Chapter 28

When Li Mu discovered Lin Que’s secret, Lin Que, who had just been able to go out, had finished strolling around the palace and went to Grand Princess Zhaoming’s mansion next to the King’s mansion. This outing was not for anything else but to dispel the rumors outside that he was already dead, making those restless officials keep their tails tucked and not provoke him at this time.

When Lin Que came out of the palace, the Empress and her sons were all confined, the Empress’s phoenix seal fell into the hands of another concubine, and the Empress’s family was also punished. Although it was not explicitly stated, everyone knew this matter had nothing to do with the Emperor; it was King Yan’s intention.

Lin Que originally wanted to go further, but due to Wudu’s recent comment about Li Mu’s short lifespan, even though Li Mu had passed the so-called “not living past sixteen,” Lin Que was still cautious. He thought about accumulating virtue for Li Mu, restrained his power, and only left appropriate deterrence to prevent people from thinking he became more tyrannical after a serious illness.

Arriving at Grand Princess Zhaoming’s mansion, the somewhat tired Lin Que nestled in a chair drinking tea and discussed this year’s official appointments with Grand Princess Zhaoming, who was sitting behind the desk reading memorials.

“An Ying really loves his student, paving the way for him desperately, afraid that others don’t know Pei Siyuan not only has good handwriting but also has a heart full of loyalty and patriotism.” After discussing official business, Lin Que casually chatted.

Grand Princess Zhaoming initially didn’t care about Pei Siyuan, but Lin Que’s mention made her pay attention. She asked, “Another one who wants you to ‘return power to the Emperor’?”

An Ying was considered one of Lin Que’s people, but both Lin Que and Grand Princess Zhaoming, who was already familiar with state affairs, knew that An Ying chose to stand in King Yan’s camp precisely to support the Emperor’s authority.

But he couldn’t do it. Many of his students also turned to King Yan after repeatedly being disappointed with the Emperor, except for Pei Siyuan, who had the same ambitions and ideals as him and unlimited potential.

Therefore, An Ying didn’t even care about his own children and nephews; he only thought about cultivating Pei Siyuan.

“His writing is good, finally not tiring my eyes, meaningful, and with time, his talent may not be inferior to An Ying’s, usable.” Grand Princess Zhaoming concluded after reading Pei Siyuan’s memorial.

As for whether they could use him, they had to try. Maybe he would be another handy An Ying.

Lin Que had no opinion, boredly pushing the oranges on the side table farther away—he was the only one in the family who didn’t like oranges.

Grand Princess Zhaoming also chatted idly, “Qiwu complained to me earlier, saying you reviewed Weixi’s homework but not hers.”

Lin Que couldn’t help but smile when he heard Li Mu mentioned, “Weixi is shy, afraid her homework is not good and will be punished by An Ying, so I review it for her first, and I can teach her more, definitely better than An Ying.”

Grand Princess Zhaoming said coolly, “Didn’t you say you wouldn’t review homework for others?”

When Grand Princess Zhaoming first took over state affairs from Lin Que, she told him to rest and recuperate, and if he had nothing to do, to review Lin Qiwu’s homework, not to ruin his health.

Lin Que had never worried his parents about his studies since he was a child. He once tutored his six-year-old brother Gu Chi on a whim, only to be so angry that he got dizzy. Later, when he adopted Lin Yan’an, he didn’t care much about the child’s homework because he was busy seizing power and killing people. By the time he realized it, the teenager was already excellent, and he forgot the pain of tutoring his brother and tried to review Lin Qiwu’s homework twice. After these two times, he told Grand Princess Zhaoming that helping his sister with her homework was also ruining his health, and he couldn’t do it.

Lin Que said, “Teaching children and teaching a wife are not the same.”

Grand Princess Zhaoming laughed in exasperation, “You rascal.”

As they were talking, Lin Qiwu ran in from outside, looking frightened, and said to Lin Que, “Sister-in-law found out that you pretended to be me and wrote letters to her!”

The lazy Lin Que slowly sat straight, “Did you let it slip?”

Lin Qiwu replied, “I didn’t mean to. Why didn’t you tell me what Sister-in-law sent me?”

Lin Que knew this was his fault. At first, he thought it was unnecessary. Before meeting Li Yunxi, Lin Qiwu had almost no friends, so Lin Que didn’t think she would interact with Li Mu much and didn’t mention it. After getting married, he shouldn’t have been so careless, but—

“You would have asked me for the little white horse she gave you if I had told you,” Lin Que said without a hint of embarrassment as if it was all Lin Qiwu’s fault.

Lin Qiwu jumped up, “Of course I would have asked you! That was a gift from Sister-in-law to me. How could you keep it for yourself?”

Lin Que replied, “I returned the pearl lamp, so the little horse naturally counts as mine.”

“Fine! Then you explain it to Sister-in-law yourself. I hope she gets mad at you and kicks you out to sleep outside!” Lin Qiwu huffed and ran to Grand Princess Zhaoming, poured herself a cup of tea, and drank it in one gulp.

“She wouldn’t do that,” Lin Que said, unsure if he was convincing Lin Qiwu or himself. His eyes lowered, his tone a bit uncertain and guilty, “Besides, at that time, we weren’t married yet. It was reasonable for me to be suspicious of her.

“She is understanding and kind-hearted. She won’t be angry with me over this.”

Lin Qiwu drank a few more cups of tea, calmed down, and considered it. She agreed; her sister-in-law was always good-tempered. But she had been terrified just now. Was it because Sister-in-law had spent too much time with her brother?

No, no, no. Sister-in-law’s words were always hard to ignore, and her tone was always calm. When she asked questions, it sounded particularly imposing.

As Lin Qiwu’s thoughts wandered, she ate an orange from the table to calm herself. While eating, she noticed that her aunt wasn’t reading the memorials but was instead watching her brother with a smile of amusement. Following her aunt’s gaze, she asked in surprise, “Brother, don’t you dislike oranges?”

Lin Que, who had unknowingly eaten most of an orange while trying to distract himself, was speechless. He swallowed the orange he didn’t like and calmly pretended to drink tea: “Mother said the oranges from this shipment are very sweet, so I tried them.” Saying this, he placed the remaining orange on the table and didn’t touch it again.

Lin Qiwu wanted to say, “It’s not because the oranges are sour that you don’t like them. You just don’t like the sticky smell on your hands and have a prejudice against the whole fruit. Sweetness has nothing to do with it.”

Afterward, she watched Lin Que wash his hands and return, but he didn’t seem as relaxed as before. He appeared restless and uneasy.

Realizing his state, Lin Que stood up and said, “It’s getting late. I’ll head back now.”

After saying this, he quickly left.

Lin Qiwu watched his back and said, “He’s obviously afraid of Sister-in-law getting angry.”

“Ha!” came the mocking laugh from their mother.

When Lin Que returned to the King’s mansion, he found Li Mu sitting at the table with a wooden box in front of her. The box contained familiar letters and some scattered notes.

Li Mu held a letter in her left hand and a small note in her right, comparing the handwriting.

Before her time travel, Li Mu liked to keep chat records. Even after graduating from university, she could still find information from her high school class group. Even if her phone’s memory was full, she would choose to change phones rather than clear the chat records and keep the old phone.

This habit led her to keep all the “letters from Lin Qiwu carefully” she received at the Li family. She also kept the notes Lin Que sent her when he returned late from outings. But no matter how she compared them, she couldn’t find any similarities.

Li Mu asked Lin Que, who was hesitating at the door, “Did you really write these?”

Not only did the handwriting not match, but the tone was also different. The letters were lively and addressed her as “sister.”

Hearing Li Mu’s tone was still okay, Lin Que felt slightly relieved and entered the room to explain, “I imitated Qiwu’s handwriting.”

As for the tone, it wasn’t difficult to mimic the way a child he had watched grow up spoke.

Li Mu responded with an “Hmm” and said nothing more. Instead, she reread the letters, trying to figure out why Lin Que pretended to be Lin Qiwu and wrote to her.

Lin Que walked over to Li Mu, leaned against the nearby bookshelf, and weakly said, “Weixi, I think I have a headache.”

Li Mu didn’t even look up, “Really? I don’t believe you.”

Lin Que had no choice but to walk over to Li Mu, pat her shoulder, and ask her to stand up.

Confused, Li Mu stood up, and Lin Que sat down in the chair. Then, Lin Que pulled Li Mu onto his lap.

Li Mu had never sat on anyone’s lap before. When she tried to get up, it only made it easier for Lin Que to adjust his position. He wrapped his arms around her waist, looked into her eyes up close, and said: “I was wrong.”

Li Mu: Oh, wow.

Lin Que further explained the situation, telling her how he discovered Li Mu had stolen the letters and then found out she had received a prophecy from Wudu. He suspected she had a connection with Wudu and guessed that if Wudu had been hiding for so many years, there must be people who wanted him dead. So he wrote letters to test her for several months.

“So that’s how it is. I wondered why you were lying to me for no reason,” Li Mu said, flipping through the thick stack of letters. “You were quite patient.”

Over several months, even though it was only one letter every few days, she hadn’t replied, yet he kept writing.

“I had to be sure,” Lin Que said, seeing that Li Mu was somewhat bothered but not angry, and continued apologizing, “It was my fault. I won’t lie to you again.”

Li Mu was indeed bothered but not angry. First, as Lin Que said, they weren’t familiar at the time, and his actions were reasonable and not excessive. Second, Li Mu had only replied to two letters with a purpose. If she had poured her heart into every reply and been deceived, she would have been furious regardless of the reason.

However, Li Mu had one thing to say on behalf of Lin Qiwu: “The white horse I made was for Qiwu.”

“But the pearl lamp in return was from me,” Lin Que thought for a moment and added, “And later, the basket of potatoes was also from me.”

Li Mu: Thanks?

Lin Que: “So the little horse you made should also be mine.”

That actually makes a lot of sense.

Li Mu was led astray in her thoughts and asked where the little white horse was. In front of Li Mu, Lin Que opened the cabinet she usually wouldn’t touch. The cabinet was filled with Lin Que’s belongings. Not only was the box containing the little horse inside, but also the new thumb ring that Li Mu had refused, stored in a flat wooden box with small compartments, mostly filled with various thumb rings.

Lin Que took out the wooden box and handed it to Li Mu, saying, “A peace offering.”

Li Mu: “…” Are you trying to take advantage of the situation?

However, this time, Li Mu didn’t refuse and accepted it. There wasn’t any particular reason; she just wanted to keep something that Lin Que had made specifically for her, similar to his insistence on not returning the little horse to Lin Qiwu.

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On the third day of the third month, Li Mu sent Li Yunxi a carved inkstone with cloud and stream patterns as a birthday gift, matching Li Yunxi’s name perfectly.

Lin Qiwu went to the Li residence in the morning to celebrate Li Yunxi’s birthday and deliver the gift on behalf of Li Mu. When she returned in the afternoon, she said that Li Yunxi loved the inkstone and had given Li Mu a bunch of flowers and plants. These were picked by Lin Qiwu and the Blood Lady’s two children when they went to the western suburbs, where many people were enjoying the spring, playing in the water, and flying kites. The three children were heavy-handed, and since March was a lush month, they brought back so many flowers and plants that Li Mu had a headache. Even after using them to decorate vases, there were still many left.

Li Mu thought for a moment and first used the wild daffodils to make floating flower lamps by adding lamp oil and wicks, giving them to the children to play with. She then made the remaining flowers into wreaths, finally using up all the flowers and plants they had brought back.

Li Mu placed the wreaths on the three children’s heads. The Blood Lady’s children thanked Li Mu and happily ran back to show their mother. Lin Qiwu first ran to the pond in the courtyard and looked at her reflection in the water for a while. Then, seeing one wreath left, she asked if she could give it to Lin Yan’an.

After Li Mu agreed, Lin Qiwu didn’t take it herself but ran to bring Lin Yan’an from the study. Lin Yan’an was at the age of growth and had grown much taller since he returned last July. At Lin Qiwu’s urging, Li Mu stood up and placed the wreath on his head.

Lin Yan’an didn’t know why Lin Qiwu had brought him over. Lin Qiwu kept it a secret and even hid her own wreath until he was crowned with it. He was slightly stunned, then smiled in the faint fragrance of flowers and the warm spring breeze and said to the somewhat anxious Li Mu— “Thank you, Mother. I really like it.”