Marriage of the Di Daughter

Uh, I forgot to mention, some of the 10 guqin songs mentioned are actual, real pieces and can be found in YouTube. If interested, here the raw, just copy it onto YouTube to search.
Fishermen’s Song:  渔舟唱晚  , The Spring Snow:  阳春白雪  ,  Wild Geese on the Shoal:  平沙落雁  ,  Three Stanzas of Plum-Blossoms:  梅花三弄

Jiang Jing Rui’s face was black like the bottom of a pot. Though he was unsure in his heart, he was still very dissatisfied hearing others talk about Jiang Li like such. He said with anger: “Don’t you guys have eyes? Take a look, won’t you find out soon?”

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“Just take a look.” The youngsters replied while grinning.

They were still talking noisily and didn’t discover the sight of Ningyuan Marquis’s heir that was sitting next to them had been glued to Jiang Li on the stage, for a long time unwilling to leave. 

Jiang Li burned incense and bathed her hands.

When she first started learning to play the qin, she didn’t know that she had to burn incense and bathe her hand. Incenses were precious things, only used by those rich families. Tongxiang was poor, at that time, Xue Huaiyuan’s official salary wasn’t enough, let alone mentioning a slightly good guqin. Xue Huaiyuan carved a piece of wood to make a guqin for her. That guqin was Jiang Li’s first qin when she started, when plucked, the tone was rough and unclear. After Jiang Li learned to play the qin, she wasn’t willing to use it anymore.

Her second guqin was a trophy from a competition between Xue Zhao and another person. At that time, Xue Zhao was provoked by someone whose family business was flourishing. Furthermore, they had a pretty good guqin. Xue Zhao knew that in her heart, she longed for a good guqin. Beating someone at their own game, he set up a gamble with the other person and if that person lost, he had to give him the guqin. 

For the Xue family, that guqin was worth a lot of money, but to the other party, it didn’t count as anything. Jiang Li could still remember that day, Xue Zhao ran through the door full of joy, then placed the guqin he was carrying on his back onto the table. He proudly said to her: “Sis, give you this guqin!” 

Afterwards, that guqin followed her for a very long time.

She used that guqin to play《Fishermen’s song》，also《The Spring Snow》，《Wild Geese on the Shoal》，and《Three Stanzas of Plum-Blossoms》.

The sword matched the hero. When she first started learning, she felt only by using a good guqin, would the ability then be first-rate. But later on, her mind became broader as there were so many exceptionally good guqin in the world. There would always be good guqin, but a good guqin player wasn’t always necessarily available. 

Such a pity…….

It’s such a pity that afterwards she married and followed Shen Yurong to Yanjing. Mother Shen told her to conduct herself as a wife and take on the heavy responsibility of the family; must not be carefree like how she was before. And that guqin was locked up in the Shen family’s storeroom to collect dust and regretfully left in the dark. 

She heard after Xue Fangfei passed away, the Shen family set fire to all Xue Fangfei’s things. It could be assumed that fully loaded with memories, full of her father and younger brother’s care and concern guqin had vanished in that fire. 

Jiang Li lowered her eyes, so strange, at this moment, she felt unexpectedly calm.

“What’s going on with her? Why hasn’t she started?” Someone saw that she was slow and didn’t make any movement then asked impatiently.

“It couldn’t be that Jiang second miss doesn’t know how to play the qin and is now just being stupid, right?”

Someone analyzed: “It’s possible, there’s no place to learn to play guqin in the nunnery.”

“If she really can’t, then it’s fine. There’s no need to insist, on the contrary making oneself be embarrassed.”

“Isn’t it for the sake of face, unable to say and instead losing a lot of face.”

“Hey hey, not moving while standing there, don’t tell me you don’t feel embarrassed?”

His ears was congested with all kinds of ridicule, satire, pity and sympathy, Ye Shijie looked at Jiang Li with anxiety. What’s the matter with Jiang Li? The last time he saw her, wasn’t she very quick-witted and could plan very quickly? Why does she look helpless now, where did all her intelligence go? With Jiang Li lingering on the examination stage and didn’t say a word, Jiang You Yao and Jiang Yu’e were both simultaneously happy. If Jiang Li didn’t do anything on this examination stage, even if she came first in the previous three exams, it still couldn’t cover up the fact that she was a joke.

Ji Shuran opened her mouth worriedly: “What happened to Li-er …….”

“It’s impossible that second sister doesn’t know how to, right?” Jiang You Yao shook her head and said to herself: “How is it possible? Second sister is the most intelligent, she got first position in the first three exams, her guqin certainly won’t be bad.”

It’s fine if she didn’t say anything, but with her saying this, it stirred up everyone’s doubt on Jiang Li’s achieving first in the previous three exams, whether she was truly worthy of the name.

Meng Hong Jin was full of joy upon seeing Jiang Li lingering on the stage without any movement. The haze that had been around for several days cleared off. She wished Jiang Li would stumble and on the examination stage, the more embarrassing, the better.  

Even Xiao Deyin who was off the stage, frowned and hinted to the young boy to step forward and remind her. If Jiang Li still didn’t move, she would immediately be asked to get off the stage.