A Figure on Jade Steps in the Wind and Snow 38

Chapter 38: Gift

The noonday sun was good, and it steamed away the icicles hanging under the eaves.

The daughter of the manager of the Banquet Again Pavilion was standing in the counter, flipping through the account book. Seeing a few people come in, she greeted them generously.

Shen Zhishu suddenly remembered what she had said to her a few days ago, “Come to my manor and find me, I’ll arrange a position for you in the military camp,” so she asked with a smile:

“Didn’t you say you wanted to join the army? Why didn’t you come to the General’s Manor? Have you changed your mind?”

“No,” the young girl shook her head with an old-fashioned air. “It’s almost the New Year, and the restaurant is busy. I can’t leave.”

“Then you might as well wait another two months.”

The young girl said, “Oh,” “What do you mean by that?”

“In two months, the Martial Hall will probably be opened. You can come and sign up for a try. It’s better than joining the army directly,” Shen Zhishu said.

The young girl nodded so much it was like bowing.

The Bi Fang Pavilion on the top floor had been tidied up early, and agarwood was burning in the censer in the corner. On the gold-threaded nanmu screen was a landscape painting, separating the Eight Immortals table and the solid wood bed.

Jiang Yu went upstairs first, and Lantiao followed closely behind.

Shen Zhishu thought for a moment and deliberately fell a step behind, walking up the stairs side by side with Lantiao, the two of them chatting idly.

“Are you personally serving Her Highness today?” Shen Zhishu asked.

“Yes,” Lantiao’s small face was flushed, it was unclear whether it was from the warm air in the restaurant. “I look forward to serving Her Highness every day, but we four take turns, so I only get a turn once every four days.”

Shen Zhishu: “…That’s a special wish. Do you love serving people that much?”

“No, no,” Lantiao said. “You don’t know, General, Her Highness loves to reward people on a whim. I get a total of four hairpins, three hairpins, two gold ingots, and a pair of silver bracelets every month.”

“So specific?” Shen Zhishu smiled.

“I’m not lying to you, General,” Lantiao said. “Her Highness is meticulous in everything, and the rewards each month are fixed. She doesn’t like these things herself. The Emperor sends large batches of jewelry to the Eldest Princess’s Manor, and she always has someone put them in the storeroom.”

Shen Zhishu nodded thoughtfully and teased her, “So you like to serve Her Highness just for these jewels.”

“Of course not! It’s mainly because it’s very comfortable to be with Her Highness, and I can learn a lot,” Lantiao became excited. “Don’t think about digging a pit for me to jump into, General. Her Highness is walking right in front of us, I will never say a single bad word about Her Highness.”

“You won’t say bad things in front of her…” Shen Zhishu smiled, “Then when you’re behind her back, can you tell me quietly?”

Lantiao thought for a moment, “That’s no problem.”

“Then when Jiang Yu is not around, you can tell me.”

“Alright, General.”

Jiang Yu: …

Wait, are you two plotting loudly?

Jiang Yu couldn’t bear to listen anymore. Just as she was about to turn around and grab her treacherous precious attendant, she heard Shen Zhishu continue to ask, “Does your Highness have anything she likes?”

Lantiao was very alert, “What are you going to do, General? Her Highness is walking right in front of us, you can just ask her yourself.”

“It’s like this,” Shen Zhishu’s tone was quite casual. “Isn’t your Highness’s birthday coming up? You can tell me her preferences so I can prepare some congratulatory gifts. Am I supposed to ask your Highness directly, ‘What gift do you want’? That would be too insincere.”

Jiang Yu: …Is it sincere to plot loudly behind my back?

Jiang Yu thought to herself, Why is this staircase so long? The two treasures behind me have already had two rounds of conversation and we’re still not at the top. She suddenly stopped and turned around gracefully, “I have heard everything the General just said.”

Shen Zhishu raised an eyebrow, “Your Highness has good hearing, you can even hear this clearly.”

Jiang Yu: …

“…As long as you’re not deaf, you can hear it,” Jiang Yu asked in a faint voice. “How does the General know my birthday?”

“Doesn’t Your Highness hold a birthday banquet every year?” Shen Zhishu smiled. “My mother reminded me that this year, the congratulatory gift from the General’s Manor will be presented by me. So I was thinking that if I give something that looks good but is not useful, although it would look good on the surface, Your Highness would definitely put it in the storeroom to collect dust. So if I’m going to give a gift, I should give something that Your Highness likes. It doesn’t matter how much it costs, what matters most is that Your Highness likes it.”

Jiang Yu stood on the two steps, a full head taller than Shen Zhishu, and looked down at her quietly.

Shen Zhishu was rarely looked down upon, and she found this feeling quite novel. She raised her face slightly and met Jiang Yu’s indifferent and calm eyes.

Their eyes met, and Jiang Yu did not speak for several breaths.

Just as Shen Zhishu was unsure of what this Eldest Princess meant and was about to say something else, the next moment, Jiang Yu suddenly answered irrelevantly, “When it was General Xie’s birthday, did you also ask about her preferences before giving a gift?”

“Of course not,” Shen Zhishu immediately replied. “She has to like whatever I give her.”

Jiang Yu didn’t understand, “What do you mean by ‘has to like’?”

“She has to like it even if she doesn’t,” Shen Zhishu said with a smile. “Just kidding. I naturally knew Xie Jin’s preferences beforehand, but I have no way of knowing Your Highness’s. It’s really because we only became friends yesterday, and we’ve spent a little less time together.”

“Then let’s spend more time together. I will come to the General’s Manor to find you tomorrow.”

“Wait, that’s not what I mean…” Shen Zhishu laid her cards on the table. “Just say whether you’ll tell me or not. If you don’t, I’ll secretly ask the attendants in your manor. I’ll find out one way or another.”

Jiang Yu was silent for a few breaths and said in a faint voice, “They may not know.”

Shen Zhishu shook her head, “You underestimate their ability to observe people’s expressions—”

“Because even I don’t know very well myself,” Jiang Yu turned around again, lifted her skirt, and walked up, leaving a sentence behind, “The General can give whatever you like. I will like whatever you give me.”

Shen Zhishu took this sentence as a pleasantry.

When they started ordering food, Shen Zhishu only ordered a plate of green vegetables and a roasted fish.

“Just this much?” Jiang Yu said. “The General’s appetite is usually small.”

As she spoke, she pointed to the longevity noodles on the menu and ordered the waiter in a faint voice, “Give me a portion of this.”

“Oh, whose birthday is it today?” Shen Zhishu was a little surprised. “Why are you eating longevity noodles for no reason?”

Jiang Yu sat upright on the red pine round stool, her back very straight. Before she could answer, Lantiao’s mouth was faster than hers, “You don’t know, General, Her Highness has always liked to celebrate her birthday on this day.”

“Today? The sixteenth of the twelfth month?” Shen Zhishu was astonished. “Is the grand Huai’an birthday banquet in the first month of the year a fake?”

“That day is too lively,” Jiang Yu said. “So I celebrate it a month earlier.”

“That’s right, the fifteenth of the first month is the Lantern Festival, and the atmosphere of the New Year hasn’t dissipated on the sixteenth, so the birthday banquet is so crowded,” Lantiao said with a smile. “So a month earlier, the four of us celebrate it for Her Highness alone.”

Shen Zhishu raised an eyebrow, “Just the four of you personal attendants? No…”

She was about to say, No one else? when she suddenly realized that Jiang Yu’s family ties seemed to be very thin.

Jiang Yu’s parents were both dead, and her relationship with her sister was delicate. Although there were a few imperial princesses who were on good terms with her, there was a generation gap, and there would probably still be some estrangement.

As for friends…

Jiang Yu and the Emperor were of one mind on the outside, and the court officials were probably also in awe of her. Even if there were some who took the initiative to befriend her, they were probably mostly trying to curry favor and could not be on equal terms with her. And she had grown up in the palace since she was a child. Even if she had friends outside the palace, their friendship probably wouldn’t be too deep.

So Jiang Yu had lived so lonely for twenty-one years.

No wonder she had so many strange quirks, and she didn’t seem to be as at ease in her dealings with her as she was in the court…

Ever since she had inserted herself between the Eldest Princess and the Emperor, she had, by a strange combination of circumstances, become one of the few people around Jiang Yu who could communicate with her on an equal footing.

Lantiao, seeing Shen Zhishu in a daze for a long time without saying the second half of her sentence, couldn’t help but ask, “No what?”

“Nothing,” Shen Zhishu suddenly came back to her senses and smiled, “I said that I can celebrate Her Highness’s birthday with you all this year.”

“That would be great!” Lantiao said. “There is a family banquet at the manor tonight, please be sure to come, General!”

After hearing this, Shen Zhishu raised an eyebrow again, “You are so presumptuous as to invite me on behalf of your Highness, don’t you ask her if she is willing?”

“Is there a need to ask?” Lantiao said, “Oh,” “Is the General shy, so you are using this to prevaricate?”

Shen Zhishu: …

As the saying goes, like master, like servant.

Jiang Yu and Lantiao were a pair of burnt scrolls, their train of thought was as strange as it could be.

**

Shen Zhishu went back to her manor to rest for the afternoon, sent a message to Xie Jin that she couldn’t practice swordsmanship with her, and slept comfortably until the sun was setting in the west.

There was still an hour before the family banquet at the Eldest Princess’s Manor. Shen Zhishu thought for a while and decided to go to the street to buy some congratulatory gifts.

She wandered around the street with her attendants for two rounds, trying to guess Jiang Yu’s preferences, and stepped into a tea shop.

The manager was a chatterbox and could say thirty or forty words in one breath without stuttering. She enthusiastically introduced the teas to Shen Zhishu for half a day. Shen Zhishu’s left ear went in and her right ear went out. In the end, she pointed to a box in the corner and asked, “What kind of tea is this?”

“This?” The manager shook her head, “It’s not good to drink, it’s a pine bud tea that I made myself. I picked the pine leaves before they grew into pine needles and dried them. I thought it would be flavorful when brewed, but who knew it would be astringent.”

Pine bud tea?

It was a novel thing, and it seemed to match Jiang Yu very well.

Thinking this, Shen Zhishu waved her hand, “I’ll buy three taels. Help me wrap it carefully and put it in your best box here.”

The manager smiled, “That box is more expensive than the tea. Don’t come back to me after you’ve drunk it at home and it’s not good, and say you’re buying the casket and returning the pearl.”

“That’s impossible,” Shen Zhishu replied casually. “Help me pack three taels of Bodhi leaves, three taels of Enshi Yulu, and three taels of Da Hong Pao.”

“What should I use to pack these?” the manager asked.

“Still your best boxes here,” Shen Zhishu said, and then suddenly remembered something, “Hey, do you have any white jade boxes? Use them to pack.”

“You’re out of luck. The last white jade box was sold this morning, and we haven’t had time to restock yet,” the manager sighed. “We still have celadon and green jade.”

…Jiang Yu often wore white, but she didn’t know if she liked green.

She probably did, after all, her home had such a large pine forest, and she was so much like a pine.

Shen Zhishu said casually, “Then two celadon and two green jade,” and turned to signal her attendant to pay.

The manager said in a chorus, “No hurry, no hurry,” and as she was weighing the tea, she frequently turned her head to glance at her.

Shen Zhishu was a little baffled, “What’s wrong? Is there a flower on my face?”

The manager said, “Oh my,” and smiled, “I can’t tell, you’re wearing your mask so tightly. I just think you look a little like someone.”

…Could it be that she had been recognized?!

Shen Zhishu’s internal alarm bells went off, “Who?”

The manager said mysteriously, “You guess.”

Shen Zhishu had a flash of inspiration and preemptively said, “It can’t be General Shen, right? Some people do say we look alike.”

“You’re joking, how can you look like her,” the manager shook her head. “Guess again.”

Shen Zhishu: …

Shen Zhishu said frankly, “I can’t guess.”

“You can’t guess, right?” The manager was a little proud, “I knew you couldn’t guess. You look like the daughter of Aunt Wang from the village next door.”

Shen Zhishu: …

Shen Zhishu thought to herself, Has this manager really never been beaten up for talking like this?

Just as she was about to ask how she looked like her, the manager had already neatly packed the four kinds of tea, placed the four jade boxes on the counter, and said slowly, “You two really look alike. Your eyes smile when you talk. Just now, when you said ‘two celadon and two green jade,’ you smiled especially brightly.”

“Is that so?”

“It is so,” the manager said. “Aunt Wang’s daughter is getting engaged soon, and she smiles whenever she talks about the other party, she can’t even suppress the corners of her mouth.”

Shen Zhishu nodded, “That’s a happy event, please congratulate her for me.”

“I’ll pass it on for you later,” the manager suddenly remembered something and changed the subject, “Then what about you?”

“Hmm?” Shen Zhishu asked casually, “What about me?”

“She was thinking of her wife’s family, then what about you? Looking at your natural smile just now—were you also thinking of your sweetheart?”