Chapter 19
Zhang Yunhuai seemed to be in a bad mood.
The First Young Master was helped onto a carriage and returned to the mansion ahead of us, taking only one attendant, while Zhang Yunhuai intended to walk home through the streets.
I followed behind him with his attendant, Fu Sheng, all of us silent along the way.
It was already the hour of the pig, and the crowds on the street had thinned considerably. Yet, because of the festival, the city was still lively, lanterns hung everywhere, glittering like a river of stars.
I kept my head down as I walked, not noticing when Zhang Yunhuai had stopped. He turned and glanced at me.
The Second Young Master had striking features, dressed in a robe of gold-embroidered brocade, a cloak of azure phoenix fur draped over his shoulders. Tall and elegant, his gaze swept over me lightly, his entire bearing ethereal and noble beyond words.
I caught up to him, continuing to walk at his side with my head lowered.
He finally spoke, but did not ask why I had appeared at Bright Moon Tower. Instead, his voice was cool: “Heir Jiang is not a good sort.”
I nodded slightly.
He continued, “I once thought you were different from the others.”
His words held no emotion, nor any discernible meaning.
I understood what he meant. He had been adored since childhood, achieving success at a young age. Not only in the Censor’s Mansion, but throughout the Capital, he was a dazzling young gentleman.
When I first arrived at the Censor’s Mansion, I lived in the West Side Courtyard with Du Xuliu, the niece of Aunt Du from the Second Branch.
Aunt Du was unlike my Aunt, Lady Zheng. She was extremely clever, beautiful, and charming, with a pair of captivating phoenix eyes, and was most favored by the Second Master.
She even gave birth to a son for the Second Master right under the nose of the Second Madam. No one knows what means she used, but the usually ill-tempered Second Madam tolerated her all along.
Aunt Du was undoubtedly clever, and because of this, her niece Du Xuliu was different from me. Though both of us came from our families as concubine-born girls seeking refuge, Miss Du from the Second Branch was far more distinguished than I.
She had an oval face and a graceful figure. She did not need to serve as a Female Companion-Reader; she only needed to stand elegantly beside Aunt Du, and everyone would call her “Miss Du.”
Unlike me, whom the people of the Censor’s Mansion would call “Miss Xiao Chun” when they remembered, but more often simply “Xiao Chun,” or even Sun Yunchun.
My Aunt often sulked over this, sometimes even shedding tears.
She said, “If you had come to me earlier, when I was younger, the First Master treated me well too…”
I watched her wipe her tears in silence, offering some comfort, though I found it rather amusing in my heart.
My foolish Aunt thought that the reason I was not respected like Du Xuliu was because Aunt Du was favored.
It seemed everyone thought so.
Even Du Xuliu herself believed it.
At least, every time she saw the Second Young Master Zhang Yunhuai, while I bowed my head like a maid and called him “Second Young Master,” Du Xuliu would always look at him softly and call him “Second Cousin.”
Was she really different from me?
The wilderness covered in snow looks pure and silver, but every road turns muddy once the snow melts.
We are born on the earth, our roots planted in the mud from the moment we arrive, destined never to become the glittering tiles on the eaves.
But Du Xuliu did not understand this. Like her aunt, Aunt Du, she tried desperately to break through the soil and climb towards the eaves, believing that if she could rise a little higher, she might become a tile.
But she forgot that her roots were still in the mud.
The higher she climbed, the more she strained, the greater the risk of falling apart.
People like us ought to stay rooted in the earth, shouldn’t we?
We should dig our roots deeper, sprouting like wild grass, striving to absorb everything, and grow into a great tree ourselves.
The hierarchy of noble families is carved into our bones, written into the codes of propriety.
We cannot become a tile, but we can grow into a tree, our branches reaching the same height as the eaves, perhaps even stretching above the tiles one day.
But none of them understood this.
Back then, Miss Du was still dreaming-dreaming of the radiant Second Young Master, the shy glances, the burning affection-unaware that she had long become the joke of the Censor’s Mansion.
She did not know how, behind her back, the young ladies of the mansion would gather and mock her in their laughter.
“Her aunt is just a concubine, yet everyone calls her Miss Du, and she really thinks she’s something, even calling Second Brother ‘cousin.’ How shameless.”
“Did you see how she looks at Second Brother? She must have inherited Aunt Du’s tricks, all fox-like seduction.”
“Does she really expect Second Brother to look at her? Is she mad? Someone like Second Brother, she’s not even qualified to be his concubine.”
…
When they talked, Zhang Mi was among them, sighing, “With someone like Second Brother, it’s no wonder they’re tempted.”
She said “they.”
Before Miss Du, there had been Miss Qin and Miss Li in the mansion.
The First Young Master of the Censor’s Mansion had long since married and fathered children, taken several concubines, and fancied himself refined-often, after drinking, he and other sons of officials would even share their favored concubines.
The Second Madam of the Second Branch had only one daughter, the Sixth Young Lady, and the Second Master’s two sons were both born of concubines.
The strange thing about Zhang Yunhuai was that he was not only precious but also as pure as a jade tree, his looks surpassing snow.
According to Zhang Mi, the maids who once served her Second Brother were often restless, their thoughts elsewhere.
Later, Lady Zhu dealt with them harshly.
Perhaps the Second Young Master had seen too much of their behavior and grew to despise it deeply, his cold gaze like ice, intimidating all.
He was a proper and self-disciplined man, with strong opinions.
Because of this, Lady Zhu trusted him greatly.
Yet, as he grew older, he still did not have a single chamber maid, which began to worry Lady Zhu again.