You Promised to Be an Idle Son-in-Law, How Could You Become a Land Immortal?

Chapter 76: Chapter 76: This Is Really a Misunderstanding

Obviously, in the desolate Jiaxing Garden, the same excuse wouldn’t work twice.

Especially now.

One sat in the pavilion, the other stood in the rain.

Xiao Wan’er clutched her cloak to her chest, her delicate face filled with surprise.

She hadn’t seen Chen Yi come from Four Directions Hall, assuming instead that he had been standing there spying on her for quite some time.

Chen Yi, however, was smiling. Though soaked by the rain, his long hair plastered messily to his face, he seemed unfazed.

Needless to say, the atmosphere between them wasn’t exactly... harmonious?

Perhaps.

After a long silence.

Unable to bear her shame and indignation, Xiao Wan’er finally spoke. ”You... even if, even if you can’t sleep, you can’t come here to s-spy on me...”

’Second Sister Xiao Jinghong only left the mansion yesterday, and now he’s sneaking over like this.’

’What would she do if anyone saw this?’

”Spying?”

Chen Yi knew she had misunderstood.

At the same time, he realized Xiao Wan’er hadn’t noticed he had been to Four Directions Hall.

’That was good news.’

Chen Yi glanced around, and seeing that no one was about, brazenly stepped into the pavilion.

Xiao Wan’er instinctively took a couple of steps back, staring at him in alarm. Her lips trembled, but no words came out.

Chen Yi nonchalantly wiped the rain from his face, revealing a smile. ”Still awake so late, Eldest Sister? Are you still worried about that shipment of herbs?”

Xiao Wan’er, who had been bracing for something else, was taken aback. Seeing that he wasn’t coming any closer, however, she let out a sigh of relief.

Xiao Wan’er turned her head, trying to hide her nervousness. ”Yes... that shipment of herbs is indeed crucial.”

However, the slight tremor in her voice did not escape Chen Yi.

After a moment’s thought.

Chen Yi sat on the other side of the square table from her and said with a smile,

”Since neither of us can sleep, why don’t we talk about the Medicine Hall?”

”There’s one thing I don’t understand. The herb supply is tight, so why are we sourcing them from the Northern State instead of somewhere closer?”

Xiao Wan’er glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, then replied after a moment of silence, ”It’s a connection through Uncle Dongchen. The price is thirty percent cheaper than in Jing State, but the quality is a grade higher.”

’Cheaper, better quality, a bargain?’

Chen Yi couldn’t help but feel suspicious.

There was no other reason, except for the fact that Xiao Dongchen had been the one to arrange the connection.

’A Hidden Guard hiding in the Marquis’s Mansion didn’t seem like someone who would contribute to the Xiao Family, no matter how one looked at it.’

’Then again, it wasn’t an absolute certainty. There was another possibility: Xiao Dongchen’s mission was, in fact, to perform meritorious deeds for the Xiao Family.’

”If something goes wrong with that shipment of herbs, what are the consequences?”

Xiao Wan’er’s interrupted worries once again took hold. Her attention shifted slightly away from Chen Yi, and she lowered her head, murmuring,

”The entire surplus of silver coins from the first half of the year will be gone.”

Half a year’s profit, around twenty thousand taels of silver, was no small sum.

Chen Yi nodded in understanding. ”Any other consequences?”

Xiao Wan’er looked at him, her eyes reproachful, as if to say, ’Isn’t that enough?’

Chen Yi read her thoughts and said with a laugh, ”If the mansion is short on money, I can figure something out.”

’He didn’t plan on having Duke Qian actually pay a thousand gold per word for his poetry, but ten gold per word should be doable.’

Xiao Wan’er met his gaze, and seeing his smile, her face flushed red. ”Wh-what could you do?”

Seeming to realize that wasn’t the right thing to say, she quickly shook her head. ”You just took over the Medicine Hall. You must run it honestly, no crooked ideas.”

’He married into the Xiao Mansion and doesn’t even understand business; there’s no way he could procure that much silver through normal channels.’

Chen Yi didn’t bother explaining where the money would come from and instead asked a few more questions about the Medicine Hall.

As Xiao Wan’er explained everything in great detail, her expression was no longer as flustered and nervous, and she returned to her usual gentle demeanor.

Seeing that she had calmed down, Chen Yi glanced at the rain, which was starting to pick up again. ”It’s getting late,” he said. ”I should be going.”

Xiao Wan’er loosened her grip on her cloak and looked at him, saying softly, ”Get some rest. And in the future... don’t be so reckless again.”

Chen Yi gave a helpless laugh, stood up, and said, ”Actually, tonight I was just...”

He paused, not finishing his sentence.

’This was proving difficult to explain. The mere act of climbing a wall on a rainy night to enter Jiaxing Garden was indefensible.’

However, there was one thing he could try to explain.

”Tonight was my fault, but about that poem I wrote before...”

At the mere mention of the poem, Xiao Wan’er’s face flushed crimson and she cut him off.

”I’ve destroyed that poem. From now on, you... neither of us are to ever mention it again.”

Even in the dim light, Chen Yi could see her pale, delicate face turn from white to red, the blush spreading all the way down below the collar of her cloak.

”Eldest Sister, the truth is...”

”Say no more! You... you should get some rest.”

Before he could finish, Xiao Wan’er, blushing and clutching her robes, dashed out of the pavilion and ran through the downpour into the wooden building.

Watching her retreating back and the door she slammed shut in her haste, Chen Yi didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

’Why did mentioning the poem make her even more flustered than when she first saw him?’

Still, if she had truly destroyed it, he could pretend it never happened.

Chen Yi glanced at the unlit wooden building and decided he had no choice but to head back to Spring Lotus Garden.

「In her chamber.」

Xiao Wan’er huddled behind the window, watching him walk away and climb over the low wall. She couldn’t help but touch her warm face and mutter reproachfully,

”Climbing over walls in the middle of the night...”

With that thought, Xiao Wan’er drew the curtains. She returned to her bedside and retrieved a brocade box from beneath her dressing table.

She stared at it for a moment.

Then, with a bitter expression, she put the box away. Her once-calm heart was now rippling with turmoil.

’I just couldn’t bear to throw away such a beautiful poem...’

...

Chen Yi, on the other hand, was completely unruffled.

Back in his room, he changed out of the black clothes, found a towel to dry himself, and put on a fresh set of casual attire. Only then did he let out a long sigh of relief.

”Good thing Shen Huatang isn’t here,” he thought. ”If she had seen me, tonight would have been a real mess.”

’As for Xiao Wan’er... well, she probably won’t say anything.’

With that thought, Chen Yi went to his study and wrote out the contents of the secret letter from memory.

He then took out the codebooks he had previously found from Liu Si’er and began to decipher the letter, checking them one by one.

A moment later.

Chen Yi frowned slightly. ”Nothing? It’s not any of these?”

Neither the Huangmei opera, Dong Wan’s Travelogue, nor the book of Music Bureau poems, Yong Huan, nor any of the other books could be used to decipher the secret letter.

”Have the Hidden Guards changed their codebooks?”

It was a reasonable, if reluctant, guess.

Still, he felt something was off.

Previously, when Liu Si’er and Uncle Gui exchanged intelligence, they had deliberately avoided each other. Xiao Dongchen, however, had hidden the secret letter in his own residence.

This method of delivery had the air of hiding something in plain sight.

As he thought, Chen Yi rubbed the bridge of his nose. ’If only Pei Guanli were still here,’ he mused.

’Even though that girl’s a bit of a reckless fool, she’d be a useful helper. She could have gone to see whether it was Uncle Gui or another Hidden Guard who sent that secret letter.’

Now, with too few clues, the secret letter was his only hope.

After a moment of thought.

Chen Yi suddenly recalled that he had once accompanied Xiao Jinghong to Four Directions Hall to deliver a gift and had sat for a while in the study there.

He began to recall the scene in detail.

The layout of the study surfaced in his mind: the desk, the Four Treasures of the Study, the books, the calligraphy manuals.

Everything was surprisingly clear.

Without further hesitation, Chen Yi wrote down the titles of the books he remembered on a sheet of Yunsong Paper, then began an initial screening.

First, he eliminated the ones with fewer pages and a lower word count.

Then, using the list of titles, he began searching through his own study.

”The codebook should be a common volume, one that wouldn’t arouse suspicion.”

”Leisure books like opera scripts and storybooks might be fine for someone of Liu Si’er’s status, but they would seem out of place in the study of a Fourth-grade Assistant Governor.”

”Therefore, it’s more likely to be a historical classic, or a popular poetry collection or biography.”

As long as it wasn’t a particularly rare edition, Chen Yi should have a copy in his own study.

He searched for a full two hours, until after the Zi hour had passed.

Only then did he stop.

”Found it!”