“What’s wrong?”
The person behind the folding screen walked out.
Tang QiaoYuan walked to the table and saw Fang Su holding the porcelain spoon in a daze, he bent over and hugged him from behind, took a look at the bowl of Tremella soup: “Today’s soup is not good?”
Fang Su returned to his sense, shook his head.
Tang QiaoYuan curled his lips into a small smile, held his hand to scoop up half a spoon, and fed it to himself, tasting and as if asking and answering himself: “En, the taste is quite good.”
Fang Su couldn’t help but laugh, then suppressed the restless heartbeat in his chest, the unformed thoughts in his mind were only guesses, he didn’t want to tell Tang QiaoYuan for the time being, covering it up secretly.
Tang QiaoYuan didn’t know what to do, but seeing him happy, he eased his heart and sat down beside, and accompanied him to finish breakfast.
He seemed to be in a good mood, however, the slip of paper in his placket seemed sharp and heavy, continuously emitting heat and scalding, burning Fang Su as if he was tormented. For the other half of the day, he seemed to be absent-minded, silently guessing who wrote that note.
In reality, this question isn’t hard, the Tang Mansion was calm and peaceful before, although the days that Fang Su spent here were short, the days passed smoothly without any disturbance. But now that someone has come to the mansion, one glance from far-off, and in a blink of an eye he received these two heavy words, the writing is light and beautiful and does not make it hard to guess who was the one who has written them.
Fang Su knew who he should find, but the person next to him accompanied him all day long, which doesn’t leave him any occasion to leave the main courtyard by himself, helpless, he could only wait quietly.
But coincidences happen, about a quarter before one in the afternoon, someone made a scene and smashed the place of a gambling den in the North of LinZhou city.
Fang Su laid on the couch and was taking an afternoon nap, listening to Bai Pin who deliberately lowered her voice in the corridor, and had yet opened his eyes.
He could not hear everything clearly, he only knew that after a while Tang QiaoYuan returned to the room, covered him with a thin blanket then left in a hurry, then everything was silent.
Fang Su slowly pinched onto the warm blanket, turned to get up from the couch, walked outside alone.
The Jade courtyard of the Tang Mansion was located on the other side of the garden, separated from the main courtyard, the courtyard was calm, the group of servants seemed to have been taken away on purpose. Fang Su stepped inside and did not even see the shadow of a human. He was thinking that little lady was probably waiting, so he stopped caring about manners, and went straight for the bedroom in the courtyard.
The girl in the bedroom was sitting in the outer room, holding a mirror in her hand, and carefully tracing her eyebrows, hearing the footsteps and she let out a sweet smile, she stopped her hand and lifted her head to look at the threshold.
Fang Su stepped inside, met her eyes, and nodded to greet her.
Qin MeiWan curved the corners of her lips, did not treat him with courtesy, only caring for that pair of beautiful brows of her, said briskly: “I thought that you would not know to come to find me at this time, you are not as stupid as I thought.”
The sarcasm in her voice was obvious but Fang Su did not care about it, bluntly said: “I don’t know where Tang QiaoYuan will return, how about lady cousin finish early what she has to say.”
Qin MeiWan took a glance at him, jealousy and hatred flashed in her eyes: “ ‘QiaoYuan’… … You sure call him intimately. But you cannot guess why he had to leave the mansion? If I have the means to make him leave then I also have my own way to delay him.”
Fang Su was stunned and suddenly understood, there is not such a coincidence, only that the girl before him did it intentionally, so he did not urge her anymore, only waited for her to continue speaking.
Qin MeiWan was not in a hurry to deal with him, after she finished painting her makeup, she put down what was in her hand, and then walked closer to hold his wrist and brought him to the chair. Fang Su was uncomfortable being stared down by her, it took a while before she start to talk about old things.
“Cousin and I know each other since we were little, you can say that we are childhood sweethearts. Since I turned sensible enough, I fell in love with him, the only one I have acknowledged in ten or so years, I will not marry anyone but him.” As Qin MeiWan said this, her long nails gently stroked Fang Su’s face, she chuckled, “I know cousin doesn’t have me in his heart but I still do not want to let go. There are hundreds of millions of tricks in the world, I will always have my way to move his heart… But where did you pop up from? You are nowhere better than me, yet you dared to get ahead of me.”
Fang Su breathed the closeness of powder’s scent, frowned uncomfortably, and avoided her hand.
“Obviously a boy, yet married someone else as a wife, do you find the taste unpleasant or not?”
After hearing this sentence, Fang Su did not stay silent anymore, he shook his heart and said plainly: “Why unpleasant? Man or woman, isn’t it just to have someone to accompany you till death… QiaoYuan is very considerate toward me.” After saying this, he took out the slip of paper he hid for half a day, not wanting to be entangled anymore, “This should be written by lady cousin, don’t know what the two words “love poison” should mean?”
Qin MeiWan raised her brows, took the note, and crumpled it in her palm. The smile on her face deepened, she leisurely asked back with some ridicule: “Tang QiaoYuan, this person doesn’t find anyone pleasing to the eye, did you ever think about why he likes you?”
Fang Su did not speak, raised his head, and looked straight into that pair of beautiful eyes.
“To have a special fondness…. the drug “special fondness”1, even love can be born from no love. How can there be things such as deep affection, from the beginning to the end, he had been nothing but poisoned… Even if it was not you, even if it was someone else at that time that had appeared in front of him, he would still have married them, and would also think that he had truly fallen in love…”
As if a muffled thunder has struck him, Fang Su felt extremely cold in his heart, although he did not want to believe it, he couldn’t help but admit it, the bad suspicions he harbored in his mind turned out to be true.
All of sudden, Fang Su remembered the question he asked Tang QiaoYuan.
Why do you like me?
“Yeah, I wonder why…”
Tang QiaoYuan never knew the reason, Fang Su was also puzzled when he asked, now everything became clear…
It was only because of the love poison.
Drugged with love poison, it wasn’t of his own free will, what love, what lovesickness, none of it was existent.
The poison “special fondness” was rare, back then, it took Qin MeiWan a long time before she got it into her hands, moreover, this kind of poison that charm people is bound to be harmful, if the person who has been poisoned does not take the cure regularly, within a year, their body will be exhausted and die.
Although Qin MeiWan was obsessed with Tang QiaoYuan, she only received cold treatment over the years, it was inevitable that she has some hatred in her heart, making her affection complicated. If not forced by her heavy obsession, how could she bear to harm him with this kind of violent poison.
Tang QiaoYuan got poisoned not long ago, at that time, Qin MeiWan watched him swallow the drug with her own eyes, with love and with hatred in her heart, she supported herself on the table and broke down in laughter as if she was crazy, she repeated over and over: “This time, you should finally fall for me…”
She almost cried as she laughed, Tang QiaoYuan had his doubts, he was furious after he learned the truth, immediately pushed her away and left the mansion, he rode a horse out of the city to the inhabited forest.
Tang QiaoYuan did not want to fall for someone for no reason, he originally wanted to get over the drug alone in the empty forest, but he had forgotten, “special fondness” is not an aphrodisiac, but a violent love poison, it will not disappear over the time, on the contrary, it will force people to have internal disturbance due to the delay in relieving the emotions in the heart.
Tang QiaoYuan sat back under a tree, his eyes faintly glowing scarlet, right at this moment he heard someone’s voice nearby. He turned his head, feeling foggy, and through the layers of vegetation, he saw Fang Su who came to worship his deceased mother.
Tang QiaoYuan silently looked at him, after a while, curved his lips into a smile, and gradually fell unconscious.
After he woke up, Tang QiaoYuan had already forgotten everything.
After the poison took effect, he did not remember its cause and effect, he only knew that there was someone’s face that lingered in his heart. Tang QiaoYuan walked to the tomb and wrote down the name of the owner of the tomb, and once he returned to the mansion, he asked people to investigate Fang Su’s background.
To this day, he spends his day and night with Fang Su.
At that time, Qin MeiWan had no idea about this, although she was confused about how Tang QiaoYuan came back safe and sound, she didn’t have the time to guess the reason, two days after father Qin had sent a letter, and she unwillingly had to temporarily return to Liu City.
The truth turned out to be this absurd.
Fang Su quietly listened to her finish talking, turbulent waves were hidden in the bottom of his eyes, his face was as calm as the beginning, as it was neither sad nor happy, he raised his head and asked: “What about the antidote?”
Qin MeiWan was stunned, her expression momentarily turned hideous, raised her voice, and angrily said: “Shouldn’t you beg me? You should beg me to help you hide this matter, act as if you know nothing, and continue to be your owner’s wife!”
Fang Su watched her acting crazy, bowed, and said: “If there is no antidote, don’t know how long QiaoYuan can still live.”
“Haha…” Qin MeiWan couldn’t restrain her laugh, “You pretend to be this considerate and kind, but he won’t be grateful! Once he remembers the reason, he will dislike you or even come to hate you… If you want the antidote then you will have to leave the Tang Mansion!”
She said sentence after sentence, not ready to shut up, her words threatening and full of meaning to drive him out of the mansion. It is only leaving, Fang Su agreed to all of it, patiently waited until she said enough, then stretched out his hand without saying anything.
After a while, Qin MeiWan finally gradually calmed down, the expression of her eyebrows showing some weariness then took out a paper bag from her sleeve.
Fang Su received it in his hand and squeezed it tightly, finally letting out a helpless smile, thinking that he was having this beautiful dream for such a long time, it was finally time to wake up…
Fortunately, this dream was perfect, meeting was not pointless.
Notes:
The drug is named ‘独钟’ just like the novel, ‘独钟’ comes from the expression ‘情有独钟’– To have special fondness (for something/somebody). I thought about a long time about the most accurate way to translate it and decided upon “Special Fondness” because I thought the author wanted to describe TQY and FS relation.‘独’ means ‘special/unique’ and ‘钟’ can means ‘be concentrated on’ – ‘独钟’ just means “special/unique/one of a kind” but as I cannot possibly translate it by just ‘special’ as it would make no sense, I also kept the same translation for the name of the drug.
Although this chapter is not a happy one, I like it because it is a very interesting chapter hence it only took me 2 days to translate it. (It usually takes me 3 days if I am alone on it, 2-day translating, 1-day checking/adjusting the vocabulary)
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