“Elder Sister is unwell. It should be I who goes to see her. How would I dare trouble her to come in person and apologize to me?” Yu Nanzhi lowered her head, glancing up now and then to steal a look. The moment she met anyone’s eyes she looked away again, seeming extremely careful, afraid of drawing blame.
“Has something else happened in this house?” The Duke of Zhenguo looked utterly blank.
Yesterday the Duke of Zhenguo had been ordered to lead the Yulin Guard on an inspection of the garrisons of the capital region and had not gone to the birthday banquet at the princess’s residence. Add to that the family’s deliberate concealment, and he still did not know what had happened at the banquet.
Although Yu Shuhuai had been at the men’s tables yesterday, he had heard from his Imperial Academy classmate Eighth Master Wang what had happened in Fengyi Pavilion. Now he laid out the whole tangled case of the plum painting between the two sisters.
“As the elder sister she privately stole her younger sister’s property. When it came out she was afraid of being punished, so she claimed to be ill, meaning to bluff her way past it, and she even egged the Third Brother on to speak up for her. To act like this, taking no responsibility, receiving no punishment, not even offering a word of apology, is there such a principle anywhere under heaven?”
Yu Shuhuai summed it up in righteous words.
With these words he turned everything Yu Qiuzhi had done inside out [1]dug it all up until the bottom faced the sky (bā le gè dǐ cháo tiān, 扒了個底朝天) (Idiom), to expose a thing completely, leaving nothing covered jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3253950_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3253950_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, leaving her not the slightest face.
Hidden by the table, Third Miss Yu Qiuchi at the next seat quietly tugged at her brother’s hem, signaling him not to feed the quarrel any further [2]push the fire along (gǒng huǒ, 拱火) (Slang), to egg on a dispute that is already burning jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3253950_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3253950_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });. The scene was already messy enough.
Yu Nanzhi also tried to explain for Yu Qiuzhi. “Elder Sister… she just took the wrong one…”
Her voice grew lower and lower, as if she herself could not believe this explanation.
“Second Miss, do not cover for her any more!”
It was the Duke of Zhenguo who spoke. The rough male voice, raised several degrees, frightened Yu Nanzhi into shrinking back, and the jade-dew cake she had just picked up with her chopsticks fell to the floor with a smack. Hanying immediately played along, putting an arm around her Miss’s back and soothing her.
Seeing this, the Duke of Zhenguo understood that he had just frightened his own daughter.
Because of a servant’s carelessness Yu Nanzhi had been lost outside since infancy, and he and the Duke’s household already owed her a great deal. It had taken so much to find her and bring her back, and she had turned out too delicate to stand up to a breath of wind and unable to carry anything. No wonder she was bullied again and again by the adopted daughter.
But the woman rules within and the man without. He was a military officer and had to be on duty every day, he really could not attend to the affairs of the inner household at every moment.
While the Duke of Zhenguo was working out what else to give his daughter privately as compensation, he complained to the Grand Madam of Zhenguo. “Mother, in these two years this is not the first time. Your son said long ago that we should have given her some gold and silver and a few farmsteads back then, so that she would want for nothing later and the Duke’s household would have honored its ten-odd years of feeling with her. Then the Eldest Miss and the Second Miss would each have gone to their proper place.”
And it would not have raised all these waves for nothing.
The Grand Madam of Zhenguo did not shift an inch. She took the tea and rinsed her mouth. “I have already looked at the little newspaper Nanzhi Que put out today. There is not half a word in it about the Eldest Miss’s business.”
The meaning behind the words was that the people in Fengyi Pavilion yesterday might have guessed something, but nothing had been nailed down, and Yu Qiuzhi’s reputation had not really been damaged.
Everyone in Chang’an knew that when something like this happened, Nanzhi Que would normally put a line or two in the little newspaper, something such as “Real and Fake Scrolls at the Grand Princess’s Birthday Banquet: Sisters of the Duke of Zhenguo’s Household Suspected of Trading Blows,” or “Discord in the Inner Chambers of the Duke of Zhenguo’s Household: the Fake Heiress Bullies by Borrowed Power.”
As things stood, Nanzhi Que’s consistent neglect of Yu Qiuzhi had turned out to be a good thing instead.
Yu Nanzhi buried her head in Hanying’s shoulder, hiding the expression on her face deeper still, mockery concealed at the corner of her mouth.
As if she could not see what was on the Grand Madam’s mind.
Over a full fifteen years the Duke of Zhenguo’s household had put in who knew how much on Yu Qiuzhi to raise a young lady with some name in Chang’an. If they sent her away, would it not all be money down the drain [3]skipped off like a flat stone across the water (dǎ le shuǐ piāo, 打了水漂) (Idiom), an outlay that comes back with nothing to show for it jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3253950_1_3').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3253950_1_3', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });? Yu Nanzhi, only just brought back, had an unknown temperament, and at her age it was plainly too late to begin a noble lady’s education. Better to keep Yu Qiuzhi: first, it won them the good name outwardly of not abandoning an adopted daughter, second, they could make full use of her and go on pushing her out to marry into a great house.
So the Grand Madam of Zhenguo had insisted that the Duke of Zhenguo take Yu Qiuzhi as an adopted daughter and keep her.
As for the many open and hidden ways Yu Qiuzhi pressed down on the newly returned Yu Nanzhi after her identity was exposed, in order to hold on to her own position, the Grand Madam of Zhenguo gave them no notice whatever.
Those small scuffles that hurt neither sinew nor bone could count as lessons for Yu Nanzhi. Since she had become a daughter of the Duke’s household, she had to learn to handle such things.
The Duke of Zhenguo tried to argue back. “So as long as outsiders do not know, we pretend not to know either? The one wronged is your son’s own daughter, your own granddaughter.”
Turning his head, he saw Yu Nanzhi curled up pitifully in her maid’s arms, tears falling one after another, half covering her face so no one would notice. Something tender in him was pierced [4]the soft flesh at the bottom of his heart was jabbed (xīn dǐ de ruǎn ròu bèi chuō zhòng, 心底的軟肉一下被戳中) (Metaphor), to have one’s most tender feeling struck straight on jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3253950_1_4').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3253950_1_4', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, and it ached in wave after wave.
“Your son is putting the words down here today: Mother must not shield her any more! If she is given no lesson, it will pile up day by day, and sooner or later something big will come of it, and then regret will be too late!” The Duke of Zhenguo spoke with a weight that admitted no answer.
The Grand Madam of Zhenguo said, “Then what would the Duke have done?”
The Duke of Zhenguo softened somewhat. “Your son is a rough man who leads troops and does not know how to bring up girls. The affairs of young ladies should still be settled at Mother’s instruction.”
Since the Grand Madam had given way, he could not press step by step any further. This mother of his always did what she said. Since she had said there would be punishment, there would not be the slightest vagueness.
“In that case, I will decide it. Never mind whether she is ill or whatever else, have the Eldest Miss come over first. She must at least thank the Second Miss for getting her out of trouble at the princess’s residence yesterday. Otherwise the forgery alone, which the Prince of Qinghe recognized, would have dragged her name and the Duke’s household’s through the dirt.”
“As for Lanxi Court,” the Grand Madam of Zhenguo’s brow lifted slightly and her expression turned cold, “hold all the maids and matrons and investigate them one by one. Those who cannot properly counsel their mistress and who stir up discord between sisters need not stay in the household. Send them all off to the farmsteads.”
Yu Nanzhi was startled.
The Grand Madam was doing it in earnest!
The maids and matrons of Lanxi Court were all hands Yu Qiuzhi had spent who knew how much effort training. From what she had heard from Daju alone, the one who had worked things through up and down and got a third-rank sweeping maid of Shuming Court to steal the painting was Huamei, one of the six chief maids at Yu Qiuzhi’s side.
With all these people pulled out at one stroke, Yu Qiuzhi, who had no extra ability like her own, was bound to become “deaf” and “blind.”
She had thought this was the final punishment, but the Grand Madam of Zhenguo went on. “And the Eldest Miss herself is to copy the ‘Domestic Regulations’ chapter of the Book of Rites twenty times within a month and learn properly what affection between brothers and sisters means. Every day she is to kneel in the ancestral hall for two double hours, picking broad beans and reflecting.”
Education of the spirit and punishment of the body, both barrels at once.
The Grand Madam of Zhenguo had always liked the scent of natural flowers, and by custom the maids of Cuiwei Hall picked a few branches of seasonal flowers every day and set them in the room. Today they had picked five or six wintersweet branches and put them in a white porcelain vase on the small side stand. The rich scent of wintersweet, warmed by the heated air, drew a bee inside. It circled the wintersweet branches once and flew to Yu Nanzhi’s ear, buzzing its wings.
【The magnolia tree outside asked me to pass a word to you, Miss. The Third Son Yu and the Eldest Miss Yu have arrived.】
Yu Nanzhi looked up and out, and happened to see Yu Qiuzhi trip on the threshold and stagger, only just avoiding a fall flat on the floor. Her face was as pale as white frost, whether from the thick powder she had put on to feign illness or from being stung by what the Grand Madam had just said.
Yu Nanzhi was inclined to think it was both.
“Grandmother—”
Yu Qiuzhi’s cry was on the edge of tears, and together with the two sloping brows she had painted on purpose, it was pitiful in the extreme.
Most of the time she kept a dignified manner, but arrogance ran in her bones, and she held a faintly superior attitude toward girls of her own age. When had she ever bent herself down like this?
Yu Nanzhi considered: was Yu Qiuzhi learning from her and taking the delicate-and-weak route too?
One had to admit that if you did not know her temperament well, you might really be taken in by this appearance.
But before Yu Nanzhi, an “expert” in the art, it did not quite hold up.
Not everything in this world can be easily taken over by whoever turns up later.
Yu Nanzhi spoke up sharply. “Juxiang, is that how you do your duty? Elder Sister’s body is this weak, and you let her move about alone and do not even give her an arm?”
Juxiang, like Huamei, was one of the four first-rank maids of Lanxi Court. She served Yu Qiuzhi closely day to day, and it was mostly she who followed at Yu Qiuzhi’s side coming and going.
Called out like this, Juxiang stopped short. She was thinking that most of her Miss’s sick look was an act, so how could she not stand steady, and the next moment she saw Yu Qiuzhi topple straight toward her.
“Miss!”
Amid the piercing scream, Yu Qiuzhi and her maid both fell to the floor, crying out in pain.
The “culprit,” Yu Nanzhi, rubbed the little clay pellet hidden in her sleeve, and let the credit go unclaimed [5]burying deed and name deep away (shēn cáng gōng yǔ míng, 深藏功與名) (Slang), to do the deed and slip off without taking any of the credit jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3253950_1_5').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3253950_1_5', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.
“Elder Sister—”
Yu Shutang had been escorted by the guards to outside the hall and had stubbornly refused to enter Cuiwei Hall. Hearing Yu Qiuzhi’s cry, he thought something was wrong and rushed into the hall, charging about like a little calf.
“It was you, wasn’t it? You little snitch [6]a tattling sprite (gào zhuàng jīng, 告狀精) (Slang), someone forever running off to tell on other people jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3253950_1_6').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3253950_1_6', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });!”
Yu Shutang fixed on Yu Nanzhi at a glance. The only thing that could make Father raise such a fuss and have him escorted here to answer for it was last night’s business in Shuming Court.
Stared at fiercely by Yu Shutang, Yu Nanzhi lightly stroked her chest, an action that fit her persona perfectly. Her body trembled and tilted, and if Hanying had not reacted in time she would almost have fallen off the crescent stool.
“Third Brother… why do you…” Yu Nanzhi stammered.
Seeing her speak so vaguely, Yu Shutang became all the more certain of what he had guessed.
“This is open rebellion!” The Duke of Zhenguo seized Yu Shutang by the back of the collar and lifted him up like a chick. “Your grandmother really was not wrong. You do need proper discipline. You don’t know what came before, and the moment you arrive you go looking for trouble with your own elder sister. You can’t tell right from wrong. Later on you will probably squander away every bit of the estate the ancestors left!”
Hearing about it was one thing, seeing it with his own eyes was another. The more the Duke of Zhenguo thought about it the angrier he became.
Seeing that things had turned bad, Madam Zhou threw herself forward and clasped the Duke of Zhenguo’s legs, pleading over and over, “The Third Son was only confused for a moment. I beg the master to forgive him one more time. Put the Third Son down first, and this woman guarantees he will never do it again.”
The Duke of Zhenguo let go, and Yu Shutang fell heavily to the floor. Madam Zhou was about to go and see how her son was when the Duke of Zhenguo’s arm blocked her way.
Given a glance full of warning by the Duke of Zhenguo, Madam Zhou did not dare move rashly again.
Having shared a bed with him for many years, she knew her husband’s nature well. To keep pleading would only pour oil on the fire and make the flame in his heart burn higher.
Her husband had only this one son, the Third Son, so surely he would not really do anything to him.
She had not expected that this time the Duke of Zhenguo had hardened his heart. “Drag the Third Son out and give him ten strokes of the board. After that he need not study with the tutor at home. Get him off to the young men’s barracks in the outskirts of the capital, and until he mends these bad habits he is not allowed back!”
The guards briskly dragged him out, and before long Yu Shutang’s miserable howling rang out.
“Eldest Miss.” The Grand Madam of Zhenguo looked at Yu Qiuzhi. “You are a clever person. You should know why you were called here.”
From the look of things alone, it was clear the situation was bad.
Yu Qiuzhi knew how to read the times. Bearing the pain in her tailbone, she knelt on the floor.
“It was your granddaughter’s fault. Your granddaughter should not have had a wicked thought and stolen Second Sister’s things. It is only… only that your granddaughter was truly afraid, afraid you would come to dislike me, and so I took this poor course. Your granddaughter will apologize to Second Sister at once, and I hope Second Sister will be large enough not to keep count of a small person’s faults and will forgive me a little.”
With that, she made as if to bow down toward Yu Nanzhi.
This was a matter of roasting herself in order to leave her sister no way out [7]setting herself up over the fire to roast (bǎ zì jǐ jià zài huǒ shàng kǎo, 把自己家在火上烤) (Metaphor), to make a conspicuous show of one’s own suffering so as to force the … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3253950_1_7').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3253950_1_7', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.
Yu Nanzhi knew Yu Qiuzhi’s intention well and did not mean to let her succeed. She shrank closer to Hanying again and raised her eyes to look at Yu Qiuzhi timidly, her autumn eyes brimming with tears.
Hanying stepped forward at once to speak for her. “Eldest Miss, does this mean you are trying to force my Miss?”
The most important thing about such a tactic was that both sides understood it perfectly and neither said so. Once it was spoken out, it was of no use.
The two sides were at a deadlock for a time, and then someone suddenly came from outside the hall and reported with a bow:
“Grand Madam, Your Grace, the Prince of Qinghe has sent in a calling card.”
“The Prince’s carriage has arrived at the gate.”
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