[Synopsis updated]:
Cheng Xi had a strange disposition and a terrible temper. As his mother put it, “He’s like an old boot, smelly and stubborn. It goes clop-clop when he walks, and wherever he goes, he can stink out a whole crowd.”
So his family did their best to deal with him by “scratching him through his boot.”
They even arranged to discuss his marriage while he was away in the capital to sit the imperial examinations.
Perhaps fortune really was smiling on him. Somehow, the marriage negotiations led to a powerful and prestigious family.
But no matter how good the matchmaker’s recommendations or the family’s reputation, how could they dare marry their daughter off to a man whose temperament they knew nothing about, having never met him?
So the prestigious family sent an elderly, experienced matron to find out what their future son-in-law was really like in private.
After a roundabout search, she found Jiang Yan, the maid in his courtyard.
When Cheng Xi heard the news, he sucked in a sharp breath.
Of all people, why did they have to choose Jiang Yan?
He had always believed that he and Jiang Yan were more than master and servant. They were confidants.
(Not the kind of “know yourself and your enemy” confidants, but true kindred spirits, like Boya and Ziqi or Li Guo sharing a boat.)
Oh no. Jiang Yan knew him best, so the matron would surely hear all about his strengths from her: his handsome looks, his vast knowledge, his talent as boundless as the sea, his easygoing manner, his graceful bearing...
Wouldn’t that make the young lady of that prestigious family insist on marrying no one but him?
Cheng Xi was beside himself with worry. To be honest, he didn’t want this marriage.
Although this match could be called a “dragon gate” on the path to officialdom, and leaping through it would send him soaring to great heights,
who could know whether a fish would rather leap over the Dragon Gate or swim free through the vast rivers and seas?
Fortunately, after the matron spoke with Jiang Yan, the marriage came to nothing. Cheng Xi breathed a sigh of relief. Now he could focus on his studies.
Still, sometimes when he grew tired of studying, he couldn’t help wondering how that maid described him to outsiders.
At last, his persistence paid off, and he found out.
It turned out she hadn’t said much. She had summed him up in just one word.
“Cruel.”
Cheng Xi suddenly felt as if the maid had lashed his compassionate heart with a whip. The pain was unbearable.
So she thought he was a rotten old boot in private, just like everyone else.
All their past conversations, every word exchanged and every unspoken understanding, hadn’t been the bond of kindred spirits he imagined. She had only been a maid currying favor with her master, swallowing her grievances and telling him what he wanted to hear.
Realizing this, Cheng Xi couldn’t help mocking himself. “What a terrible deal. Not only did that rotten marriage fail to get me through the Dragon Gate, but I’ve also been stabbed in my most vulnerable spot. I’ll have to find a way to make it up to myself. Jiang Yan, Jiang Yan, just you wait!”
[One-on-one romance, both are each other’s first, both are proud and prickly, both have sharp tongues, and both are like nunchucks: tough on the outside, tender within.]
Theme: Love and perseverance
