Chapter 36: Ms. Wei
The morning passed uneventfully. As lunch break approached, Jiang Xue hurried to the rehearsal room.
As expected, Jiang Mei was already waiting there, drinking a yogurt drink and holding the empty carton, clearly brought from home.
“You don’t have to be so early,” Jiang Xue said, sitting down in front of her. “Our rehearsal is going smoothly. The daily practice is mainly to help everyone get used to the pressure of performing. After all, not everyone can be calm and collected on stage.”
“I’m used to it,” Jiang Mei said. “I don’t have anything to do at home anyway.”
Jiang Xue had only mentioned it casually. Whether or not to adjust her arrival time was her older sister’s decision. She simply replied, “Oh,” and seeing that no one else had arrived yet, couldn’t help but ask, “Sis, what exactly did you tell Sister Cheng? She called the Third Princess ‘Third Miss’ this morning!”
And from Sister Cheng’s tone, it sounded like the Third Princess crossing over was a certainty, as casual as a distant relative coming to visit.
“I told her the truth. She feels sorry for that girl.” Jiang Mei paused. “Just for this matter, I even feel like… it’s a good thing Sister Cheng believes in ghosts and spirits. It saved me the time of explaining.”
“Did you mention the possibility that she might not be able to come over?” Jiang Xue asked softly.
“Sister Cheng said, ‘Heaven will surely open its eyes and look favorably upon good children,’” Jiang Mei replied.
Jiang Xue felt a warmth in her heart and sighed with emotion, “The Shizhus of both worlds are so good to the Third Princess!”
Jiang Mei nodded but didn’t reply, instead asking, “Did you get along well with the Third Princess last night?”
She had only asked casually, but Jiang Xue flinched, even looking around nervously to make sure Xiao Luohan wasn’t nearby before moving her stool closer.
“It was fine when she was a cat, nothing happened. I just treated it like I was really hugging a cat while sleeping.”
Even so, Jiang Xue lowered her voice. “But in the middle of the night, the cat turned into a human, and I… couldn’t sleep. But after she woke up and left, I fell asleep immediately and slept until morning, almost late!”
“…” Jiang Mei gave her younger sister a meaningful look, then swallowed the “That’s not what I asked” and steered the conversation. “Did she reveal anything else?”
She knew very well that, compared to written or drawn communication, her younger sister preferred face-to-face conversations to sense the other person’s emotions. She could even, during a face-to-face meeting, use her fearless courage to get the other person to willingly open up.
Even someone as reserved as the Third Princess, driven by “gratitude,” “appreciation,” and “a sense of security,” would surely open her heart to Jiang Xue.
Mentioning serious matters, Jiang Xue immediately straightened her posture.
“Yes! A lot!” she nodded vigorously, but still kept her voice down, afraid of being overheard.
She concisely recounted Xiao Luohan’s speculation about the “connection between the red fox and her elder sister,” her voice dropping at the end. “Although I promised to investigate in the dream, I actually… have similar hopes as her mother, afraid of uncovering an unpleasant truth.”
“A female general dying in battle, her body taken by the enemy—up to this point, there’s still a possibility of a future, maybe she faked her death… I know it’s disrespectful to question a renowned general’s fate, but since the Third Princess’s elder sister was such an excellent person, anyone would imagine the possibility of her surviving, right?”
“But…” her voice became even softer.
“But the red fox appeared,” Jiang Mei finished for her. “It only appears in dreams, and everything it does is for Xiao Luohan. And almost at the same time, your diary appeared beside Xiao Luohan, and you two made contact across time and space.”
At this point, both sisters fell into deep thought.
“…Sis, you’ve read so many books, have you ever encountered a similar situation?” Jiang Xue asked. “I feel like this kind of plot is common in web novels and anime, but I can’t think of any specific examples right now.”
“There are similar settings in certain genres,” Jiang Mei nodded. “Take ‘transmigration into novels’ as an example. Each book is a small world, and the Transmigration Bureau, which manages the ‘systems’ and ‘transmigrators,’ is the ‘observer’ outside these small worlds.”
“Usually, the ‘observer’ is an outsider, and the ‘transmigrator’ and ‘system’ are the participants. But some observers, because of their unconscionable actions, are eventually overthrown by the transmigrators. However, before that, the ‘participants’ need to ‘exit’ the game to reach the dimension where the ‘observers’ are.”
Jiang Xue listened attentively to her example and understood her sister’s meaning. Resting her chin on her hand, she continued using her sister’s terminology, “Usually, the easiest way to ‘exit’ the game is death, the so-called ‘breaking the game by dying,’ right?”
She paused. “However, I think the Third Princess’s elder sister was forced to exit—she died in battle. According to the Third Princess’s ‘earthbound spirit’ hypothesis, perhaps when she returned during her ‘seventh day,’ she saw the dark future her younger sister was facing, her obsession deepened, and she happened to seize some opportunity, so… that’s what led to the transtemporal communication between us.”
“You’re here early too?”
Just as Jiang Mei was about to reply, she heard Dan Yuanyuan’s voice from the doorway. Looking up, she saw the young woman struggling to drag a large, bulging bag through the door.
“The costumes are here!” Dan Yuanyuan stood at the door, hands on her hips, catching her breath.
“Why didn’t you tell A-Xi and me?” Jiang Xue immediately went over. “It looks so heavy!”
Dan Yuanyuan chuckled. “I wanted to surprise you! It’s Friday, and I checked the weather forecast. It’s going to be sunny for the next two days! We can wash and dry the costumes, and then we can rehearse in them next week~”
Jiang Xue helped Dan Yuanyuan drag the clothes into the classroom, gesturing to Jiang Mei, “We’ll talk later.”
Jiang Mei understood.
Lunch break was about to start, and the other students would be arriving soon. The topic they were discussing required time to explain, so they would put it aside for now.
However, the rehearsal didn’t progress as quickly as she had expected.
Seeing the new costumes, everyone excitedly tried them on.
Although the group dance costumes were all the same, everyone had voted on them together, and Xie Xitong had generously paid for the set they liked the most.
When the shop owner received the order, she couldn’t believe that the costumes were only for a single performance at the New Year’s Eve gala.
“Remember to take the headbands too! Don’t forget to wash them when you get home—” Xie Xitong said, holding up the headbands.
Jiang Xue also received her costume, or rather, the one that had belonged to the girl who had been slacking off.
As she held the costume up to herself, she took the opportunity, while no one was paying attention, to quietly go to the door and peek through the peephole.
…No Third Princess.
The Third Princess was currently on her period, feeling weak and sleepy. Her schedule had probably changed temporarily, so she hadn’t come over in a dream during lunch break, right?
At the same time, in Wangmei Pavilion.
Xiao Luohan was drawing at her desk.
She had promised Jiang Xue that she would tell her about her past over the weekend. Having dreamed of her mother last night, she recalled a few more things from the past. After waking up and hurriedly washing up and eating, she started adding to her drawings.
While drawing, she unwrapped a milk candy and put it in her mouth, letting it slowly melt as her thoughts drifted back to the past.
Among the hardships she had endured with her mother, there were also sweet moments.
Her mother’s maiden name was Wei. When she was a little older, her mother had personally taught her the entire poem Cai Wei. Sitting on her mother’s lap, she had innocently asked, “Why is half of this poem about ‘gathering vetch’? Is vetch that delicious? So delicious that you even have it in your name.”
“It’s quite tasty, but you can’t eat it raw, it’s slightly poisonous,” her mother explained with a smile. “Xiao Luo, do you want to try it?”
She curiously nodded, and that afternoon, her mother took her hand and led her to the small garden in a corner of the courtyard to gather vetch.
It was a warm spring day. The vetch grew in clusters, its leaves covered with dew, fresh and beautiful.
“Gathering vetch, gathering vetch…” she murmured, reciting the poem as she pulled on a vetch plant with small leaves and purple flowers, pulling it out by the roots, along with the soil.
“Oh dear, so rough, we won’t be able to eat the vetch again.” Her mother took the vetch from her, expertly replanted it, and only picked a portion, placing it in the basket.
“How do we eat it?”
“Wrap it in flour and steam it, or pan-fry it,” her mother replied. “If that’s too much trouble, just stir-fry it with lard.”
Despite saying this, that day, there was a plate of stir-fried vetch with lard on the table, and another plate of golden-brown vetch pancakes.
As Xiao Luohan’s thoughts wandered, her hand moved swiftly.
Drawings of her and her mother gathering vetch, and of the dishes made with vetch, quickly appeared on the paper.
After finishing the last drawing, she put down her brush and thought for a long time, then spread out another sheet of xuan paper and drew her mother as she remembered her.
Since she was going to tell her story, she should let Jiang Xue see her mother and elder sister…
At this thought, she paused and hurriedly looked at the digital watch.
Oh no! Engrossed in drawing, she had missed rehearsal time!
Even if she lay down immediately, she might not be able to enter the dream before lunch break ended.
Realizing this, Xiao Luohan sighed softly, unwrapped a fruit candy, and started crunching on it, letting the slight noise distract her.
A rich fruity flavor filled her mouth. This time, it was blueberry. The blueberry-shaped candy, the size of her fingernail, was easy to eat, reminding her of the dark pink wild berries she had eaten as a child.
Savoring the fruit candy, she calmed down again, dipped her brush in ink, and started sketching her mother’s face.
Every Friday after school, Jiang Xue would return to her family’s villa in the “Fragrant Courtyard” community.
Today, as soon as she entered the gate, she saw a figure busy in the small vegetable garden in the courtyard, seemingly picking vegetables.
“Mommy!” she called out, rushing inside to put down her backpack, entrusting the diary to her older sister, who was on vacation, then rushing back out, sleeves rolled up and scissors in hand. “Are we having shepherd’s purse dumplings?!”
She remembered that the patch was full of wild vegetables. Ms. Wei and Ms. Jiang would always bring some back when they went out to “connect with nature.”
Later, they simply planted the wild vegetables in their yard, so they could pick them whenever they wanted. Even if left unattended, the wild vegetables would grow vigorously.
“I’d like to make dumplings, but your Jiang Mommy thinks there isn’t enough shepherd’s purse for a whole family’s worth of dumplings, so she’s planning to make shepherd’s purse and tofu soup.” Ms. Wei snipped a shepherd’s purse plant and placed it in the small basket beside her. “Okay, this is enough. You came back just in time. Sister Cheng is very good at picking shepherd’s purse!”
So Jiang Xue, holding the clean scissors and the full basket, returned to the house to find Sister Cheng.
After handing over the basket and going upstairs to find her older sister, she found Jiang Mei frowning at a drawing.
“Did the Third Princess send another drawing?” Jiang Xue leaned in for a closer look and froze. “I-Isn’t this Wei Mommy? But I didn’t hear her say she saw Wei Mommy in a dream!”
“…This is her mother,” Jiang Mei pointed to the words at the bottom of the drawing.
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