Five Years After My Death, the Mad Emperor Still Summons My Spirit

Chapter 204: Chapter 204: "I’m Annoyed by Him!

Li Yun didn’t look up, letting Ming Lingyi poke his shoulder again and again. "Can’t you just make him stay away from you? I can’t stand him."

The words were so blunt it was hard to believe they came from Li Yun. When Ming Lingyi first heard them, she almost burst out laughing.

But she held it in.

She was afraid that if she actually laughed, this man would give her the silent treatment for half a month, stewing in his own anger.

’It wouldn’t be a big deal if my husband were to die of anger, but if my child’s father died from it, that would be a bit of a problem.’

"It’s not like we were that close to begin with," Ming Lingyi said.

’Jiang Yuchuan is a man who knows his boundaries. Otherwise, why would this be the first time we’ve met in a while?’

"Very close."

"No, we weren’t."

"Yes, you were!"

In the end, Ming Lingyi couldn’t hold it in any longer and burst out laughing.

’This argument with Li Yun... not even Li Yan and his classmates would bicker like this. It’s so childish.’

Her laugh made Li Yun glance over, annoyed.

"You’re still laughing?" He seemed to find it unbelievable.

Ming Lingyi tilted her head and looked at him. She didn’t speak, but her eyes bloomed with the charm of peach blossoms.

Li Yun reached out, pulling the unsuspecting woman onto his lap. With one hand on the nape of her neck and the other around her slender waist, he bent his head and captured her lips, silencing the laughter that had so infuriated him.

’How could I let others gaze so freely upon this peach blossom I nurtured myself? Especially not Jiang Yuchuan!’

At the thought, Li Yun’s actions unconsciously grew a touch fiercer, as if he meant to teach Ming Lingyi a lesson.

When Ming Lingyi returned to Ming’s Restaurant, she saw her older brother sitting at the entrance, his face grim.

Suddenly, Ming Lingyi felt a pang of guilt.

She got down from the carriage and walked over.

Hearing the sound, Ming Chengyu had already looked up, but his gaze wasn’t on Ming Lingyi. Instead, he was staring at the carriage behind her.

It looked like a simple and unadorned carriage, but anyone with a keen eye or an expert’s knowledge could tell at a glance that it was not something that could be built by common craftsmen.

The carriage’s body was a deep, unadorned black, its frame built from hundred-year-old zitan wood that was smooth and solid to the touch. The cicada-wing silk gauze covering the windows, a tribute from Jiangnan, shimmered with a faint cloud pattern in the sunlight. Most people couldn’t even afford clothes made of such material, so using it for windows was the height of luxury.

As for the horse in the shafts, it was a purebred Ferghana dapple-gray with steady, even hoofbeats. Every mortise and tenon joint of the carriage shafts was secretly inlaid with golden-thread nanmu wood. When it moved, one could only hear the wind rushing past, not the sound of the wheels.

It appeared to be an ordinary, low-key carriage, but its owner was self-evident.

"Brother, why are you sitting outside?" Ming Lingyi asked in a small, guilty voice.

Ming Chengyu only seemed to notice then that Ming Lingyi had walked up to him. He lifted his eyelids. "Waiting for you."

Ming Lingyi: "..."

"You weren’t at the restaurant yesterday, were you?"

Ming Lingyi was speechless.

"Did you leave with that scoundrel Li Yun? Did he force you to leave?"

Ming Lingyi: "...Not exactly."

’Although Li Yun is no saint, he didn’t force me yesterday. I was just tricked. I thought we were just going next door, but I ended up being taken back to the palace. And I was gone for so long. The midday meal is long over, and I’m only just getting back.’

Hearing this, Ming Chengyu felt his brow twitch violently. Only two words remained in his mind—

’It’s over.’

’His sister had been tricked away again by that shameless Li Yun.’

Ming Lingyi had someone deliver a letter to the Jiang Mansion.

’Jiang Yuchuan probably still thinks Xie Jupu is giving him a choice. Doesn’t Xie Jupu know what kind of person Qin Shiqi is? Qin Shiqi was willing to stoop so low as to ask Li Yun for an imperial edict to grant the marriage. How could Xie Jupu not have guessed that would happen? This was probably all part of Xie Jupu’s scheme, using everyone as pawns.’

Jiang Yuchuan came to Ming’s Restaurant that very evening.

"The day after tomorrow, I will go to Qinglong Temple to meet the young lady of the Qin Family," Jiang Yuchuan said directly as soon as he arrived at the restaurant and saw Ming Lingyi.

Ming Lingyi was surprised for a moment. "You’ve decided?"

"Yes. If the young lady from the Qin Family is reasonable and understanding, I think there might still be some room for maneuver in this marriage."

"Qin Lingzhi?"

Ming Chengyu was just passing by. He certainly wasn’t eavesdropping on Ming Lingyi and Jiang Yuchuan’s conversation, but when he suddenly heard the two words "Miss Qin," a name popped into his head.

Ming Chengyu speaking up immediately drew the attention of both Ming Lingyi and Jiang Yuchuan.

Ming Lingyi looked at her brother with a strange expression. ’How would my brother know the personal name of a young lady from a noble house? This sounds rather odd.’

The moment Ming Chengyu met Ming Lingyi’s gaze, he waved his hands repeatedly. "Ah, I don’t know her! What’s with that look?"

Ming Lingyi: "You don’t know her, yet you can call out her personal name?"

Ming Chengyu: "It was an accident." After saying this, Ming Chengyu turned directly to Jiang Yuchuan. "So, you’re getting married?"

Jiang Yuchuan knew that Ming Lingyi and Ming Chengyu were siblings. Although he knew there was no longer any possibility of a relationship between him and Ming Lingyi, he felt an inexplicable nervousness facing her brother now.

"Yes and no," Jiang Yuchuan replied, pulling himself together. "It’s a meeting arranged by an elder in my family."

"The other party isn’t actually Qin Lingzhi, is she?"

"I believe so," Jiang Yuchuan said.

"Tsk." Ming Chengyu’s expression grew even stranger as he looked at him.

"Brother, is there something wrong with that?" Ming Lingyi asked.

Ming Chengyu didn’t answer Ming Lingyi directly. Instead, he continued to look at Jiang Yuchuan. "Did your family’s elder just randomly pick a woman from the Capital City for you to meet? Otherwise, how did they end up with someone from the Qin Family?"

Ming Chengyu wasn’t very clear on the entanglements between Jiang Yuchuan and the Xie family, nor had he ever looked much into a person like Jiang Yuchuan.

Hearing this now, he could only feel that the Jiang family’s elder was being a bit too reckless.

’A pillar of the family like him is being married off to someone from the Qin Family. I really don’t know what his family is thinking.’

A bashful look appeared on Jiang Yuchuan’s face. He felt this arranged meeting was especially shameful, particularly in front of Ming Lingyi’s family.

"My parents passed away long ago. The elder in question is my maternal uncle. He is usually very busy, so he probably didn’t have much time to consider these things."

Ming Lingyi, getting a headache from their conversation, said bluntly, "His eldest maternal uncle is Xie Jupu."

Ming Chengyu: "..."

Jiang Yuchuan gave a bitter laugh.

"I have a good friend. Many years ago, his father stopped a carriage on the street. The carriage was speeding through the streets of the Capital City and had struck an old woman from the suburb of the capital who was selling vegetables. My friend’s father, a man you could call exceptionally learned, quoted classics and historical texts during the confrontation, and actually managed to make the person in the carriage apologize to the old woman and pay her some silver," Ming Chengyu said. "At the time, this old gentleman won the praise of the passing commoners. But on his way home the next night, he was beaten and had both his legs crippled. From then on, he lost his livelihood as well."

By the time Jiang Yuchuan heard this, he already had a vague idea of what was being implied.

"So, Mr. Ming, was the person in the carriage who ran into someone a young lady from the Qin Family?"