After rebirth, she became the favorite of the powerful minister.

Spring came late to Zhixuan Mountain this year.

On a sunny morning in early February, a lingering chill still hung in the air.

After waking up from his drunken stupor that night, Yuan Ge acted as if nothing had happened. He ate and drank as usual, and even smiled when talking to people. That forlorn and lonely smile kept all concern at bay.

She said she was fine, and after saying that, she still smiled to prove that she was really "fine." But the smile vanished in an instant, and she turned around and went into the study in the medicine garden, locking herself inside day after day. Lin Mu would refuse to let anyone who came.

Feng Qingtan hasn't returned to the herb garden for the past few days, just like an unspoken understanding between the master and disciple, which makes others anxious.

During the day, Xu Chengjin helped Yuan Ge in the herb garden, but every night he would run to Song Wenyuan with a long sigh and get straight to the point, asking him to coax the master and disciple who seemed to be destined to never see each other again.

“They’re both stubborn,” Young Master Xu summarized. “Usually, it’s only the old man and the young woman who team up to bully people, but now, they’re at each other’s throats. You don’t know how many times I’ve tried to reason with her these past few days, I’ve practically worn my lips out, but her temper is as hard and stubborn as a rock in a latrine… I can’t persuade her, I just can’t persuade her…”

Song Wenyuan asked him, "Is she alright?"

Xu Chengjin rolled his eyes. "How could it possibly be okay?"

Yes, how could she possibly be alright? But every time he went back, the girl said "I'm fine," even if her expression was so forced that even a fool wouldn't believe it, she insisted that she was "fine," "just a little busy," and so on. He didn't want her to force a smile when she was clearly sad, so he tried not to bother her, only instructing Lin Mu and Jian Shu to take good care of her.

"Yes, that's certainly a stubborn and obnoxious personality," Song Wenyuan said.

Two smelly and hard stones are colliding with each other, and bystanders can't help at all. In fact, if they are not careful, they might even get hit on the head and bleed.

In the end, the situation will only ease if one party takes the initiative to concede.

It was a night without stars or moon.

The thin clouds, like unfolded cotton wool, obscured the moon, yet soft light shone through, illuminating the strange and exotic herbs in the garden. No lights were lit in the courtyard; the entire garden was quiet and empty, save for a sliver of light coming from the study, casting two shadowy figures, one sitting and one standing, on the window.

Feng Qingtan stared at one of the figures for a long time before walking over with his hands behind his back. In just a few days, his back had become increasingly hunched, and he would unconsciously walk with his hands behind his back. He looked so old that even he himself couldn't bear to look at himself.

"Ge'er," he called as he stopped at the doorway.

There was no response from inside, but footsteps could be heard. After a short while, the door opened, and Jian Shu bowed and invited him in. Then, he considerately closed the door and left.

In the warm orange candlelight, the little girl was buried in a pile of ancient books that even Feng Qingtan herself could hardly name. She didn't look up or speak. Only one side of her face was visible, taut with tension. That was how she looked when she was angry, silently arguing with others and with herself.

Feng Qingtan slowly lowered his hands from behind his back, walked over and sat down beside her. He picked up a book and flipped through it before tentatively saying, "I ate a bit too much for dinner and have some indigestion, so I came out for a walk. I didn't expect to end up here. It's still early, so why don't I tell you a story?"

Yuan Ge raised his eyes briefly, then quickly looked them away. In that single glance, he had already secretly sized up Feng Qingtan from head to toe before saying, "I have other matters to attend to here. If Master has indigestion, a walk in the courtyard will suffice. Jian Shu is outside; let her accompany you." The implication was clear: tell her your story.

Then there was silence.

The two people, who were usually very close and cared deeply about each other's health and safety, looked slightly awkward with their deliberately serious expressions.

Feng Qingtan put down the book in her hand helplessly after a long while, unable to focus on a single word. She looked at Yuan Ge, who clearly hadn't turned a page either, and slowly uttered a name, "Murong Zhen, your maternal grandfather." Her voice was soft and her pronunciation was clear.

Yuan Ge suddenly looked up. The name "Murong" was extremely sensitive to her, but when her gaze fell on the increasingly unpleasant expression on the face opposite her, she frowned slightly but remained silent. Xu Chengjin had been trying to reason with her every day, trying to persuade her not to stoop to the teacher's level, but little did Xu Chengjin know that she was actually holding a grudge against herself. Aside from those things she had been forced to forget, she hadn't really suffered much in her life, which led to her hurting both herself and others this time.

Unable to overcome her inner turmoil, she could only grapple with herself, determined to find a way to detoxify her mentor, even if it meant searching through every medical book in the world. Compared to that, her grandfather's name didn't matter as much for the time being.

Feng Qingtan, however, was determined to take advantage of the atmosphere tonight to get some old stories out of her head. "Your maternal grandmother's name was Wanyu, Yu Wanyu, but later everyone just called her the First Madam, so I suppose not many people remember that name anymore... I was an old acquaintance of hers. In my younger days, she was the eldest daughter of a century-old scholarly family, the apple of her eye, while I was just a wild boy from a fallen family, so I consciously suppressed my few feelings for her. Later, she married into the Murong family... In terms of family background, the Murong family was marrying above their station."

"A year later she gave birth to a son, the eldest son of the Murong family in that generation."

Yuan Ge was slightly taken aback. Wasn't it said that...?

Feng Qingtan nodded. "Yes, fate is cruel. She caught a cold when she was two years old and couldn't be saved. After that incident, Murong Zhen developed a grudge against her. Murong Zhen blamed her for not being able to take good care of a child, and she felt the same way. In addition, she was naturally soft-hearted and easily bullied, so gradually even the servants stopped respecting her. I didn't know about these things at first. After she went to the Murong family, I lost contact with her until that chance encounter when I met her at the pharmacy in Anshi."

"At that time, she was already emaciated and no longer looked like she used to be. If the servants hadn't called her, I wouldn't have recognized her. I asked her and learned that she was suffering from insomnia because of her youngest daughter who had run away from home and her eldest daughter who was about to marry far away to Zhixuan Mountain. She couldn't sleep at night even after taking calming medicine, and she also had to burn calming incense to fall asleep. Even so, she would often wake up in the middle of the night and silently shed tears."

Grandma?

For Yu Yuange, it was an extremely unfamiliar title. She subconsciously stroked the spine of the book in her hand and said softly, "No one has ever mentioned maternal grandmother to me, not even my mother... Is the eldest wife of the Murong family really unable to make decisions about her own daughter's marriage?" If she was unwilling, why didn't she stop it? Even if she couldn't change Murong Zhen's decision, secretly sending her daughter out of Anshi wouldn't be out of the question, especially since she had never received a single letter from her maternal grandmother in all these years.

Without a single word of concern, Yuan Ge simply couldn't empathize with this grandmother he had never met.