Full Hall of Pear Blossoms Overwhelming Crabapple - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

“Here.”

Shen Jibai handed me a food box.

I reached out and took it in my arms, asking uneasily, “What is this?”

Shen Jibai’s brows shifted slightly, a distinct smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“Pastries from Yunsu Pavilion. I heard you like sweets, so I bought some for you to try.”

I paused, then opened it. Inside were all kinds of pastries.

On the very bottom layer were several skewers of candied hawthorn. They were exquisitely made, the hawthorn berries large and each one coated in a thin, even shell of sugar.

The syrup had been cooked to perfection, gleaming with a clear, crystalline shine. One glance was enough to tell that the pastry chef’s skill was superb.

The corner of my lips lifted almost imperceptibly, and I lowered my head with a faint smile.

“Thank you, Cousin.”

After watching Shen Jibai leave, I was just about to go when I turned and saw my aunt standing behind me.

I had no idea when she had arrived, or how long she had been watching.

She walked over and stood dazedly in front of me.

“Aunt?” I asked, confused.

My aunt studied me for a long while before sighing. “You truly are beautiful.

“When I was your age, my looks were not the least bit inferior to yours. Back then, the young masters pursuing me could have lined up from Jiangnan all the way to Capital City.

“But what use was it? After half a lifetime of twists and turns, in the end, I am still only a concubine.

“I had someone I loved back then too, but he refused to take me.”

I lowered my eyes, understanding the bitterness in my aunt’s heart.

Back then, before my aunt married, she had also been a proud young lady, admired by men wherever she went. Yet she had fallen in love with a poor scholar.

For his sake, she had gone so far as to defy her parents and elope with him in the dead of night.

She waited at the city gate all night, but her lover never appeared. In the end, she dusted herself off and went home. From then on, she severed all ties with love.

Later, when the family business ran into trouble, my aunt married the prefect then serving in Jiangnan in order to seek help-the man who was now the Shen family’s Third Master.

He had always doted on my aunt. Aside from being unable to give her the title of wife, he gave her everything else.

But my aunt did not see it that way. She was proud by nature, and having been forced by circumstance to become a concubine was the pain of her entire life.

My aunt advised me earnestly, “Tangtang, you must think this through. Marriage is a woman’s second rebirth. Do not let yourself be coaxed and fooled so easily by two skewers of candied hawthorn.”

I nodded obediently, though in my heart, I withheld judgment.

What my aunt did not know was that the candied hawthorn in my hands…

was not some little trinket bought casually to placate me.

It was proof I had used to verify his feelings.