Chapter 150: Life Is Like a Game of Chess
Chapter 150: Chapter 150: Life Is Like a Game of Chess
Liang Wan’s brow tightened. She had a feeling there was a hidden meaning to his words.
The Grandmaster gave a helpless smile and sighed. "We should still request a formal title for her. She can’t remain a concubine forever."
Liang Wan’s brow twitched. She stared intently at a piece on the chessboard, a dreadful chill seeping into her limbs.
’This is fine as it is,’ she wanted to say. ’I don’t care about the title at all.’
The refusal was on the tip of her tongue.
But she had to force herself to hold back. There were many things the Grandmaster could not be allowed to know.
The room suddenly fell quiet.
Liang Wan’s mind was a chaotic mess.
’Once I become the official wife, I won’t be able to just up and leave.’
Not wanting to appear so stiff, Liang Wan abruptly stood up. "The tea has gone cold. I’ll go get some more."
But before she could take a step, Lu Xiu’s hand shot out, grabbing her wrist and pulling her back.
The color drained slightly from Liang Wan’s face. She didn’t dare look at the owner of the hand.
"No rush."
For a moment, Liang Wan couldn’t tell if "no rush" was about the tea, or about requesting her title.
Her heart pounded in her chest, filled with a terrible fear and anxiety.
Mustering her courage, Liang Wan slowly lifted her gaze to meet a pair of smiling eyes.
His gaze was complex.
With his eyes on her like that, Liang Wan felt as if she’d plunged into the Si River at night, so cold she couldn’t stop shivering.
"Let’s wait a while longer," he said, his voice low.
Before Lu Xiu looked away, he gave her one last, deep look.
That final glance was just so...
Liang Wan opened her mouth, desperate to explain.
"I only just divorced my wife from the Cao Family. Let some more time pass." When Lu Xiu looked at the Grandmaster, his expression had returned to normal.
With that said, he went back to picking up and placing his chess pieces.
Liang Wan, however, was left with nothing but a guilty conscience.
The Grandmaster studied them for a moment. Regardless of Lu Xiu’s reasons for delaying, when he recalled the look Cao Luyun had given Liang Wan before she left, he thought that postponing the matter of the title might not be such a bad thing.
He gave a slight nod. "Very well."
It had been a perfectly good game of chess, but by the end, the player had lost his composure and the spectator, her spirit.
The Grandmaster shook his head and sighed. "Never mind. I’m tired as well. You two may go."
After leaving Beixuan, the two of them walked in silence.
The hand holding hers was still warm.
Liang Wan stole a glance at his face. "Actually, I wanted to tell you—"
Lu Xiu was looking at her, too.
Perhaps it was because his gaze was too intense, too focused, but the words suddenly died on her lips.
Liang Wan lowered her head and said softly, "We still haven’t prepared Young Master Zhou’s wedding gift."
’I was just about to reach the summit, only to be ruthlessly kicked back to the foot of the mountain.’
Lu Xiu sighed, not quite feeling like humoring her.
Liang Wan looked up at him cautiously. "May I go out for a while tomorrow? I haven’t left the residence in so long that I even missed Qiuxi’s wedding."
"Mm," he grunted from his nose, the sound utterly perfunctory.
Liang Wan squeezed his hand. "Thank you, for what you did with Song Tan. You helped him escape that disaster."
Liang Wan didn’t know exactly what role Lu Xiu had played in the whole affair, but for Song Tan to have left the Princess Mansion before Princess Lanling’s "incident" and then evade capture, he must have intentionally looked the other way.
He arched a brow, his tone casual yet pointed. "You certainly should thank your husband. I wonder, how will you show your sincerity?"
For no apparent reason, her cheeks suddenly started to burn.
Liang Wan didn’t dare to reply.
Lu Xiu’s gaze fixed on her vibrant red lips, the corners of his own mouth curving deeper. "Why don’t you play a game of chess with me before bed? How about it?"
The request was so unexpected that Liang Wan’s lips twitched in an awkward expression. ’It seems I misunderstood him,’ she thought, ’but that’s for the best.’
She immediately nodded in agreement. "That’s easy. As long as you wish it, my lord, I can play with you every night. Playing all night wouldn’t be difficult at all."
’Every night, all night?’
Lu Xiu narrowed his eyes.
「South Garden. The night was deep.」
Before Lu Xiu finished his work, Liang Wan had already washed up, set out a low table with the chessboard, and was kneeling on the daybed, waiting for him.
Chess is like life, and life is like a game of chess.
Looking at the empty board, Liang Wan placed the first stone.
By the time Lu Xiu finished his work, Liang Wan was so sleepy she could barely keep her eyes open.
Playing chess was now out of the question.
The Start of Spring festival marked the auspicious wedding day of the Crown Prince’s Tutor and the fifth daughter of the Prime Minister’s Mansion.
In front of the Zhou Residence, two great stone lions were adorned with red silk. The three-bay, beast-head gate stood wide open. Luxurious carriages and fine horses lined the street, and every guest arriving to offer congratulations was dressed in splendid attire, bedecked with jewels.
It had been a long time since Jinye City had seen such a grand celebration.
The weather had not yet warmed, so Liang Wan was still dressed thickly.
Though it was an auspicious day, Lu Xiu wore no trace of a smile, and he had been quiet on the way there.
Liang Wan glanced at him. ’They both knew what was truly in Zhou Yun’s heart. How could they offer congratulations?’
It mattered little for Lu Xiu, who always wore a stern face, as cold as ice.
Liang Wan, however, deliberately forced a smile onto her face.
In the entire imperial court, aside from members of the Lu Family, Lu Xiu was never intimate with anyone else. He always kept people at arm’s length. Those he could actually speak with, like Zhou Yun and Cao Jun, could be counted on one hand.
’Thinking about it, wasn’t this precisely why Gao Qian had chosen him?’
’An emperor’s trust is always inseparable from having leverage.’
’Especially someone like Gao Qian. He didn’t need a man who built factions, but one he could control—the kind of official from whom he could easily retract power, no matter how much had been granted.’
Lu Xiu publicly appeared to cherish her so deeply. Even as slanderous rumors about her spread throughout Jinye City, he went his own way, ignoring everything. He had even gone so far as to defy an imperial edict to divorce his wife from the Cao Family, all to dote on her exclusively.
’It didn’t matter if others knew about the divorce. What mattered was that Gao Qian knew.’
When she had written about this matter in her secret missive, she recalled distinctly seeing a hint of a smile playing on his lips.
’If not for having spent so much time with him, occasionally catching the fleeting calculations in those deep eyes, she too might have been deceived.’
’On careful reflection, how was this divorce not a case of him killing several birds with one stone?’
’Gao Qian believed he had backed the right horse.’
’But in the end, he had still misjudged...’
"There’s that look in your eyes again."
Lu Xiu wrapped an arm around her shoulder and leaned down, his warm breath ghosting across her ear.
Satisfied by the slight change in her expression, his lips curved into a smile.
Meeting his calculating gaze, Liang Wan couldn’t help but lament inwardly that Lu Xiu was indeed an excellent hunter.
And this excellent hunter’s favorite game, in his spare time, was trying to tame the snake he had incidentally picked up.
Ignoring the people coming and going, Lu Xiu smiled and pressed a kiss to her ear.
Such a brazen, frivolous gesture, coming from such a cold and stoic man, somehow didn’t seem out of place at all.
It made him look as if his love were as deep as the ocean.
Annoyed, Liang Wan gave him a shove.
Lu Xiu hadn’t intended to cling to her anyway and used the force of her push to pull away.
With the man in front of her gone, her line of sight suddenly cleared.
Liang Wan looked up and saw Cui Hao, with Chun’er at his side, standing a short distance away directly opposite her. He was staring at her without blinking.
Liang Wan blinked, offered him a small smile, then turned her head to look at Lu Xiu.
"Let’s go inside."
Lu Xiu took her hand, cradling it in his palm, and agreed with a low chuckle.
It had to be said that Cui Hao was arguably the biggest winner in the whole military funds affair...