Hearing this, Zhao Si stumbled underfoot, nearly losing her footing. She inwardly marveled at how the accountant was not only detail-oriented but also possessed a sharp tongue, capable of cracking such jokes.
With a single shout, the accountant’s voice rang through half of Yulu Pavilion. Before his words had even faded, the patrons ascending the stairs before and after Zhao Si had already begun whispering and gossiping about the romantic anecdotes of “Yun Qing and Patron Zhao.”
Moreover, a patron who had almost reached the second floor paused, turned his head around, and called out laughingly to a patron who had just stepped onto the wooden ladder: “Brother Tian’en, did you hear that? The new husband Yun Qing found is actually a soft-legged shrimp!”
As that patron spoke, it was like tossing bait into a fishpond; seeing the bait, the patrons on the stairs scrambled to halt their steps and collectively pricked up their ears. Trapped amidst the patrons, Zhao Si could neither advance nor retreat, and thus had no choice but to bite the bullet, prick up her ears as well, and slow her pace while secretly clenching her fists, thinking to herself that if they dared to slander Yun Qing, she would teach them a lesson.
Yet, how could she punish those who slandered Yun Qing without bringing disrepute upon her?
As Zhao Si frowned and pondered deeply, she suddenly heard the wooden ladder beneath her feet emit a soft “creak.” Zhao Si tested it by shifting her weight, and the ladder beneath her seemed somewhat unstable.
A knot tightened in Zhao Si’s heart, but she immediately realized that this might be an opportunity bestowed upon her by the heavens.
Quickly surveying her surroundings, Zhao Si saw that all the patrons had stopped in their tracks to watch the show. True to expectations, the patron named “Tian’en”—potbelly thrust forward and head lowered—was squeezing his way up toward the second floor while gasping for breath and dropping bombshell gossip.
The surrounding patrons stood still, clearly waiting to see how this good show would conclude. Meanwhile, the patron addressed as “Tian’en” lived up to expectations: stomach thrust out, head down, he squeezed forward toward the second floor while panting heavily and blurting out sensational gossip.
“I heard it! I heard it! I heard it all, Brother Tianci! That Patron Zhao indeed has an ailment, and Yun Qing is still a maiden… Hehe, since Yun Qing is still a maiden, don’t all of us unmarried brothers have a chance to go to the Zhao residence to propose marriage, try our luck, and contend for the heart and affections of Lady Yun Qing?”
While squeezing through the crowd, Tian’en responded in a loud voice, and his remark about “having a chance to go to the Zhao residence to propose marriage” instantly prompted the patrons on the ladder to chime in with agreement. One patron claimed he had seen Zhao Si and that he was covered in pockmarks, nowhere near as handsome as himself. Another claimed he was the sixth uncle of the concubine of the maternal uncle of the Sixth Imperial Prince’s personal guard, making his status far more illustrious than Zhao Si’s; if Yun Qing really was a maiden, he would be the very first to go to the Zhao residence to propose. In an instant, the wooden staircase leading to the second floor felt like a bustling vegetable market, where any stray cat or dog wanted to squeeze Zhao Si that soft persimmon and taste a piece of that swan meat, Yun Qing.
As these discussions fell upon Zhao Si’s ears, she couldn’t help but stretch out her fist though she couldn’t reach the accountant who had started the rumor; she stretched out her foot though she couldn’t trip Tianci who was gossiping.
What a bunch of villains!
Lowering her head to look at the wooden boards beneath her feet, Zhao Si saw that a crack the width of a wheat stalk had already crawled right beneath her soles.
This wooden staircase was about to collapse! And she was still five steps away from the second-floor landing.
Crack. Crack-snap.
Amidst the roaring din of voices, Zhao Si kept her eyes fixed on the widening fissures in the wooden stairs and squeezed quickly toward the second floor.
The sound of cracking timber grew louder and louder. As Zhao Si approached the second-floor landing, she looked down and saw that the crack had widened to the width of a finger, winding like a serpent in a terrifying manner.
Yet the cracking sounds were still completely drowned out by the showing-off and boasting at the second-floor staircase landing.
Standing right at the landing was Tianci, who was loudly showing off to Tian’en, who was squeezed into the middle of the ladder: “What is it, Brother Tian’en? You also want to let Patron Zhao become Yun Qing’s ex-husband? This older brother advises you to think of something else. Didn’t you hear what those two pens said? He has been observing for days, and that Patron Zhao is missing parts—he’s a eunuch.”
The moment the words “a eunuch” were uttered, Zhao Si suffered a violent lurch beneath her feet and almost tumbled right down the stairs. Fortunately, there were many people at the landing, and a patron reached out and caught Zhao Si. Zhao Si wanted to express her thanks, but the moment she locked eyes with the man, he simply let out a “hehe” chuckle, parroting mindlessly, “Did you hear that? That Patron Zhao is a eunuch!” With that, before Zhao Si could respond, the man casually grabbed another person passing by and said, “Did you hear that? That Patron Zhao is a eunuch!”
“Go say that upstairs!”
Gritting her teeth, Zhao Si took a half-step back, shoved that man hard, and sent him stumbling onto the second floor, while feeling an overwhelming surge of anxiety: The stairs are going to collapse!
Stunned for a moment, the man steadied himself upon reaching the second floor, immediately rolled up his sleeves, grabbed Zhao Si by the collar at the top of the ladder, swung a fist, and hollered angrily, “Mother’s! What kind of thing are you, daring to step on Lord Ma’s toes?”
Dodging the blow with a tilt of her head, Zhao Si heard Tian’en’s echoing comments chasing after her ears.
Tianci said: “A eunuch! Yun Qing really is a top courtesan with heavy tastes! I love it! Dammit, such a beautiful woman actually likes a eunuch.”
Tian’en’s voice was so loud that Zhao Si, while dodging another flying punch from her front, secretly rejoiced that her wife Yun Qing was not inside the building at this moment and couldn’t hear these discussions.
If Yun Qing were to hear such talk, her heart would surely break.
That’s right, she, Zhao Si, was Yun Qing’s husband; how could she not know what kind of pure and refined tastes her Yun Qing had? Her Yun Qing possessed tastes so pure that even after becoming the premier courtesan of Yulu Pavilion, she had done nothing more than chat about poetry with Lord Hu and drink cup-merging wine with her. The people on the stairs certainly didn’t understand poetry, nor had they ever shared a cup-merging wine—symbolizing an eternal bond—with a true lawful wife in all sincerity.
An image of Yun Qing sharing cup-merging wine with her in the dark last night flashed across Zhao Si’s mind, bringing a smile to her lips.
Indeed. The one who drank cup-merging wine with Yun Qing was her; the one who bowed to heaven and earth with Yun Qing was her; the one who traveled in the same carriage with Yun Qing was her; the one who bathed together with Yun Qing was also her.
Therefore, the person who won Yun Qing’s heart should naturally be her!
The burdensome weight in Zhao Si’s chest, raised by the crowd’s idle chatter, instantly melted away at the thought that the Yun Qing everyone chased had given her heart to… her.
Lowering her gaze with cheerful ease, Zhao Si intercepted the incoming fist, twisted her wrist to grapple with Lord Ma, and the two of them swapped positions.
BOOM,
The wooden staircase packed to capacity with patrons collapsed with a deafening crash. The shrieks, curses, and cries for help from the patrons on the stairs rose in an endless cacophony, and chaos erupted all around, yet this turmoil seemed entirely unrelated to Zhao Si.
Effortlessly pulling Lord Ma’s fist forward by two steps, Zhao Si avoided the collapsing stairs, pushed down Lord Ma’s fist, and pried open the fingers with which Lord Ma had clutched her collar.
“I am Zhao Si.”
Quietly stating her name, Zhao Si smiled open-mindedly and candidly at Lord Ma, spun around with sweeping, grand movements to hook her arm around Tianci’s shoulders by the side of the staircase, and effortlessly shoved Tianci toward the carved wooden railing of the second floor.
SLAM,
Tianci’s face was smashed forcefully against the carved wooden railing, and he let out a muffled grunt of pain, his eyes filled with shock and bitter reluctance.
Leaning in close to lock eyes with Tianci, Zhao Si said with calm composure: “Take a good look and remember this face! This is the Patron Zhao you speak of—Zhao Si! That is to say, Yun Qing’s husband!”
“You, you” Closing his eyes tightly, Tianci thrashed his hands and kicked his legs wildly for a good long while. First, it brought beads of sweat the size of soybeans rolling down his forehead; then those sweat droplets slid down to soak his collar, leaving a vast damp patch on his garments; and finally, from his forehead, his brows, and his groin three separate streams of fluid simultaneously gathered into a puddle of suspicious, foul-smelling yellow water with a bada-bada sound.
That puddle of yellow water gradually grew larger, spreading in concentric rings toward Zhao Si.
Giving a cold, disdainful scoff, Zhao Si swiftly lifted her foot and stepped aside, thinking to herself, Such cowardice is truly unworthy of soiling the new boots Yun Qing chose for me. She turned around instead, leaned against the railing, and called out downward across the hall with a hearty laugh: “Which old bastard of Yulu Pavilion dares to itch your paws and test your grandfather Zhao? This grandfather’s constitution is as sturdy as iron; what leg injury is there to speak of? It was merely a touch of fatigue in the limbs from yesterday’s exertions. As for that old bastard himself, hmm…”
Zhao Si deliberately raised her volume: “His eyelids have a bruised tint, his brow-center is darkened, and his physique is somewhat bloated—every single sign on his body points to a desperate need for internal recuperation! As for that so-called miraculous elixir of his, in my opinion, he’d better keep it for himself to taste-test first!”
With that, Zhao Si gave the top of Tianci’s head another shove with the back of her hand, waiting for him to kneel. To her surprise, Tianci simply flipped over himself like a lump of rotten mud, smashing his face directly into the puddle of yellow water.
The splashing yellow water made Zhao Si’s stomach churn with revulsion, and the previously clamorous interior of Yulu Pavilion plunged into an absolute, deathly silence.
Amidst this profound quietude, Tianci rubbed and smeared his face against the filth-stained floorboards while whimpering and pleading for mercy: “I-I-I Grandfather Zhao, please spare my life! I kowtow to you!”
“Hmph.” Turning her back on him, Zhao Si paid Tianci no further mind.
The moment Zhao Si turned around, she happened to run right into Ying’er leading three maidservants as they approached her.
“Groom!” Ying’er first curtsied to her with a beaming smile, then strolled slowly past Tianci to come to a halt right before the railing.
It wasn’t until Ying’er reached the balustrade that Zhao Si noticed the three maidservants accompanying her were each carrying a tribute tray, and the items borne upon the trays were entirely different. Starting from Ying’er’s left, the three trays successively held: a cloth sack large enough to fit a millstone, a bowl of black liquid, and three bundles of thread-bound books.
Zhao Si’s gaze drifted back and forth across the three objects on the tribute trays. She noticed that the arms of the maidservant holding the cloth sack were trembling slightly, the maidservant holding the jade bowl had her nostrils slightly flared, and the maidservant holding the books was quietly weeping. Zhao Si thought to herself that the sack presumably contained heavy items, the jade bowl held medicinal soup, and as for the books…
Before she could puzzle it out, she saw Ying’er wave a hand toward someone behind her.
What is this?
Jumping in surprise, Zhao Si turned her head, and her gaze was instantly snared by Yan’er, who was walking toward her. To be precise, she was captivated by the stiff, heavy bow held reverently in Yan’er’s hands. The bow was crafted in an archaic, primitive style, roughly matching Yan’er’s height; it looked steadfast, resilient, and capable of bearing a force of ten thousand jun.
Approaching Zhao Si, Yan’er dropped to one knee and held the rigid bow horizontally above her head.
Without a second thought, Zhao Si naturally reached out and took it. A sudden wave of gasping broke out all around, and fresh discussions rippled across the second floor.
“Did you see that? That is actually the imperial-commissioned ‘Heavenly Pride’ bow! This is the legendary renowned weapon wielded by the former Crown Prince back at the Battle of Changchuan!”
“The bow used by the former Crown Prince is the ‘Heavenly Pride’?” someone asked curiously.
“Not only that,” another explained, “rumor has it that the former Crown Prince used this bow to shoot and kill the Yingqi Chanyu of the Kabudo Left Tribe. That Chanyu self-proclaimed as the ‘Heavenly Pride,’ and because this bow slew him, it acquired the name ‘Heavenly Pride’ as well. Some people also call it the ‘Shooting-the-Heavenly-Pride’ bow.”
Listening to the chatter of the crowd, Zhao Si felt a surge of intense excitement while marvelling at the origin of the Heavenly Pride bow. Though Zhao Si couldn’t put into words the exact reason for the excitement surging in her chest, the stiff bow in her hands felt as though it fit her like a second skin. Without even thinking, she naturally flipped her palm, grasped the bow body firmly with one hand, and reached out with the other to draw the bowstring, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
However, just as Zhao Si’s fingers came within an inch of the bowstring, someone gently took hold of her hand.
“Husband, you left behind the golden arrows of the Heavenly Pride.”