Phoenix’s face was pale as she walked out of the room, looking dispirited.
When crossing the threshold, she accidentally tripped and nearly fell.
Li Nuo almost spit out his tea.
Hilarious.
She still wanted to teach his wife to play the instrument, did she think she had never tried?
Some things cannot be forced, his wife was not destined to be talented in her lifetime, and Li Nuo had long accepted this reality.
She had her own track.
At the Song Residence entrance.
Phoenix got onto the carriage, a slight smile appearing on her lips.
Nightingale complained, "She clearly doesn’t care about you anymore, and yet you can still smile at a time like this?"
With a light smile, Phoenix said, "What do you know, being angry means she cares, if she didn’t care at all, that would be the worst outcome..."
Nightingale bluntly asked, "So what do you plan to do next?"
Phoenix responded, "I’ve made arrangements with his wife that I’ll come over to teach her flower arranging whenever she’s free."
Yuan Yang laughed and said, "I see, this is the military tactic of detour from the art of war, if you can’t confront directly, then avoid their sharpness and outflank them..."
Phoenix felt helpless in her heart too.
She wanted to confront directly.
But they simply didn’t give her a chance to do so.
She was left with no choice but to resort to this last measure.
It was truly a last resort.
Teaching his wife these things was even harder than death.
And yet, she had to pretend not to care.
But the fault was hers initially, no matter how hard it was, she had to grit her teeth and bear it.
Li Nuo thought that Phoenix would be persuaded by his wife after one lesson and would give up on teaching her.
Unexpectedly, the next afternoon when he returned from the Ministry of Justice, he saw Phoenix at home again.
She truly bore the unbearable and taught the unteachable.
In a place like Chang’an, running a small Music Workshop into what it was now required extraordinary skills.
Today, Li Nuo had scheduled lessons for several old masters, by the time they finished, Phoenix had already left.
On the table in the room, there were two vases of flower arrangements.
One vase was arranged with varied heights, dense and sparse in just the right places, displaying both motion and stillness, both stateliness and harmony.
Li Nuo could even sense from this vase the florist’s faint sadness.
The other vase.
It could also be counted as a vase of flowers.
Song Jiaren was sitting by the table, looking up at Li Nuo with some expectation and asked, "Can you tell which vase of flowers I arranged?"
Li Nuo was silent for a moment, then said, "I... can’t tell."
He seldom lied in front of his wife.
But sometimes, a little white lie didn’t hurt.
A moment later, he casually mentioned, "Actually, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to learn all these confounding things..."
Song Jiaren said, "But I really like it..."
Li Nuo didn’t say anything more.
After all, there was no law specifying that one with high Martial Path talent couldn’t enjoy playing musical instruments, painting, or flower arranging...
Li Nuo thought Phoenix might persist for two or three days, but she actually continued for a whole half a month.
Even Li Nuo had to admit.
This woman was really cruel to herself.
This wasn’t teaching, this was clearly atonement.
His wife and Mumu had accompanied the Old Lady out and had not yet returned.
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Phoenix was waiting in the room.
Li Nuo was engrossed in reading a book, and at one point, feeling thirsty, he was just about to take a cup when Phoenix immediately came over, ready to pour him some tea.
Li Nuo moved the cup away, saying, "I can do it myself, I don’t want to trouble Miss Phoenix."
Although Chang’an had selected twenty Oiran, beyond these twenty was an uncrowned king.
Jade Sound Pavilion had two among the top Oiran.
Yet most of the visitors to Jade Sound Pavilion came specifically for Phoenix.
Seeing her once cost fifty taels, listening to her play music one hundred taels, drinking a cup of tea she personally poured at least two hundred taels.
Such expensive tea, he simply couldn’t afford.
Li Nuo poured himself a cup of tea and read for a while, then suddenly realized it had been quiet in the room for a long time.
He glanced over and saw Phoenix standing by his side, tears dripping down.
Her face, meticulously made up, was now smeared, and when she wiped her tears, they smeared further, her face which could normally enchant the masses was now a chaotic, desecrated beauty.
Li Nuo immediately stood up and kept a distance from her, saying, "Please don’t cry, I haven’t done anything to you..."
His wife would be back soon, he didn’t want any misunderstandings.
Phoenix not only did not stop, but she cried even louder, crouching down with her head buried in her knees, sobbing, "It’s all my fault, those rumors, I had people spread them, Jade Sound Pavilion stole the business from those brothels, they threatened us, saying if Jade Sound Pavilion didn’t move, we’d have nowhere to bury even if we died, we’re just some weak women, with no support in Chang’an, and no background, I, I had no other choice..."
She cried deeply, her entire body trembling.
Li Nuo said helplessly, "Could you please stop crying for now..."
Phoenix raised her head, her face tear-streaked, and asked, "Then, can you forgive me?"
Indeed, what Phoenix had done was not honorable.
However, Li Nuo had his less respectable moments with them.
Imagine being in their shoes; if he had been a phoenix facing this situation, he likely wouldn’t have had a better way to handle it.
Furthermore, her attitude in expressing remorse seemed sincere; she had been taking great care of my wife these past days.
Teaching her the art of flower arrangement and playing the zither.
The latter especially.
Even Li Nuo felt at times he was being too cruel to her.
But Li Nuo didn’t agree immediately.
A wife is a wife, and he is he; if he forgave her too easily, she might dare to do it again.
Li Nuo helped her up and said, "It depends on how you behave in the future..."
Song Jiaren walked into the room, looked around, then turned and glanced at the yard, asking, "Hasn’t Phoenix come today?"
Li Nuo replied, "She was here earlier, but you were not home, so she left."
"Oh."
Song Jiaren acknowledged and sat down opposite Li Nuo.
Li Nuo glanced at his wife and suddenly asked, "What do you think of Phoenix?"
Song Jiaren said, "She’s quite impressive."
It was genuine praise from the heart.
She knew how to play the zither, dance, understand calligraphy, paint, and even arrange flowers—things Song Jiaren herself could not do and envied.
She looked at Li Nuo and asked, "You seem... not to like Lady Phoenix very much."
Despite the bizarre rumors outside, in her memory, it seemed he had never been warm towards Lady Phoenix from the beginning,
especially these past two weeks.
She distinctly felt that his attitude towards Lady Phoenix was quite poor.
Whenever Lady Phoenix spoke to him, he always seemed indifferent.
Even unwilling to spare her another glance.
Li Nuo looked at Song Jiaren and countered, "Should I like Lady Phoenix?"
Song Jiaren said nothing more.
It seemed like he genuinely wasn’t interested in the things he liked.
But he himself could excel at them.
Is this what smart people are like?
Now, in the Jade Sound Pavilion.
The makeup carefully prepared back at the Song Residence had been cried away.
Phoenix sat in front of the mirror, touching up her makeup with a faint smile on her face.
Nightingale stood beside her and asked, "Did he forgive you?"
Phoenix said, "No."
Nightingale gave her a look, "And you’re still so happy?"
Phoenix cheerfully said, "But he talked to me."
Nightingale asked, "What did he say?"
A smile spread across Phoenix’s face as she said, "He said whether he forgives me depends on my future behavior. His willingness to say that shows he has already decided to forgive me. As long as I perform a bit better from now on, I can return to how things were before..."
Nightingale, eyeing the meek Phoenix with skepticism, muttered, "Didn’t you say you could manipulate all the men in the world, and handle frivolous young men with ease? It seems to me that you’re the one being manipulated. Initially, you said let Young Master Li be hopelessly enchanted by you, but it feels like you fell in first."
"I, how could I?" Phoenix chuckled, saying, "It’s just that, indeed, I was wrong in this matter. Had I known, I would not have taken initiativery but told him the truth..."
Nightingale struck a painful chord, saying, "You just didn’t expect him to hold absolutely no interest in you, right?"
Phoenix annoyed, snapped, "Must you always speak the harsh truth!"
Since the month entered winter, the weather was getting colder.
Wife practiced a cold attribute Cultivation Technique, so she naturally did not fear the cold, but Li Nuo covering himself with one blanket at night, already felt it was not enough; last night, he even woke up cold once.
Yesterday’s snowfall signified the true arrival of winter.
This morning, Song Residence’s maid took down two thin blankets and exchanged them for a thick winter quilt.
Neither Li Nuo nor Song Jiaren said anything. When they went out skiing with Mumu, they saw a store promoting winter quilts on sale, Li Nuo pretended not to see, and Song Jiaren did not mention it.
After spending most of the day playing with Mumu, the three returned to the Song Residence.
Li Nuo entered the room and saw two winter quilts on the bed.
He turned and looked at the maid cleaning the yard., asking, "Xiaodie, who brought the extra quilt?"
The maid turned around and said, "I don’t know, when I came, there were already two quilts there, maybe the Old Lady worried that Master and Miss would be cold and had someone send another..."
"Got it, you don’t need to clean here anymore, go do something else."
"But I haven’t finished..."
"There’s no but, go."
"Oh, then I’m going..."
Watching Xiaodie leave, Li Nuo looked around and picked up a quilt, walking into the inner room.
When he came back, his hands were empty.
Night.
With only one quilt, the two had to share it again tonight.
Outside, a heavy snow like a blanket, Li Nuo under a thick quilt, beside him his fragrant wife. He closed his eyes, thinking to himself, "It’s really warm..."
The cold wind howled. At another small courtyard in the Song Residence, a woman curled up on a bed without a blanket, could only circulate her True Qi to resist the cold, gritting her teeth, "This damn weather, so cold..."