The cicadas of early summer had just begun to hum in the willow tips when Lu Jingyuan sent a reply. On the paper, the eight characters "At the third quarter of the Youshi hour, a painted boat will await you" were written with such force they seemed to pierce the back of the sheet, and at the end was pressed a single jasmine blossom—the very same one Jiang Wan had tucked into his lapel the day before. Lüluo held the letter and giggled, saying, "My lady, Heir Lu's handwriting gets more and more like a marching dispatch, even more urgent than last year's battle report."
Jiang Wan smiled softly, placing the letter into her vanity case while her fingertips brushed against the petals, which had been pressed as thin as cicada wings. Ever since the incident at the side courtyard, though Lu Jingyuan was often busy with military affairs and rarely visited the Marquis's Mansion, he sent someone every day with little trinkets: honeyed fruits sent as tribute from the Western Regions, newly made rouge from Jiangnan, and even a grasshopper he had woven himself. Gazing at the slight curve of her own smile in the mirror, she suddenly understood that the words "fondness for another" could feel so deeply comforting.
At the third quarter of the Youshi hour, by the Moat, a painted boat waited. Jiang Wan was dressed in a pale green ru skirt with a plain white gauze outer garment, a bamboo-joint hairpin slanted against her temples. As she stepped onto the deck, she saw Lu Jingyuan dressed in deep…
Chapter 101