佳偶天成 (A Match Made in Heaven) by 十四郎
Chapter 3
Him Again
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"Madam, is Lord Fox Xian still mad at me?"
In the spring afternoon, Xin Mei sat in the fragrant and flower-filled bamboo pavilion, eating rice noodles while asking the elderly woman steward.
The stewardess calmly replied, "Rest a.s.sured, Boss Xin. The Valley Master is a more magnanimous Xian person than that."
"Oh. But then why is he dressed like that today? …and also frequently turning around to glare at me?"
Xin Mei raised her head to look across the river at the Lord Fox Xian who was sitting on the river bank, fishing. Today he was sporting an extremely manly suit of armor that included a long sword at his waist. Every several minutes, he would stand and pace in front of her, sometimes even pulling out the sword to chop and hack at the gra.s.s and branches. Once she looked over at him, he would frigidly shoot her a glare with all his might, and then, as if nothing happened, would sit back in his original spot and resume his fishing.
Speaking of the man, yesterday while she was busy helping the fresh disciples train the spirit animals, he had also come out from time to time to flash by. Except yesterday he was wearing a chivalrous cloak with a black cloth covering one eye, as if he was dressing up as a one-eyed person. Oh that"s right, the day before that he also seemed to have been dressed up as a Tian Shi (Heavenly Teacher)…
"Every month he has such special days. Please just get used to this."
People who are always attending to Xian (immortal) people are really extraordinary… they can be so calm. Impressed with the stewardess" calm stature, Xin Mei nodded her head and continued to eat her rice noodles.
"Eh? What is this girl still doing here?" Outside the pavilion, someone"s voice raised in an especially rude way.
Xin Mei turned around, and say that Xian person named Mei Shan walking towards her while holding in his arms a large bunch of spirit flowers and spirit gra.s.ses. With an unimpressed gaze, he shot her a look filled with a complicated set of emotions including embarra.s.sment, humiliation, anger, detestation, all wrapped up in a veneer of haughtiness as if he was above all ordinary people.
"Spirit animals are not like talisman… They can"t just be used right after delivery. They need to be trained. The new disciples are clumsy and inexperienced, so I asked her to stay to help them," Zhen Hong Shen, the Lord Fox Xian, explained as he took the entire barrel of fish that he just fished and threw them back inside the river.
Seeing Mei Shan enter the bamboo pavilion, Xin Mei rose to greet him formally, "Greetings to Lord Mei Shan."
Mei Shan coldly replied with a "hmph." He twitched the moment he looked at her, remembering his own humiliation from several days ago. For Xian people, self-respect was bigger than the sky, and he honestly just wanted her to disappear to another universe, ideally to never come back.
A wind blew past, and the heavy smell of alcohol on his body floated over. While going back to eat her rice noodles, Xin Mei said, "Lord Mei Shan, too much alcohol hurts the body. You are born so delicate and weak-looking, even skinnier than the bamboo poles that we hang clothing on in our back gardens… you should really eat more."
Mei Shan rubbed his forehead, feeling the veins that were popping out and trying to press them back into his skull…
Words such as "skinny," "weak," "delicate," and "bamboo pole" were taboo for him. He refused to normally even hear these words by themselves. And yet she somehow managed to fit all his taboo words in one phrase. He lowered his head to look at his hand, hesitating over whether or not he should throttle her to death.
"Greet-… greetings to Lord Valley Master, Lord Mei Shan, and Boss Xin…"
A shy voice came from outside the pavilion. Xin Mei raised her head and brightened. She hurriedy finished the rest of her rice noodles and then jumped out, smiling wildly. "Brother Da Hu! What"s up?"
Zhang Da Hu"s cheeks shyly blushed, and with a mosquito-like voice, said, "I"m just here to request advice from Boss Xin for training a spirit animal… There is a spirit animal that refuses to eat. Every time I approach, it tries to scratch me…"
"Oh, that"s no problem. I"ll come over to take a look," Xin Mei said as she walked over.
Behind her, Zhen Hong Sheng coughed several times with all his strength. He glared at her with ice-cold eyes while saying, "I will not give any of them to you."
Xin Mei sighed. Fine, she got it. If he doesn"t want to hand any of them over, then she"ll just have to accept that… It"s just a pity that this one could have probably made a pretty good husband.
In a blink, both people parted. A confused Mei Shan asked, "What are you giving?"
Zhen Hong Sheng reeled in a koi at the end of his line with an anger that has yet to disperse. "The little girl has taken a fancy to the disciple that guards the gates, that Zhang Da Hu. She said that he was an exceptionally good-looking man."
He was actually extremely infuriated by Xin Mei"s warped eyesight and her inability to distinguish beauty and ugliness. While that stern face of Zhang Da Hu"s was considered to be exceptionally good-looking, his own splendid countenance ended up being called womanly!
Mei Shan thought about the door guard disciple who just pa.s.sed by. He thought about that square face that looked as flat and straight as a door… yeah… that sure is exceptionally good-looking…
He held his stomach and laughed until he fell on the floor.
Xin Mei spent about half a month in Chongling Valley when suddenly one morning, a skylark dropped from the sky and in front of her.
It was a messenger spirit bird from Xin Xie Zhuang (House of Xin).
A piece of paper was tied to the leg of the skylark. Her father had written a few urgent-looking lines in charcoal:
How has the issue of the son-in-law progressed? There is one more month until you turn sixteen. Before then, you must be married off!
The last five words were written in the red ink made from cinnabar powder. The eye-catching red characters were startling in their brightness.
Xin Mei admitted that she lately had become lazy. The good rice and good dishes of Chongling Valley along with the beautiful natural landscapes had spoiled her and managed to throw this very important issue to the back of her mind. With a guilty conscience, she went back to her room to pack up some things before immediately going to say goodbye to her host, Zhen Hong Sheng.
Still holding a grudge from half a month ago, the petty Fox Xian ordered, "Send someone to tell Zhang Da Hu that he shall not guard the gates today. Tell him to stay inside his room so as to avoid some people from seeing him and thinking too much about him."
Xin Mei raised her head to look at him. Because of wanting to highlight his manliness, he has carried a sword and ported a breastplate every day since she"s been here. Today he was wearing another black cloak. He looked like he was about to go to war any minute now.
She thought for a moment and said, "Lord Fox Xian looks extremely heroic today."
Zhen Hong Sheng suddenly brightened and beamed, "You have finally seen the light! Good, good!"
She continued, "You look as heroic as a painting of the valiant and honorable as General Peng Rong."
General Peng Rong was a legendarily peerless and valiant battle figure in the history of the country of Qiong. Naturally, the most important point is that she was a woman.
Zhen Hong Sheng ran off crying.
Xin Mei"s mood turned for the greatest. Holding her sack, she climbed on Qiu Yue and flew back home. Even though she couldn"t find a husband in the valley, that"s alright. On the way back, there will be many towns of various sizes. In the end, things such as husbands must be found amongst the mortals. Xian people are just too petty and unreasonable…
Even though the inside of the Chongling Valley was sunlit and lovely, the outside of the valley was overcast and rainy. Xin Mei didn"t have a Rain Prevention Talisman, and riding Qiu Yue in this kind of weather was self-punishing. Seeing a large forest ahead, she quickly directed the pelican to descend onto a tree. After the descent onto a branch, she shelved Qiu Yue inside a Talisman to safeguard inside her clothes.
Seeing that it was nearly nighttime, it seemed that she won"t make it to a town by tonight. She"ll have to camp out.
She jumped from the tree, gracefully dropping to the ground. Unfortunately, there was a mud puddle right where she descended, and with a "splat" she splattered mud on half of her body.
Xin Mei casually patted the mud off her clothes. This was one of her good points, she was not as picky about the cleanliness of her clothes as most girls. If her Da Shi Jie (Not blood-related older sister) from the Xin Xie Zhuang (House of Xie) splattered mud on herself, she probably would have just fainted. Her Da Shi Jie can"t even stand a piece of dust on a corner of her clothes—upon seeing it she would throw a huge fuss.
Taking off her outer clothes, Xin Mei hung it up in a dry place beneath the trees. She wanted to take off her underclothes to hang as well when she suddenly felt something odd behind her.
Turning her head, she saw a man standing beneath a tree across from her. One of his hands held a wooden sword while the other held a knife. The place where he stood was covered in wood shavings. Xin Mei froze.
This man didn"t evade her in the slightest and continued to watch her like a wooden statue. Then… Xin Mei noticed that there was mud on his face, probably from when she jumped onto the ground from the branches. A trickle of mud ran down the bridge of his nose.
Stupefied, Xin Mei turned around, took the clothes that she just hung up and put them back on. She pulled out a handkerchief and walked over to the man to hand it to him.
"I"m sorry. I didn"t mean to do that." It was a very sincere apology.
The man looked at her and then at the handkerchief. Without saying a word, and without taking the handkerchief, he just wiped his face with his sleeve and then continued to carve the wooden sword.
Poor guy. Was he both deaf and mute?
Xin Mei looked at him a couple more times. Why is that… he seemed kind of familiar? Had she met him somewhere before? His head was lowered, but the profound and mild contour of his figure was distinctive from that of the ordinary Qiong citizen. His height was even taller than the average man by a whole head.
Occasionally he would lift the wooden sword to the line of his eyes, brushing over it with a light touch of his fingers, as if gauging whether it was suitable for use. During these instances, one could see clearly his pure and handsome countenance along with his stern and unyielding gaze. Even though it was an unfinished wooden sword, in his hands it was like he just unsheathed a legendary treasure that was magnificently and chillingly beautiful.
Ehhh, the more she looked at him, the more familiar he became.
Nearly finished with the wooden sword, the man brushed the liquid off his person and suddenly spoke.
"You cannot camp here tonight. It"s dangerous."
The sound of his voice was chilling but smooth.
Xin Mei"s jaw parted. This person… this person—wasn"t he the man that smacked her awake that night in Huang Ling?!