Against the Current - Chapter 318

Chapter 318 - Infatuation 

Seeing Xianglan enter, Zhen'er hurriedly curtsied. Xianglan waved her hand and walked straight over to peer at the bed. She saw Tan Luhua with a thick strip of cloth wrapped around her head, half-leaning against the wall and covered by a semi-new lozenge-patterned quilt. A sickly aura hung about her face, though her cheeks were not sunken, and there was no haggard look to her. Upon seeing Xianglan, the corners of her mouth twitched into a faint smile, but she neither spoke nor made a sound.

Xianglan asked softly, "Are you feeling a bit better?" Tan Luhua did not reply. Xianglan asked again, "Does your head still hurt? Is there anywhere else on your body that feels uncomfortable?" Tan Luhua maintained her faint, smiling expression and remained silent.

Xianglan could not help but look at Zhen'er, who said in a low voice, "The Second Young Madam did nothing but stare blankly for the first two days after she woke up, and afterwards she became like this, refusing to speak to anyone."

Xianglan took the medicine bowl, sat down on the edge of the brick kang, and said to Zhen'er, "You may leave. I'll feed the Second Young Madam her medicine." Xiaojuan and Huashan then led Zhen'er away.

Xianglan stirred the medicinal broth with a spoon, silently feeding it to Tan Luhua spoonful by spoonful. Afterwards, she gave her a cup of warm water to drink, wiped the corners of her mouth with a handkerchief, and stared at her for a moment before speaking in a low voice, "There is no use in saying much idle chatter. You have committed an unforgivable wrong, and the Lin family can no longer accommodate you. Yet they still cannot bear to take your life, and are planning to send you to a nunnery in Baoding Prefecture. In the future, if you live under an alias, you can still spend your days in peace. Accompanied by green lamps and ancient Buddhas, it might not be an unpeaceful and carefree life."

Tan Luhua's expression remained unchanged, and it was impossible to tell whether she had heard or not.

Xianglan thought to herself, "Could it be that Tan Luhua's brain was truly injured? It would indeed be a pity for such a clever girl... Yet if she remains this muddled, it might actually be a blessing in disguise." She sighed, took Tan Luhua's hand, and said, "Rest assured, I will personally oversee the packing of your luggage. While the bulky items probably cannot be brought along, I have carefully gathered all your gold and silver jewelry as well as your loose coin so that you will have something to lean on in the future... The Lin family's intention is to send you away this afternoon. I came to see you and speak a few heartfelt words, hoping you will take good care of yourself in the days to come." Only when these last words were spoken did Tan Luhua's expression finally change.

As Xianglan stood up to leave, Tan Luhua grabbed her hand and said, "Wait, wait."

Xianglan turned back.

Tan Luhua said, "I beg you, for the sake of our past friendship, to do me a favor."

Xianglan sat down again and said, "Please speak."

Tan Luhua said, "Trouble you to send someone to the Hanlin Academy official Magistrate Dai's household, and tell their Third Young Master where in Baoding I am going to stay, and beg him to come meet me. Good sister, if you help me with this matter, whatever gold and silver jewelry or loose silver I have—whichever ones catch your eye, you may take them."

Xianglan felt as though she must have misheard, and said, "Could it be that this condition of yours wasn't caused by Dai Rong?"

Tan Luhua gave a start and pleaded, "He only injured me by accident in a moment of panic. That day he knelt by my side and wept; although I couldn't move at all, I was aware of it in my heart... Good sister, I beg you, the two of us are sincere, truly and genuinely devoted to one another. Please grant us this fulfillment, and he will surely come looking for me..."

Xianglan cupped Tan Luhua's face in her hands and said in disbelief, "Have you lost your mind? He treated you like this, and you still talk of sincerity!"

Tan Luhua stared fixedly at Xianglan, gritting her teeth as she said, "He is truly sincere! You don't understand. In this deep courtyard, I was merely lingering in a lifeless, half-dead existence day after day until I met him. Just catching a glimpse of him made the sky seem clear and the waters pristine, and all the flowers in my heart blossomed. You don't know how many sweet words he has spoken to me, how many poems he has written for me, showing every possible consideration and tenderness. He once said that the person he loved most in this life was me, and he wished we could melt into one another day and night. Xianglan! I only hate that we did not meet before we were married; we can never be separated!" She gripped Xianglan's hands, her eyes wide as two trails of clear tears streamed down her cheeks, and pleaded, "I beg you." With that, she struggled to sit up, attempting to kneel on the bed and kowtow to Xianglan.

Xianglan quickly pressed her down and said, "If you move again, I truly will not help you!" Hearing this, Tan Luhua finally quieted down. She clutched Xianglan's hand and said, "I beg you, help me this once. Do you know how I managed to endure these days lying in this dirty, foul place? The only hope keeping me going inside was the thought of recovering my health to go find my Lord Dai. Yesterday when that old man from the Lin family came, no matter how harsh his words or how intimidating his methods, I wasn't afraid. The Lin family casting me off fit my deepest wishes all the more, for then I could be together with my Lord Dai forever..." Her voice grew increasingly choked as she spoke.

Xianglan looked at her with a tumult of emotions in her heart, feeling all the more that this was utterly absurd. On one hand, she was exasperated that even now, matters having reached this pass, Tan Luhua still lacked discernment and could not tell right from wrong; on the other hand, she pitied her for casting away such a deep, infatuated devotion on flowing water. After pondering for a long moment, she let out a sigh and said, "It is not that I refuse to help you, but rather that even if I wanted to, I cannot. The Dai family... has already been executed to the last man for the crime of treason."

Tan Luhua turned pale with shock and cried out, "Impossible! How could that be?"

Xianglan said slowly, "It is the absolute truth. You were simply ill at the time and didn't know. Dai Rong... has been dead for a long time."

Tan Luhua's body went limp as she collapsed backward, staring blankly with unseeing eyes. Tears rolled down drop by drop, and she muttered to herself, "How could this be... how could this be..." Her vitality and spirit withered by half, showing just how deeply she had thought of Dai Rong day after day during this period. Now, learning of his death was like a bolt from the blue; the mental pillar supporting her heart had shattered, and she could no longer hold herself together. Covering her face with her hands, she cried out "Lord Dai" at every breath, weeping bitterly.

Xianglan tried to comfort her for a while, but Tan Luhua could not take any of it in. Eventually, she cried until her head split with pain, collapsing onto the bed where she fell into a dazed sleep, tears still clinging to her cheeks.

Feeling deeply unsettled, Xianglan tucked the quilt around her and rose to leave. Zhen'er hurried forward to meet her, looking thoroughly terrified. As the young maidservant who had accompanied Tan Luhua in her dowry—while the four senior maids bearing character names in their dowry had either died or been sold, leaving not a single one behind except for her—Xianglan could not help but sigh at the sight of the young girl. She gently patted her shoulder and said, "Take good care of the Second Young Madam." She then instructed Xiaojuan to reward her generously.

On the way back, Huashan asked, "Is the Second Young Madam a bit better?"

Xianglan let out a long sigh and replied, "No, she is still quite ill." She raised her head, gazing at the few wisps of drifting clouds against the azure sky, and suddenly asked, "Tell me, if a person knows full well that someone treats them poorly, yet still covers their eyes and pours out a blind, infatuated devotion upon them, what is the reason for this?"

Xiaojuan said, "Perhaps it's a debt owed in a past life, to be repaid with infatuation in this one."

Huashan said, "It must be that the person also had moments when they treated her well; otherwise, how could she pine after them with such infatuation?"

Xianglan shook her head. Either Tan Luhua truly held a deep, unrequited love for Dai Rong, or her pride was so high that she refused to admit her boundless tenderness had ended in emptiness. Having loved the wrong person in the end, she forced herself to believe that she and Dai Rong shared a mutual affection. Just as she herself knew full well that stepping outside the marital bounds was a disgraceful scandal, yet to cover it up, she would smile silently before outsiders and stubbornly play the fool. Which one it was, Xianglan could not quite fathom; yet such matters of love, hatred, and resentment are like drinking water—only the drinker knows whether it is cold or warm—how could they ever be explained to outsiders? Much like herself and Lin Jinlong—no, Lin Jinlou—entangled as they were, whether it was hatred, affection, or love, she herself was gradually losing the ability to tell them apart.

At the hour of Wei (around 2:00 PM), a carriage departed from the Lin residence and headed in the direction of Baoding Prefecture. On the very next day, news spread throughout the Lin household that the Second Young Madam, née Tan, had suffered a sudden and violent death.