AUBTN -Chapter 79 I Won’t Marry

No matter how you looked at her, she didn’t seem like a servant girl.

Shen Jue’s long fingers lightly stroked the jade ring on his thumb. After a moment of contemplation, his thin lips parted slightly, and he uttered four words:

“Distant cousin.”

Su Hewan: “…”

Her lips twitched slightly. Though her face still held that obedient, gentle expression, her mind was already running commentary:

【Well, well, a distant cousin!】

【This is the all-purpose identity in historical romance novels!】

【Usually, such a cousin either uses this as an excuse to lodge under someone’s roof and ends up in the cousin’s bed, or becomes a thorn in the side of the cousin’s legitimate wife and meets a tragic end in palace intrigue.】

【But…】

Su Hewan looked up at the cousin in front of her.

【Being a cousin of a eunuch, I shouldn’t have to worry about bed-hopping. Definitely better than being a servant, kneeling every day to scrub the floors.】

Shen Jue had originally been about to order the servants to prepare water, but suddenly a series of crisp thoughts reached his ears. Especially when he heard the words “bed-hopping” and “eunuch,” a trace of helpless amusement flickered across his eyes, fleeting.

What exactly does this woman have running through her mind all day?

“What’s wrong? Not willing?” Shen Jue raised an eyebrow slightly, his voice lowering a few degrees.

“If you’re unwilling, the Eastern Depot just happens to be short of someone to handle the night incense…”

“I’m willing! Absolutely willing!”

Su Hewan immediately straightened her back and displayed a perfect eight-teeth smile.

“Cousin above, a bow from your cousin below! From today on, this is my home, and you are my dear brother!”

A wise person adapts to circumstances. As long as she didn’t have to handle the night incense, it didn’t matter if she was a cousin—being a niece would do just fine!

Shen Jue looked at her sycophantic expression and let out a light hum. For some reason, his mood improved slightly.

“Since you’re a cousin, behave yourself. There aren’t many rules in this mansion, but there is one—”

Shen Jue suddenly stepped forward, closing the distance to Su Hewan.

“You are forbidden from entering the restricted area in the rear garden.”

Having said this, he didn’t even glance at her face, which had instantly stiffened, and with a flick of his sleeve, he turned and left.

Su Hewan was left standing in the wind, disheveled.

【Restricted area?】

【According to online novel conventions, restricted areas always hide some earth-shattering secret!】

【By saying this, isn’t he obviously trying to lure me in?】

“Go on, try it!” came a low warning from Shen Jue ahead.

Su Hewan was startled and immediately covered her mouth.

【How could he hear what I’m thinking?】

Shen Jue ahead couldn’t help but curve his lips into a small smile.

At the same time, at the Lu residence:

Lu Yan swung down from his horse, tossed the reins to a servant at the gate, and strode inside.

“Father?”

“In… in the study.” The steward, Lu Bo, lowered his head, his voice slightly weak.

Lu Yan’s heart sank. The study? If he were seriously ill, he wouldn’t be lying in the bedroom—why the study?

Could it be that he was forcing himself to handle official business?

Thinking this, Lu Yan’s resentment eased, replaced by a trace of guilt.

Though his father was autocratic, he truly dedicated himself wholeheartedly to state affairs.

He quickened his pace, reaching the study door, forgetting to knock, and pushed it open.

“Father! How come you…”

His words abruptly stopped.

Inside, the study was brightly lit by candlelight.

A faint sandalwood scent permeated the air, with not the slightest hint of medicine.

The current Chancellor, Lu Zhixing, sat upright in the Grand Tutor’s chair, holding an ancient scroll. A cup of steaming Da Hong Pao tea rested on the side table.

Hearing the movement, Lu Zhixing slowly raised his head, his face flushed with health—there was not a trace of critical illness.

Lu Yan stood at the doorway, his expression darkening.

He had been deceived again!

“So this is… what Steward Lu called ‘critically ill’?”

Lu Yan’s voice dropped. The worry in his eyes instantly froze into iciness.

Lu Zhixing put down the scroll, lifted the teacup and sipped, speaking calmly:

“If I weren’t here, would you even have come back?”

“You lied to me?”

Lu Yan felt a surge of anger, the kind that comes from being mocked.

“The situation in the capital is tense. Forgive me, father, I have official duties—farewell!”

And with that, he turned to leave!

“How dare you! Stop right there!”

Lu Zhixing slammed the teacup heavily onto the table.

Lu Yan paused, no longer taking a step forward—but he still had his back to his father.

“I am your father! I ask you to come home, and yet I must ask three or four times? Do you even care about this family? Do you even care about me as your father?”

Lu Yan took a deep breath, forcing down the anger swelling in his chest: “Father, why ask such things? Since my mother passed away, I suppose the only connection left between us is the blood that binds us.”

Lu Zhixing stood up, his gaze burning into Lu Yan’s back, his face darkening with fury.

“Lu Yan, is this how you speak to me? Fine, I won’t bring up your mother for now. I ask you—are you carrying around some unknown woman with you?”

Lu Yan suddenly turned, his eyes sharp and piercing: “What do you mean by that?”

Lu Zhixing sneered, stepping around the desk to stand directly in front of him.

“So it’s true! I’ve heard this woman behaves frivolously, even crazily, and that you two are always tangled up together. What kind of example is this?”

A fleeting image of Yu Qing making a funny face flashed through Lu Yan’s mind. His heart softened slightly—but on his face, he showed no sign of yielding.

“Miss Yu is simply carefree by nature, not frivolous. If it weren’t for her and the others’ help, the Jiangnan salt case would never have been solved! Nor could Prince Ning’s plot have been exposed!”

“Silence!”

Lu Zhixing shouted fiercely, “A palace maid of unknown background, and you defend her so passionately? Lu Yan, you are the only eldest son of the Lu family and the commander of the Embroidered Guards! Your wife can only be a noblewoman from a reputable family!”

“Since you are dissatisfied with the Song family engagement, I found a way to annul it! But the Grand Tutor’s granddaughter is gentle, virtuous, educated, and the sixth day of next month is a good day for the wedding. You—”

“I will not marry!”

Lu Yan abruptly cut his father off, his voice trembling with emotion.

Lu Zhixing stared at him, his beard quivering with rage: “What did you say? You unfilial child! Marriage is a matter of parental command and matchmaker’s words—how dare you decide for yourself?”

“Parental command?”

Lu Yan sounded as if he had heard the greatest joke of his life. His eyes reddened slightly, and the corners of his mouth curved into a bleak, bitter smile.

“And now you bring up parental command? Where is my mother now?”

He stepped closer to Lu Zhixing.

“Do you even know how your mother died?”

“When she wanted to see you one last time, where were you?”

“You were playing chess with the late emperor! You were scheming for power and position!”

Lu Zhixing’s face changed, a hint of embarrassment flashing in his eyes: “At that time, it was a critical moment for the court. I—”

“Yes, the court is important, power is important, but her life… was not important!”

Lu Yan shouted, his long-suppressed resentment exploding at last.

“She waited on her sickbed for three days! Until her last breath, her eyes never closed! All she wanted was to hear a kind word from you. And you—?”

“Lu Zhixing, your heart is made of stone, but mine is not!”

“My marriage will never again be a pawn for your consolidation of power! I will never marry a woman I do not love, to turn her into another resentful spirit waiting to die in this cold mansion!”

“You… you—”

Lu Zhixing pointed at Lu Yan, his finger trembling with rage, his face ashen: “Leave! Get out of here!”

“No need to chase me.”

Lu Yan looked coldly at his father, his eyes devoid of any warmth, only finality.

“I never wanted to return to this home anyway.”

With that, he turned without hesitation and strode out of the study.

“Ungrateful child!”

Behind him came the sound of shattering teacups and his father’s furious roar.

But Lu Yan did not even look back.

The night wind howled, whipping against his burning face.

He walked out of the Lu mansion gates and gazed at the empty street, suddenly struck by an unprecedented loneliness.

Then, a cheerful voice rang out ahead:

“Lord Lu, why are you so slow? I’ve been waiting so long that my dumplings have gone cold!”

Lu Yan froze, and his head shot up.

At the end of the long night street, under the dim lights, stood a girl in a pink dress, waving at him with one hand while holding a candied hawthorn skewer in the other.