Chapter 338 – Gay? (1)
Qian Yingchen returned to his senses and nodded. He placed his hand over his fist to salute Ji Man. “This one and Teacher Ji can be considered kindred spirits. It’ll soon be this one’s wedding celebration. If you don’t mind, feel free to come and drink this one’s humble wine.”
Ji Man’s gossiping heart felt as if it had been doused with icy water. Her smile disappeared. She blankly looked at Qian Yingchen and asked, “You’re getting married?”
“Yes.” Qian Yingchen stood up and dusted off his clothes.
A nearby servant had already come forward to pack away the chess game.
Qian Yingchen’s smiling face really was very good-looking. “The marquis was the one that introduced us. It’ll probably be a destined marriage that will do well.”
Ji Man pursed her lips and thought of Zhu Yurun. She found the situation a bit pitiful. While that girl was still obsessing over him and wanting to save her body for him and giving birth to his child, the other party was going to tie the knot with another marriage partner through an opportune connection.
Still, Zhu Yurun wasn’t a woman that just anyone would dare to marry. With his health and body, Qing Yingchen really wouldn’t be able to stand that spoiled miss’s torment. Although the falling flowers are yearning for love, the heartless brook ripples on indifferently.
She let out a long sigh. Right after she responded to his answer by saying congratulations, Marquis Moyu stood up.
Haohao was stretching his little hand out. He kept trying to reach Ji Man’s clothes to tug on it. Unfortunately, his arm was too short. With his father holding onto him, there was no way he would be able to reach. Just as Haohao was finally almost able to grab hold of Ji Man’s clothes, Marquis Moyu stood up and headed inside, so Haohao’s soft, white hand only ended up grasping empty air.
“Teacher,” Haohao unhappily called out. He was leaning over Ning Yuxuan’s shoulder and pitifully looking at Ji Man. This person usually always played with him. Why weren’t they playing today?
Ji Man’s heart softened from Haohao’s simple word. She clenched her jaw and decided to brazenly follow them inside. Although it was obvious that Ning Yuxuan was changing his location to chat because he wanted to avoid her, she couldn’t bear leaving Haohao, this little cutie, when he was looking at her so pitifully. She was also very curious about what was going on with Qian Ying Chen.
Following after Marquis Moyu, Ji Man changed her positions several times to try to take Haohao. But, Ning Yuxuan was like someone that had eyes on the back of his head. He kept changing where he was holding Haohao so that Ji Man couldn’t touch him.
Ji Man felt furious. She really wanted to punch him in the head.
Ning Yuxuan finally spoke to her in a chilly voice, “Teacher Ji, since you’re going to be busy with getting married, you naturally won’t have time to take care of Haohao. How about I just find someone that’s better qualified to be his teacher?”
“What? No!” She hastily tucked her arms behind her back and said with fear and trepidation, “This one’s wedding will only take one day to complete. Anyways, this one doesn’t have any relatives or friends either, so this one won’t need to request a leave of absence to rest. So, this one will of course have time to care of Haohao!”
Ning Yuxuan turned his head to look at her. There wasn’t much expression on his face. “Once you’re married, you’ll be living outside of this estate. If something happens to Haohao, will you be able to drop everything and rush back here immediately?”
“Of course, of course!” Ji Man quickly and repeatedly nodded her head. “Miss Zhu and I can also continue to live apart after we get married. She can live in the new home by herself, and this one can continue living in your estate.”
Ning Yuxuan lightly harrumphed. “Isn’t that treating Miss Zhu too unfairly?”
Ji Man was focused on looking at Haohao. What if Marquis Moyu couldn’t take the lighter view and decided to fire her? How would she be able to see Haohao then?
“Miss Zhu is a fair and reasonable person. She won’t blame this one.” As Ji Man said this, she turned her head and glanced at Qing Ying Chen. “Besides, there might be a change to this one’s marriage plans.”
Qing Yingchen was still engrossed with thinking about the endgame in the recent chess match and didn’t pay attention to Ji Man’s words at all.
Maruis Moyu looked at her for a while. After simply saying, “En”, he didn’t say further words.
Ji Man let out a sigh of relief. This lord had Haohao in his possession, so she really couldn’t afford to anger him.
Anyways, was her top priority right now to go and tell Zhu Yurun that she had found her “very good-looking person”? Qian Yingchen had returned to the capital, and he was getting married too. Would it be okay if Zhu Yurun found out about this? With her personality, she might take kitchen knife and try to steal the groom on his wedding day.
After contemplating it for a long time, Ji Man decided that she would still invite Zhu Yurun over to the marquis’s estate. Luckily, Marquis Moyu seemed to have an unending amount of words to discuss with Qing Yingchen. At their current rate, they were most likely going to stay up all night to talk, and Qing Yingchen would probably still be here tomorrow.
She had originally been planning on telling Miss Zhu this news and having her come over the next day. This would be soon enough that she wouldn’t miss seeing Qian Yingchen before he left. But, Ji Man had really underestimated Zhu Yurun’s fighting strength. Once she heard that Ji Man might have seen the man in her painting, Zhu Yurun didn’t say anything else.
Instead, in the middle of the night, she climbed over the walls of Marquis Moyu’s estate. Her big pregnancy belly hadn’t deterred her at all.
While feeling scared witless as she held onto a ladder to help Miss Zhu come down from the top of the wall, Ji Man looked around to check if there were servants patrolling this area.
Ji Man looked at Miss Zhu’s belly, then she looked at the very high wall. It felt as if her soul had almost been frightened away. “Why are you in such a rush? Why didn’t you just wait until tomorrow morning and come through the front entrance?”
Zhu Yurun wiped the sweat on her forehead. She laughed and said, “It’s been too long since I saw him. I’m worried that he’ll forget me if I come any later. Anyways, I couldn’t sleep. So, I might as well come over here and take a look.”
This type of coming over was really too out of the ordinary! Ji Man didn’t even know where to begin on lecturing her. Miss Zhu was clearly a person born and raised in ancient times, but she acted more audacious than herself. It seemed that no one in Zhu family could control Miss Zhu either!
As Ji Man was sighing over this, Miss Zhu grabbed her arm and started walking forward.
“Where is he?”
Ji Man hurriedly pulled Miss Zhu towards her room instead. Before taking Miss Zhu to the western courtyard, Ji Man stole a set of servant girl clothing in the largest size that had been hanging on a clothesline in the back of the residence and had Miss Zhu change into it.
Translator Ramblings: I like that there are usually consequences to Ji Man’s poorly thought out ideas (i.e. thinking it’s a great idea to have a child with a person that you don’t want to stay married to, as a way to win over his affections from Wen Wan). I’m not quite sure how I feel about Ning Yuxuan’s actions related to Haohao yet, but I don’t feel bad for Ji Man because it was her one-sided decision and scheming that led to Haohao’s birth. She thought she could use a child to manipulate Ning Yuxuan, and now he’s turned the tables on her and using her maternal feelings for Haohao against her. And even then, she does things all the time without putting Haohao into consideration first. If Haohao was taken as a hostage by a real kidnapper and his survival is contingent on Ji Man’s good behavior, he would have already died.
Ji Man feels like a modern woman that’s trying to have and accomplish everything. She wants to spend time with her son, but only to a point that’s convenient to her, prove to Ning Yuxuan that women are just as good as men/have a career, get revenge, and somehow go back to modern-day. It’s fine that she wants to have everything, and I totally think that women should be able to have a family and a career if that’s what they want, but the price of that is her attention being stretched too thinly between juggling these conflicting goals.
Anyways, I find Ji Man and Ning Yuxuan’s relationship very entertaining because neither of them can claim high moral ground. There are plenty of times when Ning Yuxuan has done something that’s unfair to Ji Man, but this time, they’re both at fault.
What do you guys think?
