Chapter 4

Chapter 4

It was Zhao Yunyan. I had no idea how long he had been listening.

I had brewed a pot of Silver Needle tea, and the room was filled with the crisp, clean fragrance of jasmine.

He looked somewhat embarrassed.

After all, he had only just said he would not be coming to my quarters for the next six months.

“Would you like some tea?”

He nodded, and I handed him a cup.

Dongqing quietly tugged Chunming away.

“About Hongxiu… thank you for speaking up in front of Mother.”

He was not used to speaking to me so pleasantly.

I smiled gently.

“Mother had already made up her mind. I only said a word or two. It was nothing much.”

Silence settled over the room, warm in the candlelight.

“I was tied up with matters a few days ago and didn’t accompany you on your return visit to your maiden home. I’ll go with you next month.”

I pressed my lips together in a smile. “That works perfectly. I wasn’t feeling very well a few days ago either. Next month is an auspicious time.”

“What auspicious time?” he asked, puzzled.

“It will be my birthday. If the Marquis can accompany me home, it will be joy upon joy.”

Zhao Yunyan froze. Only then did he realize that, in all the days since I had married into this household, he had neglected me so completely that he knew nothing about me.

A little awkward, he turned his face away and looked at the book in my hands, trying to find something to say.

It was Junzhai Dushu Zhi, turned to the page on Li Yu’s collected works.

“…You like Li Houzhu’s lyrics?”

“When I read them, I only feel they are ornate and sorrowful. I can’t say I truly understand them.” I sighed. “If someone understood Li Houzhu and could explain him to me, that would be wonderful.”

A flicker of light passed through Zhao Yunyan’s eyes, and he seemed about to say more.

But just then, Old Madam Zhao’s maid Hupo came in to announce that Old Madam Zhao was summoning us.

We hurried over, only for Old Madam Zhao to look at me with a cold expression.

“Li Zhen’er, kneel!”

I quickly knelt, though I had no idea what I had done wrong.

In that instant, Zhao Yunyan instinctively spoke up for me.

“Mother, may I ask what Zhen’er has done wrong?”

He might not necessarily have been taking my side. More likely, he was simply used to pleading with his mother on behalf of the women around him.

“My son, don’t defend her.” Old Madam Zhao glanced at me and said sharply, “This was your idea, wasn’t it?”

I still had not realized what she meant.

“Li Zhen’er, I agreed to let that little hussy enter the household, but you broke the rules. It’s only taking a concubine, yet you made such a grand affair of it. Anyone who didn’t know better would think the Zhao Family had turned the world upside down and demoted the wife to a concubine!”

“Mother, this wasn’t Zhen’er’s idea…”

“You certainly married yourself an obedient wife. When I punish her by making her kneel, you keep your mouth shut!” Old Madam Zhao shot Zhao Yunyan a sidelong look. “Or would you rather go kneel in the ancestral hall with her for a whole day?”

Zhao Yunyan still wanted to say something, but I gently tugged at the hem of his robe and shook my head.

“Li Zhen’er, go kneel in the ancestral hall and reflect on your mistakes.

“Lingzhi, Hupo, watch the door. No supper for her.”

“Mother…”

Zhao Yunyan still tried to speak, but Old Madam Zhao dismissed him.

He looked at me once. In the end, he said nothing more on my behalf.

The door closed, with Lingzhi and Hupo standing guard outside.

Old Madam Zhao winked at me.

“My dear child, that was how it should be done, wasn’t it?”

I had guessed a little of it, but I still broke out in a cold sweat.

“Mother!”

“You’ve been kneeling for too long, haven’t you? Hurry and get up. It breaks my heart. How could Mother really bear to make you kneel in the ancestral hall? You just sleep here with me for the night. We’ll say you fainted, and by the time you wake up, the matter will be over.”

So she had learned Concubine Xu’s methods after all.

“Since Mother has punished me by making me kneel, we should see the act through to the end. Of course I must go to the ancestral hall.”

The early winter night was bitterly cold. I knelt in the ancestral hall.

The hall was deep and shadowed, and I knew countless pairs of eyes were fixed on this place.

In the still of the night, I heard whispers coming from the corner by the wall. From their voices, they seemed to be Xu Wanyi’s maids, Yutang and Yurong.

“Did you see it? She really knelt?”

“Lingzhi said Old Madam’s face looked terrible even while she was eating. It didn’t seem like an act to me.”

“Sigh. The lord doesn’t even like the First Lady. How could he possibly feel sorry for her?”

“Sigh. The First Lady is rather pitiful too.”

Then came a soft rustling.

After that, all fell silent again.

I did not know how late it was when a very low voice suddenly sounded.

“Zhen’er.”

It was Zhao Yunyan.

“This is for you.”

He handed me a pair of knee pads. Embroidered on them were bamboo-and-cloud patterns, the sort commonly found on men’s clothing.

One glance told me they had once been his.

I could not help laughing aloud, and he grew embarrassed.

“I was reckless back then and always being punished, so I kept them.”

For a moment, I seemed to see Zhao Yunyan at fifteen or sixteen-mischievous and impulsive, yet full of clever little tricks.

Though all that cleverness had been used to deal with Old Madam Zhao.

I looked into his eyes with great seriousness, curved my lips, and said with all sincerity, “Thank you.”

Our eyes met so suddenly that he froze, then hastily looked away.

He was not used to being alone with me in such intimacy. After setting down the knee pads, he left in a hurry.

“Wear them. I’m going. Don’t tell Mother.”

I knelt in the ancestral hall for an entire day, unaware that a commotion had already broken out outside.

It was actually because of Wu Hongxiu.

For some reason, she and Zhao Yunyan had started arguing.

An incense burner had been knocked over, and sparks had set the gauze curtains of Tingxue Pavilion aflame.

That was Tingxue Pavilion, the place Zhao Yunyan had spared no expense to build for her.

The gauze curtains were red silk luo curtains made in imitation of Tang dynasty style, worth no less than ten pieces of gold per foot.

As for the vessels used there, they were either gold or silver, and there were also Ru kiln vases and bowls. Their value needed no further explanation.

By the time I was eating, Dongqing had already gotten the news. She said Wu Hongxiu had woken last night and found Zhao Yunyan not at her side, and suspected he had gone to Xu Wanyi.

Zhao Yunyan only said he had gone out to relieve himself. Wu Hongxiu did not believe him. She said that after he brought her into the estate and had her trapped by her pregnancy, his feelings had changed, and he no longer cared about her.

As the argument went on, Zhao Yunyan also grew irritated and was no longer willing to coax her.

When Yurong from Yanxia Pavilion came to invite him over in a gentle voice, he simply strode away on his long legs.

Wu Hongxiu cried and said she regretted entering the marquis’s estate, and regretted following him too.

I did not think Zhao Yunyan’s feelings for her had faded.

At the very least, he was still willing to put in the effort to cover things up and coax her into happiness.

“People say all sorts of nonsense, don’t they? A wife can’t compare to a concubine, and a concubine can’t compare to a secret lover.” Chunming propped her chin in her hands. “But today I heard from the young servants who went to put out the fire that the things in Tingxue Pavilion are so expensive-more expensive than Yanxia Pavilion’s. What more could Concubine Wu possibly be unsatisfied with?”

I sighed. “Because she has been losing things all along.”

“What has she lost? Nothing at all. If those beautiful curtains of hers burned, she’ll get new ones. Now she has a proper status, and she’ll have a child in the future too!”

In the end, she was still a child and did not understand the twists and turns within.

That night, Zhao Yunyan went to Tingxue Pavilion again. It was said that the two only exchanged one look at the doorway before Wu Hongxiu pretended to scold him, yet could not hold back and was the first to smile. Just like that, the two of them made up as if nothing had happened.

That night, the sound of the pipa rang out from Tingxue Pavilion until dawn. The piece she played was The Conqueror Unarms.

I also heard Wu Hongxiu beneath the red silk curtains, plucking that mother-of-pearl inlaid pipa and singing softly:

“Ever since I followed my king through wars in the east and west, enduring frost and toil, year after year-

“I hate only that the lawless Qin plunged the living into misery, leaving the common people to suffer and wander in hardship.”