Chapter 46: The Qi State Duke

In the evening, a palace eunuch arrived at the Xiangyang Marquis House and delivered an apology from Consort Rong.

The next day.

Many residents of Bianjing saw the Rong family’s carriage return to the Xiangyang Marquis House.

The Marquis of Fuchang and his wife stepped down from their carriage, evidently to apologize to the Xiangyang Marquis.

The couple stayed less than an hour, then went to the Qi State Duke’s Mansion to apologize.

After returning from the Qi State Duke’s Mansion.

The couple returned home, ate lunch, and then a carriage arrived at the Fuchang Marquis House.

Only then did this lady realize that her relative serving in the Imperial Guards had nearly lost his head for failing roll call.

Among the Imperial Guards, noble youths were the most numerous, and they always got along well, treating roll call as a mere formality.

But on this day, the Regional Military Commissioner himself showed up to conduct roll call.

This Rong family relative, accustomed to Consort Rong’s protection, had found an excuse to skip that morning.

The commissioner’s personal guards dragged him straight out of his bedroom.

Just as the verdict was about to be announced, one of the guards whispered something into the commissioner’s ear.

After a moment,

the Rong family relative felt the palpable killing intent above his head vanish.

He then heard the sentence: twenty strokes of the military cudgel.

By the time the sentence was delivered, the Rong family relative was drenched in sweat, his inner garments soaked through.

Even the fabric near his crotch.

He had truly believed he would be executed on the spot under military law.

The relative, carried back after receiving the cudgel blows, wept before the Fuchang Marquis’s lady:

“Cousin, I can’t keep this job. What exactly did you do? My fellow soldiers who used to be close to me today turned into monsters—they nearly killed me!”

Hearing this, the Fuchang Marquis himself turned pale.

Yesterday his son had offended the Xiangyang Marquis; today came retaliation.

Had he not listened to his daughter’s advice, the relative now being carried home would have been a corpse.

The relative was loaded onto a carriage and taken home; the Fuchang Marquis arranged for him to resign from the Imperial Guards.

Back in the inner courtyard, Rong Xian had already been pinned to a stool by the household servants.

Rong Xian’s eyes were glazed; his intellect understood what his relative had endured today.

“If, yesterday, my ball had struck the son of Princess Pingning,”

even the Rong family lady, who had always doted on her son, turned pale.

If her kin had truly been beheaded, she would have had no one to appeal to.

The Fuchang Marquis took the bamboo board from the servant’s hands.

“Take off your pants.”

Soon, the courtyard echoed with the sound of bamboo striking flesh.

Fortunately, the Fuchang Marquis had long since worn himself out with wine and courtesans; otherwise, Rong Xian would likely have been crippled.

Sweating profusely, the Fuchang Marquis took the silk handkerchief offered by his concubine and said to his lady:

“Prepare gifts and send them to the Yongyi Marquis House.

Had he not blocked your son’s ball, who knows what might have happened today.”

Quyuanjie,

Yongyi Marquis House,

not far from the marquis house lay a bustling, lively street.

A vendor selling seasonal fruit occasionally glanced toward the Xu family’s gate.

Then he witnessed something unbelievable.

In the morning, a carriage bearing the Qi State Duke’s insignia had delivered goods into the Xu household,

then a carriage flying the Xiangyang Marquis’s banner entered as well.

Court ladies in sedan chairs arrived, carrying heavy items into the Xu residence.

In the afternoon, the Fuchang Marquis’s Rong family sent another cart of goods into the Xu household.

This greatly troubled Xu Zai’s eldest son, Xu Zaijing.

For today, he had intended to ask his mother and sister about the Xie girl.

But four times, gift-bearers interrupted him.

When guests were present, the Xu siblings behaved with proper decorum.

But once the guests left, Sun Shi smiled at her children and said:

“Go see for yourselves.”

Immediately, Pingmei and Anmei opened the chests and trunks placed in the courtyard.

Aside from the Fuchang Marquis House’s gifts—all gold and silverware—

the other chests contained rare treasures impossible to buy.

Though Qingyun had saved the girl, he was an Xu family servant.

The credit naturally belonged to the Xu family, and to Xu Zaijing.

Sun Shi did not store these riches in the Xu family vaults; she left their disposal to Xu Zaijing.

Xu Zaijing kept one-third for himself, gave one-third to his brothers and sisters, and turned the rest over to his mother.

Of what he kept, Xu Zaijing split it in half and gave one portion to his master.

The coachman, after consulting Qingyun, used the wealth to purchase a house in Bianjing.

News of the incident within the Imperial Guards spread swiftly through the noble network.

It was a small display of power by the Xiangyang Marquis House and the Qi State Duke’s Mansion.

In this tiger-and-wolf den of Bianjing, if you don’t roar, people will truly mistake tigers for sick cats.

The next day, an auspicious date.

Qi Heng’s father, the Qi State Duke’s second legitimate son, not yet inherited, represented the Xu family in performing the betrothal rites—nacai and wenming—with the Xie family.

Suddenly, the noble families of Bianjing viewed the Xu family with new eyes.

Xu Zaijing’s marriage was settled; the Xu family sent invitations to the Sheng family in Yangzhou.

As the Rong family’s scandal and the Gu family’s power gradually reached the common people’s ears,

Xu Zaijing was harvesting corn in the courtyard with Deng Bo.

That night, Xu Zaijing ate steamed young corn.

Not as sweet as in his past life, but still quite good.

The weather grew colder; the cotton planted in the Xu household turned white. The servants were assigned to harvest it, dry it, and remove the seeds—yielding a hundred jin.

Deng Bo, a peasant’s son, had signed a lifetime indenture with the Xu family.

For a long time, his main task was leading other indentured servants to catch pests in the cotton fields.

The pests caught fattened several old hens in the household.

Every morning, after completing his lessons, Xu Zaijing spent his afternoons studying calligraphy and literature with his brothers.

Gu Tingyu and Gu Tingye visited several times.

Each time, Xu Zaiend, Xu Zaihang, and Gu Tingyu wrote inside the room.

Gu Tingye stood aside, challenging Xu Zaijing to archery pot games, winning and losing alternately.

In the evening, Xu Zaijing went with his master to Deng Bo’s place to study how to fluff cotton.

Fortunately, Xu Zaijing retained memories from his past life and vaguely recalled that fluffing cotton required a large bow.

Remember: ancients were not stupid, merely limited in exposure.

Xu Zaijing described the method broadly; Deng Bo and the servants soon figured it out.

A servant skilled in carpentry even crafted a smooth circular board to press and flatten the fluffed cotton.

On this day, Xu Zaijing was using his front teeth to split a sugarcane.

The cane had been sent by the Sheng family; each stalk was washed clean,

cut to half a man’s height, uniform in thickness, white-fleshed and juicy.

Two more stalks, vertically halved, were being chewed loudly by the now much taller Qiliju,

and in the nearby trough, his former mount had also been given one.

Crack.

Xu Zaijing winced—his front tooth had broken off.

Qingyun, who had just finished chewing and sucking the sweet juice from his sugarcane, spat it out and saw his master’s tooth fall.

Xu Zaijing sat stunned—he’d forgotten he was at the age for losing baby teeth.

“No wonder Anmei has been so proper lately, smiling without showing teeth, barely speaking when given gifts—she’s losing her baby teeth too.”

Sun Shi naturally knew her young son was losing teeth; over the past year, her dowry had slowly been recovered.

Though Princess Pingning was proud, she held some fondness for Xu Zaijing, and gradually, the Xiangyang Marquis also showed friendliness toward the Xu family.

At several banquets and gatherings, it became known that the Xu and Sheng families had resolved their decade-old grudge.

The clearest sign was that Sheng Wei’s business improved markedly.

Sheng Wei naturally wrote to his aunt about all this; one-tenth of the Sheng family’s business profits now flowed into the Xu household.

In the imperial palace with its Cengceng palaces, the empress’s lady-in-waiting carried a wooden basket respectfully into the empress’s sleeping quarters.

“Your Majesty, the Marquis of Courage and Resolve, the Xu family, presents Your Majesty with a bundle of white cotton wadding.”

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(End of chapter)