Chapter 8
With the Shen affairs settled, there was little use for me in the household.
Qiu Bingzhong immediately hurried over to take me away.
Holding Qinghui, Nanny Qi stood in front of me.
“Mistress, can you really bear to leave him? You gave up half your life to bring this child into the world!”
I smiled sorrowfully.
“Nanny Qi, when has any of this been my choice?”
“Under the original contract, bearing a son allows me to redeem myself. My fate is no longer the Shens’ to decide. It belongs to my husband’s family again.”
Her eyes darkened.
“If you’re willing, I can speak for the eldest branch and keep you as the wet nurse. We can increase your wages considerably. That money-grubbing husband of yours would surely agree.”
I looked at her in surprise, unsure why she was doing this.
She gently rocked the sleeping Qinghui in her arms.
“I can’t bear to see the young master without his own mother.”
“And after two years together, I know you’re a good, honest woman. I don’t want your husband taking you home only to lease you out again.”
“Stay. Help me raise him. Things will surely get better as the years pass.”
There was something beneath her words. I caught it quickly.
My gaze flickered. Cautiously, I asked,
“The second and third branches control the whole estate now. How can you know Qinghui will be able to take it back when he grows up?”
For a moment, she looked uncomfortable. Then she smiled.
“He’s the master’s son. He’ll inherit his shrewdness and ability. He’s bound to do well…”
I stopped circling the matter. After closing the doors and windows and making certain nobody could overhear, I said,
“Besides the will read publicly in the mourning hall, did the master leave you another, secret will?”
“It says, ‘Among the private assets not registered under the Shen family name are four salt mines, ten salt establishments without registered names, and two underground banking houses… Qi Duanzhou and Tang Xiao shall hold and manage these until Qinghui reaches twenty, at which age authority shall be transferred to him.’”
Her eyes widened. She stared at me in disbelief as I recited it word for word.
I recalled the past with a mournful air.
“When the master was alive, I often attended him while he wrote. He drafted that will in front of me.”
“He told me that if he died early, those assets would secure the rest of Qinghui’s life and mine. If the other two branches ever turned against us, the holdings outside the Shen name would be enough to shake the entire family’s foundations.”
Her gaze grew considerably more complicated.
Her voice lowered.
“Are you telling me this because you want to stay and be treated as mistress? Or do you mean to use the secret will to bargain for money?”
She thought I was threatening her.
I shook my head, looking tenderly at Qinghui in her arms.
“I’m telling you because I want you to trust me. I have no designs on the eldest branch’s private assets.”
“Otherwise, I could have sold this information to the other branches long ago. You might not have been able to protect it for Qinghui.”
“I’ve said nothing because I truly want him to grow up with something to depend on.”
Then I changed course, sighing.
“But he’s so little. Who knows how many dangers, open and hidden, will come in the next dozen years? Even if the other branches know nothing about the private assets, the businesses they do know about may be reason enough not to let him survive to adulthood…”
Before I could finish, she said coldly,
“I’ve served the master for many years. I’ve seen a great deal. I’m not necessarily incapable of dealing with those people!”
I nodded.
“Of course you’re capable. Otherwise, the master would never have entrusted that secret will to you.”
“But the other branches aren’t Qinghui’s only obstacles.”
“Outside the family, the prefect has his eye on the Shen salt business as well.”
She fell silent.
Of the two people named to hold Qinghui’s private assets,
one was her husband, Qi Duanzhou, the eldest branch’s steward.
The other was her brother, Tang Xiao.
Nanny Qi held the eldest branch’s lifeline in her hands.
Within the household, or even in business, she was not afraid to fight the other branches.
Outside it, however, she was merely a senior servant, and her only patron in the eldest branch was a baby who hadn’t even been weaned.
How could she fight the prefect?
If the other branches bought his support…
She looked at Qinghui. Her anxiety seeped out, and perhaps he sensed it, because he began to wake and cry.
Amid those distressing cries, I took him from her and soothed him with gentle pats.
Then I said softly,
“You needn’t worry. I’ll soon be entering the prefect’s household.”
“Seeing that the prefect has no son, my scholar husband intends to offer me to him to bear one, in exchange for a future.”
“Qinghui is my own flesh and blood. Once I’m there, I’ll persuade the prefect not to side with the other branches.”
“But if money is needed to make arrangements, I’ll have to trouble you.”
She looked at me with pity and anger mingled.
“What sort of scholar is that? Has he fed all his learning to a dog? Living off his wife’s blood! Once wasn’t enough, and now…”
“Listen to me, mistress. Stay with the Shens! We can feed you!”
I shook my head.
“If I stay, I’ll only burden Qinghui. He shouldn’t have a mother of my status.”
“Parents who love their children must think far ahead for them. I ought to do something for him.”
“My mind is made up. I’ll enter the prefect’s household and clear the obstacles from his path. From now on, I must leave the hard work of raising him to you.”
My tragic image—a mother sacrificing herself for her son—seemed to move her.
The scrutiny left her eyes. In its place was compassion.
“Rest assured. There are things I can’t promise, but you needn’t doubt my loyalty.”
“As long as I’m alive, the young master will grow up safe.”
Hearing that promise, I silently let out a long breath.
The performance had worked.
What I had told her was only half true.
Shen Shanliang had never told me about the secret will.
I had seen it myself while attending him at his desk.
At first, he had been wary of me. My husband was a licentiate. Perhaps I could read.
Naturally, I denied it.
He had sent people to investigate. The original Zhou Yun really was an ordinary village woman, unable to recognize a single written word. Qiu Bingzhong had never deigned to teach her.
Only then had Shen Shanliang relaxed. He no longer kept things from me. I could stay at his side, an instrument for reliving the days when his dead wife attended him at his desk.
I had been able to read many important documents in plain sight.
Including that secret will.
Since his death, I had been looking for an opening with Nanny Qi, a way to connect myself to the will and prepare for my next move.
Today, I had succeeded.