Lanyin stared blankly at Qi Yubai, who had appeared behind her. She seemed momentarily unresponsive. It wasn’t until she met his deep, ink-like phoenix eyes again and held his gaze for a while that the dazed light in her eyes finally gathered back into focus.
“How can this be allowed?” she asked after snapping back to her senses.
Although playing leaf cards wasn’t like chess, which had the saying “a true gentleman remains silent when observing a game,” there was still no precedent for calling in outside help.
She was just about to declare the round invalid and prepare to pay up, accepting her loss, when Old Madam Qi chuckled and spoke first. “It’s fine. We’re all family playing for fun; there’s no need for so many rules.” Seeing Lanyin frown, she smiled again. “I only just realized that you truly don’t know how to play. If I had known earlier, I wouldn’t have suggested this game. Now that Grandmother Qi has won so much money from you, even she doesn’t feel at ease. Let Yubai teach you first. We can’t just keep winning; it would be too unfair to you.”
Both Nanny Wei and Qiuran chimed in to support this.
Seeing Lanyin still looking hesitant, Old Madam Qi added, “At worst, we won’t count the money for these few rounds.”
“This…”
Lanyin was tempted.
Just at that moment, a voice sounded beside her—Qi Yubai’s.
“Don’t you want to win?”
It was as if she had been bewitched. A competitive spirit that rarely surfaced within her was completely ignited. She looked up—he was standing right beside her, slightly lowering his head to gaze at her with calm eyes.
Looking into those eyes, Lanyin suddenly didn’t want to refuse anymore.
Under his gaze, she nodded lightly. “…I do.”
Qi Yubai said no more.
A chair was brought over, and he sat down beside her.
He didn’t deliberately sit too close. His position was just right—neither making Lanyin feel intruded upon nor giving her any pressure.
The game resumed, continuing from the two cards Qi Yubai had played earlier. Nanny Wei and Qiuran glanced at their hands but didn’t take the cards. Old Madam Qi, however, followed up with two of her own. When it was Lanyin’s turn again, she looked at the cards Old Madam Qi had discarded, then at her own hand, and instinctively turned to her newfound support.
Qi Yubai met her gaze but didn’t immediately play for her. Instead, he said, “Leaf cards have four suits, numbered one to nine. Look at the table first and see if you can deduce anything.”
Lanyin knew that card games involved calculations.
But every time she got her cards, she was already at a loss. Worried about making others wait, how could she possibly take the time to figure out the patterns? Yet, for some reason, listening to Qi Yubai now—perhaps because his voice and demeanor were so calm—she actually followed his suggestion, forcing herself to focus and examine the cards on the table.
Unlike the previous chaos in her mind, this time, it felt as if a cool spring had been poured over her during a scorching summer, clearing her thoughts considerably.
Lanyin more or less figured out which two cards she should discard. However, since she had lost so much earlier, she was still hesitant. Instead of playing immediately, she turned to Qi Yubai again, pointed at two cards, and softly asked, “Are these two okay?”
She had no idea how soft she was at that moment.
Her voice was soft, her expression gentle. Especially since she had deliberately lowered her volume, making it so only Qi Yubai could hear her. The sound landed in his ears, making them tingle…
Qi Yubai suddenly felt like he was about to crush the string of Buddhist prayer beads in his hand.
Under her expectant gaze, he gave a slight nod. When Lanyin turned back with an expression of delight and discarded her cards, he, on the other hand, seemed to be suppressing something. Lowering his eyes, he picked up the teacup beside him and took a sip. His Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed, and as the bitterness and faint fragrance spread across his tongue, he finally managed to calm himself down a little.
With this beginning, Lanyin was no longer as hesitant about playing.
Unsurprisingly, she won the round.
Looking at the pile of silver coins pushed toward her, Lanyin, for once, smiled with childlike delight. Thinking that this victory was thanks to Qi Yubai, she couldn’t help but share her joy with him.
“This is my first time being the banker.”
Only the winner can be the dealer, and she thought she would never get the chance to do it even once.
Qi Yubai looked at the smile on her face and the rare childlike demeanor, his thick, dark eyebrows also carrying a hint of a smile.
Under the bright, sunny sky, his deep black phoenix eyes seemed to shatter all the sunlight, shimmering with a gentle, radiant glow. This fell into Lanyin’s eyes, causing her heart, which had just experienced fluctuations, to be lightly struck once again.
The calm surface of the lake rippled once more, and her hand, which had been sorting the cards, suddenly paused.
“What’s wrong?”
Only when Qi Yubai’s inquiry reached her ears did Lanyin snap out of her reverie. She shook her head with a smile, “It’s nothing.” As she spoke, she averted her gaze and continued to tidy the cards on the table, her eyelashes drooping like crow’s wings. No one knew what she was thinking.
Only Lanyin herself understood what those two involuntary heartbeats were about.
She was not a naive young girl who had never experienced emotions. Of course, she knew that those two moments earlier were instances of her heart fluttering.
No one could resist such a Qi Yubai.
She… couldn’t either.
Thinking back to the words spoken by those women who admired Qi Yubai at the banquet, Lanyin had once found them absurd and laughable. To choose to shorten one’s life for the favor of a man, why bother? But now… such a cold and aloof man, watching him treat you well, smile at you, handle affairs for you, and care for you.
If a deity were to bow to you, could you truly remain unmoved?
This phrase echoed in her mind once more, and Lanyin gently pursed her lips. The question she had no answer to before now finally had one.
How could she not be moved?
She wasn’t truly a desireless, detached Guanyin. Being drawn to such a Qi Yubai was entirely natural.
Lanyin didn’t feel ashamed of this fluttering of her heart, nor would she act on it. A fleeting attraction was just that—fleeting. In one’s lifetime, one would feel drawn to many things and many people, but few could truly be together and walk the long path side by side. Moreover, she had long passed the age where a mere attraction necessitated being together.
Beautiful things are best appreciated from a distance; there’s no need to make them belong to oneself.
She didn’t want him to belong to her either.
Qi Yubai was too good, so good that even feeling a flutter of her heart for him felt like a disservice to him.
Fortunately.
She had always been able to guard her heart.
Even if there had been a brief moment of infatuation, she wouldn’t let anyone detect the slightest hint of it.
She was so calm and rational, so rational that even someone as astute as Qi Yubai couldn’t immediately decipher her inner thoughts at that moment.
They played a few more rounds.
From initially needing Qi Yubai’s guidance, Lanyin eventually became capable of winning on her own. It wasn’t until a servant came to inform them that the zongzi were steamed and ready to eat that Lanyin realized she had amassed a small fortune in front of her. While playing, she hadn’t noticed, but now she realized she had strayed from her original intention of making the old lady happy. Looking at the small pile of winnings before her, she felt a bit uneasy.
However, Old Lady Qi wasn’t the least bit displeased. On the contrary, she was delighted.
With a smile, she pushed the cards in her hand onto the table and looked at Lanyin, saying, “It’s been a long time since I’ve been this happy.”
She instructed her maid to collect Lanyin’s winnings for her, then took Lanyin’s arm and walked with her toward the dining table, continuing to chat warmly, “Now that you’ve learned, we’ll find time to play together again in the future.”
“It’s all thanks to Brother Yubai, otherwise I would have surely lost,” Lanyin said softly.
She didn’t distance herself from Qi Yubai because of her fleeting infatuation. She remained as she always had been, though the slight unease about winning money was eased by the old lady’s words. She didn’t say anything at the moment, but in her heart, she planned to return the winnings to the three of them in some other way later.
Especially to Nanny Wei and Qiuran. Although the amount wasn’t much, it was still their personal savings. Since they had only been playing to keep her company, she couldn’t let them lose out.
“He’s always been clever in these matters,” Old Lady Qi said, even sharing an anecdote about Qi Yubai with Lanyin. “That year, when he came to Bianjing for the imperial examination, his travel funds were stolen. He’s always been a solitary person, so he didn’t have any close companions among those traveling with him.”
Hearing this, Lanyin frowned. “What happened to Brother Yubai afterward?”
Old Lady Qi smiled at the concern on Lanyin’s face but didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she looked at Qi Yubai, who was across the table peeling zongzi for them. “Can I tell her?” she asked Qi Yubai.
Qi Yubai knew she was doing this on purpose and sighed slightly, looking up. “If I said no, would you still not tell her?”
“Of course not,” Old Lady Qi replied matter-of-factly, her eyebrows raised.
Lanyin, hearing this, thought it might be a private matter and was about to speak when Qi Yubai interjected, “Go ahead and tell her.” He then glanced at Lanyin. “It’s nothing that can’t be shared.”
As he spoke, he handed a portion of lean meat and egg yolk zongzi to Old Lady Qi and a portion of red bean and honey date zongzi to Lanyin.
Lanyin looked at the zongzi in front of her, surprised that Qi Yubai had immediately picked out the sweet one she liked. As she was still processing this, Old Lady Qi’s voice reached her ears again, “He borrowed three coins from the innkeeper, went to the gambling house, won ten taels of silver—enough to sustain him in Bianjing until the end of the imperial exams—and then left.”
“I don’t know who taught him that.”
“Later, I asked him why he didn’t win more since he had the skill. Do you know what he told me?” Old Lady Qi looked at Lanyin with a smile. “He said, ‘A gentleman takes only what is rightfully his. Once it’s enough, he should stop. Otherwise, he’ll lose his original intentions and ruin what he truly wanted in the first place.’”
Lanyin looked at the young man across from her. She never expected Qi Yubai to have such skills, nor did she expect him to have such profound insight at such a young age.
Qi Yubai, being stared at like this, felt uncharacteristically uneasy. He coughed lightly and said, “It was a desperate situation. I only went that one time.”
Hearing this, Lanyin couldn’t help but let a smile curve her lips. She imagined him at seventeen or eighteen, a time when even a hero could be brought to his knees by a single coin. Yet, he remained calm and composed, knowing exactly how to solve his urgent problem. Lanyin’s eyes softened, and she couldn’t help but wonder what Qi Yubai had been like back then.
What kind of person was Qi Yubai at that time?
What would he have looked like?
“What’s wrong?”
She had been staring for too long, and Qi Yubai couldn’t help but ask.
Hearing his voice, Lanyin snapped out of her thoughts. Under the young man’s gaze, she smiled and shook her head, “Nothing.” After speaking softly, she averted her eyes, not letting a trace of her emotions show.
Qi Yubai, sitting across from her, watched her for a moment before lowering his gaze and picking up a plain glutinous rice zongzi, dipping it in soy sauce and eating it slowly.
Zongzi, after all, are not easy to digest.
Seeing that Old Lady Qi had already finished a whole meat zongzi and was about to reach for a honey date one, Qi Yubai’s brows furrowed slightly. He spoke up to stop her, “You’ve already had one. You can’t have any more.”
But Old Lady Qi had always loved these glutinous rice dishes. Usually, Qi Yubai was strict and didn’t allow the kitchen to make such hard-to-digest foods for her. Only on the Dragon Boat Festival could she indulge in them. Having waited an entire year for this moment, she had just begun to savor the taste and naturally wasn’t willing to stop at just one. She tried to negotiate with Qi Yubai, “Let me have just a little more, just a little.”
At this moment, she was like a child, her tone even carrying a hint of pleading for the sake of a bite to eat.
Yet Qi Yubai remained firm, his brows still furrowed. “Have you forgotten what happened last year during the Dragon Boat Festival when you ate three zongzi in a row and had to call the doctor afterward?”
Old Lady Qi, hearing him bring up the past, also grew a bit displeased. “You’re just like your grandfather! He always loved to control what I ate and drank, and now that he’s gone, you’re doing the same!”
Qi Yubai frowned.
He opened his mouth to comfort the old lady, but if he spoke, she would surely seize the opportunity to demand another zongzi. He pondered how to dissuade her without upsetting her, so for a moment, he remained silent.
Since he didn’t speak, the other servants of the Qi household naturally didn’t dare to speak either.
If Nanny Wei or Yanhuan had been present, it might have been different, but Yanhuan had gone home today, and Nanny Wei had gone to the kitchen earlier. Now, only Qiuran and the others were left. They glanced back and forth between Old Lady Qi and Qi Yubai, unsure whom to persuade.