Chen Yuli had finally managed to wrangle two days off at home, and had just gotten comfortable for an afternoon nap when her younger brother dug her out of bed.
“What is it?” She could barely get her eyes open.
Zhang Zaixin looked at her with complete seriousness: “Sister — am I ugly now?”
Chen Yuli: “……”
“What, did the young lady you fancy decide you were too plain for her?”
“I do not fancy her!” Zhang Zaixin said heatedly. “She is simply an ordinary classmate.”
“All right then,” Chen Yuli said cooperatively. “Has this ordinary classmate that you fancy decided you were too plain for her?”
Zhang Zaixin was so irritated he didn’t want to respond — but after a moment he turned back all the same, stubbornly unwilling to let it go: “She wouldn’t think me plain. I just — something seems to have changed, and I can’t tell what.”
“Has she stopped liking you?”
“She never——!”
“Then why are you anxious?”
“I’m not anxious!”
He sat, then stood, then sat again. Zhang Zaixin said in frustration: “You and Aunt Han Xiao are both useless. I’m going to find Father and Mother.”
Chen Baoxiang was busy trying to soothe her great immortal.
“How can you not be angry?!” Zhang Zhixu fumed.
“But it’s not your fault — how could I be angry? …… All right, all right, I’ll make sure to be angry next time.” She sighed.
“What on earth is happening?” Zhang Zaixin was bewildered.
Zhang Zhixu turned and lodged his complaint: “Your mother walked in on me alone in a room with another woman, and she’s not even upset. She doesn’t care about me anymore!”
Chen Baoxiang pressed a hand to her forehead and laughed: “Someone deliberately set up a trap, and I’d already seen through it entirely — what’s there to be angry about?”
“What if I had genuinely taken a liking to that young and beautiful girl?”
“Would you?”
“……No, but you should still be worrying and fretting about it.” Zhang Zhixu was a little cross. “Last year, on the twenty-second day of the third month, you were standing beside the young Gu gentleman, and I was in a sour mood about it for six solid months.”
“So that’s what all the cold comments were about,” Chen Baoxiang said, enlightened. “Why didn’t you just say so? Do you really think I could fall for someone like him?”
“Whether you could or couldn’t — you should still be standing only next to me.”
“But it was a funeral procession……”
Zhang Zhixu gave her a look.
Chen Baoxiang raised both hands in surrender: “Fine, I was wrong. From now on, the spot beside me is yours alone.”
Zhang Zaixin: “……”
Weren’t these two both past forty? Why were they still carrying on like a pair of children?
“Oh, that’s right — Zaixin, was there something you wanted?” Chen Baoxiang asked.
Zhang Zaixin pressed his lips together, deliberated for a long moment, and finally said: “I’d like to invite a friend over.”
“You have a friend?” Chen Baoxiang was astonished.
“You want to host guests?” Zhang Zhixu was astonished.
Of the two children they had raised, the younger was by far the more troublesome — reclusive and cold-mannered, with a tongue that drove people away, so that apart from the Zhao and Yin families, no one else’s children ever came willingly to visit. And ever since the birthday banquet where none of his classmates had come, Zhang Zaixin had taken a deep aversion to hosting gatherings. This was the first time in six years he had brought it up again.
Two pairs of eyes fixed on him unblinkingly. Zhang Zaixin, caught between embarrassment and irritation, said: “Even if I have no friends, don’t the two of you have plenty? Just invite all of yours.”
The two of them exchanged a look, and Chen Baoxiang asked: “And what occasion shall we use as a pretext?”
“……Say that we’ve recently received some tribute sweets from foreign lands, and we’re inviting guests to enjoy the flowers and sample the sweets.”
Chen Baoxiang’s eyebrow arched, and she gave a long, knowing “oh~”: “So we’ll invite the Zhao family, the Yin family, the Ye family — and perhaps the Meng family as well?”
Zhang Zaixin nodded: “That would work.”
“Ah, but the Meng family — we’re not particularly close to them. And I’ve heard they’re in the middle of arranging a marriage for their daughter, so it may not be convenient for them to come over.”
The composure Zhang Zaixin had been holding carefully in place flickered: “The Meng family — marrying off a daughter?”
“Indeed. She’s seventeen or eighteen now — it’s only natural they’d start making arrangements.”
“No. Have them bring their daughter to our manor first.”
“That’s quite the high-handed command, young master,” Zhang Zhixu said, amused. “Dictating someone else’s marriage arrangements?”
Zhang Zaixin was growing urgent now — but he couldn’t find the words. His face had gone red.
Chen Baoxiang gave a theatrical sigh: “Your sister bet on three months, and I told her that was far too generous. I give it a matter of days. You honestly — I don’t know who you picked up this habit from, always unable to say what you actually mean.”
Zhang Zhixu waved his hands: “Don’t look at me — I never taught him that.”
“Fine, fine. Let’s send an invitation for the young master and leave the rest to them,” Chen Baoxiang said.
Zhang Zaixin exhaled, relieved — and then immediately had a new thing to be anxious about.
Would Meng Tujin come?