She called his name with her back to him.
Deng Ying quickly responded, “Mm?”
“Do you still have your daily nuts?”
“No more.”
“I’ll bring you some more tomorrow.”
Without thinking, he gave a gentle reply, “Alright.”
Hearing this “Right,” Yang Wan smiled and shook his hand, “You don’t refuse me anymore.”
Deng Ying looked at her fingers gripping his wrist, “I don’t want to make you angry.”
“What?”
“I don’t want you to leave because of me too.”
Yang Wan understood the true melancholy behind his words, but didn’t address it directly, only smiled and replied, “I’m not someone who leaves just because I’m angry.”
She turned around, still holding Deng Ying’s hand, walking backward while saying, “I’ll tell you first, I only know how to make one kind of noodles.”
Deng Ying tilted his head slightly, helping her watch the path behind her, “What kind?”
“Yang Chun noodles, Lady Ning taught me.”
“Lady Ning… when did she enter the palace?”
“When I was… thirteen, I think.”
Deng Ying nodded with a smile, “That’s a long time. No wonder the Princess cares for you so much.”
“Yes.”
Yang Wan smiled and nodded at him, “Since I entered the palace, the Princess has never scolded me. Besides you, she’s the gentlest person to me. It’s just that her health hasn’t been good lately, she’s been taking medicine, and the Prince is so young. I’ve been busy looking after them, so several times I said I’d bring you nuts but forgot.”
As they talked, they reached the big weeping willow.
The eunuchs’ quarters had no independent kitchen, so this spot under the big willow was where Li Yu and others prepared their meals. There were still some ash marks on the ground that hadn’t been cleaned up.
Yang Wan let go of Deng Ying, lifted her skirts to crouch by the stove, and pulled the winnowing basket from the stone to her lap, making space for Deng Ying, “I tried for ages but couldn’t light it.”
Deng Ying also crouched down, rolled up his sleeves, and took the fire striker Yang Wan handed him.
Soon, warm flames lit up both their faces.
Yang Wan tried to poke at the fire, but Deng Ying turned and gently pressed down the long stick in her hand, “Be careful, this wood is fresh and might spark.”
Yang Wan quickly withdrew her hand, protecting the noodles and seasonings in the basket, “You’re very careful about everything.”
Deng Ying took her stick and carefully turned the fresh wood on the stove, answering her softly, “So are you.”
Yang Wan shook her head, “I’m not. I only put my heart into things I like to do. If it’s something I don’t like, I always disappoint everyone. No matter where I am, many people at home have been unhappy with me. So, Deng Ying, you’re truly the best person I’ve ever met. Your character, your personality, everything is so good—so good that I can’t understand why they treat you that way…”
She puffed out her cheeks and let out a breath, moving to the stove, “Alright, I’m going to cook the noodles now. Go sit for a while.”
“Alright.”
Deng Ying heard her words and sat down against the willow tree.
The water in the pot gradually began to boil, white steam surrounding Yang Wan’s face, blurring her delicate features.
Unlike her appearance would suggest, she wasn’t very skilled at cooking, occasionally burning her fingers and fumbling, but she was very focused. Deng Ying couldn’t help thinking that, as she had just said, cooking noodles for him must be something Yang Wan liked doing.
The fragrance of vegetables in the noodle soup wafted out with the steam from the pot.
After quite some effort, Yang Wan finally carefully carried two bowls of noodles over.
“Be careful.”
“I know.”
Without looking up, she said, “If I spill this, I’ll have committed a terrible sin today.”
Deng Ying laughed softly, “You shouldn’t say that.”
Yang Wan crouched down and handed the noodles to Deng Ying, “Try a bite, see if the seasoning is right.”
Deng Ying lowered his head and took a bite. The noodles were soft, warmly filling his entire mouth. There weren’t complex flavors, just the fresh scent of vegetables and the savory taste of pork fat mixed with green onions, comforting his whole being.
“Mm, it’s delicious.”
Hearing his evaluation, Yang Wan smiled and nodded repeatedly.
She sat down beside Deng Ying, picked up her bowl and ate a few bites, then sipped some soup before speaking about the day’s events.
“Today, I secretly went to see Yang Lun. He told me some things about what happened at the Ministry of Justice, but not everything. He said if I wanted to know more details, I should ask you.”
Deng Ying lowered his bowl to look at Yang Wan, “I can tell you.”
Yang Wan raised her head, looking at the cold light filtering through gaps in the tree canopy, and said softly, “Before I came, I really wanted to ask you, but after arriving, I just wanted to share a bowl of noodles with you.”
She sniffled, “If… in the future, I can’t help asking about things you don’t want to talk about, you don’t have to tell me. You can even scold me.”
Deng Ying quickly said, “I would never treat you that way.”
Yang Wan turned to look at him, “Let me finish. These past few days while you were gone, I kept thinking about what was happening to you at the Ministry, about what it would take for you to return. But I never expected Master Zhang would…”
She paused, “Actually, I don’t want to ask about what happened. I just want to tell you not to be too sad, and don’t blame yourself too much. If you want to process the outcome alone, I won’t do anything. Just… you need to eat, need to drink water, don’t harm your own body.”
Listening to her words, Deng Ying lowered his head and ate his noodles bite by bite, until he swallowed the last piece of vegetable leaf.
“It’s not like what you said. I very much want to see you, but I swore an oath to Zi Xi that if I had even a moment’s improper thoughts about you, I would suffer death by lingchi.”
When Yang Wan heard the words “lingchi,” her mind exploded with noise, and she nearly dropped her bowl.
History existed objectively, and Yang Wan was a fish that had slipped through its net.
But when Deng Ying spoke of his fate before her, Yang Wan suddenly felt she wasn’t a fish that had escaped—she was caught in the net herself.