When Qiu Jingyu, who had returned from studying abroad, stepped into Qiu Mansion on stilettos, Bai Zhixi was sitting in the flower hall reading a thread-bound book "Ci Yu Shu".
Sunlight filtered in through the rhombus window panes and fell on her plain white wrists, making the hand holding the book look like a piece of fresh snow. Hearing the footsteps, she raised her head, her brows still filled with bookish aura, and looked towards Qiu Jingyu quietly.
Qiu Jingyu was stunned for a moment.
Before she went abroad, she heard that her father had remarried to a girl from a scholarly family, only three years older than her. I thought he was a vulgar person who clings to the powerful, but I didn't expect him to look so noble.
"Jing Yu." Qiu Xuguang stood up from the Grand Master's chair, with the majesty of the head of the family in his tone, "I haven't paid your respects to your little mother yet."
Qiu Jingyu's eyes paused on Bai Zhixi's face for a moment, then she curved her lips and made a very beautiful salute: "Jingyu would like to say hello to my little mom. I wish my little mom and my father a happy wedding and a long life together."
His words are well-behaved, but his smile doesn't reach his eyes.
Bai Zhixi closed the book, nodded slightly, and said in a voice as light as melting snow in early spring, "You're welcome, Miss."
Later, everyone in Qiu Mansion felt strange that although the new wife and the eldest lady were different in generations, they were similar in age, and they could live in peace and harmony. Bai Zhixi reads and practices calligraphy in the flower hall every day. Qiu Jingyu occasionally passes by and will stop to ask her for a cup of tea. The two of them were separated by a rosewood table. They didn't talk much, but they weren't embarrassed either.
When the tea mist rises, Qiu Jingyu will think that her little mother smells very good. It's not the fragrance of powder, but the smell of paper and ink mixed with old tea. After smelling it for a long time, it makes people feel weak.
Until that evening, Qiu Jingyu brought back a young man in a suit and leather shoes.
The man's name was Song Mingyuan, whom she met when she was studying abroad, and he had been chasing her for more than half a year. Qiu Jingyu couldn't say she liked him very much, but her father repeatedly urged her to look at him, so she brought one back casually, hoping to silence her tongue.
Bai Zhixi was sitting on the corridor feeding the koi carp. When she heard the footsteps, she turned around and glanced over Song Mingyuan's attentive smiling face. When she returned to Qiu Jingyu, she suddenly sank a little.
"It's divided."
She spoke very softly, but her tone was unmistakable.
The smile on Song Mingyuan's face froze. Qiu Jingyu raised her eyebrows and signaled the man to leave first. After the figure disappeared outside the moon cave door, she turned around slowly, leaned against the vermilion pillar, and looked down at Bai Zhixi.
"Mom seems to be a little too lenient."
Bai Zhixi threw the last handful of fish food in her hand into the pond, patted her fingertips, and raised her head. The setting sun coated her eyes with a thin layer of gold, making them bottomless.
"Your father is not at home yet," she said calmly, "I should be concerned about your marriage."
Qiu Jingyu leaned down, and the distance between the two people suddenly narrowed, so close that Bai Zhixi could smell the scent of tuberose on her collar. Qiu Jingyu's eyelashes are very long, and when they are halfway down, they cast a small shadow under her eyes, which looks a little unclear.
"Oh?" Her voice was very low, as low as a feather brushing against her ears, "I wonder why my mother cares?"
Bai Zhixi's fingers pinching the spine of the book tightened slightly.
"What kind of relationship do you want?"
Qiu Jingyu straightened up, waved to the maid waiting outside the corridor, and raised her chin in the direction Song Mingyuan left. The maid was very clever and immediately ran to deliver the message.
They were the only two people left in the yard.
The koi carp in the pond flicked its tail and splashed with water, and the copper bell on the porch made a tinny sound when the evening breeze struck it. Qiu Jingyu took a step forward, and Bai Zhixi subconsciously stepped back, her back pressed against the cold pillar.
"Of course..."
Qiu Jingyu raised her hand to rest on the pillar beside Bai Zhixi's ear, enveloping her whole body in her own shadow. When she lowered her head, the strands of hair on her forehead swept across her eyebrows.
"A closer relationship than my little mother."
The tips of Bai Zhixi's ears were filled with a layer of crimson at a speed that was visible to the naked eye. The redness spread along the ear shells to the side of her neck, like cinnabar spreading on rice paper. She turned her face away, with an uncontrollable tremor in her voice: "Be reckless... If you don't let go, what should you do if others see you?"
Qiu Jingyu laughed muffledly, and the vibration in her chest was transmitted through the thin material of her clothes. Instead of moving away, she moved closer, her breath brushing against Bai Zhixi's red earlobes.
"Is it okay when there's no one around?"
Bai Zhixi's face was so red that she almost bled. She raised her hand and slapped Qiu Jingyu on the face. The force was as light as a cat patting a ball of yarn, and it didn't even make a sound when it landed.
Qiu Jingyu held her wrist before she could take it back, and slowly rubbed her wrist with his thumb, feeling that the pulse there was beating fast and chaotically. She lowered her head, her lips almost touching Bai Zhixi's ear, and spoke in a voice that only two people could hear.
"Mom, you beat her so lightly, are you reluctant to let go?"
Bai Zhixi's whole figure was burned. She jerked her hand back to push her, but she couldn't push her at all. Qiu Jingyu stepped back half a step with a smile, and saw her "little mother" holding the book in front of her chest. Her usually calm eyes were full of panic, and her lips were pursed tightly, as if she would burst into flames if she said another word.
That night, the maids at Qiu Mansion found that for the first time, Mrs. Qiu was not reading in the flower hall. They closed the door early, saying she was not feeling well, and no one was allowed in to serve her. Only the personal maid Chun Xing glanced through the crack in the door and came back to nuzzle her ears with the little girl next to her.
"My wife's face is so red, as if she has a fever."
The next morning Qiu Xuguang came back from the Chamber of Commerce and saw his daughter Qiu Jingyu sitting at the dining table peeling a hard-boiled egg for Bai Zhixi. She peeled it carefully, even picking out the egg coat, and put it into the porcelain plate in front of Bai Zhixi. He also served her a bowl of porridge.
Qiu Xuguang nodded happily: "I feel relieved to see that your mother and daughter get along so harmoniously."
Bai Zhixi held up the porridge bowl to cover her face, and the tips of her ears began to turn red again.
Qiu Jingyu touched her calf with her toes under the table, with a smile on her face and a gentle and decent voice: "What my father said is that I will honor my little mother."
Bai Zhixi choked on a mouthful of porridge.
Intention: Love is the courage to transcend status and worldliness, and it is also the tenderness of two hearts that finally recognize each other through temptation and restraint.