[Alternate t.i.tle: Shyness

*slaps this on the table* Chichilations good, aggregator bad, good night.]

“Officer Zhongli, did that ‘little sister' to you again? What color is it this time?”

Seeing how Zhongli Luo is beaming with happiness as she holds the letter, everyone laughs.

Zhongli Luo nods, voice carrying a brazen cadence. “She's my fiancée.”

“Ooooo~ Fiancéeeeee~” They all tease.

After Zhongli Luo had come back from the capital, she decided to try and have a good relations.h.i.+p with everyone. Due to her being young and of slighter stature with a delicate appearance, her natural lofty bearing had taken some hits. Now that she's treating people a lot more friendly and further unlike a senior official, everyone is getting progressively more unrestrained in front of her, occasionally poking fun at this thin-faced young Officer.

They also knew from before that this very young Officer Zhongli had a girlfriend from long ago in the capital. That little lady sent a letter every month full of extremely gentle feelings and honeyed ideas; who could've guessed that following last month's return trip, that girlfriend would have changed into a formal fiancée?

Upon seeing Zhongli Luo tear open the letter, most of the people there – despite their illiteracy – can't help but gather around.

Ooo, look at that exquisite letter paper. Truly worthy of being from a Young Mistress in the capital, huh.

At that time, someone asked, “Officer Zhongli, is your fiancee pretty?

Everyone immediately parroted that. “Yeah, yeah, is she pretty?”

Zongli Luo quirked her lips and nodded. “She is.”

“More than that Miss Biling you brought with to send home?”

That person had just barely finished speaking when he viciously suffered a slap on the forehead from someone else. “What c.r.a.p are you saying, why are you comparing Officer Zhongli's fiancee with a singing concubine?!”

That one knew he'd made a faux-pas and rushed to apologize. “That was just a little slip of the tongue, Officer, you don't need to mind it.”

Yet Zhongli Luo isn't mad, contrarily saying some purposeless words with a face that wasn't red and a heart that wasn't hammering. “She's prettier than her.”

P… Prettier than Cen Biling? Cen Biling was already the most beautiful girl they'd ever seen in these few years in the rotten Northwest, and when they saw their own incomprehensible Officer had actually just sent her home, their jaws nearly fell off in alarm. Everyone had wrung their hands and breathed funny as they couldn't help but wonder if this young Officer Zhongli was sick or something. Turns out he wasn't sick, but just had someone even better at home? To be prettier than Cen Biling… what kind of immortal lady must she be?

“Officer Zhongli is really lucky.” Everyone said in succession, half-drinking vinegar.

Zhongli Luo held the letter that could now be freely responded to and thought: how could it not be luck, to have her, with her character and abilities, be treated so well like this by Jiahui? All she can do is continue to work hard, and through hard work become worthy enough of Jiahui, the best in all the world.

The Northwest is desolate and spa.r.s.ely populated, still having the Xirong frequently rus.h.i.+ng in to burn and kill and loot, no crime too evil for them to commit. Proper officials and soldiers still yet fear them, and it's even worse for the unarmed citizens; for that reason, all living here get suffer hards.h.i.+ps that cannot be described in words.

The number of times the Xirong have pillaged haven't been counted during Zhongli Luo's years here, but they surely aren't few. Their tribes are of all sizes, and when it comes time to eliminate these Xirong – and when the Xirong c.o.c.kily rush in and make a grand thievery of the citizens – the might of these cow or sheepskin-clad people who sit high atop big horses and never brush their hair is truly fearsome. Even dealing with the small tribes takes great effort; if they all band together in the future and make a large march down South… it's unthinkable. Zhongli Luo somewhat fears that.

Spring goes, fall comes, and two years pa.s.s. Zhongli Luo has rounded up several military credits of all sizes, finally rising to the fifth-rank Far-Peace General[1]. Getting her official's rank upped means she has more soldiers under her, and more things to deal with. Apart from being occupied all day long with drilling the troops and getting them into formation, she worries about the future, feeling that the Xirongs are really ready to get on the move, and there will likely be hard battles ahead.

At the same time, the capital is as blooming as brocade as it was before, dazzling with its paper and gold, and a majority of Rong Jiahui's ladyfriends have gotten married. Yang Qianyu was married off to Blest Prince Xiao Ding [3]. For the topic of her own blood-brother's wife in this current life, during the day of the Mother Empress's birthday she had dragged her younger cousin to pry into Wen Anying's pool of husband prospects, and in the end she was still carelessly married off to the Left Imperial Censor-in-Chief's young son, Xue Cheng; they're a perfectly harmonious couple, too. As for her eldest female cousin Yu Yixiang, after a tug-of-war she herself had launched at fifteen that had lasted for nearly three years, she finally managed to snag the handsome Young Master Liu at age eighteen. Rong Jiahui's cousin who was younger by a year, Yu Yimei, had been married off not too long ago to Crown Prince Duan[2].

Nowadays, the few people still accompanying Rong Jiahui in solitude are youngest sister Song Heng and her third cousin, though, her cousin is already engaged, and Song Heng… she considered how her brother looked while thinking about Miss Ah-Heng all day long and wanted to vomit herself to death. She'd merely invited a few sisters over to have fun at her house, but who would've known the result that these two younglings would take a liking to each other!

Remembering that her little brother had always said that his big sister is the best girl in all the land, so he'd have to find a wife just like her one day. She'd always taken that as a joke, but she completely didn't expect that he'd like little Song Heng, an archetypal Jiangnan woman; pretty yet soft like a poplar or willow, a warm and graceful person. Whether she's compared with her or with the object of her brother's obsession in the last life Xiao Wenyan, there can be said to not be a single bit of similarity between them. However, these two are her dearly loved ones, and if they can come together, she would still be quite delighted to see it. Despite Song Heng's weakness, she's really an excellent girl. Were she to successfully be her sister-in-law, she'd naturally be very happy, but… then they've all been paired up, and it's only her, still standing and walking alone.

She's been unwaveringly sending her monthly letter to Zhongli Luo as usual, but he hasn't written a reply to her for four.

She understands that he's extremely busy in the Northwest and is inevitably unable to give her too much time, but without a letter saying he's alright she's still inevitably unhappy, and worried even more so. Regardless of whether it's here or over in the Northwest, the changes made due to her heavy work are many, and what she knows gradually turning into the unknown is the most dreadful. All she can do is occasionally write letters with seemingly innocent words, giving a slight hint of some major event that she still has some impression of. She just hates her own sad marriage from her last life, as her eight years were spent in muddleheadedness. Never had she been concerned about any big happenings in the country, only quietly living in the small scope of her rear garden, leading to her being unable to think about much else at this time. She foolishly prays that Zhongli Luo can be safe while he's forgotten about her in his rush; she's done a lifetime of heavy work, after all, thus ill.u.s.trating that this Bodhisattva might really be effective!

Finished with her letter and instructing a subordinate to deliver it, she lifts her head to look at the sun's position. Feeling that it's about time, she leaves her gates to go to the Ruiw.a.n.g home, as the Ruiw.a.n.g wife Yang Qianyu had invited her to a tea party today.

Yang Qianyu Blest Prince husband is an idler gentlemen who never cares about anything, satisfied so long as he can make poetry about wind and flowers and snow and the moon and other trite stuff, leading to Yang Qianyu following him in idleness. Three days ago, both parties invited her young sisters to group together.

Rong Jiahui had no good reason to decline. After arriving at the Prince's house, she sat by herself to the side, propping up her head with disinterest, watching the ma.s.s of married women with their hair in a topknot milling here and there. All she feels is that she really has nothing to talk to them about anymore.

The hosting Yang Qianyu noticed her waning enthusiasm and, after apologizing to her sisters, goes to sit by her side and holds her hand. “Ah-Hui, what's the matter? Why do you look so dispirited? Are you not feeling well?”

Jiahui had been on a mental journey and snapped back from it when hearing that. She turned her head to look at Yang Qianyu's gently smiling face and shook her head. “I'm fine.”

“Well, little girl. Not telling the truth even before your big sister?” Yang Qianyu grins and says as she pokes her nose.

After that, Qianyu looked at the sisters not too far away, seemed to recall something, and asked, “Ah-Hui, I remember you mentioning to me that you have your sight set on that Young Master Zhongli. How is he nowadays?”

Not mentioning him would have been better. Mentioning him now makes Jiahui immediately feel minorly wronged.

“He, ah… is a super busy person. He's over in the Northwest fighting the Xirong now, which is what he told me in a letter. He had just been promoted a few months ago to a fifth-rank Far-Peace General… hey, you've got to hand it to him; I can feel the c.o.c.kiness through the paper.”

“Is that not a great thing?”

Seeing how gloomy Jiahui looked, Qianyu somewhat didn't understand. As she recalls, Young Master Zhongli is the same age as her with just a few months less, meaning he's only 20 this years. A fifth-rank General at 20 is rather seldom seem, yet this girl isn't pleased? She's pictured as really wanting to get married, yet this position isn't good?

Jiahui pursed her lips, complaining, “Where's it great? Sis Yu, you don't know this, but he's written a lot of letters to me, yet there isn't a single sentence in them caring about me. He writes me all this rubbish every month. Aside from trivial stuff and going on about his food and clothes and home and transport, he- aside from saying the word ‘Jiahui' at the beginning, there's nothing about me at all. Sis Yu, tell me, if it was you, would you not be unhappy?”

So that's what she's on about. Qianyu abruptly chuckles, though that really would make anyone displeased. She pats Jiahui's head, smiling, “Maybe's he's shy, and embarra.s.sed.”

“I'm the only one that should be shy, then, but I'm not shy, and he is for some reason.”

“Ah-Hui, you know that everything in this world complements another. You aren't shy and he is; this is complementary, thus showing that you both are a natural pair.” Qianyu said this nonsense with dignity.

Hearing this unusual argument, Jiahui stares blankly. After delicately chewing on that, she feels that there seems to be nothing wrong with that.

Jiahui can't help but not. “Sis Yu, there seems to be reason in what you've said.”

The author says: I wrote a little theater as a present to everyone.

The translator says: I'm putting another page break so this isn't too confusing…

[1] 寧遠 = Ningyuan = Faraway peacetimes/pacifying from far away

[2] 端王世子 = No name given, Duan means “to carry”. I highly suspect that this is a typo of Rui w.a.n.g (below) due to the similarity of the characters and it's supposed to be Crown Blest Prince, but I'm going to leave it in just in case that's wrong.

[3] 瑞王 = Rui w.a.n.g, lit. Fortuitous Prince. I used Blest because I like not having syllables.

Zhongli looked at the one covered in wounds before her, the sword in her hand itching to stab.

Jiahui covered her face and cried out in surprise: Brother Zhongli!

Zhongli paused.

Rong Jiahui trembled out: He… it's not bad enough to be dead-set on killing him… I'm a bit scared…

Zhongli smiled, turned around and pet her head, soothing: Jiahui, this person doesn't shrink back from any crime. If he doesn't die, then there will be no end to his trouble.

Jiahui: But…

Zhongli Luo sighed: Jiahui, you must understand that a that no great man is without his own cruelty.

Jiahui: So if he's not a bit cruel he's not a great man? (⊙x⊙;)

[T/N: “great man” (丈夫) can also mean husband.]

Zhongli: (??д?)b Nani?!

Jiahui suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hes her sword away, looking imposing: I understand!

Zhongli (frantic): What do you understand?!