Arrogant young marquis with an unbridled nature x icy, eccentric young lady
Everyone in the capital knows that the young marquis of the Xiao family is a hopeless rake. He gallops through the streets and spends fortunes on drink. Even the emperor just shakes his head.
"That little scoundrel Xiao Lin has only one redeeming feature: his face is easy enough on the eyes."
But Lin Qingyuan doesn't even think his face is worth looking at. The first time they meet, he has a maid by the wrist, pressing her against a rockery, his gold-threaded robes swaying so much they hurt her eyes.
She turns to leave, but he blocks her with his boot.
Lin Qingyuan thinks Xiao Lin is just the libertine he seems to be. Xiao Lin, meanwhile, thinks the girl has an air of mystery.
So he does everything he can to get close to the young lady rumored to be a freak. But the girl remains unruffled, and it gets on his nerves whenever he thinks about it.
"Are you really not going to give me any kind of response?"
"Let go."
"Call me Big Brother and I'll let go."
She looks at him with cool, clear eyes, and Xiao Lin has no choice but to reluctantly retract his claws.
Fortunately, she soon has a favor to ask of him.
*
The first time Lin Qingyuan follows Xiao Lin into a poor alley, she discovers that he's taken off his gold and jade ornaments and changed into plain clothes.
Her gaze lingers on his waist. The coarse cloth is tied too tightly, outlining the lean, powerful waist of a young general, nothing like his usual lazy self.
"Seen enough?"
"A rake's money is a rake's money, but Xiao Lin's money is Xiao Lin's. Spend it where it matters. The borneol you need grows in places like this."
The broken courtyard gate opens, and seven or eight children rush at him, shouting, "Brother Xiao!"
*
Xiao Lin stands with her beneath the eaves to shelter from the rain, watching an old woman patch children's coats with scraps of cloth.
The mute uncle who sells hu bing thinks she's a little too thin and insists on stuffing a hot pastry into Lin Qingyuan's arms.
Children at the alley entrance insist on teaching Sister Lin how to play jump rope.
But she never expected to stumble upon a scene like this:
"Brother Xiao, when the locust flowers bloom beyond the frontier, will Father come back?"
"Yes."
"Father promised to come back and teach me to lasso a horse. If I had a horse, I'd have a new pair of legs, and then I could go to the battlefield! When the locust flowers bloom..."
"I'll take you all back to the frontier."
Xiao Lin ruffles the child's hair, his knuckles clenched white.
He has made a promise, yet Lin Qingyuan has never seen him look so despondent.
So he has wishes of his own, too.
And yet he's been helping her fulfill hers all along.
Lin Qingyuan suddenly feels that, at the very least, she has to let them see the locust flowers.
Theme: Truly pure herbs grow among the everyday warmth of human life.
