“What did you say?”
Lin Che knelt on one knee:
“Yes. Today, while Miss was not in the residence, Bai Ziyao, the eldest young master of the Bai family, brought people to break into the residence and demanded that we hand over Bai Zimu’s identity papers.”
Chu Yue’an frowned:
“Did you give them to him? What else did he say?”
Lin Che: “No. This subordinate sent people to stop their party from entering, and the vulgar words from his mouth were too much. This subordinate fears they would defile the Young Master’s ears.”
Chu Yue’an: “What words have I not heard? Let me hear them.”
Lin Che paused, then said:
“His exact words were: ‘Tell Bai Zimu to crawl back to the Bai family and carry my shoes.’ What does the Young Master think…”
Chu Yue’an found it a little funny:
“Bai Ziyao is the same as ever. Well, in that case, bring me the papers. I will go to the Bai residence.”
Lin Che frowned, not quite agreeing:
“With the Bai family’s attitude like this, why does the Young Master still want to go?”
Chu Yue’an sighed:
“I have to go. Even if Bai Zimu did not die because of the Chu residence, he was after all someone the Bai family sent over. Now that I am using his identity, I can’t ignore the Bai family’s affairs. What’s more, there may well be benefits in making this connection.”
The Bai family had once been sheltered by the General’s Residence, and to show sincerity had sent a distant-branch son who was not favored in the family to the General’s Residence as a servant. That was Bai Zimu.
Bai Zimu had lacked clothes and food since childhood and was in poor health. The General’s Residence did not lack people, but seeing that he would suffer if he went back to the family in this state, they took him in.
Only perhaps he was born with a bad fate: one morning he was found dead in his bed, and the coroner, after examining the body, said it was probably caused by a stroke.
Since he happened to have been assigned to Chu Yue’an’s courtyard, and Chu Yue’an by then had already come of age in understanding, he suddenly realized this was a good opportunity. On his own authority he had the body buried on the back mountain, kept Bai Zimu’s identity papers, and suppressed the matter.
Lin Che: “Can’t we just treat Bai Ziyao as a dog barking?”
Seeing that Chu Yue’an had no intention of joking, Lin Che immediately composed his expression, clasped his hands, and said gravely:
“If the Young Master really plans to do so, please send this subordinate in the Young Master’s place.”
Chu Yue’an said lightly:
“You can stand in for me for a time, but you can’t stand in for me for a lifetime.”
Lin Che still said:
“This subordinate is willing to share the Young Master’s burden, and does not mind a time or a lifetime.”
Chu Yue’an gave a soft laugh:
“Get up. I don’t need you.”
Lin Che still did not move.
Chu Yue’an finally got a little annoyed: “What do you mean?”
Lin Che, not looking at him, said with head lowered:
“This move is too dangerous. If it is exposed, this subordinate can still take the blame in the Young Master’s place, but if you are discovered, the Chu residence will be doomed forever.”
Chu Yue’an stood up abruptly:
“Lin Che, you don’t trust me?”
“This subordinate has no such intention at all.”
“Then these words are not to be mentioned again,” Chu Yue’an said coldly.
“This subordinate requests permission…”
“Get out.”
“…Yes.”
A cup of tea’s time later, in the study.
Chu Yue’an sat kneeling before a low table, a black-ink brush in his right hand, scribbling over a small booklet already filled to the brim. After a long while he let out a breath and finally put down the brush. Chunque, who had been watching his condition at all times, seeing he was done, half knelt before the table and asked in a low voice:
“Is the Young Master tired? Just now Second Young Master sent someone to ask about the Young Master’s lunch, saying that if you were still asleep there was no hurry, and that later the kitchen would send it to Huanhua Pavilion. I wonder whether the meal should be called for now?”
Chu Yue’an clicked his tongue: “Second Brother doesn’t really think I’m sleeping, does he?”
Chunque covered her mouth and laughed: “Given the Young Master’s routine at the residence, it’s not strange that Second Young Master thinks so.”
The “residence” here of course meant the General’s Residence in Wuzhou, not the “Chu residence” where he now lived.
And this Chu residence had been granted by His Majesty when Chu Muhe took over as Commander of the Palace Guard.
Although the Commander of the Palace Guard was an official of the fifth rank, a medium-sized official, His Majesty had probably considered that Chu Muhe, after all, had not obtained the seal, and was wary of the Chu family’s power, so the residence he bestowed exceeded the standard a fifth-rank official should have. It was close to the market on the west side of the city, covering nearly thirty mu, with five main rooms, three bays deep, plus three east and three west wing rooms, and all other facilities complete.
But the Chu family line had all moved to Wuzhou with his father Chu Weiting many years ago. Now only one or two branches remained in the capital, not qualified to enter the gate of the Chu residence, so the household consisted only of his Second Brother Chu Muhe and himself, this “Third Miss,” Chu Yue’an.
Hearing this, Chu Yue’an pouted and reached out as if to hit Chunque: “Sister Chunque is teasing me again.”
Chunque was not angry either, and even stretched out her palm upward, looking as if she would let him hit her. Seeing this, Chu Yue’an lost the mood, coughed lightly twice, and Chunque understood that he was about to talk business and instantly put away her smile: “Miss.”
Chu Yue’an: “For lunch, have the servants go and call for it. Tell the kitchen to make more, and bring three sets of bowls and chopsticks.”
Chunque blinked and understood his meaning. In the past it was no rare thing for the Young Master to eat with her and Lin Che, but times were different from the past. Even if the Young Master bestowed such kindness, how could servants like them accept it?
She thought it through very quickly, and in the next second knelt in front of Chu Yue’an and said resolutely:
“Please withdraw the order, Miss. It does not accord with propriety.”
Chu Yue’an’s expression suddenly darkened.
After a long while he spoke coldly: “…What, you want to learn from Lin Che too? He is still kneeling outside now?”
Chu Yue’an knew that Lin Che had practiced martial arts since childhood and had exceptional hearing, so he said directly in a raised voice:
“Although Second Brother trusts me deeply, in the end it doesn’t match the sincerity of you two who have been at my side all these years. Now that I have just arrived in the capital with no one to use, at this critical juncture you don’t even listen to my words?”
Chunque’s face was as usual, and she pressed her lips together and said nothing.
Chu Yue’an was made to laugh in anger by her refusal to be moved by either gentle or hard words, flicked his sleeves and rose:
“In that case, if you like kneeling, get out and kneel with Great Guard Lin, and don’t stand here in the way!”
“Yes.” There was no embarrassment on Chunque’s face. She rose, saluted, and withdrew, then instructed the maids waiting outside to prepare several light, fire-reducing side dishes and have the kitchen make them and send them over.
When everything was done, Chunque really did walk back to the door and kneel. Lin Che was right beside her, still in his close-fitting clothes, his back very straight, not a hair out of place.
About an incense stick’s time later, the kitchen sent the lunch. Chunque had a maid take it and knocked on the door herself. Getting no answer from inside, she assumed the Young Master was still angry, and instructed the maid to carry it in quietly. Before long, the maid’s panicked voice came from inside the room:
“Oh no! Miss… Miss is gone!”
On the other side, outside the main gate of the Bai residence.
Chu Yue’an was sitting at an inconspicuous tea stall on the street. He had changed into a brocade robe woven of cloud-blue silk, with silver-thread flowing-cloud patterns hidden at the hem, and from his waist hung a piece of white jade, its luster shifting. His face had been touched up, and he now kept his head slightly lowered, watching with the corner of his eye for movement not far off.
The Bai family’s ancestors had done business on the border and depended on the Chu family all year round. Later, Miss Bai Xuan of the Bai family married the present Sovereign, Lu Mingyuan, who was then Prince of Anping, and the whole family moved to the capital with an edict, which could be called a sparrow flying up to the branch to become a phoenix.
Scholars, farmers, officials and merchants are after all the fixed order, so Bai Xuan was a secondary consort in the princely residence, and on entering the palace was only enfeoffed as the Noble Consort Shu, one of the Four Consorts, while the empress was the eldest daughter of the Censor-in-Chief Shen Zhengying, of the first rank, Shen Zhiyi. Unfortunately, although Shen Zhiyi had the fortune to be the first to conceive, because her body was frail she ended up with two lives lost in one, and Bai Xuan after this became empress as a matter of course, and later successfully gave birth to the present Crown Prince, Lu Jingci.
By rights, as the empress’s maternal family, the Bai clan, if not rising to glory and enjoying great power, should at least have been much relied upon. But the fact was that in those years the Bai main house and branches had already grown apart, and when the edict came, the main house was overjoyed and, thinking they were about to become the empress’s maternal family, turned away all the branches who came seeking kinship and went to the capital, while Bai Xuan was only one of the Four Consorts.
The Bai clan had almost no foundation in the capital, and all commercial wealth had long been divided up by the great families. So their life was, if not hard, at least not respectable, until a year later when Bai Xuan became empress and His Majesty personally bestowed a residence.
But the great families looked down on the Bai clan openly and secretly, and not only because of their foundations. It was also because of the Bai main house’s eldest young master Bai Ziyao, a thoroughgoing wayward son. Sleeping in brothels at night and wandering drunk in the streets were mere everyday matters for him. Worst of all, while he served as Vice Minister of Rites, he lost his manners in receiving foreign envoys, made himself a laughingstock, and utterly lost face for the Great Yan, and so he lost his post and the Bai family’s face was lost entirely too. Wasn’t that just a joke?
Misfortunes never come singly. The Bai main house happened to have few men and mostly women, and the elder Bai, a merchant for a generation, likewise did not understand politics and could not withstand examination.
That might have been tolerated, since after all Bai Xuan later gave birth to the Crown Prince. But before the Crown Prince was made heir at the age of eight, Bai Xuan, because His Majesty treated her coldly, always vented her fire on Lu Jingci, and the relationship between mother and son was not good. By the time Lu Jingci became Crown Prince and Bai Xuan wanted to make up for it, it was a bit late. So after the Crown Prince came of age and moved out of the palace to set up his residence, the Bai clan crowded their heads in trying to stuff another Bai woman on Lu Jingci, only to be repeatedly politely declined. By this point the Bai clan could be said to be at the end of their rope with nothing to depend on.
Bai Zimu was the son of a Bai branch whom the Bai main house had sent to the General’s Residence in earlier years. When he was sent, they even meant to send him into servant registration as the elder brother’s page, but this was refused by his father. But the Bai family would not take him back no matter what, so Bai Zimu kept his original registration and did odd jobs in the General’s Residence.
Last year Chu Yue’an, using Bai Zimu’s identity, had gotten a minor post under the Secretariat Chief Clerk in the Secretariat. He had used the Bai surname without concealment, thinking the Bai clan would notice at least somewhat, but no one came to the door. Unexpectedly, this time on returning to the capital, although he had not announced any news of Bai Zimu externally, they had acted so quickly.
That made sense, since the spring examinations would be at the start of next spring, and if the Bai clan still did not produce an official’s son, they might as well pack up and go back to Wuzhou. The elder Bai surely wanted the Chu family to release Bai Zimu back, but in a muddled state had sent the most useless one, Bai Ziyao, to invite him, which was how the present situation came about.
Chu Yue’an had thought it all through in his heart. Hiding the cold smile pulling at the corner of his mouth, he walked with hands behind his back to the front gate. The household servant outside reached out to stop him but was given a cold glare by Chu Yue’an:
“What? Your eldest young master personally invited me, and two ignorant servants dare to stop me?”
The two looked at each other, saw that his attire was that of the rich or noble, and immediately answered respectfully: “Yes, may we ask the young master’s name?”
Chu Yue’an smiled, lips curved:
“Unfortunately, I am also surnamed Bai. Go and tell your young master, is the matter of him promising to carry my shoes still valid?”
The servant’s face stiffened, but seeing his extraordinary bearing, and fearing he had some backing, he gritted his teeth, agreed, and dashed through the door to report.
Before long, a noisy sound of footsteps and clamor approached the door, and with a “bang—” the main gate was kicked open from inside. Chu Yue’an had long known Bai Ziyao’s temper and stood far away, so was not affected, but the poor servant still standing at the door was kicked directly several meters away.
Chu Yue’an swept a look of great pity over him, then lifted the corners of his mouth and said with a smile to Bai Ziyao, who had stepped over the threshold:
“It’s re·al·ly been a long time, hasn’t it, Elder Brother?”