Chapter 4
Chapter 4
In the blink of an eye, another summer arrived.
When I counted it up, I realized I had been with the Shen Family for more than two years.
That morning, it started raining outside.
I sat by the window, watching the rain.
Shen Yuan’an hurried in and closed the door for me.
He nagged on and on. “You fall ill every time the seasons change, and you still dare to sit there with the window open, letting the wind blow on you!”
Shen Yuan’an opened my dressing box with practiced ease, combed my hair, and chose my jewelry.
After picking through it for ages, he let out a dissatisfied sigh. “Ah, I really do need to find a way to earn more money. Just look at these pieces. They’re all out of style. I need to take you to Baozhuang Pavilion and buy you some new ones.”
I couldn’t be bothered with him.
He bought me clothes and jewelry every month.
Shen Yuan’an’s monthly allowance was twenty taels. Added to the money he made from tinkering with little businesses outside, it all ended up spent on me.
When he went out, he didn’t have a single coin of spending money on him and relied entirely on his friends to foot the bill.
Over time, he earned himself the title of the most miserly young master in the capital.
After he finished doing my hair, he went to the warm room in the side chamber and brought over breakfast.
While we ate, Shen Yuan’an picked up a chopstickful of shredded bamboo shoots for me and said thoughtfully, “Zhao Dongnian is back from Cangzhou. The year before last, he went to Cangzhou to manage the floods, and it took him two whole years to return. Now he’s holding a victory banquet, and he’s sent an invitation to our family. According to Zhao Dongnian, the flooding in Cangzhou was extremely severe. Countless fertile fields and homes were submerged. The people were displaced, and corpses of the starved were everywhere. It was horrifying.”
At this point, Shen Yuan’an still looked shaken.
He stroked my hair and sighed. “Thank goodness your family escaped.”
Yes. My family escaped.
But Auntie Li’s family did not.
I would never again hear her booming voice calling, Zhuzhu, Auntie made wontons for you.
Little Nannan, who had just turned three, did not escape.
I would never again see her chubby little face, nor eat the candies she secretly saved for me.
Uncle Wang, the lame butcher, and his family also failed to escape.
He used to wink at me all the time, hinting that he had saved the best cut of meat for me.
So many neighbors who had given me love and help died silently in that flood.
That night, Zhao Dongnian led a group of men to the river embankment under cover of darkness.
He let out a long sigh. “That damned Li Yanqing. He built this embankment so sturdily that I have to go to extra trouble. Ah, if I don’t flood these people’s fields and homes, how am I supposed to provide disaster relief?”
Then the river mouth was breached, and the floodwaters poured down.
Zhao Dongnian wiped at his tears and wailed hypocritically, “How tragic, how tragic. If anyone is to blame, blame the heavens for sending such heavy rain.”
On the road as my family fled, we heard that Lord Zhao from the court had been working day and night to comfort the disaster victims, exhausting himself so badly that he fell ill.
That incorruptible, tireless image of his made many officials hold him up as a model. Some even submitted memorials to the capital specifically to praise Zhao Dongnian and report his achievements.
Listen to that. Isn’t it laughable?
If my family had not gone into the city for a banquet, we likely would have died in the flood as well.
Zhao Dongnian, you truly deserve to die.
You deliberately chose to release the floodwaters at night, leaving people no way to survive.
A victory banquet, is it?
Then let him die that day.
I tapped the back of Shen Yuan’an’s hand.
He watched my gestures and said in surprise, “You want me to go to Zhao Dongnian’s victory banquet?”
The Shen Family and the Zhao Family had never gotten along.
Shen Yuan’an’s youngest paternal aunt was the Imperial Consort, favored above all in the harem, and she had one daughter and one son.
The Empress, meanwhile, was Zhao Dongnian’s elder sister. Though her son had been made Crown Prince, she had long since lost the emperor’s favor.
Shen Yuan’an took my hand and said with a grin, “Fine by me! I’ll go make Zhao Dongnian uncomfortable! Who doesn’t know Zhao Dongnian is greedy for money? Sending him to handle disaster relief-who knows how much relief silver he pocketed for himself! A bastard like a bedbug. Better if he dies sooner.”
Hearing those words, I glanced at him without letting it show.
…
After the rain stopped, Shen Yuan’an took me out to buy clothes and jewelry.
I was standing by the roadside when I suddenly heard a burst of commotion.
I turned and saw bailiffs escorting a line of prisoners past.
It turned out that the entire family of Li Yanqing, the prefect of Cangzhou, had been escorted to the capital.
The embankment Li Yanqing had overseen had collapsed, and Zhao Dongnian had impeached him in a memorial.
The road was long. Only after the disaster relief was finished were they escorted all the way to the capital to await interrogation and sentencing.
They had been caught in the rain on the road and looked terribly wretched.
Miss Li was being carried on her elder brother’s back. She coughed several times.
When she saw me, she froze, then cried out in shock, “Zhuzhu!”
Her brother’s steps paused slightly, and he glanced at me.
We looked at each other in silence for a moment before he quickly turned his head away.
Shen Yuan’an took a cloak from the carriage and draped it over my shoulders, lowering his head to tie the ribbons for me.
Inside Baozhuang Pavilion.
Qi Ying came charging out in a whirlwind, grabbed my hand, and roared, “Shen Yuan’an! Do you even know how to take care of someone? Look how cold Zhuzhu’s hands are! If you can’t do it, why don’t you give her to me? I’ll raise her.”
Shen Yuan’an, who usually loved arguing with Qi Ying the most, was unusually silent this time.
That startled Qi Ying instead.
She muttered, “Is Shen Yuan’an possessed or something?”