Chapter 424
Fang Hanjun spoke slowly, her voice hoarser while her eyes were slightly dazed and her thoughts seemed to go back to the past.
“Although my mother is a noble eldest princess, due to the late emperor’s last decree she cannot live elsewhere. For so many years, I have watched her spend her days in tears, growing more and more emaciated with each passing day, I once persuaded her to divorce, but we mother and daughter have no support in Yuzhou, and obstacles are all over the place.”
“Because my mother proposed to divorce once, the people of Yuzhou all pointed their fingers at her, saying that she didn’t abide by the ways of women, that she was disobedient and shameless, and once when my mother and I went out to offer incense, some people even threw vegetable and melon peels at her, and the curses were even more intolerable to the ears ……”
Although her mother was the eldest princess, in Yuzhou, the status of the eldest princess was not honorable, but a burden and bondage.
“Later, Mother never went out again, she began to lose her hair in large quantities, she did not eat or drink, she could not sleep at night, and a few times she tried to kill herself, but she was saved by those servants around her ……”
However, in the end, her mother left after all, and to her, this was probably relief. Fang Hanjun’s eyes glistened with faint tears as she raised her eyes to look outside the flower hall at the withered branches swaying in the cold wind.
Qin Jiu’s eyebrows twitched and thought: Could it be that Eldest Princess Yongle was suffering from depression?
Fang Hanjun withdrew her gaze and looked at Qin Jiu again, “Xiao Jiu, have you ever thought that like father, like son, what if Uncle Zezhi is just like Duan Wangye?”
Her eyes were clear and dark, unclear if she was talking about Duan Wangye and Gu Zezhi, or her father, Dong Pingbo.
Qin Jiu replied decisively, “No.”
She trusted Gu Zezhi. Although her golden thigh was blackbellied, he was also a proud person.
Sometimes she felt that Gu Zezhi was like a mandala flower blooming at night; looking gorgeous on the outside, but actually poisonous.
Thinking about Gu Zezhi, Qin Jiu’s expression brightened up, and were filled with smiles as if the starry sky was reflected in her eyes, dotted with stars, and overflowing with light.
Fang Hanjun stared at her for a moment before she suddenly stood up, startling the cat and nimbly burrowing under Qin Jiu’s chair.
Qin Jiu: “?”
She always felt that there was something indescribably strange about Fang Hanjun today.
Fang Hanjun blinked at her and suddenly smiled, the original melancholy and sentimentality dissipating in an instant.
It felt like the clouds were parting and the sky was clear.
“Follow me.” Fang Hanjun walked towards the outside of the hall.
Qin Jiu’s strange feeling grew stronger and felt that something happened that she did not know so she curiously followed Fang Hanjun.
After leaving the flower hall and bypassing a rugged rockery, the front suddenly opened. The winter sun shone straight into her eyes, and the cold wind brought a noisy sound.
The lake in front was sparkling, and Gu Zezhi, dressed in a purple robe, was standing under a withered willow tree, seven or eight feet away from the lake.
In the lake, the goose-yellow figure was floundering and shouting.
“Help!”
“Master Gu…”
“Help me …… um.”
She sank and floated in the lake, her small face half-lifted while her hair was already soaked and was sticking to her face, which made her look more delicate and a pitiful beauty, added by her delicate voice, she did not look like she was in a difficult situation.
From a distance, Qin Jiu recognized that the one in the water seemed to be the cousin of the county princess of Wang Yu.
As far as the eye could see, except for two of them, there was no one, the lake was empty, and only those flowers and trees swaying with the wind.
There was no need for her to try, just by looking; she knew how cold the lake was in winter.
So, in the middle of winter, what was this Miss Tang doing foolishly in the lake?
Qin Jiu remembered those novel passages she had read before… was this the infamous porcelain?
Gu Zezhi was standing there with his hands behind his back as the cold wind blew the willow branches across his shoulders from time to time.
Casually brushed the willow branch, Gu Zezhi turned around and happened to see Qin Jiu shrinking in the cold wind.
“Xiao Jiu.”
Gu Zezhi, who had originally been expressionless, smiled, like a spring breeze brushing over the frozen lake. His eyebrows and eyes suddenly softened, giving off a beautiful and radiant glow.
He smiled and walked towards Qin Jiu.
***
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