed them, or if she treasured them at all.

Xianglan was stunned at first, then her heart instantly turned both sweet and sour, laced with an indescribable surge of emotion and sentiment. She was unwilling—and didn't dare—to let her thoughts delve too deep, yet her heart felt as though it were bobbing up and down in the vast sea.

She opened her eyes wide to look at Lin Jinlou. He was resting his forehead against hers, his brows furrowed with an expression that seemed both infinitely sorrowful and overwhelmingly fulfilled, and a shimmering moisture seemed ready to well up in her eyes. Moving slightly, Xianglan remained utterly silent as she nestled quietly against Lin Jinlou's chest. After hesitating for a long moment, she raised her arm, lowered it, and then—after another pause—lifted it once more to wrap her arms around his waist.

Lin Jinlou trembled all over, then melted. After a long, long while, he kissed Xianglan's hair and murmured, "In the next couple of days, come with me to see my dad. He hasn't laid eyes on you yet... with someone like you, he's bound to be delighted."

As it turned out, Xianglan did not let Lin Jinlou summon the tailor, arguing that a fine set of clothes couldn't possibly be stitched together in two or three days. Instead, Lin Jinlou ordered the maids to unlock the chests, taking out Xianglan's garments one by one to inspect them. He personally selected an autumn-fragrance yellow jacket and a dark-toned skirt. That afternoon, he went out, spent some time sitting with Old Madam Lin, and then visited Madam Qin for half a day before finally returning. He tossed and turned restlessly that night, unable to sleep soundly, and the very next morning rushed Xianglan to wash up and change her clothes.

Xiaojuan combed Xianglan's hair and reached for a magnolia blossom from a tray of freshly cut flowers sent over by a serving woman to pin into Xianglan's hair, but Lin Jinlou stopped her, saying, "Don't. She needs to be dressed like an austere matriarch. My dad has a soft spot for that style; he can't stomach anything too flashy." He instructed them to pick only two strands of plain, unadorned hairpins, leaving out all other jewelry and face powder entirely, and brought her off to see Lin Changzheng.