The Nian family had rented several adjoining residences in the capital, with each branch occupying its own section.
Today, after word spread that the Gu family had broken their promise, everyone gradually gathered at the Old Madam’s residence, wanting to hear what the family’s plans would be going forward.
With so many people, there were inevitably many different thoughts.
Whatever others might think, the main branch of the family was warmed by the Old Madam’s attitude.
Of course our little darling deserves the very best. That Gu Ergou is blind as a bat. Let him get lost!
Even Xu Luoyan, the Third Madam, who had never gotten along particularly well with Yin Ying, hoped that Nian Chujiu would find a good match. If a niece married well, the whole family would be happy.
Was the Gu family merely humiliating Nian Chujiu? No. They were slapping the entire Nian family in the face. A clan’s rise and fall had never been the concern of just one person. It was tied to every member of the family.
Only Nian Xiuzhu felt upset, a knot of resentment lodged in her chest. She hated this niece more than anyone. Originally, she had been the most cherished person in the Nian family. But once her niece was born, the entire family treasured the girl like the apple of their eye. The Old Madam, especially, was forever calling her “my precious darling” and “my dear little heart,” wishing she could pluck the stars from the sky for the child to play with.
“Xiuzhu!” The Old Madam suddenly called her name.
Nian Xiuzhu’s heart jolted violently.
The Old Madam’s tone shifted slightly. Every word landed with the weight of an old iron balance weight, heavy and unyielding. “Xiuzhu, no matter how difficult things have been for our Nian family, we have never left you without food or clothing. Nor have we ever taught you that you should send your own flesh and blood into another household as a concubine in exchange for the peace and safety of the rest of the family.”
“That does not bring honor to the family. Nor does it glorify our ancestors.”
Nian Xiuzhu had never before been reprimanded so harshly by her mother, especially not in front of every branch of the family, from elders to servants. The little confidence she had been clinging to shattered instantly.
“Mother, you’ve misunderstood your daughter,” she explained through tears. “I only thought the Marquis’s manor was stable and that we knew their family well. I was thinking of what was best for Chujiu.”
She would rather die than call her Jiaojiao. When she was little, her mother had used that same pet name for her. But later, the nickname had been given to someone else. It infuriated her to no end.
Yin Ying’s anger flared immediately. With a cold laugh, she snapped, “You want my daughter to become a concubine, and you call that doing her a favor? Nian Xiuzhu! Have the donkeys been out of work lately? Have they all been taking turns kicking you in the forehead?”
Scolded so viciously, tears streamed uncontrollably down Nian Xiuzhu’s face, yet she still struggled to defend herself. “She’s already at such an age. Are we really supposed to wait for the official matchmaker and let her be paired off at random with some peddler or common laborer?”
At that moment, her husband, Liang Guangzhi, stepped forward to speak for her. “Perhaps Xiuzhu’s words were unpleasant, but her intentions were good. She’s simply anxious and spoke without thinking.”
Twisting the corner of her sleeve between her fingers, Nian Xiuzhu lowered her head until it nearly touched her chest. Tears fell one after another. “Yes. I was just anxious. Mother, Sister-in-law, I truly meant no harm.”
No harm? Nian Chujiu raised her eyes and looked coldly at the couple before her. The same greed. The same treachery.
In her previous life, when the Nian family had been thrown into prison, it was this husband and wife who had stepped forward to testify that the Nian family had been “funding rebel forces.”
In truth, the forged letters and seals that supposedly proved the family’s collusion with the enemy had been personally received and hidden in the Nian family’s carriage by the two of them.
After distancing themselves from the crime, they alternated between coaxing and deceiving the Nian family. Under the guise of helping clear the family’s name, they obtained the account books that recorded the salt and iron trade.
Liang Guangzhi then turned around and, under his own name, donated that vast fortune to the imperial court, earning himself the noble title of Marquis Zhongfu. Their son entered government service in the Salt and Iron Bureau. Their daughter was bestowed as a secondary consort to Dongli Changxing, the Fourth Prince, Prince Zhao.
In the end, the Fourth Prince ascended the throne. Nian Xiuzhu’s daughter rose from secondary consort to Imperial Noble Consort. Their entire family had climbed to glory and prosperity, stepping over the Nian family’s corpses.
Thinking of this, a dull ache spread through Nian Chujiu’s heart.
When her grandmother had been thrown into prison at such an advanced age, she had not been defeated. She had even smiled and comforted her children and grandchildren: “This little storm is nothing at all.”
Yet when she learned that Nian Xiuzhu had testified against the Nian family, she coughed up blood and collapsed on the spot. After that, she never woke up again.
Her grandmother had literally been angered to death by Nian Xiuzhu.
Nian Chujiu lowered her eyes. A mad idea was taking shape in her mind, forming bit by bit around the ebony command token hidden in her sleeve. If she won the gamble, the Nian family would not only escape unscathed, but would turn the situation around and soar to even greater heights.
If she lost… No. She could not afford to lose. She could only win. She had to win.
When Nian Chujiu raised her eyes again, she looked toward the Old Madam. A thin mist of tears shimmered in her calm eyes, revealing the vulnerability and grievance of a young girl.
“Grandmother, the Gu family is so powerful now. What should we do?”
The Old Madam patted her hand. She had already made up her mind. “Tomorrow we’ll pack up and return to Ding’an. That’s our ancestral home. We still have quite a few acquaintances in the local yamen there.”
“If we move quickly enough, before your name is submitted to the prefecture on the official matchmaker’s registry, your grandmother will swallow her pride if she has to and find you an honest, good-looking man willing to marry into the family.”
“Once the marriage contract has been properly registered and recognized, you won’t have to be blindly assigned a husband by the authorities.”
Nian Xiuzhu’s face drained of color. “Return to Ding’an? We finally made it to the capital. How can we go back to Ding’an?”
She had long since decided to settle permanently in the capital.
“Then you can stay behind by yourself.” The Old Madam shot her an irritated glance.
She was just about to continue when the old steward, Yang Fu, came running in with a raggedly dressed man in tow.
“Old Madam, this is bad!” Yang Fu was panting heavily, his face deathly pale. “The Fourth Caravan, the one traveling by land, ten full wagonloads in all, has been stopped by Prince Ling’s troops in the Yunlong Corridor region!”
“Prince Ling?” The Old Madam’s hand tightened around her prayer beads.
Nian Weiqing stepped forward to explain.
Prince Ling, surnamed Ling, had originally been a frontier general stationed on the borders. When the realm had descended into chaos, he seized control of three prefectures. With troops under his command, he disobeyed none of the new dynasty’s orders and sealed off his territory, proclaiming himself king.
For the time being, the imperial court had no spare resources to deal with him.
Yang Fu pushed the young man beside him. “Tell the masters exactly what happened.”
Qiangwa burst into loud sobs. “It’s not that we didn’t do our best. Prince Ling’s soldiers were just too brutal. Another caravan was ahead of us. We heard they tried to resist and fight back. Not a single one survived. They were all killed. We… we were terrified…”
“Wuu… We failed the trust our masters placed in us.”
Before the Old Madam could speak, Nian Xiuzhu let out a cold snort. “Who knows whether you secretly diverted the wagons somewhere and pocketed the goods yourselves! How could it possibly be such a coincidence that they were seized?”
At her words, Qiangwa jerked his head up. His face was streaked with tears and mucus. His bloodshot eyes widened in disbelief, filled with grief and indignation. In a hoarse voice broken by sobs, he cried out: “Little Aunt, how can you say something like that!”
He was only fourteen or fifteen years old. How could a boy his age endure such an accusation? Throwing himself to the floor, he wept uncontrollably and, between sobs, recounted how they had fought desperately to escape. He told the entire story.
Every word was stained with blood and tears. The details were harrowing.
As the tale unfolded, everyone in the room turned pale. Several soft-hearted women had already begun wiping away their own tears. Then there was one final thing, the thing he least wanted to remember. Before he could even finish the sentence, Qiangwa was crying so hard he could barely breathe.
“Manager Liu… to protect the cargo… he… he was beaten to death…”
“His body… we still… we still haven’t been able to bring it back…”
“If he knew that after dying he’d still be slandered like this… even as a ghost he wouldn’t be able to rest in peace…”
“What?” The Old Madam shuddered violently. “Manager Liu is dead?”
The string of prayer beads slipped from her hand with a sharp snap. The cord broke. The beads scattered across the floor, rolling in every direction.