Chapter 109: A Letter from Bianjing, But Not

The nineteenth day of the first lunar month.

In the night,

the hour of Yin (around four in the morning) was the coldest time of the day.

In the side courtyard, the charcoal brazier in the room had long since gone out, leaving not a trace of warmth.

The hot-water bottle inside the quilts on Wei Wei Shuyi's bed had long lost its heat, feeling icy to the touch.

The bedding beneath her held little warmth either; even the slightest movement brought a chill.

Fortunately, two padded jackets stuffed with cotton, one large and one small, covered the mother and daughter, retaining considerable heat.

'Hoo...'

The moon's clear radiance shone through the window paper.

It illuminated the white breath exhaled into the air.

Wei Wei Shuyi, lying with her eyes open, felt cold, yet her expression showed no suffering; it seemed such coldness brought her a sense of peace.

Slowly, between half-sleep and half-awake,

the sky outside the window turned ink-blue, making the cold feel even more biting.

"Clang! Clang!"

"Hour of Yin, fourth quarter! (Around five in the morning) It is cold; add layers when going out!"

"Clang! Clang!"

"Hour of Yin, fourth quarter! It is cold; add layers when going out!"

These were monks from nearby temples walking the streets and alleys to announce the time.

At this moment, Wei Wei Shuyi felt a weight settle upon her as another quilt was draped over her.

Sister Sister Xiaodie's voice came: "Xiao Niang, I am going to fetch water."

"Mm. The wellside is frozen; be careful."

"Understood, Xiao Niang! Xiao Xiao Xiaotao! Hurry up."

Wei Wei Shuyi rubbed her daughter and said, "Minglan, get up; we must prepare to pay respects to Grandmother."

"Mother, it is still early; I do not want to rise."

"Hurry up." Speaking thus, Wei Wei Shuyi, supporting her belly, began clumsily to dress herself.

Picking up her clothes, Wei Wei Shuyi realized that Sister Sister Xiaodie had not worn the cotton-padded jacket made for her and had gone out just like that.

"Such a foolish girl; what if she freezes to death?"

Another hard day to endure.

In the afternoon,

Minglan and Xiao Xiao Xiaotao eagerly went again to the main kitchen to fill the hot-water bottles,

but Guan Guan Pozi, with a blackened face, said, "Sixth Miss, the household expenses these past few days are excessive, and charcoal purchases have fallen short; our Lin Xiao Niang has ordered the afternoon stove fires extinguished."

Minglan said, "You are lying; the smokestacks on the roof are all emitting smoke!"

"That is for boiling donkey-hide gelatin for Lin Qi Pavilion; those are precious items, and there are no stove openings left for boiling water," Guan Guan Pozi said.

"You!"

"Sixth Miss, forgive my offense~" Though her words spoke of seeking forgiveness, her tone was full of schadenfreude.

"Xiao Xiao Xiaotao, let us go."

With that, the two little ones returned to the side courtyard holding their empty hot-water bottles.

In the room of the side courtyard, Wei Wei Shuyi saw the two little ones returning after having suffered grievances; she pulled them into her embrace and sighed.

"It is nothing; when your Sister Sister Xiaodie returns, we will boil water ourselves."

"Really? Mother, did you ask Sister Sister Xiaodie to buy charcoal?" Minglan asked happily, her eyes shining.

Wei Wei Shuyi nodded and said, "Sister Sister Xiaodie returned yesterday; she said news came from Bianjing that noble ladies in Yang Zhou have taken to studying embroidery techniques and stitching methods. Sister Sister Xiaodie visited several more shops, and since the shopkeepers saw that Mother's goods were good, they added to the payment."

"Wow! Mother, wonderful! You are truly amazing!" Minglan laughed, praising her mother.

"Ming'er! You must call me 'Xiao Niang'! Be good, and go practice your needlework," Wei Wei Shuyi said.

"Oh." Minglan's mouth puckered.

Within Yang Zhou City,

at the government relay station, the Station Master received a letter from Bianjing, bearing the characters 'To the Hong Household of the Yang Zhou Department Magistrate'.

The outer wrapping paper was covered with stamps from every relay station it had passed through.

The Station Master smiled slightly and said, "You all watch the station; I will deliver this letter."

"Station Master, let me go! How could we let you walk so far?"

"You boy dream too beautifully; delivering such a letter to the Hong family will surely yield a reward of several dozen cash coins! Wait for me."

"Yes, Station Master."

Holding the letter and seeing the earliest date marked as the twenty-eighth of the twelfth month, he knew this letter from Bianjing had traveled for twenty days.

After walking for a few quarter-hours, he arrived at the side gate of the Hong Fu; upon knocking, a young servant took the letter. The Station Master waited briefly at the gate before the young servant returned with copper coins strung on a red cord.

"Thank you, Station Master; this is the reward given by our household's Da Da Niangzi."

"I thank your honorable household for the reward."

The side gate closed, and the Station Master happily tucked the reward money into his robe.

In the Hong Fu, the Department Magistrate's Da Da Niangzi, surnamed Peng, was the legitimate daughter of a distant relative of Hou Fu'an; both she and her younger sister had married scholars who passed the imperial examinations, though one was assigned to Yang Zhou while the other remained in Bianjing.

Usually, they exchanged letters to learn about interesting news and current events in Bianjing, often misusing public resources by employing the relay station's urgent foot couriers; however, with the heavy volume of mail in the Bianjing relay stations at year's end and their official rank being insufficient for urgent dispatch, they could only use ordinary foot delivery.

Reading the letter, it mostly contained amusing anecdotes or scandals regarding officials and noble families in the capital, such as a certain civil official in the Ministry of Revenue being reprimanded, a formidable official recently appointed to the Ministry of Justice, the legitimate granddaughter of the retired Minister Lu reaching marriageable age, various matters concerning the Lady Ningyuan Hou Fu, the sons of the Duke of Han Guo visiting the Qiyun Tower for prostitution together, Marquis Marquis Yongyi purging the Tianwu Army, and finally, a note that the Count of Zhongqin's household had taken in a concubine who had once been an opera singer.

Reading the information in the letter, Peng Da Da Niangzi felt that the two matters most relevant to Yang Zhou were those concerning Marquis Marquis Yongyi and the Count of Zhongqin's household.

Stroking the letter, Peng Da Da Niangzi calculated in her heart that when she visited the Sheng family in a few days, she must speak a few more words with Old Lady Sheng, offering her respect to this chaste widow who had earned a memorial archway.

Wang Shi, the wife of the Assistant Prefect of this prefecture, had an elder sister in Bianjing who surely knew that the Marquis Marquis Yongyi's manor had taken a theater performer as a concubine; she believed that for some time, that woman would keep quiet and stop using her father's entitlement to the Imperial Ancestral Temple and her husband's family's generations of official connections to belittle female relatives of colleagues she looked down upon, continuing to compete with herself.

Although the Department Magistrate and the Assistant Prefect were colleagues, their wives still compared each other's family backgrounds, maternal clans, and sons-in-law.

At this moment, a voice came from outside Peng Da Da Niangzi's room: "Mother? I am back!"

Outside, Peng Da Da Niangzi's personal nurse also called out, "Da Da Niangzi, the Third Miss has returned."

The Hong family's Third Miss entered the room like a young general returning in triumph.

"Third Miss, was the poetry gathering enjoyable?" Peng Da Da Niangzi asked, grabbing a candied fruit from the table.

"Of course it was fun; today your daughter wrote another poem on 'Ode to the Wind' and was judged first at the poetry gathering!" Miss Peng the Third said proudly, casually picking up the letter from Bianjing on the table.

"You! Before you went, I told you that the daughter of that Intendant's family held this event to gain fame for marriage negotiations, yet you went and stole the top prize! You truly do not listen," Peng Da Da Niangzi said.

"Mother, it is her own lack of poetic talent; what does that have to do with me?"

"Did the Eldest Miss of the Sheng family attend?" Da Da Niangzi asked.

"Of course she attended; she wrote a passable poem, but she lost to me."

"Think carefully again; did she really lose?" Peng Da Da Niangzi said.

The young lady scoffed, "Tch, it is the same old trick of hiding one's abilities."

Because Department Magistrate Hong was older than Sheng Hong, his legitimate third daughter was about the same age as Sheng Sheng Hualan; as the daughters of the top two powerful officials in Yang Zhou, Miss Peng the Third and Sheng Sheng Hualan had some rivalry between them.

However, Sheng Sheng Sheng Hualan was dignified and elegant, knowledgeable in books and rites; she would not discriminate based on legitimate or concubine birth, nor would she steal the spotlight from the host at poetry gatherings or tea tastings that were important to others, ruining their affairs.

In her conduct among the noble ladies of Yang Zhou, she greatly resembled her father, Sheng Hong.

As for Miss Peng the Third, she had been pampered by her parents since childhood and placed the utmost importance on the distinction between legitimate and concubine birth; if a concubine-born daughter from an ordinary family spoke to her, she would rarely bother to reply.

Moreover, she loved to compete for victory and superiority when many people were present, enjoying the expressions of submission from the numerous noble ladies.

As the legitimate daughter of the Department Magistrate, the daughters of other families naturally yielded to her and dared not disturb her enjoyment; her conduct was quite similar to how Peng Da Da Niangzi was in her youth.

Therefore, although the status of the two young ladies was equivalent, the number of friends they had among the daughters of Yang Zhou's officials and their wives differed vastly.

Seeing her own daughter staring at the letter from Bianjing, Peng Da Da Niangzi instructed, "Now that Marquis Marquis Yongyi has gained the Emperor's favor, and the Sheng family's Eldest Miss is growing up right before Old Lady Sheng, you must not spread rumors about this recklessly!"

"I understand, Mother."

Miss Peng the Third's eyes shifted; she understood the meaning behind her mother's words.

She certainly would not excitedly proclaim such matters, lest she be accused of being frivolous; she must find a female relative of an official who lacked depth, had an impatient nature, and held some grudge against Sheng Sheng Sheng Hualan.

However, there was no rush; it would not be too late to spread the news at her betrothal banquet, at which time she could thoroughly shame that woman and see if she could still pretend.

Thank you all for your deep love; the author wants to cry from the monthly votes.

First, I am moved; second, how am I supposed to repay these owed chapters?

Painful yet happy.

I can only try my best to write.

My grateful thanks.

For the following chapters, the author will save them up to release, planning one chapter in the morning and three in the evening.

Extra chapters will be released at irregular times.

Actually, this book was never meant to be a fast-paced story rushing through plots.

Readers are anxious, which is understandable, but if we went straight to Yang Zhou, swept away all enemies, saved Wei Wei Xiaoniang, and ended it, that would be a matter of a single sentence.

What I consider 'filler' is using an idiom and then feeling compelled to explain it; the author is trying their best to avoid this.

After all, a book is built brick by brick from plot segments; the author will try to update as much as possible, saving up to release!

Thank you.

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(End of Chapter)