Chapter 4

Chapter 4

That night, Duan Qing brought the storeroom keys, the deeds to the fields and estates, and the bolts of silk, gold, and silver newly bestowed by the Emperor, setting each item down before me one by one.

“Madam, from now on, all of this is yours to manage.”

I nodded and accepted them.

“Dalang, if you want to take a concubine, I will let you. If you want to enjoy yourself, I will let you. But there is one condition.” I looked at him solemnly, my face utterly grave. “Do not touch my foundation.”

“My foundation was built from twenty-six years of bitter hardship. Whoever tries to dig it out from under me, I will fight with my life.”

I said to him, “I know full well that I am old and faded, crude and unrefined. Naturally, I will not compete with a newcomer for your favor.”

“If you are not afraid of being mocked by every scholar under heaven and cursed behind your back, you may divorce me, your wife who stood by you through poverty, and marry the noble lady you truly desire.”

Duan Qing, of course, swore up and down that he would not.

But I understood.

Promises made by men under the weight of guilt cannot be taken seriously.

As for those bitter years?

Madame Zhou was right.

I should stop bringing them up.

Because I was only a crude wife from his hard days.

I had no flower-like beauty, no young and tender body.

I was no longer worthy of reminiscing with him about hardship and sweetness.

Duan Qing neglected Madame Zhou for several days, but in the end, he could not withstand the longing of his lower half. In the dead of night, he slipped back beneath Madame Zhou’s covers.

When Madame Zhou came to pay her respects to me the next day, there was a hint of provocation hidden beneath her timid fear.

I paid her no mind. With a wave of my hand, I summoned two women even more delicate and alluring than she was.

“This is Lady Yang, and this is Lady Huang.”

Watching Madame Zhou’s expression shift ever so slightly, a burst of satisfaction bloomed in my chest.

“Like you, they were once noble ladies. Now calamity has befallen their families, and they have been ground into the mud. But Lord Duke has always been kindhearted. Taking pity on their loneliness and helplessness, he brought them into the household. From now on, you are sisters. You must get along well.”

Lady Yang’s and Lady Huang’s backgrounds had been embellished by me.

The two of them were indeed daughters of official households, but they were not noble ladies.

Lady Yang was the concubine-born daughter of an official. Because she was a girl, after being raised for a few years, her family truly could not afford to keep her, so they sold her for a high price into a house of pleasure.

Lady Huang’s origins were even more illustrious. She was a woman of the former dynasty’s imperial clan. After the dynasty fell and her family was destroyed, she could only drift into the pleasure quarters.

Both of them had grown up in houses of pleasure and had learned a full arsenal of seductive arts.

They could sing and dance, each with extraordinary skills.

Tell them to play courtesans, and they would instantly become softness and temptation down to the bone.

Tell them to play noble ladies, and they would immediately become dignified and reserved.

Seeing two even more outstanding rivals before her, Madame Zhou practically ground her teeth to pieces.

Naturally, she no longer had the time to spar with me.

I began buying myself jewelry on a grand scale, having new clothes made, and purchasing residences, estates, and farms.

Whatever was extravagant, I chose that.

When Baibao Pavilion, a century-old shop in the capital, released a new jeweled kingfisher-feather headdress set, I bought it without so much as blinking.

The old maidservant attending me stared in shock and reminded me, “Madam, please go a little easier. Ever since the three concubines entered the household, money has been flowing out like water. If you keep spending like this, next month we may have nothing but the northwest wind to drink.”

My tone was flat. “You are wrong. If I do not spend this silver, plenty of others will spend it for me.”

I looked at her seriously. “They have stolen my man. They are spending silver that should belong to me and my children. In the future, they may even enter the main hall in triumph and seize my position. Why should I keep saving?”

The old maidservant was dumbstruck.

She had suffered alongside me all the way here, and she had seen the miserable lives of those lawful wives as well.