"Xu Ziyi! What are you doing standing in my courtyard half - naked?" Lan Jinxiang said impatiently. "It's embarrassing. Go and put on your clothes!"
Xu Ziyi hesitated and looked beyond her head towards the inner room. "Xiang'er, my clothes are in your room. Let me go in and get them."
Lan Jinxiang didn't say whether he could go in or not. Instead, she said to Song Yinghuai, "Your Highness, come in and speak if you have something to say!"
After saying that, she walked into the room on her own.
Xu Ziyi took a step forward, then hesitated and stopped. He said to Song Yinghuai, "You go in first!"
Song Yinghuai responded softly and calmly, brushed past Xu Ziyi's shoulder and walked in first.
Only then did Xu Ziyi follow him in with a dark face.
Lan Jinxiang was sitting in an armchair. She didn't invite the guests to sit down. With a half - smile on her lips, she said,
"Regent, oh no, you've resigned from your position to the young emperor. Now I should address you as the Prince of Yan again... Your Highness, the Prince of Yan, you've already bid farewell. Do you still have anything to say?"
"Not really," Song Yinghuai said indifferently. "I just came to see how the sister of an old acquaintance is doing, and then I'll leave."
Jade Gathering was gone, but her two sisters were still alive, which always weighed on his mind.
Or rather, he was really panicking and wanted to be scolded.
Being scolded by Jade Gathering's sister would make him feel a bit better.
Lan Jinxiang was silent for a while. The fierceness she had shown at the door was gone, and she seemed listless.
"You can see that I'm fine. No one dares to bully me."
She glanced at Xu Ziyi, who had just put on his clothes and walked out. "No one in this lifetime will ever be able to bully me."
Song Yinghuai looked dejected. "Miss Lan is a heroic woman. Mr. Xu has always respected you. Now that he holds great power in the court, indeed no one in this world will be able to bully you."
Lan Jinxiang sneered. "If you had treated my third sister as humbly as he treats me back then, my sister wouldn't have suffered so much. Maybe she would have obediently gone back to the Yan region with you first, and then she wouldn't have encountered that disaster."
After she stayed in the capital, she often heard Lan Jinqin, who came to the Plum Garden to chat, talking with the kings of Zhou and Qi.
She had a general understanding of what happened between Jade Gathering and Song Yinghuai.
That's why she never showed a good face to Song Yinghuai.
The most precious little girl in the Lan family was forced to sell herself into slavery.
That scoundrel Song Yinghuai even dared to use her as a maid to warm his bed. He punished and beat her at will.
Her sister was stubborn since childhood and didn't like to cry, but she had cried several times!
Just thinking about it made Lan Jinxiang want to chop Song Yinghuai into pieces!
"I heard from Xu Ziyi that you've been thinking about my sister since you were young. But after my sister came to you, you didn't cherish and protect this relationship."
"You didn't know what she wanted or liked. Is that reasonable? When you really like someone, how can you not try to figure out what she truly needs?"
"In your Highness's heart, my sister was just an obsession. Later, when she came to you as you wished, your obsession faded. You had more important things to do than protect her, so you lied to her, deceived her, and perfunctorily treated her..."
Lan Jinxiang was always outspoken. Today, she surprisingly spoke so many reasonable words so calmly that both men fell silent.
With every word Lan Jinxiang said, Song Yinghuai's face turned paler.
He was silent for a long time before he said bitterly, "Miss Lan is right... But Miss Lan is wrong about one thing. The obsession with Yu'er in my heart has never faded."
"I just... just..."
He suddenly couldn't go on.
He just used the wrong method, which led to a lifelong regret.
Song Yinghuai's Adam's apple rolled up and down violently. Finally, he chose to be silent.
Lan Jinxiang wasn't completely oblivious.
She heard from Xu Ziyi that now, except for Xu Buyue, Song Yinghuai didn't even have a single personal maid by his side.
Xu Buyue couldn't get close to him either. He just regarded her as a comrade like Zhu Xiao and the others.
Thinking about it, Lan Jinxiang seemed to calm down a bit.
This man deserved to be alone for the rest of his life!
He was so stubborn!
"Your Highness, do you understand the meaning of 'picking the morning flower in the evening'?"
"The thing you've been pursuing all your life was actually there from the beginning. You just realized it later. When you can't have both power and love at the same time, some people have to disappear to prove their preciousness."
"My sister was unlucky. She was simple - minded and couldn't resist your schemes and plans. She did many wrong things and often disrupted your plans... She's dead. Let it be that she paid for her mistakes with her life. You're even now, and you don't have to miss her anymore."
"Miss Lan!" Song Yinghuai suddenly looked up. His face became even paler, and his voice trembled. "I would never dare to exchange Yu'er's life for anything. She disrupted my plans because I concealed things from her. She was unaware, so she accidentally did something wrong. I was too harsh on her... I always hoped that since she loved me, she should be in sync with me..."
Xu Ziyi glanced at the pale - faced man and couldn't help but interrupt,
"Your Highness, how can there be someone who can fully understand your hardships and thus know your difficulties?"
"There won't be."
"As long as there's a little bit of mutual understanding and you meet such a person in the vast sea of people, it's already very rare."
"If you need her to empathize with you, it means she has to wear your battle boots, walk your path, endure your hardships, stay up your nights, read your books, and suffer your difficulties... How is that possible?"
"Since you chose to conceal things, you should have expected how panicked she would be when she was kept in the dark. Moreover, none of the Lan sisters are obedient..."
Just like back then, when he was far away in the capital, he thought he could wait here to save Lan Jinxiang.
He never thought that she would face countless dangers and be in life - threatening situations during her exile.
In fact, Song Yinghuai had reflected on Xu Ziyi's words countless times in the past two years.
However, when these words were clearly spoken out by someone else, he still felt heart - broken.
He was smart all his life, but he was stupid in this regard.
Seeing that Song Yinghuai had been hit hard today, Lan Jinxiang decided to stop there and began to drive them away.
"That's all for today. Your Highness is leaving the capital. I'm sure you have a lot of things to do."
"You've already bid farewell. Please leave, Your Highness!"
Song Yinghuai stood up and was about to leave when he accidentally glanced at a painting on the side wall. His pupils suddenly shrank. "That is..."
He strode forward and stood in front of the painting. He stared fixedly at the little boy in the family - reunion scene in the painting, as if he was going to stare a hole through it.
Lan Jinxiang frowned. She thought he was looking at Lan Jinshu in the painting and was confused.
"This is just a painting of my Lan family members. There's nothing special about it... I heard that your Highness is excellent at calligraphy and painting. If your Highness misses Shu'er, the woman you draw yourself will be more vivid, right?"
Her painting skills were really nothing to write home about.
The Lan daughters didn't like the arts. She and Jade Gathering liked sword - fighting, while the eldest sister was okay. Besides embroidery, she could also study herbs.
So the painting on the wall was drawn by Xu Ziyi based on her description.
It was just a keepsake.
"Family..." Song Yinghuai said excitedly as he looked at the little boy in the painting. "Is this the young master, Lan Guifan?"
Lan Jinxiang was stunned for a moment, then nodded. "It's Fan'er."
The boy in the painting was younger than the one he met in Qilian Mountain. But Xu Ziyi was also very proficient in calligraphy and painting, and he had drawn the boy vividly.
Although the Lan Guifan in the painting was still childish, his outline was very similar to the young man Song Yinghuai had seen.
The one who saved him was Lan Guifan. Then the sister and brother - in - law he mentioned...
Song Yinghuai's face changed drastically. His heart almost jumped out of his throat. His body couldn't stop trembling because of this sudden discovery.
Jade Gathering!
Jade Gathering...
She's not dead...?