Chapter 4
Chapter 4
I never brought up petty little conflicts in front of Shen Sui’an. My eldest sister-in-law and I had simply been raised in different soil; it wasn’t as if either of us was truly malicious. But gossip like this? I couldn’t help myself. If a married couple couldn’t even gossip together, what kind of married couple were they?
More importantly, I had only just remembered that great households took concubines. I had to test his thoughts on that.
After listening to me ramble on and on, Shen Sui’an took a sip of tea and said, “It wouldn’t have been right for me to bring up Eldest Sister-in-law’s affairs on my own, but since you’ve asked today, I’ll tell you a little.”
“She and Big Brother have been married for four years, but she’s never conceived. And these past two years, the princes have been fighting more and more fiercely in court, so Big Brother has had even less time to spend at home.”
“You’ve been here long enough to know how official families raise their daughters. Even women who have borne children are expected to show their magnanimity by taking in women for their husbands, let alone someone who has gone so long without conceiving. Those idle tongues in the capital won’t let her off, and she grew up learning all those rules, so she won’t let herself off either.”
I stared at him with wide, round eyes, drawing out the end of my words. “Oh, so the capital has a custom like that, does it?”
He choked on his tea, coughing as he said, “You little brat. So this is what you were waiting for. We don’t do that in our family. My mother suffered badly because of concubines. Big Brother and I definitely won’t.”
I patted his back. “All right, all right, I believe you. Go on about Eldest Sister-in-law.”
“There’s not much else to say. Big Brother has little time for her, so Mother can only comfort her more. In Eldest Sister-in-law’s heart, those rules are her last support as the mistress of the Shen Family’s main branch, so she refuses to loosen her grip on them at all. Even if Mother doesn’t like it, she can only go along with it and accept her morning greetings and attendance.”
No wonder my mother-in-law hadn’t helped me at the dining table. Thinking about it that way, Eldest Sister-in-law must love Big Brother desperately. Otherwise, with how virtuous and proper she was, she should have taken the initiative to bring in concubines for him long ago, instead of tormenting herself over it until now.
As my thoughts wandered, I remembered our wedding night. I fixed my eyes on him and asked, “The reason you wouldn’t do that with me… was it also because you were afraid I might get pregnant before Eldest Sister-in-law and make her think even more wildly?”
He gave me a light, careless glance. “Half and half, I suppose. Though I don’t know who was so promising that she took one look at my little brother and got scared out of her wits.”
He looked so lazy and infuriating that my face flushed red. With an “awoo,” I lunged at him with both hands, ready to scratch.
But I had to admit, my husband was rather clever.
Yet when someone that clever made a mistake, it was a tremendous one.
The day the soldiers came to confiscate our property happened to be one of Big Brother’s rare days off. One moment, we were sitting together, laughing and scolding Shen Sui’an for running off to heaven knew where again. The next, a great force had surrounded the marquis estate.
The imperial edict said that Shen Sui’an had aided the Crown Prince in his escape and had already been imprisoned. Since Shen Sui’an had done such a thing, the Shen Family must have long since formed a faction with the Crown Prince for selfish ends. It was a crime punishable by confiscation of property and extermination of the clan.
The servants wept in a heap. Only Big Brother charged into the ancestral hall, held up the Iron Certificate, and forced his way out of the estate and all the way into the palace.
The Shen Family had been meritorious ministers at the founding of the dynasty. That Iron Certificate was already over a hundred years old. It saved the lives of everyone in the household, but it could not save the Shen Family’s noble title or Big Brother’s official post.
The confiscation came so suddenly that we couldn’t even hide away a bit of wealth. Everything in our hair, dangling from our ears, and worn on our hands was stripped clean. They wouldn’t even let me take the few pieces of clothing my mother had made for me, the kind that rich families would have looked down on.
When we went to the prison to bring Shen Sui’an home, my mother-in-law, for once, was ruthless. The cane struck his back again and again. “You unfilial son! That was the Shen Family’s century-old foundation! Your elder brother has studied tirelessly since the age of five, rising at cockcrow and sleeping only when the moon set. How can you face him? How can you face our ancestors?”
Big Brother only held tightly to the arm she was using to beat him. “Mother, don’t blame him. He was born kindhearted. Fate has made fools of us all. The Shen Family accepts this calamity. As long as we are still alive, we haven’t lost.”
I gathered a folk remedy for wounds from the roadside and, while crying, applied the medicine to Shen Sui’an. As I did, I asked him, “Was the Crown Prince a very good person?”
He was utterly dejected, but he still answered, “Mm. Very good. When he ate, he never wasted food. No matter how awful something tasted, he would swallow it. He said he was an example to the people, and of everyone in the world, he was the one who had the least right to waste grain.”
Who could have imagined that the man who had once stood above all but one would share the same hobby as Shen Sui’an? The two of them had secretly tasted every food in the capital that had caught their interest.
When the trouble happened, they had been eating together too. The men sent to arrest the Crown Prince had actually intended to kill him. How could Shen Sui’an have stood by and done nothing?
That was why Big Brother did not blame him. Perhaps if it had been Big Brother in his place, he would have done the same.