Under the Bamboo Parasol

In the end, there was not an answer that could be shown by her expressions or actions. While Ruan Wang found himself paying close attention to her every action.

The stroking of the strings and her hand slightly coming through the strands of ink-black hair that was pulled into an updo behind her hair. A strange fusion between an unmarried maiden's hairstyle, and that of a married woman's.

She was ageless, the years had passed by rather joyfully. He could see that the last day of their meeting upon the mountainous cliff that day did not weigh heavily in her heart like it did in his. Perhaps she had forgotten about him altogether.

Madam Lin looked up at him, and for the first time, she saw the wrinkles around his sleepless eyes and his hair that had become gray. Strands of silver hair were displaced from the bun that stood affixed atop his hair. When looking upon him, no one could tell that he was once a prince that many young ladies of the capital swooned over, desperately trying to grasp his attention.

Though she did not believe it at first when told that he had so regretted that day. Looking upon his face, she knew that what was they say was at least partly true.

"Let's not think about the past anymore." She said as she retracted her gaze, no longer able to keep her face without emotion.

She brought forth a jar of wine, placing it on the table. The jar was unsealed with and unceremoniously poured into a plain porcelain cup. An aromatic scent of fermented fruits spread through the air.

"Do you remember the wine that you had at your brother's banquet?" Madam Lin asked calmly.

Ruan Wang neither nodded nor shook his head. He certainly remembered at the time he had been invited to a banquet by the late emperor who was his brother, the child of the empress. He had at a point seen that his brother was one who had become suspicious and full of paranoia like the emperors of the past of the same lineage who were always mysteriously short-lived, as though a malicious curse had been placed upon the legitimate heirs destined to be the emperor.

Though they were still not as a family should, he could not at all fathom that his brother would so blatantly serve him poisonous wine. Perhaps this was the moment that he had begun taking note of the young miss Ye that he had placed in some abandoned courtyard after his marriage as she showed off her skills to save him.

Madam Lin watched the gaze that had changed to that of a reminiscing one, though no one ever knew what Raun Wang was ever thinking, she could somewhat tell that he was thinking of their past experiences.

It was unfortunate that some things came too late.

"This wine is quite similar to the one you had." Madam Lin lowered her eyes, her eyelashes casting a shadow over her face, "Have a drink." She said as she slid the cup of wine over to him. Her face was still unreadable as ever, obscured by the veil.

Ruan Wang picked up the cup and downed it without a single trace of hesitation, as though it was the night at the banquet once again. But then, he had been reluctant to down the cup that his brother toasted him, yet now, with full knowledge that what he was ingesting could very well render him a corpse, he still drank it with full content.

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If he were to live, and the act of that be in the way of him earning forgiveness, then what would be the point?

As she watched him as he finished in a single gulp and show her the bottom of the empty porcelain cup. His actions filled with pride and dignity as the cup was placed back in front of her. Though the sound of the porcelain was minimal, it still rung in her ears in a near-deafening sound.

Indeed, empty it was, without a single drop to spare at the bottom. The shadow of her eyelashes lifted from the veil as she opened to reveal a pair of eyes that were slowly turning scarlet. Her lips beneath the veil drew into a quiver. Perhaps she could have asked him 'why?' but that would only be a question of redundancy as she had already known the reason for his willingness to drink the contents of the porcelain cup despite knowing what the contents contained.

So, a pair of scarlet eyes stared at a pair of tearing eyes. Both were clever individuals who's only fall from grace were their emotions.

"You still care for me." He said in a gentle voice. The gentleness that melted her heart, like the first rays of spring that would slowly melt the frozen pond, though this was not an event that would happen upon contact, it would take some time for the ice melt, but there would be a day when the ice would fully disappear.

Madam Lin did not answer him, she did not want to acknowledge nor deny his assumptions, believing that he could already tell. If she did open her mouth to speak, the voice that would come out would be coarse and tearful.

They waited and waited. Such was a slow-acting poison, where one would be alive for a while before the onset of death. Ruan Wang quietly sat by her and committed her every action into memory, as though he wished to be comforted by the memory that his last moments would be with the woman he loved.

If such memories could be brought with him to the netherworld, then how great would that be?

Slowly but surely, he felt his eyelids growing heavier as though being weighed down by a heavy anvil made of iron and steel.