Chapter 138: Flowers Wither When Spring Begins

"The boss said Chang'an is ours now. I heard the Hu Building has some new foreign dancing girls. Shall we brothers go and have some fun?"

Wearing coarse cloth and worn shoes with a frivolous look in his eyes, a minor Manichaean leader said dissolutely.

"Brother Gao, you've made another fortune with the boss recently, you're certainly generous! The moment we meet, you treat the brothers to the Hu Building!"

"Heh, let me tell you, the other day I wielded a yard-long saber to hunt down the Yulin guards, braving the wind and snow to chase them across several mountain ranges. Because of my meritorious service in battle, I was rewarded with a few gold nuggets, hehe! Now you see it!"

The minor leader chuckled, producing a lump of gold and showing it off complacently. He looked left and right, and after bragging enough and flaunting it to his heart's content, he put it away. With a grand wave of his arm, he led a group of underlings toward the Hu Building, all of them thoroughly drunk.

They had no idea what had happened at the Princess's Mansion, nor did they know that the Tenth League and the Manichaeism had fallen out just as Wu Yueling had schemed.

Let us trace time backward.

She rose when the sky was merely dim, first drawing water to wash her face, then heading to the kitchen to prepare hot water and carry it up to Longjing Tower.

This was the two-story pavilion where the princess temporarily resided, accessible only via a winding staircase, with the alternative being climbing through a window. Xiaochun did not know martial arts, but she often saw Sister Chu enter through the window, so she believed this was a secondary method of entering the pavilion.

Tending to the princess's waking hours had become her duty; no one could snatch away this glory, or at least that was how she felt in her heart, acting with absolute meticulousness. She felt a pure admiration and deep respect for the princess, believing this was her way of contributing strength and realizing her worth.

She never felt weary of it daily. Transforming her respect and admiration for the princess into motivation, she served her tirelessly, and it gradually became a habit.

This was an emotion and experience she had never known while born in the Yeting palace quarters. Complex and strange, she had been fated to be a lowly servant since birth, wandering in humiliation and insignificance, yet she found a sense of worth beside the princess.

On the night the Tianci Pavilion caught fire, the princess she saw was somewhat different from usual, but it did not affect this devotion to serving the princess. She had never read books, let alone understood poetry and prose, having been a lowly servant since childhood.

If the princess had not invented stir-frying and enjoyed eating stir-fried dishes, her culinary skills would not have ranked first in the entire princess's mansion.

Today, as usual, she heard the princess ask what was for dinner. Xiaochun replied in her normal tone that evening would feature braised donkey meat with pressure-cooked ale, while Sister Xiaomi had been asked to cook at noon.

In truth, as the weather grew warmer and the air more humid, one needed regimen-keeping to dispel the winter cold accumulated within the body, which was why donkey meat was being stewed.

That aside, the young mistress's breasts didn't seem to be growing much. She would probably have to ask Sister Xiaomi about that; having delivered babies, she surely knew nourishing medicinal recipes for that part of the body to grow.

Having finished her morning chores, she returned to the pavilion where she currently lived, clumsily pushing open the door to see Xiaomi sitting by the window, idly listening to the sound of the wind.

"Oh, little Chunchun, you're back!"

Xiaomi walked over, took Xiaochun's hand, pushed her onto a chair, and began massaging her shoulders.

"Sister Xiaomi, what will happen if the princess takes a husband in the future?"

Faced with Xiaochun's worry, Xiaomi tilted her head mischievously—who could know such a thing?

"Why would you think that?"

Both hands slapped against her own chubby cheeks, and she answered without a second thought.

"Because, if that happens, I won't be able to go wake the princess anymore. With a husband around, it would be somewhat inconvenient!"

Xiaomi pouted in agreement and hugged Xiaochun; the two women seemed to share a very close bond.

"Honestly, just relax a little! The princess said we are all free!"

"Mm!"

Xiaochun replied with a smile, a gleam of gratitude flashing in her eyes. As Xiaomi had said, she was free.

After a while, Xiaochun picked up her needle and thread again to continue sewing that red Hanfu garment, decorated with golden-edged plum blossoms. Every single blossom took days to complete, and the golden brocade thread in her basket was already running low.

She had poured nearly a year of energy into this Hanfu, simply to weave a complete garment and present it to the princess, hoping she would like it.

She embroidered with intense concentration, completely unaware of Xiaomi spying on her from the side.

Nor did she know that Xiaomi was sighing at how this garment was taken out every day to weave the golden plum blossoms. Because the princess loved plum blossoms, she had made such a choice. The golden brocade thread required special instructions at the dyeing workshop to acquire; not just anyone could use such a color. Having lived in Yeting since childhood, Xiaomi naturally knew this and could all the better appreciate the difficulty of crafting this garment.

Since last year, Xiaochun had been calculating. If she hurried her work a bit, she could finish slightly more than half a blossom or a whole one a day. Now, the accumulated total had reached two hundred and fifty blossoms. Just as she finished embroidering the two hundred and fifty-first, the golden silk thread ran out.

A small flaw was missing from the cuff, though it did not actually mar the appearance. She felt she still had to make a trip to the dyeing workshop to beg for some more golden brocade thread.

Knock, knock, knock!

"Shi'er has come to pay respects to Mother!"

Xiaochun put away the garment, a smile blossoming on her face as she opened the door and scooped up Liu Shi.

"Mm, Shi'er is a good boy!"

"Good morning, Mother. Good morning, Aunt Xiaomi!"

"My, what a sweet mouth! Here, have a goat's milk candy!"

Xiaochun set Liu Shi down and smiled. For some reason, although he was an adopted son, she felt a sense of happiness. The thought flashed through her mind: if the princess were to give birth to a child in the future, would that child acknowledge her as a foster mother? But the thought vanished in an instant—it was far too presumptuous. A servant's status was different; to claim to be a foster mother would be overstepping her bounds. The princess was noble!

Sighing to herself, she walked toward the cabinet in the corner of the room and saw two scrolls thrust into a ceramic jar on the floor. She remembered these had been found in the ruined pavilion; they seemed to be calligraphy scrolls that used to hang on the wall. Because of the reconstruction of Tianci Pavilion, all important items had been moved here.

Unrolling them for inspection, she saw they were indeed writings obtained only after a three-day pursuit across a thousand miles. They seemed to have been written by the fellow who smashed the plaque of the princess's mansion—a man named Yan Zhenqing, if she recalled correctly. The other scroll consisted of winding ink marks formed by the avatars of a little spirit snake, completely incomprehensible to her. That piece seemed to have been given to the princess by that old codger named Zhang Xu.

She should mention this to the princess tonight. These items were very important—or so she assumed, since she was illiterate and her understanding could only reach the level of "important."

Taking some money from the cabinet, she stroked Liu Shi's head, took his small hand, and turned to say to Xiaomi, "I'm going out. I'll leave the midday meal to Sister Xiaomi, and tonight we'll stew a pot of donkey meat. As for right now, the West Market should have donkey meat for sale."

Although the East Market was closer, they didn't sell donkey meat at all. The only butcher shop she knew that specialized in donkey meat was in the West Market, and she used to be a regular customer there.

The original recipe for yellow-wine-braised donkey meat was something she had learned from an old palace maid in Yeting. Later, the princess improved the recipe, using ale to stew it, and the flavor was quite exceptional. After taking it off the stove, one would sprinkle some coriander on top.

After entrusting matters to Xiaomi, she saddled a fine steed in the stables and set off accompanied by a guard.

West Market.

There were seven fellows in total walking out of the Hu Building. They were thoroughly drunk, still reeking of the foreign dancing girls' rouge.

"T-t-today, we had a blast! Hahahaha, you guys don't know, that chubby blue-eyed dancing girl has a really fat ass!"

"B-Brother Gao is right, her ass is huge!"

"Heh, am I, am I seeing things? That woman leading the horse has a pretty fat ass too! Let's go, hahahaha..."

"Let's go! Brother Gao, let's go touch her..."

The seven of them staggered along with their arms around each other's shoulders, stepping forward to harass the woman. They knocked down the resisting guard, cornered the people into a side alley, and then rushed forward to snatch the small child the woman was leading.

The child began to wail loudly out of terror.

The guard scrambled back to his feet and brandished his saber as a warning, but was quickly disarmed and knocked flat again.

Having beaten the guard, they went after the woman and caught up with her in no time. The minor leader, fancying himself skilled in martial arts, shoved her to the ground.

The woman shielded the child, clutching him tightly in her arms.

Unwittingly, the minor Manichaean leader turned his harassment into child snatching, a fierce glint in his eyes. Having killed quite a few people on the mountain and addled by alcohol, he fancied himself back in the snowy mountains and thrust his blade mercilessly toward the fiercely resisting and crying woman, without a shred of hesitation...

When he muddledly brought an end to a life, his own life came to an end as well.