Seduzindo a Primavera Que Desabrocha

Jian Xun was a scion of a cadet branch of the Jian clan of Langya. The Langya Jian clan, spanning eight centuries and multiple dynasties, had produced seven dukes and marquises, four empresses, three imperial sons-in-law, and eleven chancellors, making it the premier noble family of the age. His father had served as a fourth-rank Junior Minister in the Court of Imperial Sacrifices; had he lived, he would surely have risen to at least the third rank by now.

Jian Xun was not yet nine when his father passed away. He followed his mother from the capital back to their ancestral home in Zehe. It was there he met his neighbor, Huang Shiyu. The Huang family’s farm was only a fifth the size of the Jian estate, though the properties sat adjacent. In the humble locale of Zehe, the fallen-from-grace Jian Xun was considered a great landowner, while the Huangs were merely comfortably middle-class.

They first met when Jian Xun was ten. He stood on a ridge between the fields, gazing out at the golden waves of wheat as his servant held a parasol over him. Huang Shiyu passed by clutching a bundle of wheat, her burning gaze fixed upon him. Jian Xun was accustomed to being stared at due to his striking looks, but the blank, unblinking intensity of her gaze was quite rude. He frowned at her, only to realize she was staring at the chilled bowl in his hand. He had only half left.

"Do you want some?" he asked.
"Yes," Huang Shiyu replied, being an honest soul.
Seeing her lips cracked from thirst, Jian Xun instinctively scooped up a spoonful and fed i