Against the Current - Chapter 106

Chapter 106 - Mistress 

Lin Jinlou stepped out of the room as the sky grew pitch dark, and scattered snowflakes began to flutter down from the heavens. Shuran walked over and said in a low voice, "Does the Eldest Master intend to stay in the Zhimun Lodge or return to the study?"

Lin Jinlou narrowed his eyes, raising his head to look at the heavy, oppressive sky. Where should he go? Having just paid his respects to Qinglan and that child, he truly had no heart to stay in the Zhimun Lodge, yet the study felt altogether too desolate...

He instructed Shuran, "Order the pageboys to prepare a horse; I am going out. If the First Mistress asks, just say I have official business to handle and must return to the military camp first, and that I will be back tomorrow." Shuran hastily assented. As Lin Jinlou walked to the doorway, a thought suddenly struck him, and he turned back to say, "That maid named Xianglan—go find a few reliable people later and inquire about where she was sold. If she was sold into a brothel or some other wretched place, use silver to redeem her and find a decent path for her. Consider it accumulating a bit of hidden virtue for Qinglan and that child."

Lin Jinlou had never believed in the concept of cause and effect. Yet now, uttering these words out of nowhere, he caused Shuran a mild shock. However, Shuran instantly concealed his astonishment, lowered his head, and said, "Understood. Shortly, I will find a few human traffickers to make inquiries."

Lin Jinlou gave a slight nod and began to walk outward, adding as he went, "A chest of local specialties from Jiangsu and Zhejiang was brought back. Take it later and distribute it among the various rooms, and send people to deliver them."

Shuran followed closely behind, repeatedly answering "Yes," while thinking to himself, The Eldest Master is also a pitiful soul. This duty should rightfully be handled by the First Mistress. Now that the couple is at odds, the task falls squarely on my head. When I eventually leave the estate to get married, the Eldest Master won't even have a single capable person left by his side. My paternal cousin Ke'ren was bestowed upon the Eldest Master by the Old Madam anyway; if she proves to be clever, I will have her take my place in the future. As it turned out, although Lin Jinlou possessed an overbearing disposition, he was generous and lenient toward his subordinates and carried a strong sense of loyalty. Consequently, those who followed him for long were always willing to risk their lives for him.

Lin Jinlou took Jixiang and rode out on horseback, passing through seven or eight alleys before stopping in front of a small red door. Jixiang went forward to knock, and before long, an old man came out. Seeing it was his master and servant, he hurriedly welcomed them in. Lin Jinlou strode straight into the house, where an exquisitely beautiful woman, exuding alluring charm, had already hurried forward to greet him. Her face was wreathed in a tender, ingratiating smile as she chattered away, "Why did the Eldest Master come out the moment he returned to the estate? I wonder if you've had dinner yet?"

Lin Jinlou didn't even spare her a glance. Entering the room, he pulled a pillow over and reclined on the kang. The woman was not annoyed in the least; she simply ordered servants to boil water, brew tea, and rearrange the fruit platters. Then, she personally wrung out a hot towel to wipe Lin Jinlou's face, light-footedly climbed onto the kang, and began massaging his head and shoulders. Breaking into a soft chuckle, she said, "Where on earth has my lord encountered unpleasantness? You've been wearing a scowl the moment you stepped through the door, looking quite frightening." Seeing that Lin Jinlou offered no reply, she cast a meaningful glance at the maid serving nearby. Once the maid withdrew, she untied the frogs of her jacket to reveal a bright red, five-colored mandarin duck embroidered bellyband beneath, and softened her voice to purr, "Oh my, let me see. Your complexion is as dark as thunder—who gave you a hard time? Tell me about it, and later I'll craft a little straw voodoo doll to curse the one who's annoying my lord, wishing them a wretched demise... Though, looking at you, it doesn't seem like public affairs are troubling you; it rather looks like matters of the heart..."

This little voice was rich, sugary, and drawn out, carrying an intensely seductive quality. Lin Jinlou felt a stir in his chest as a soft, boneless little hand slipped into the opening of his robe, and a voice breathed like orchid fragrance beside his ear, "My lord, you have the premier beauty of Jinling enshrined in your estate, so why come straight to me the moment you return? Is it truly because you missed me, hmm?" Her white teeth lightly nipped at his round, thick earlobe.

With his eyes closed, Lin Jinlou caught that wandering hand, the corners of his mouth curving slightly. "Stop playing around. Let me have some peace for a moment. My mind is ill at ease right now."

The woman let out a soft laugh. "My good man, what could possibly make you uneasy here..." Catching sight of Lin Jinlou suddenly opening his eyes to stare straight at her, she was startled, dared not flirt or cajole any further, and slowly straightened her posture.

Lin Jinlou closed his eyes again and commanded, "Have someone boil hot water; I need to bathe. Change the tea to Longjing." The woman bit her lip, looking displeased, but went off anyway.

This woman was named Su Meiru. Originally a "slender horse" from Yangzhou, she had been meticulously trained by human traffickers for her beauty and wit. Versed in the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting, she had been sold at the age of fourteen at a high price to Wu Dapeng, a salt merchant from Zhejiang. Wu Dapeng was already over fifty, obese, and vulgar. Su Meiru loathed him intensely, but she was full of schemes and willing to endure humiliation, serving him with the utmost tenderness so that she quickly won his deep favor. Through a mixture of cajoling, crying, and creating scenes, Su Meiru induced Wu Dapeng to strike her name off the slave registers and elevate her to a commoner status. As ill luck would have it, that very year Wu Dapeng suffered a stroke and became bedridden, nearing death's door. Su Meiru tended to him day and night without removing her clothes, playing the part of the devoted concubine to perfection, while secretly stealing numerous gold and silver jewelry, antiques, and calligraphy scrolls, selling them behind people's backs to convert them into silver taels. By the time the old man kicked the bucket and Wu's clansmen tore each other apart in a bloody battle for the estate's inheritance, Su Meiru shed her mourning robes, packed two chests of gold, silver, and antiques into a carriage, and traveled all the way to the military camps to throw in her lot with Lin Jinlou.

Su Meiru personally brewed a pot of Longjing tea, cautiously brought it over, and whispered softly, "My lord, the tea is ready." Seeing Lin Jinlou sit up, she hurriedly handed the cup to him, gazing at his handsome brows and eyes in the candlelight with a hint of infatuation. She had been eighteen when she first met Lin Jinlou. Wu Dapeng had hosted a banquet at home for several distinguished guests, and during the banquet, he had her come out to play the lute and add to the merriment. She had felt somewhat displeased, yet deeply curious: what kind of extraordinary figure could make Wu Dapeng willing to present his beloved concubine, hidden away in the inner chambers, just to entertain his guests?

She had stepped out holding her lute, curtsied gracefully, and upon raising her head, laid eyes on Lin Jinlou. He was dressed in a dark green robe, looking martial yet scholarly, noble and awe-inspiring, with a casual smile playing across his face. Beside him, all the young masters on the left and right grew pale and insignificant, reduced to mere foils. Su Meiru's heart had pounded fiercely, and her face slowly flushed.

Later on, Su Meiru used every method to pry information out of Wu Dapeng, learning that he was Lin Jinlou, the eldest grandson of the prominent Jiangnan Lin family. She also learned that he possessed ruthless and brilliant methods, commanded troops with a laugh, and maintained a personal private army known as the Lin Family Army that enjoyed a formidable reputation. She found out that he reveled in romantic brothels and caroused with unbridled indulgence, and that he had recently taken Zhao Yuechhan, the premier beauty of Jinling, as his wife. She kept Lin Jinlou fixed in her thoughts, and perhaps the heavens took pity on her; the moment Old Man Wu died, she gained her release. Coincidentally, Lin Jinlou was fighting a campaign in Zhejiang at the time, so she entrusted an acquaintance to appeal to him, and thereafter willingly became his outside mistress.

Lin Jinlou did not reject the favors of a beauty. At first, he treated her with tender affection, casting aside even the concubine who had pursued him from home, renting a residence outside and spending whole days with her. He was lavish with his spending, yet he told Su Meiru bluntly, "I cannot give you a proper, formal status. Whenever you wish to get married in the future, go right ahead. Or if you want a certain kind of match, I will scout one out for you and add a generous dowry to boot."

A cold shiver had run through Su Meiru's heart, but she cast a coquettish glance at Lin Jinlou and said, "I, Su Meiru, am in the prime of my youth, with wealth and fields to my name; the men wanting to marry me could line the southern street, so I won't trouble the Eldest Master to worry on my behalf. Besides, my heart is firmly set on following you for the rest of my life. You wouldn't just cast me aside, would you, hmm?"

Hearing this, Lin Jinlou merely chuckled, lowered his eyelashes to sip his tea, and gradually grew distant toward her thereafter. Su Meiru had burned with anxiety, unable to fathom or guess the temperament and thoughts of this man. In secret, she sent a lock of her hair to him via a pageboy, but who would have thought that afterward, although Lin Jinlou still ordered people to look after her, he never set foot in that residence again. Only then did Su Meiru realize she had done a foolish thing, growing all the more cautious, timid, and fearful of loss. Later, when Lin Jinlou returned to Jinling, he told her that the Zhejiang residence now belonged to her and that from then on, the two of them would have nothing more to do with each other. Su Meiru had threatened suicide, clung to Lin Jinlou's legs in tears, and stubbornly followed him all the way back from Zhejiang.

Now, having just returned to Jinling, Lin Jinlou had chosen to spend his very first night resting right here with her. Su Meiru was both astonished and overjoyed, pulling out every trick in her arsenal to be tender and attentive.

Before long, the water was heated. Su Meiru waited on Lin Jinlou as he bathed, taking a brush to scrub his back. Seeing his robust and sturdy upper body, a sudden warmth surged through her heart. Stealing a glance, she saw Lin Jinlou resting his eyes with his lids closed beside the edge of the wooden tub, so she dared not overstep and instead picked up a towel to wipe him down with meticulous care.

Lin Jinlou let out a long breath and instructed, "Have a few refreshing dishes prepared; I'll be staying here tonight."

Su Meiru's face instantly lit up with a beaming smile. Delighted to the point of standing up, she exclaimed, "I'll go tell Mother Zhang to make them right now! I'll also have a pot of porridge simmered carefully; I remember the lord had two bowls of plum blossom porridge last time and said it helped stimulate the appetite."

Lin Jinlou replied, "There's no need to go to all that trouble. There are important matters tomorrow, so I'll just eat a couple of bites and go to sleep."

Su Meiru instantly understood Lin Jinlou's implication, and a wave of deep disappointment washed over her. The smile on her face grew considerably more forced, and hearing Lin Jinlou give a slight cough, she hurried forward to ask, "Is the Eldest Master's throat dry? Would you like some tea?" Lin Jinlou slightly opened his eyes and caught sight of Su Meiru's ingratiating smile, her full lips painted with a faint layer of rouge. Lin Jinlou suddenly thought of that little maid named Xianglan who also possessed such a pretty little mouth, pink and vibrant even without rouge. He had originally intended to elevate her upon returning from this military campaign, only to have Zhao Yuechhan sell her off. Among all the women he had ever laid eyes on, Xianglan's appearance and disposition could easily rank in the top three—it was truly a pity for such a delicate flower and tender willow of a girl...

Seeing Lin Jinlou staring fixedly at her mouth, Su Meiru felt a flicker of insecurity, flashed a seductive smile, and asked, "What is the lord staring at? Could it be I've got something dirty on me?"

While suppressing bandits, he had spent every day licking blood off the blade of a knife, and Su Meiru was merely a plaything for his moments of indulgence. Even if she was a young widow, she was beautiful and understood how to please a man, so accepting her company was no big deal. Yet who could have known that Su Meiru would develop such extraneous ambitions, constantly prying into who lived in the Lin household, what their individual tempers and dispositions were, and whether the primary wife was broad-minded. At that, he had frowned. Pleasures outside the home were ultimately just pleasures; he had never once thought of bringing her back to his estate, nor had he ever intended to let the likes of Su Meiru bear his offspring. He had already made things clear to Su Meiru, yet she still clung to him with lingering reluctance. Ah well, his former favorite, Xiao Cuixian, had been just the same—weeping and wailing, refusing to let her benefactor redeem her, single-mindedly waiting for him to buy her freedom and take her home as a concubine. After a few years, watching her youth slip away, she finally resigned herself to fate, allowing him to spend three thousand taels of silver to redeem her and gift her to a close friend. As for Su Meiru here, he would simply stop coming after a little while. In two or three years, when she regained her common sense, she would find someone else to marry.

Yet he had forgotten the old saying: If you walk by the river often enough, how can you avoid wetting your shoes? True to form, sooner or later, romantic debts must be repaid. This very Su Meiru would later stir up a major public scandal for the Lin family.

At that moment, Lin Jinlou closed his eyes and said quietly, "It's nothing."