After a good night’s sleep, Cheng Ruyi climbed out of bed feeling refreshed. She pushed open the window to find a light drizzle still falling outside. The fruit trees, nourished by both her supernatural energy and the rainwater, exuded a vibrant sense of life.
Cheng Ruyi took a deep breath of the fresh air. After washing up with the assistance of her maid, Moxiang, she changed into a bright red dress embroidered with butterflies playing among narcissus flowers and headed to the main hall of the central courtyard for breakfast.
The Marquis of Changle and his wife had already learned about what happened the previous night from the servants and were overcome with lingering fear. Rong Susu, in particular, was so startled and frightened that she couldn’t stop her tears from falling. Fortunately, Rong Mo had pulled through; otherwise, the only path awaiting him would have been the amputation of both legs.
Xiao Cheng Yu hadn’t expected his cousin’s poison to flare up so suddenly, and his small face was filled with worry.
“Aunt, Uncle, last night was an accident. I am fine now,” Rong Mo said, still sitting in his wheelchair, as he comforted the Marquis and his wife.
When Cheng Ruyi arrived at the hall with Moxiang and saw the wheelchair beneath Rong Mo, she was slightly surprised. She had already completely purged the poison from Cousin Rong Mo’s legs last night and infused him with a great deal of vitality. Surely there was no need for a wheelchair anymore?
However… Cousin might have other deep motives for doing this, Cheng Ruyi thought silently. Better not to expose him.
After breakfast, Cheng Ruyi remembered that Cousin Rong Mo knew martial arts and intended to practice with him. Perhaps because it was still raining outside, the Marquis of Changle—who rarely stayed home—was in high spirits and was playing a game of Go with Rong Mo.
Rong Susu sat nearby, looking over the household account books and managing family affairs.
Cheng Ruyi was a bit amazed. Her old man knew how to play Go? She curiously stepped forward to watch, but she couldn’t understand it. Well, she was indeed unlearned; she knew nothing of the “four arts” (zither, Go, calligraphy, and painting).
After watching for a while, Cheng Ruyi felt her head spinning. She rubbed her temples, thinking that Go was far too boring, and stopped spectating.
Rong Mo looked up at her, a hint of a smile appearing in his eyes.
Cheng Yu was sitting there in a daze, feeling quite bored. Seeing his sister come over, his spirits lifted. He tugged at her sleeve, glanced at their father playing Go, and whispered, “Sister, it’s so boring. Is there anything fun to do?”
Cheng Ruyi’s eyes darted around as she thought of a pastime from her previous life for when she was bored—Fight the Landlord[1].
So, the two siblings began whispering together. Cheng Ruyi specifically took paper and a brush from her mother and started drawing in a crooked, wobbly fashion.
Once Cheng Ruyi had laboriously drawn fifty-four cards, Cheng Yu excitedly called over his trusted personal servant and told him to find someone to manufacture the deck.
Cheng Ruyi knew that the noble ladies of the upper class had a pastime called Madiao [2], so the technology for making cards already existed. She wasn’t worried at all about being unable to produce a deck of playing cards.
The siblings’ actions were observed by the three adults who watched them from time to time.
Rong Susu had long known her children couldn’t sit still; she simply gave a helpless smile and continued with the accounts.
Cheng Ruyi didn’t return to her courtyard. She had Moxiang bring her some medical books to pass the time and gave Cheng Yu a book of miscellaneous records. As she looked at the books, she suddenly thought about how her father spent all his time out and about, yet never seemed to attract any “rotten peach blossoms[3]“.
This was unscientific!
She remembered her eldest sister saying that powerful and wealthy men always had all sorts of beauties delivering themselves to their doorstep. By logic, her father wasn’t even forty yet—a handsome “middle-aged uncle.” He was a bit of a rogue, but he was at least a Marquis, and he only had her mother. The household dynamics were simple; she didn’t believe no one had ever set their sights on him.
Cheng Ruyi’s eyes sparkled with the light of gossip.
“Mom, Dad goes out every day and is gone all day long. Does he ever go out for drinks and entertainment? It would be bad if he brought a concubine back to the house.”
As soon as these words came out, the Marquis of Changle, who had been focused on his game, couldn’t sit still. How could his daughter pit him against his wife like this? He didn’t want his dear wife to misunderstand, so he shouted hurriedly, “Daughter, your father has never gone out for flowery wine!”
Then he turned to his wife: “Susu, you must believe me. I would never do anything to betray you.”
Rong Susu burst out laughing. She gave her husband a sidelong glance and teased, “We’ve been married for so many years; do you think I don’t know your character?” Read the latest chapters at novelping.com.
Only then did the Marquis relax.
However, Cheng Ruyi, this father-pitting daughter, was still thinking about the gossip.
“Dad, I see that other Marquises have a whole bunch of aunts and concubines in their backyards besides their legal wives. You are a dignified Marquis; is your charm really that poor? It’s so strange that no woman is interested in you.”
“I remember the Marquis of Lin’an, who is much uglier than Dad and older too. A few days ago, a beautiful young girl even tried to offer herself to him in marriage out of gratitude.”
Cheng Ruyi was just curious; she certainly didn’t want her father to marry a bunch of concubines.
Cheng Yu suddenly raised his hand and said with a grin, “Sister, Sister, I know about this! In the capital, unmarried girls or the women from the brothels in the entertainment districts all take a detour whenever they see Dad.”
Cheng Ruyi: “…”
Take a detour? That was a bit much. Was her father a plague?
Hearing this, the Marquis glared at his son and then raised his chin proudly: “Nonsense! Your father has great charm. Years ago, many women were rushing to be my concubines.”
Rong Susu cleared her throat and looked at him with a half-smile. “Great charm? Many women rushing to be your concubine?”
The Marquis immediately retracted his proud tail and said with a fawning smile, “Susu, you know I only like you. To me, those women are just a pile of silver.”
Rong Susu seemed to remember something and couldn’t help but laugh. “They certainly were a pile of silver.”
Now, Cheng Ruyi was even more curious.
“Dad, Mom, what are you talking about? I don’t understand.”
Nearby, Rong Mo knew a bit more about the situation. Thinking of what his uncle had done in the past, the corners of his mouth curled slightly, and a hint of amusement flashed in his eyes.
Rong Susu glanced at the Marquis, who was acting proud again, and explained with smiling eyes: “Ahem, it’s not that your father lacks charm. When he was young, many beautiful women wanted to marry him.”
Although the young Marquis of Changle was the son of a concubine from the Jian’an Marquis Household, he was tall and handsome—a total heartthrob. Many women secretly loved him, and even legitimate daughters of great noble families admired him.
“I still remember when I first married your father, the old Madame Cheng sent three beautiful maids to be his concubines,” Rong Susu said, a hint of reminiscence in her eyes.
Back then, she was the eldest daughter of the Rong family, a scholarly family from Qinghe County. Because she was too strikingly beautiful, many noble ladies feared she would bewitch their sons and excluded her from their list of potential daughters-in-law.
As the eldest daughter of the Rong family, she couldn’t possibly be a concubine. Families with high status gave up once they saw her beauty, and for families with low status, she couldn’t marry down.
In the end, when Old Madame Cheng came to propose, Susu heard the suitor was a concubine-born son of a Marquis. Her family wasn’t satisfied at first, but Rong Susu, who was almost eighteen and still unbetrothed, agreed.
In the decades that followed, Rong Susu felt incredibly lucky, because she had married a husband who doted on and protected her, and he had even earned her the title of a Marquis’s Wife.
“Your father, well, he did something back then that shocked the whole capital.”
Cheng Ruyi listened with great interest and quickly asked, “What did Dad do?”
Rong Susu looked at the smug Marquis of Changle and said with a suppressed laugh, “Your father took those three beautiful maids sent by Old Madame Cheng and sold them. He even told her to send a few more, saying he was short on money. He nearly provoked the old lady to death.”
The Marquis chuckled, a flash of craftiness in his eyes. “At that time, I had just married your mother and didn’t have much money. Don’t the laws of the imperial court state that concubines can be bought and sold? Since they were given to me as concubines, wasn’t it only right for me to sell them for silver?”
Xiao Cheng Yu nodded in agreement. “Dad did the right thing. Keeping aunts and concubines costs too much silver. It’s much more practical to sell them for a sum of money.”
The Marquis was delighted to have his son’s support and understanding. The legacy continues!
Cheng Ruyi was dumbfounded. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
But… what Dad and Little Yu said made a lot of sense.
Cheng Ruyi also nodded in agreement. “Keeping concubines really does burn through money. It’s better to sell them and buy more food.”
Hearing his cousin’s agreement, Rong Mo lowered his eyes to hide his smile. His uncle had done many absurd things, but he was always a man who knew his limits.
Rong Susu was in a rare storytelling mood. She took a sip of tea and continued, “After the incident of selling the maids, everyone thought your father was just trying to spite Old Madame Cheng.”
“Then, the daughter of a fourth-rank official schemed against your father at a banquet. Even though nothing actually happened, she insisted on blaming him.”
“Your father naturally didn’t want to marry her, but Old Madame Cheng intervened forcefully. That woman got her wish and became your father’s ‘noble concubine’.”
Rong Susu stopped there, picked up her teacup, and took a slow sip. Seeing the sparkling eyes of her daughter and son, and then her smug husband, she felt a sweetness in her heart thinking of his actions over the years.
Cheng Ruyi was hooked. “And then?”
“And then…” Rong Susu fell back into memory. “Your father found a random excuse to punish that noble concubine. Originally, he wanted to sell her for silver, but the woman was so terrified of being sold that she sent word to her family, and in the end, her family paid to redeem her.”
“Oh, after she went back, her family found a poor scholar for her to marry. After that, your father became famous.”
Rong Susu couldn’t help but laugh at this point.
“Of course, there were still some who didn’t believe the rumors and used various means to marry your father. They were all sold off by him one by one. Eventually, no woman in the capital dared to go near him.”
Even if they had a high status, once they entered the house as a concubine, a simple trumped-up charge was enough to get them sold.
Susu didn’t pity those women at all; who told them to try and steal her husband?
The whole capital knew that the Marquis of Changle didn’t know how to “tenderly cherish a flower[4]“. He only knew how to hoard silver and was obsessed with money—he would even sell his own concubines for cash.
With so many high-ranking officials in the capital, there was no need to hang oneself from the single tree that was the Marquis of Changle.
As a witness to it all, Rong Susu was constantly amazed by her husband’s endless array of tactics.
After listening, Cheng Ruyi looked at her father with sparkling eyes, full of admiration.
“Dad is so amazing! Mom is so happy. In the future, I want to find a husband as capable as Dad.”
Praised by his precious daughter, the Marquis felt like he was walking on air. He gave his wife a smug look.
“I want to learn from Dad too!” Xiao Cheng Yu puffed out his chest, his small face full of determination.
When Rong Mo heard his cousin’s words, a flicker passed through his calm, deep eyes.
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[1] a card game
[2] a traditional tile/card game
[3] unwanted romantic entanglements
[4] treat women with care