Chapter 40: Drinking Game (Part 2)
The stone path was scattered with scarlet shredded paper from the firecrackers that had just been set off.
Jiang Yu ordered the storeroom to be opened and a jar of Nu’er Hong to be brought out.
Lantiao clapped her hands and cheered, “It’s Her Highness’s birthday today, and everyone is happy. This Nu’er Hong, everyone present must drink it all. It’s no fun if there’s any left.”
“You talk so much, you should drink more,” Rongju said to another attendant. “Hey, let’s get that big bowl carved from a green bamboo root for Lantiao. She can drink from that.”
“That bowl is as big as my two fists. I don’t want it. I’ll be dead drunk after one bowl,” Lantiao pouted. “I’ll pour a drink for Her Highness first. I wish Her Highness good luck every year and long-lasting peace every year!”
Rongju also stood up with her cup, “May Your Highness have boundless fortune and may your orchids and cassias live forever!”
“May Your Highness’s sun and moon shine brightly, and may your pines and cranes live forever!”
“May Your Highness live for a thousand years, ten thousand years, and never die!”
After the fourth attendant finished speaking, she was pushed by Lantiao, who laughed, “What are you talking about?”
That attendant also laughed, “This is a sincere and heartfelt blessing. Isn’t it good to never die? To live for a thousand years, ten thousand years, to roam the four seas freely, and to see all the scenery in the world.”
Jiang Yu raised her cup in response and said in a faint voice, “I accept your good wishes.”
“Hmm?” Shen Zhishu seemed to have a feeling and smiled, “Your Highness doesn’t seem to be very impressed? Don’t you want to live forever?”
Jiang Yu thought for a moment, “Longevity is certainly good, but it is inevitably lonely.”
“I thought Your Highness enjoyed solitude.”
“When one is indifferent to everything in the world, one naturally enjoys solitude,” Jiang Yu said. “But I suddenly thought that I would have to watch Lantiao and the others pass away helplessly… it would be better not to live forever.”
Jiang Yu’s eyes were very bright in the lamplight, and the reflection of herself in them was very shallow.
Shen Zhishu looked at the reflection of herself in her eyes, and after a moment, she let out a low laugh, “Your Highness is a person of great sentiment and righteousness.”
Lantiao, with great discretion, also filled Shen Zhishu’s wine cup. Shen Zhishu slowly picked it up and said in a deep voice, “I am a rough person and don’t know how to say pretty words. I just wish that all of Your Highness’s wishes will be fulfilled, and all of your thoughts will be answered!”
Lantiao said in a low voice, “The General is being modest. Isn’t that pretty? It’s much prettier than that ‘never die’.”
The six of them laughed with the noise of a hundred people.
Halfway through the banquet, Lantiao slurped a few mouthfuls of soup and shook her head, “Just drinking is boring. We need a drinking game.”
“We’re not cultured, we can’t do the literary ones. Are we going to play finger guessing?”
“Finger guessing is boring,” Lantiao said mysteriously. “I have an idea. Let’s play something exciting, how about it?”
“How is it exciting?”
“There are exactly six of us. Each person chooses a number from one to six. Whoever the dice lands on, the person before them will ask a question, and that person will give an honest answer.”
Rongju said firmly, “I’m not playing.”
“Why?”
“After we play, won’t Her Highness know about me ‘stealing chicken from the small kitchen at night,’ ‘secretly planting plum blossom branches in the garden,’ and ‘pawning Her Highness’s bracelet to feed the cat’?”
Jiang Yu: …
“Oh, Her Highness won’t blame you,” Lantiao smiled. “Anyone else object?”
Rongju raised both hands, and Lantiao held her down.
“Then let’s start,” Lantiao said. “From one to six, it’s just a circle around Her Highness from southeast to northwest. Her Highness is one, and the General is six.”
**
Shen Zhishu was originally watching the fun with her arms crossed, but Jiang Yu rolled a six right from the start.
Shen Zhishu: …
Lantiao nodded, “Now it’s Her Highness’s turn to ask, and the General to answer.”
Shen Zhishu made a “go ahead” gesture.
Candles were lit all around, and Jiang Yu’s body was sitting in the flickering and bright candlelight. She turned her head to look at Shen Zhishu, and for a long time, she did not speak, as if she were thinking.
Their gazes drifted with the candlelight and met.
Shen Zhishu met the reflection of herself in Jiang Yu’s eyes again. After silently counting to ten, she heard the person beside her ask softly, “What kind of person does the General think I am?”
What kind of person is she? Shen Zhishu thought.
The Eldest Princess was aloof and indifferent. But Jiang Yu seemed to be different.
She was tolerant, she was peaceful, she was strange but unrestrained, she enjoyed solitude.
So Shen Zhishu said, “Like a cedar tree.”
“Hmm?”
“Covered in layers of snow, it looks very cold, but inside it is green, vigorous and full of life.”
Jiang Yu’s eyes blinked very lightly, “The General’s description doesn’t sound like me.”
“Is that so?” Shen Zhishu’s tone was casual. “But this is the Highness in my heart.”
Jiang Yu withdrew her gaze and stared at the cherry wood table.
She did not speak, so Shen Zhishu continued to roll the dice.
She rolled a two.
Two was Lantiao.
Lantiao smiled and asked, “What does the General want to ask? I will tell you everything I know.”
“Really? Can I ask anything?”
“You can ask anything. I, Lantiao, am a person who can play!”
“That’s great,” Shen Zhishu opened her mouth, her tone like that of a bandit leader from the mountains, “Where do you keep the keys to your storeroom?”
Lantiao: …
Lantiao stammered, “Wait, I can’t say that.” / Jiang Yu: “There’s a spare key in the cabinet at the bottom of the east corner of the room on the west side.”
“Your Highness!” Lantiao exclaimed.
Jiang Yu glanced at her and said in a faint voice, “I owe General Shen a lot, but the General doesn’t want any gold, silver, or jewels. The things piled up in the storeroom are just collecting dust. It’s better to give them to the General.”
Shen Zhishu joked, “You trust me that much? I’ll empty the storeroom tomorrow.”
“As you wish, General,” Jiang Yu said. “Anyway, they are all things I don’t want. If the General can dispose of them, you will be doing me another favor.”
Lantiao stammered, “Alright,” and then raised her face to Shen Zhishu, “Please ask another question, General. I couldn’t answer the last one.”
“Then…” Shen Zhishu thought for a moment, “I’ll let you off the hook and ask an easy one.”
Lantiao’s eyes lit up, and just as she was about to say “Thank you, General,” she heard Shen Zhishu say slowly, “Please name three of your Highness’s shortcomings.”
Lantiao: …
Jiang Yu suddenly remembered what Shen Zhishu had said a few days ago, “You can smile more when you’re in a good mood.” Perhaps to comfort the little girl Lantiao, she tried to curl the corners of her lips and said softly, “It’s alright to say.”
Lantiao: …
Lantiao felt that she was probably going to die here today. Her brain was working hard, and a flash of inspiration struck her, “Too beautiful, too smart, too kind!”
“Are those shortcomings?” Shen Zhishu smiled. “Why does it sound like you’re praising your Highness in a different way?”
“Why not?” Lantiao still wanted to struggle a little. “Her Highness is too beautiful, so she makes others look mediocre; Her Highness is too smart, so she makes us look stupid; Her Highness is too kind, so she makes us look sinister and cunning.”
“That doesn’t count,” Shen Zhishu said. “Let me show you how it’s done.”
As the two of them were talking, Jiang Yu was sitting upright on her chair. Perhaps it was because the lights were too bright, or the hall was too warm, the indifference in her eyes had melted a little, and was tinged with a smile that she had never had before.
So much so that after Shen Zhishu met Jiang Yu’s gaze, she was in a daze for a few breaths before she suddenly came back to her senses, “Does Your Highness know what your shortcomings are?”
Jiang Yu shook her head, “I don’t know.”
Shen Zhishu took a light breath and said, “You are too soft-hearted.”
Jiang Yu stared at her faintly, “What does the General mean by that?”
“Too soft-hearted, so that you can’t distinguish between love and hate,” Shen Zhishu leaned back in her chair. “If it were me and I had encountered that kind of thing, I would only hate it to the bone.”
The tea leaves in the teacup floated up and down leisurely, emitting a faint mist. Jiang Yu’s gaze shifted from Shen Zhishu’s face to the table, it was unclear whether she was looking at the teacup or the mist.
After a while, she said, “Is the General talking about me? But the General seems to be even more soft-hearted.”
“Hmm?”
“To be able to risk your life to save a complete stranger, even without knowing the cause and effect,” Jiang Yu raised her eyes. “Jiang Chu is my older sister, I have a reason not to hate her. But what about you, General? Do you have a reason why you had to save me?”
Shen Zhishu gave a wry smile and spread her hands, “Did I do something wrong by helping you?”
“The General is not wrong, and I am not wrong,” Jiang Yu said. “So this is not my shortcoming. I consider myself a cold-hearted person.”
Shen Zhishu shook her head, “You always belittle yourself…”
“I’m not belittling myself,” Jiang Yu said in a faint voice. “I don’t think that being cold-hearted is a bad word. In this life, too much emotion and desire will only be a burden. Since we came cleanly, we can’t leave with a full body of attachments.”
Jiang Yu said these few sentences very slowly, and the surroundings were silent, as if time had suddenly stopped.
Shen Zhishu listened quietly, said, “Mm,” and asked casually, “So does the cold-hearted Highness have no one she cares about?”
“I do,” Jiang Yu immediately replied.
“Apart from Lantiao and the other three—”
“I do,” Jiang Yu said. “My new friend—”
She stopped after a few words, and Shen Zhishu couldn’t help but ask, “Hmm?”
And then she heard the person beside her say, word by word, the name:
“Shen Zhishu.”
