Chapter 96: Letters Return Mei Cheng'an wrote the last word and stopped immediately. After reading it from top to bottom, Mei Cheng'an nodded with satisfaction. The book indeed had more charm when written in the classical Chinese style. Although there are not many words, they are concise and express all the meanings. Adding more would be superfluous. Mei Cheng'an folded the letter paper and carefully stuffed it into the envelope. He took out a wax stick, cut off a small piece, placed it in a small spoon and heated it on a candle to melt it. After it melted, he poured it on the seal of the envelope. Mei Cheng'an took out his seal and stamped it on it. He pressed it for a while, and then put the seal away after the sealing wax cooled and solidified. The sealing wax seal is not because the letter is confidential, but simply because it looks good. Put everything in place and then solemnly place the envelope in the middle of the desk. He stood up and took a look, then moved the envelope slightly to the right, making sure it was placed on the central axis of the desk. Mei Chengan nodded with satisfaction, and now it was symmetrical. "It's done!" Mei Cheng'an snapped his fingers and went back to bed to rest.
Silent all night. Early in the morning on the twelfth day of the first lunar month, after breakfast, Mei Cheng'an ordered Bluebird to deliver the letter to Prince Jing's Mansion. Mei Cheng thought he would receive a reply soon, but he waited for a whole day and got nothing. Mei Cheng'an was still relatively calm in the morning, but when it was almost dusk and the doorman still hadn't delivered the letter, he became a little impatient and sent Hongshu to ask the doorman, and it turned out that no one from Prince Jing's mansion had come to deliver the letter. This left Mei Chengan confused. This shouldn't be the case. The letter was delivered early in the morning. Even if Roujia didn't see the letter for a while, she should have seen it at noon. How could she not finish writing a reply letter in an afternoon? What's going on? Mei Cheng'an went to ask the concierge every once in a while until after dinner, and the answer he got was always "no". Mei Cheng'an almost impulsively ran to Prince Jing's Mansion to see what was going on, but fortunately, his remaining rationality pulled him back. With a lot of doubts in his mind, Mei Cheng'an tossed and turned for a long time and couldn't fall asleep until his eyelids could no longer hold themselves together and he fell asleep. On the thirteenth day of the first lunar month, not long after breakfast, when Mei Cheng'an was about to instruct Qingniao to harness the carriage and go directly to Prince Jing's Mansion, Princess Roujia's reply arrived belatedly. Mei Chengan was overjoyed. He took the letter and went back to the house. Sitting at the desk, he gently stroked Roujia's seal on the seal, carefully opened it, and took out the letter inside. When I spread it out, I saw that it was three and a half pages long. Roughly speaking, Roujia had written at least a thousand words. Compared with this, the one-page letter I wrote seemed a little insignificant. Feeling a little ashamed, Mei Cheng'an became more curious about the content of the letter. What was written in it? There was so much content. Mei Cheng'an couldn't wait to arrange the letters in order and read them carefully from the beginning. Roujia still addressed him as Brother Cheng'an, and used vernacular in her conversation. At the beginning of the letter, Roujia apologized and explained why she replied late. She said that before she received the letter, she was taken by Prince Jing to visit Fan's mansion and did not return home until the afternoon. After reading the letter, she felt sweet and touched and started writing a reply immediately. She originally wanted to write a reply in Mei Cheng'an's style, but she always felt that this way of writing could not express her accurate thoughts. After wasting more than a dozen sheets of letter paper, she decisively chose to give up and wrote in vernacular instead. This time it was much smoother and her thoughts flowed like a spring.
Mei Cheng'an laughed out loud when he saw this. His wife was so adorable. She didn't like the pretentious writing style, so she just said it directly without showing any shyness. In fact, although "Joy of Life" looks like it is from ancient times, it is actually very advanced. Except for the exams which are in classical Chinese format, daily conversations and letters are basically communicated in vernacular, which is simple and convenient. There are really not many people who write like Mei Chengan. To shorten it, Mei Cheng'an laughed and continued reading. The previous part was just a description of the situation, and the following part is the main text. In her heart, Roujia focused on describing her first impression of Mei Chengan during the first autumn outing last year, her psychological changes on the day they fell in love during the second autumn outing, and her specific feelings when the two of them got along later. When the news of His Majesty's marriage approval came down, she was so happy and excited, but she was also so disappointed and sad when she realized that they could not meet often. Then she described how much she missed herself over the past ten days, and how she often daydreamed and caused some little jokes and troubles because of missing herself. Then she expressed her expectations for the future, looking forward to the wedding, looking forward to meeting him soon, looking forward to receiving his letters continuously, looking forward to him sharing more about his daily life, what he did, what books he read, what interesting people he met, etc. Finally, he used himself as an example to share what he had seen and heard in recent days, including going to the palace to attend a family dinner to meet the elders, going to the royal courtyard to visit his sister Lin Wan'er, going to the Fan Mansion to play with Fan Ruoruo and watching the Red Mansion, as well as some interesting things in Prince Jing's Mansion. The final signature is, Roujia, who loves Brother Cheng'an. Mei Chengan's heart almost melted after reading the whole letter. Oh, writing letters can't quench my thirst. I really want to hug my lovely wife. Feeling unsatisfied, he read it again from the beginning, savoring Roujia's love for him between the lines. He read it three times and still felt unsatisfied. Well, since my wife wants to know about my daily life, of course I have to satisfy her. Mei Cheng'an solemnly folded Roujia's letter and stuffed it back into the envelope. Then he found a new box, put the letter in it, and placed it in the middle of the shelf. He spread out the letter paper again, ground the ink, and started writing. The address was changed to "Roujia little cutie" and the writing style also became vernacular. At the beginning, I wrote about my feelings and thoughts after reading her reply. I wrote frankly that I loved her even more after reading it, and I couldn't wait to see her, hold her in my arms, kiss her, and stay with her all the time. After writing down my thoughts, I began to write about my daily life. Where should I start? I started from the first day of the Lunar New Year after I had stayed up all night to welcome the New Year. I wrote about my experiences after waking up, focusing on some interesting interactions with my family at the dinner table after I woke up and had not yet learned that His Majesty had granted the marriage. Then there was the conversation with Mei Zhili in the study. This part mainly described how I was extremely shocked, disappointed and confused when I mistakenly thought that they would never be able to meet before the marriage, and how happy I was after the misunderstanding was cleared up. As for the next few days, Mei Cheng'an picked out some fun games he had played with his family and some interesting things he had said. By the eleventh day of the first lunar month, Mei Cheng'an described in detail his experience of going to the Supervisory Yuan, writing about every interesting person he met and his opinions of them. Of course, some of the conversation content and the matter of the bluestone stele were omitted by Mei Chengan. What followed was a series of events that happened after Mei Yuxi came to deliver the new chapter of A Dream of Red Mansions in the evening. I wrote down the embarrassing incident of thinking for a long time about how to write the letter, but ended up being stumped by a title. Then he shared some of his thoughts and insights after reading the new chapters of Dream of the Red Chamber and described them in detail. What followed was the psychological changes after I sent the letter the next day but didn't receive a reply. The signature at the end of the letter was changed to, Mei Chengan who loves Roujia. After writing it, he quickly stuffed the letter into the envelope, stamped it according to the previous process, and after it cooled down, he ordered Bluebird to send it out. This time, Princess Roujia's reply speed did not disappoint Mei Cheng'an. He received the reply around the beginning of the afternoon (around three o'clock in the afternoon). Mei Cheng'an stuffed the grapes in his hand into his mouth, chewed them quickly and spit out the grape seeds. He wiped his hands with the towel handed to him by Hongshu, then took the envelope, opened the wax seal, took out the letter, lay down again and began to read it carefully. When Mei Cheng'an said he loved her more, Roujia replied that she did too. When Mei Cheng'an wanted to kiss her, hug her and lift her up, she replied that she was shameless and reminded him. "Brother Cheng'an, you can think about it, but you can't put it into action, at least not before getting married!"
Mei Chengan was so happy at this sentence that the only thought in his mind was to kiss this little cutie to death. I took a deep breath to calm myself down and continued reading. Next came Roujia's comments on the experiences he wrote about. She first expressed her empathy for his mood changes after he learned that they could not meet, and then advised Mei Chengan to wait patiently, saying that she was waiting with him. Roujia expressed her interest in the fun games Mei Chengan mentioned, and said she would play them together after they got married. As for the Supervisory Council, Roujia was first curious about why he went back there. Secondly, she was quite interested in the people Mei Chengan mentioned. She felt it was particularly interesting, mainly because Mei Chengan described the expressions and movements of those people vividly. After reading it, she imagined it a little and then amused herself. Afterwards, Roujia turned into a curious baby and asked a lot of questions, such as how did he know Wang Qinian and why they had such a good relationship, how did he know Chen Pingping, and she also said that she knew Chen Pingping and had met him several times, and why that old man with a beard and dirty curly hair was so unfriendly to people, and so on. Then, when Mei Chengan mentioned that embarrassing incident, Roujia found it funny and was deeply moved. When talking about Dream of the Red Chamber, Roujia had more to say. She agreed with some of Mei Chengan's views. For those that she disagreed with, she also explained her own thoughts and reasons, and welcomed him to continue discussing the characters and plots related to Dream of the Red Chamber with her. Mei Cheng'an was in tears and laughter after reading it. She was indeed a girl who loved reading storybooks. More than 50% of the content in the letter she wrote was related to Dream of the Red Chamber. She really liked Dream of the Red Chamber. Okay, reply. It was already the beginning of the afternoon when Mei Cheng'an finished writing his reply. After sending the letter via Bluebird, he realized that he would not receive a reply from Roujia that day. (End of this chapter)