Chapter 345 – Exalted and Fulfilled (2)
There was a conversation between two people in the crowd that caught her attention to the point that she opened her closed eyes.
“Today, Marquis Jingyuan’s daughter can finally have a reversal of fortune. This time, the Emperor bestowed so much! From today onwards, she will wear gold and be adorned in silver without any worry. Whoever can marry her will definitely get a good deal…”
“Marry her? Brother Liu, you’re joking! She was deemed as a bearer of misfortune by the Ancestor and Han Shanyue! Whoever marries her will have their life fate cut! Do you still want to live?”
“This… In fact, so what if she was a bearer of ill luck? I heard that she was a beauty with high level medical expertise, not to mention rich… To be able to marry such a wife, even if she suppressed me to death, I’m willing!”
“Hahaha! Brother Liu, you’re not tempted by her, right? Marrying her will free you from hardship for a few decades? That’s right. Your Liu family is currently having some setbacks. If you marry her and obtain her family property, the whole family will be able to reverse the situation just by sacrificing you only. It’s worth it…”
“I cannot take her family property. I only feel that she is just too pitiful. If no one wants her, I will take on this difficult task…”
Ning Xuemo parted the curtain on the palanquin window, revealing half of her face. She then glanced at the two men who spoke.
They were both scholars passing by. At this moment, they were standing amongst the crowd gossiping. Suddenly, they saw Ning Xuemo’s partially revealed face. Their minds trembled, and their bodies softened!
That young lady is truly beautiful, especially when she smiled at them!
“Brother Liu, she looked at me…”
“Brother Zhang, you’re wrong. She clearly looked at me…” Suddenly, both men felt that it was absolutely worth it if they can marry that kind of girl, even if they were to immediately die!
They both looked at Ning Xuemo and gave her big smiles.
Ning Xuemo extended out her snow white little hand, and something shot out from her fingertips.
Both men suddenly felt something coarse in their palms. They lowered their hand and saw that they each got a melon seed…
The beauty threw melon seeds at them! But what did she try to imply by specially throwing these melon seeds at them?
Both men tightly clenched the melon seeds, as if they were holding onto a treasure.
Ning Xuemo’s lips hooked up. The men quickly discovered that the melon seeds in their hands weren’t normal. Something more was added to them.
They should pay the price of shooting their mouths off today. Thus, for the next eight days, their bodies would constantly itch.
She let go of the curtain. Suddenly, in response to something, her brilliant eyes darted towards the second floor of a refined and elegant building.
That second floor was surrounded by a railing, and a man sat there while leaning on it.
He was obviously on the second floor with the distance between them not being too far off. However, Ning Xuemo was unable to distinguish his appearance. She could only make out his blue sky clothes fluttering in the wind.
Next to him, there was a small stove made of red clay. On the stove, there was an oddly shaped small pot and white smoke emitted from it, shrouding that person’s figure in a light mist.
The newly brewed rice wine, fragrant from the green foams,
A small stove of redly burned clay.
Night came, the sky longed for snow.
Would you care for a cup of wine?
– Bai Juyi[1]
When Ning Xuemo looked at him, a classic poem immediately emerged inside her head.
She felt that the poem truly fit that man. Although it’s the end of summer, the heat wave was devastating, and it was impossible for snow to fall. However, with that man sitting there, with his back to the noise of the secular world, he seemed isolated from all profanity: pure, indifferent and cold, not contaminated by the dust of the mortal world.
Even if she only saw his silhouette, Ning Xuemo recognized him.
‘Han Shanyue!’
She threw off the curtain she had grabbed. He was the art sage who gave her the title of bearer of misfortune!
‘Why did that bastard appear here?’
[1] Bai Juyi is a poet from the Tang dynasty (772-846). The poem Ning Xuemo is a classic one in China, but pretty obscure in western parts since I couldn’t find the translations for it. Therefore, the translations is a mixed of the chinese interpretation of the poem and actual poem translations by yours truly. Since the poem rhymes and rules will be destroyed by the translations, I didn’t stick too much to the actual poems raws. I just translated by trying to make the meaning a bit easier to understand. For more information on Bai Juyi, click here.
Grenn’s Rants Corner
Sometimes, I have weird hobbies moments. At time I will be crochetting the heck out of coasters and then at time I will be coloring “adult coloring book.” Recently, I have a sudden moment where I was doing primary school maths all day before feeling very fulfilled. I guess my inner abandoned mathematician was craving for attention.