Chongfei Manual [I]

Chapter 117.1

Jiang Miao Lan originally wasn't meant to be a person in this world. But, since she had come here, she should forget everything about the past and stay here to continue living.

Jiang Miao Lan had met Wei Kun during Mid-Autumn Festival. On that day, she was guessing the riddle underneath a colorful lantern. At that time, his key strength was his scholarly knowledge. He could correctly guess ten riddles in a single breath without being wrong. As Wei Kun was passing through the streets, he saw half of her face from the side and became foolish. The surrounding multi-colored lanterns illuminated her face.

Her almond eyes were as bright as lustrous gems. Her nose was elegant and her eyes were mysterious. Her flower-like lips were slightly curved upwards. Her entire body was bursting forth with the radiance of excitement. What made Wei Kun feel even more unexpected was that her clothing was very shabby as if she was wearing someone else's clothing. It wasn't fitting at all. There was even an obvious mended patch on one of the sleeves. Compared to the magnificently dressed young ladies that were at the Lantern Festival, Jiang Miao Lan's appearance could be considered poor. However, this didn't seem to have the slightest affect on her.

She won the lanterns one after another until she could barely hold them with her hands. It made the surrounding gifted scholars and beautiful ladies cast sidelong glances at her.

Jiang Miao Lan was in high spirits. She pointed towards a colored lantern on her left side and said, "In the green cluster, there is a little bit of red, xu fei ge, guess a type of medicinal herb."

"I guess its cinnabar (硃砂). Am I right?"

(Xu fei ge means its a riddle where the answer is a word that's consist of two Chinese characters that share the same radical (the symbol on the left of each character).

The stall owner was both happy and depressed. The expression on his face was rich and colorful. "Correct. But... could you move to another place? You've already taken all of the lanterns from my place. It's not fun for everyone else..."

Jiang Miao Lan took the eight-treasure style rabbit lantern from the stall owner, smiled, nodded, and left.

During the Lantern Festival, there were places to guess riddles everywhere. As she continued walking down the street, Jiang Miao Lan easily won more than a dozen colorful lanterns. She cleverly sold the colorful lanterns to the nearby servant girls of young ladies from wealthy families. The money she earned from this would be enough for her to live off of for many days.

Like a ghost, Wei Kun followed her as she walked. When she walked to the entrance of a tunnel, Jiang Miao Lan turned around without any warning and readily caught him.

Wei Kun rubbed his nose and asked, "I saw that you were very skilled at guessing riddles. Would you be willing to go to the tea house down the street with me?"

Just like this, this was how the two of them met.

After Wei Kun found out that Jiang Miao Lan orphan, he was very caring towards her and even purchased a residence for her without his parents' knowledge. When Wei Kun had free time, he would go over there to see her. It was only then that he discovered she was an exquisite and elegant girl when she wasn't wearing her shabby clothing. During that night on the Lantern Festival, he had only seen a glimpse of her dirty face. So, he had only though she was good-looking. He hadn't expected that she would as sparkling and clear as a lustrous gem.

Jiang Miao Lan always had many bizarre ideas. For example, playing poker, making perfume from various flower petals, and fermenting grape wine... Jiang Miao Lan had a lovely voice. She would sing songs that Wei Kun had never heard of. She was sweet, agreeable, and unique. She made people feel intoxicated. From Wei Kun's point of view, Jiang Miao Lan was a treasure. A treasure that was able to do anything.

After the two of them knew each other for a year, Wei Kun couldn't resist confessing to his family. He told Duke Ying and Old Madam that he wanted to marry an orphan without any family background.

Later, things happened as mentioned before. Duke Ying and his wife didn't agree, so Wei Kun kneeled outside of their doors for three days and three nights until they were forced to agree.

After Jiang Miao Lan married into his family, Old Madam Luo-shi didn't care for her. However, for the sake of Wei Kun, Luo-shi didn't make things too difficult for Jiang Miao Lan. Luo-shi just rarely spoke to Jiang Miao Lan when she came to pay respect and wish her good health every morning.

Three months after their wedding, Jiang Miao Lan became pregnant.

Wei Kun was wild with joy and treated her with increasing attentiveness.

The first three months were good. The married couple loved and cherished each other. They seemed like they were stuck together by glue. They were so affection with each other that other people would blush when looking at them.

However, Luo-shi still didn't like this daughter-in-law and wanted to find another woman to serve Wei Kun while Jiang Miao Lan was pregnant. That woman was Count Zhong Yi's family's Du Yue Ying.

Although Du Yue Ying was born from Count Zhong Yi's family's side branch, the circumstances of her birth weren't good. Her father was concubine-born, so it wouldn't be wronging her to make her into Wei Kun's concubine.

Luo-shi had also privately asked Du Yue Ying for her opinion. Du Yue Ying's blushing face and lowered head showed that she tacitly agreed.

However, when Old Madam mentioned this to Wei Kun, he refused to agree, so this matter came to nothing.

After October, Jiang Miao Lan gave birth to fraternal twins. The son and daughter were healthy. However, she almost died because she had lost too much blood while giving birth. On that day, Wei Kun was taking highest level imperial civil examination. He only had time to briefly look before leaving to take the examination.

As a result, Wei Kun made a mistake that wasn't like him. When the results came out, Wei Kun didn't pass.

During that time, Wei Kun was in low spirits. After hearing that Jiang Miao Lan's body was weak, he thought it wouldn't be good to infect her with his moodiness, so he moved to his study. When Wei Kun visited Jiang Miao Lan, most of the time he was seeing her sleeping appearance. Even if she wasn't sleeping, Jiang Miao Lan wasn't in the mood to talk. Her mind was focused on their two newly born children.

During this period, one of Wei Kun's classmates and close friend suddenly died. His death was a heavy blow to Wei Kun. Wei Kun became fond of drinking. He would often go to the lake pavilion in the back of the residence to drown his sorrows by drinking by himself.

So, when Du Yu Ying came to Duke Ying's residence with Count Zhong Yi's wife for Wei Chang Hong and Wei Luo's one-month-old birthday, she saw Wei Kun's depressed appearance.

At the time, Du Yue Ying was still very clever and knew that she should act out her plan starting from Wei Kun. She kept him company while he was depressed. She praised, encouraged, and comforted him. Although Wei Kun felt very thankful towards Du Yue Ying, he still maintained some distance between them and didn't overstep the bounds of what was proper.

Du Yue Ying stayed at Duke Ying's residence for a month under the excuse of accompanying Old Madam.

This was the period of time that Jiang Miao Lan was recuperating, but there was something wrong with her body. Her health became worse and worse. At the end, she couldn't even get out of bed. Wei Kun would take out two hours each day to keep her company. Jiang Miao Lan knew that he was busy studying for the next examination, so she didn't ask him to stay for long. Usually, she would ask him to leave after an hour.

Until one day, when he was walking around the courtyard with Jiang Miao Lan on a day that she was feeling slightly better, they met Du Yue Ying at the lakeside. Du Yue Ying accidentally stepped on a stone and her body started falling backwards.

Without even thinking, Wei Kun let go of Jiang Miao Lan's hand to support Du Yue Ying.

This was the first time that Jiang Miao Lan met Du Yue Ying.