Surprise arose in Su Wan’s heart and she couldn’t help but march forward. She held the exquisite photo frame up.
After a closer examination, the tall and indifferent boy in the photo was undoubtedly Jiang Xuecheng, but who could the youthful boy smiling like a ruffian be?
She had not heard about Jiang Xuecheng having a brother.
Luo Xiuxiu met Su Wan’s uncertain gaze. She smilingly took the photo frame over and her eyes narrowed.
“This is Haoxuan, Xuecheng’s little brother. He’s three years younger but his personality is completely different from his brother. He’s a mischievous devil. Why didn’t Xuecheng mention him?”
Jiang Haoxuan?
Su Wan savoured the completely unfamiliar name in her heart and awkwardly touched her hair. She looked down and replied shyly, “Xuecheng hasn’t told me this before.”
Why did Jiang Xuecheng not tell her such important thing? She felt embarrassed in front of his grandmother.
Luo Xiuxiu could sense Su Wan’s awkwardness and quickly added, “It’s only normal that you don’t know. Haoxuan had gone to Dong Chen Country to study when he was seventeen. Xuecheng has been always cold and indifferent and the two brothers are not too close. He might have forgotten to tell you.”
When she heard Luo Xiuxiu’s explanation, without thinking, Su Wan asked, “Did Xuecheng not like to socialize with others since he was young?”
From the photograph, Jiang Xuecheng looked like he was still in high school but his face was cold as if others had owed him lots of money. He wasn’t cheerful at all.
Luo Xiuxiu nodded. “Xuecheng has always been like this but with you, he’s different. He has been alone all these years. Now that both of you are married, I’m relieved. You must bring him back here more often in the future.”
Upon hearing this, Su Wan’s eyelid trembled. Luo Xiuxiu just asked her to “bring” Jiang Xuecheng back to the Jiang family’s old house?
Why did it feel like she was the husband and he was the wife?
Just then, Luo Xiuxiu remembered something. She hit her head lightly with her palm and opened the drawer under the desk. Then, she took out a thick photo album.
“Wan, if you wish to know how Xuecheng looked like when he was young, you may flip through this album.”
Su Wan accepted that album curiously and flipped page by page. Luo Xiuxiu beamed as she chatted with Su Wan for a while before turning around to leave.
Su Wan took the album and stood up. Then, she opened the windows in the room. The sight that welcomed her was an unknown tree. The flowers on the tree were blooming. When the wind blew, the room smelt fresh with the scent of the flowers.
Enchanted, Su Wan took a breath of the flower fragrance. She felt that this room was nicely furnished and the scenery outside the window was beautiful. It was indeed a good place.
Covering the window, Su Wan returned to the desk once more. She switched on the table lamp and started to browse through the photo album.
The first few photographs in the album were Jiang Xuecheng’s portraits. There were records of him from the time he was newly born till the time he became a handsome and bright youth. The person who took these photographs had put in some effort.
However, the more she flipped to the back, the more group photographs she saw. Jiang Xuecheng’s brother, Jiang Haoxuan, were in several photographs. Besides him, another little girl appeared in many of the photographs in that album.
The little girl looked about Jiang Xuecheng’s age. There were photographs of the girl from when she was a cute little girl, till she became a pure and naïve young lady.
Did Jiang Xuecheng have a little sister?
When this thought flashed through her mind, Su Wan thought it was impossible. If Jiang Xuecheng had a biological sister, Luo Xiuxiu would have introduced her when she introduced Jiang Haoxuan.
It might be due to a woman’s instinct or it might be other factors that made Su Wan feel as if the girl in the photograph looked at Jiang Xuecheng with admiration.
For instance, in the photograph Su Wan was holding, the little girl was on a reddish-brown horse while Jiang Xuecheng was handing her a water tumbler from beside the horse. Both of them looked harmonious.
The girl bent down to accept the water tumbler and following her gesture, her black hair fell and covered half of her refined face.
She looked at him with a radiant smile and what caused one to palpitate was her starry eyes. How could it be possible if it was not admiration?
Su Wan felt she had always looked at Gu Zihang in this manner when she was young.
After all, no one is without a past.
Su Wan consoled herself but when she saw the girl and Jiang Xuecheng’s intimacy, she couldn’t help but feel gloomy.
It was not strange for Jiang Xuecheng to have a childhood lover but him not mentioning about it made it difficult for Su Wan to accept.
Su Wan sighed slightly and decided to wash her face in the bathroom. At least she could be more clear-headed and make less blind conjectures.
When she was walking through the corridor, Su Wan raised her head and saw a huge ancient costume portrait hanging on the wall.
That photograph had artistic conception. A lady in white dress was sitting in an upright position, playing the heptachord.
Her head was lowered slightly with a faint smile on her face. Her long sleeves were flowing along with the blowing of the wind and she looked like the fairy in the moon castle.
This lady in white looked like she was in her twenties and she was the adult version of the little girl in the photo album.
Who would hang an artistic photograph of another person on the wall in their house?
Su Wan’s doubt grew. She had probably guessed correctly…
This girl might be Jiang Xuecheng’s relative?
Su Wan tilted her head up with difficulty. After close examination, she noticed that her gesture of playing the heptachord was completely correct. It looked like she had some foundation in guqin.
Su Wan’s mother, Xie Lan, was a loyal enthusiast of the guqin. Whenever she was free, she would play the guqin at home and she had always wanted to groom Su Wan into a music master but to no avail.
While staring, a sense of strangeness flashed through Su Wan. She felt the girl looked familiar. It was undoubtedly the first time she had seen her but she felt she had seen her somewhere before.
The long, arched eyebrows, the almond eyes, and the little dimples when she smiled…
For a moment, between the lightning bolts, Su Wan experienced a sudden leap of heart. Although their facial contour did not look exactly the same, didn’t the lady’s features look similar to hers?
When she linked this to Jiang Xuecheng’s father’s statement at the dining table that he seemed to have seen her before, Su Wan’s heart pounded fast.
If the girl in the photograph was Jiang Xuecheng’s ex-lover, did he treat her as a replacement of that girl?
Just because both of them looked alike?
The more Su Wan thought about it, the more she felt uncomfortable. However, she was afraid it was her own fevered imagination and it would not be good to misunderstand Jiang Xuecheng.
If she were to leave it like this, not finding out the truth, it would create knots in her heart.
After pondering, Su Wan finally decided to ask Jiang Xuecheng clearly!