Xiaoxiao and Mo Yan - Chapter 4

That night, Gu Luochen went to the room of his bedchamber maid. I crept off furtively to find Mo Yan.

He lay limp on the bed. I touched his waist. “Well? Was riding a big horse fun?”

“Xiaoxiao, my waist hurts. My legs hurt even more.” He complained pitifully and drew my hand down to his leg.

I knew it. He’d probably rubbed it raw enough to bleed. “Did you put ointment on it?”

His eyes lit up. He produced a jar of salve and placed it in my hand. “Put it on for me, Xiaoxiao.”

Damn. Could anyone outdo him for shameless flirting?

At last I remembered the modesty expected of a young lady and refused him firmly. Suddenly neither his waist nor his legs hurt. He rolled about in a fit.

“Xiaoxiao, have you found someone else? Don’t you love me anymore?”

I held him still and laughed beside his ear. “Sooner or later, I’ll have to find someone else. Stop making a fuss.”

As a daughter of the Gu family, my greatest value lay in marriage. And I had already chosen the man I wanted to marry.

A few days later, Xie Yan, heir to the marquisate, organized another gathering at the riding grounds. Gu Jinya selected her finest riding clothes. Before we left, she took my hand and pleaded, “Xiaoxiao, please don’t compete with me for attention this time.”

I held up five fingers. She stared, not understanding.

“Five thousand taels of silver.”

A sheltered young lady couldn’t possibly produce that much on her own. Jinya gritted her teeth. “Fine. I’ll give it to you in a few days.”

I nodded. She would have to scrape it together. Hahaha! Five thousand taels for a single promise. I’d never known money could be so easy to make.

Without me to compete with her, Jinya was one of the two most dazzling figures at the riding grounds that day. Who was the other? Xie Yan had brought his favorite horse slave.

The foreign beauty galloped once around the grounds, and nearly every eye followed her. What a sight.

Jinya must have been miserable. She had lost her money and failed to catch her man’s attention.

Someone sat beneath the shade of a tree, thin and frail, coughing softly now and then. Perhaps my stare was too direct. He looked over, his features cool and handsome, his bearing as elegant as a fine tree.

It was An Pei, the young master of the Duke of Zhen’s household.

The story went that the nation had lost a battle on the day of his birth. The duke died in combat, and his wife went into difficult labor from grief. She died after giving birth to An Pei. He had been sickly since birth.

The old madam of the ducal household cared for him for several years before passing away peacefully in her sleep. One could call it a blessed death. But there had never been many members of the family. Now the vast estate had only An Pei left.

It was enough to make people sigh, and quietly wonder whether he was born under a star of calamity.

In recent years, his health had grown worse. Physicians said he would not live past twenty-five. He was twenty now and still unmarried.

That made sense. Noble families married off their daughters to form alliances, not to sell them into years of widowhood.

But when I looked at him, I saw my future husband.

After returning from Yangzhou to the prime minister’s household, I had made a plan: find a husband who would die young and had no family. I could use his money and status to keep Mo Yan by my side.

I guided my horse slowly toward An Pei. Everyone else was watching the horse slave. I circled him once. He closed his eyes, perhaps hoping that if he couldn’t see me, I’d disappear.

When I remained, he paused and finally asked, “Second Miss Gu, is there something you need?”

I leaned over my horse’s neck, resting my cheek on my arm. “Nothing. I simply wanted to meet you, Young Master An.”

I gave him a playful wink, then laughed and reined in my horse. “I truly like you, Young Master An. I hope fate brings us together.”

With that, I rode away. I could feel his gaze lingering on my back. I smiled.

In the days that followed, I kept appearing before him as if by chance. I did nothing more than make myself familiar.

Until one day, he handed me a bracelet. He stood tall and composed. The pallor of his face could not diminish his good looks.

“Second Miss Gu, I will visit the prime minister’s household soon to ask for your hand.”

This time I was the one caught off guard. I accepted the bracelet hesitantly. “You’re not joking with me, are you, Young Master An?”

I had expected a long campaign. Had I really succeeded in one stroke?

I had several candidates on my list. An Pei stood at the top because his position was highest, though I had thought my chances with him slim. He might have been predicted to die young, but some people cared only that he was a young duke.

He lowered his eyes. “It belonged to my mother. She left it for her daughter-in-law.”

Suddenly he raised a hand to cover his mouth and nose and coughed softly. His handsome, frail appearance stirred my sympathy, though my words were bland enough.

“I’m sure you’ll get better, Young Master An.”

An Pei let his long sleeve fall. A faint smile touched his lips. “Mm,” he said softly.