Against the Current - Chapter 8

Chapter 8 - Wives and Concubines (Part 1)

One fine and sunny day, Xianglan was thinking of carrying her quilt outside to air out in the sun when she suddenly heard Cao Lihuan calling out from the main hall, "Xianglan, take these few items and deliver them to Eldest Grandmother Lou." She nudged a lacquer-wood box inlaid with marigold designs on the table, adding, "You must hand this directly to Eldest Grandmother and tell her I sent it; she'll understand the moment she looks at it."

Xianglan nodded, inquired about the location, and then picked up the box and stepped outside. Luoxue Lodge sat at the very edge of the Lin family garden, and Xianglan walked out along a long, secluded pebble path with light, brisk steps.

Spring was now at its height: plantain leaves grew a deep, lush green, bamboo fronds were a thick emerald, and peach and apricot blossoms bloomed in fiery, rosy splendor. Birds trilled among the trees from time to time, and a gentle breeze rippled the surface of a pond. Maidservants dressed in bright reds and greens occasionally crossed the arched bridge, filling the world with vibrant radiance. As Xianglan admired the scenery along the way, she felt her spirits lift and her mind clear.

Leaving the garden, the easternmost building was Zhisun Lodge, where Zhao Yue Chan resided. Zhisun Lodge was massive, featuring three towering, magnificent main rooms accompanied by four projecting verandas, with several side rooms branching off to the east and west within the courtyard. Xianglan stepped cautiously into the courtyard, finding it entirely silent. She called out loudly several times, "Is anyone here?" But no one answered.

Xianglan had no choice but to press forward, not daring to enter the main rooms. Seeing that a window on the right was half-open in a hazy blur, she walked up to the base of the wall, leaned in, and peeked inside. There she saw Zhao Yue Chan seated on a begonia-shaped carved wooden chair. Standing to her right, astonishingly, was Yingshuang. Kneeling on the floor before Zhao Yue Chan were two young women; one kept her head bowed and her shoulders trembling, evidently weeping, while the other cried out in a hoarse, grievance-laden voice, "Eldest Grandmother, I truly did not bump into Elder Sister Chunyan..."

"Zhicao, you clearly bumped into me! How can you claim you didn't? Eldest Grandmother, you must mete out justice for me." Hearing this, the weeping girl with her bowed head jerked it up violently—it was Chunyan, the eldest daughter of Mother Lu Er.

"Eldest Grandmother, I was standing right behind Elder Sister Chunyan at the time, but I most certainly did not touch her! She somehow stumbled forward on her own and collided with Elder Sister Yingge..." Zhicao was a maid of thirteen or fourteen whose slender frame trembled uncontrollably as she cried so pitifully.

"Spouting nonsense!" Chunyan glared at Zhicao through gritted teeth, her pretty face distorting somewhat with malice. "You little hussy, you run your mouth with utter fabrications, aren't you afraid of being struck by divine lightning?" As she spoke, she could not help reaching out to pinch Zhicao twice. Zhicao scrambled to dodge, crying out in piercing pain as teardrops pelted down like falling rain.

Zhao Yue Chan slammed her hand down on the table and barked, "Enough! Is there no end to this?!"

The room instantly fell silent. Zhao Yue Chan turned her head to look aside and asked, "Yingge, are you feeling any better?"

It was only then that Xianglan noticed a delicate beauty reclining against an arhat bed in the corner of the room. She was wearing a pale cyan-gold jacket embroidered with blooming forsythia branches, wearing a pure gold twin-lotus hair-dangling pin on her head, and looked alarmingly pale, holding her hand to her chest like Xizi nursing her heart, utterly frail and vulnerable. Yingge placed her right hand over her lower abdomen and said with tears brimming in her eyes, "I am fine myself, but I worry about the child in my belly... Eldest Grandmother, this is the eldest young master's very first child. If anything untoward were to happen, how could I ever show my face before the Old Matriarch and the Mistress?" As she spoke, two lines of clear tears slid down her cheeks.

From the corner came a sudden, light snort of laughter. "I must say, Younger Sister Yingge, everyone in this room knows you were given to the eldest young master by the Old Matriarch. Is there any need to constantly drag the Old Matriarch into your words every single time? Set your mind at ease; Eldest Grandmother sees everything with absolute clarity and will surely clear your name of this grievance." Her tone was neither fish nor fowl, laden with a gleeful, gloating acidity.

Following the sound, Xianglan looked over and saw a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old young woman seated in the corner, wearing a two-toned golden chrysanthemum-embroidered gown, a pure gold hairpin set with auspicious pearls, and a purplish-red gold-threaded skirt. She possessed an oval face—though her chin was perhaps a trifle too sharp—with bright eyes, white teeth, and a tiny black mole just beneath her left eye. Her appearance was extraordinarily striking, heavily made up; on anyone else, such styling would look utterly vulgar, yet on her, it somehow appeared remarkably captivating. With an air of apparent boredom, she stretched out both hands to inspect her freshly manicured nails, the glittering gold bracelets making her wrists look exceptionally white.

Xianglan thought to herself, Among all the women in this room, aside from Zhao Yue Chan’s peerless beauty, this one is the most eye-catching. Her entire bearing is like that of a proper, respectable young lady; she certainly didn't come from some humble, low-class background.

"Elder Sister Haimian, how can you speak like that... I am simply consumed by worry for the eldest young master's flesh and blood." Yingge put on an expression of shock and sorrow, and her tears fell afresh.

Haimian seemed to laugh, covering her mouth with a handkerchief. "Fine, save that look of heartbreaking pity for the eldest young master—it won't work on me. Don't you always complain of chest pains one moment and stomachaches the next just to lure the eldest young master back to your rooms? The eldest young master will be back in a moment; given how heaven has blessed you with this golden opportunity of a collision, you must be sure to weep your heart out before him once more, winning a bit of extra pity and tenderness. Tomorrow I might just go and learn from Younger Sister Yingge: go stand out in the rain, moan and groan in bed to lure the eldest young master over, and perhaps I'll wind up with a child in my belly just like that..."

Zhao Yue Chan said coldly, "Haimian, have you said enough?"

Haimian gave a charming, sparkling smile. "Said enough, I'll shut my mouth." With that, she pulled a pocket mirror from her sleeve, checked her reflection, and smoothed her hair.

Xianglan almost laughed out loud, thinking, The eldest young master has three concubines: Chunyan is lively and cute, Yingge is a picture of pathos, and Haimian is seductive and gorgeous. This room is a complete aviary of warbling orioles and fluttering swallows, wonderfully well-stocked. Add in the ethereal beauty Zhao Yue Chan, and this scoundrel Lin Jinlou is blessed with quite a lot of romantic fortune. Out of these three, however, Chunyan has the least brains, Yingge is the most theatrical, and Haimian is actually quite interesting.

Zhao Yue Chan stared at Yingge and asked, "Did you happen to see just now who it was that bumped into you?"

Yingge lowered her gaze, shook her head, and said, "Just now, the few of us were coming out of Eldest Grandmother's room. The moment I stepped past the threshold of the steps, I was shoved violently from behind. If Le'er hadn't grabbed hold of me, I would have fallen straight to the ground... but I still hit my stomach and it hurts." As she spoke, she clutched her lower abdomen, knitted her brows, and wore an expression of distress.

Zhao Yue Chan said, "Just lie down properly. Yingshuang has already sent a junior servant to fetch a physician."

Zhicao suddenly burst into loud, wailing tears. "Eldest Grandmother! Eldest Grandmother, it truly wasn't me! It really wasn't me who pushed Chunyan!"

"Bullshit! It was clearly you! You shoved me hard from behind, which made me crash into Yingge!" Chunyan pointed at Zhicao, her eyes practically shooting fire.

"It wasn't me! It wasn't me! It truly wasn't me!" Zhicao shook her head desperately, opening her mouth wide to cry until she hiccuped, her dangling earrings swinging wildly and striking her face.

Chunyan shook with rage from head to toe. "I clearly saw your hands clutching my clothes, yet you still dare claim it wasn't you! I'll tear your mouth apart!" With that, she lunged at Zhicao.

Zhicao shrieked in terror as Chunyan pinned her to the floor and began pummeling her. The maids in the room cried out in shock and scrambled forward to pull them apart. Yingge wore a cold sneer at the corner of her lips while clutching her belly and moaning miserably. Haimian sat in the corner, shrieking at the top of her lungs, "Oh my, oh my, this is dreadful! Hurry up and pull them apart! Elder Sister Chunyan, let go quickly, don't beat that little girl to death!" The tone of her voice was unmistakably laced with amusement.

Xianglan widened her eyes. Chunyan's fiery temper truly lived up to Mother Lu Er's legacy; at the slightest disagreement, she really threw punches. As she watched the two figures rolling into a ball on the floor with no one able to separate them, a weight suddenly landed on her shoulder, and a voice whispered, "What are you watching here?"

Xianglan jumped, startling away half her soul. Turning around, she saw the round-faced little maid who had greeted her on her first day in the estate standing behind her, beaming from ear to ear. It was Xiaojuan.

Xianglan patted her chest and gasped, "Oh, it's you. You scared the life out of me."

Xiaojuan giggled. "What are you sneaking around looking at..." Before she finished speaking, her expression suddenly tightened. She grabbed Xianglan, pulled her to the side, and whispered, "Quickly lower your head and stand straight." Xianglan hastily followed suit, dropping her head into a respectful posture. Glancing sideways out of the corner of her eye, she saw a tall figure striding over in a rush. He did not look in their direction, pushed open the door and stepped inside, barking harshly, "What on earth is all this racket?!"

As the old saying goes, "When a single bird enters the woods, a hundred birds hush their song." The orioles and swallows in the room instantly fell silent. Chunyan was still straddling Zhicao; hearing that voice, she scrambled off in a flurry, frantically straightening her disheveled hair bun while casting a stealthy glance toward the doorway and muttering, "The Eldest Young Master."

Zhicao remained half-reclined on the floor, weeping softly. Her hair had long since been clawed apart by Chunyan, and her hairpins and floral ornaments hung at haphazard angles among her locks. An elderly maid stepped forward and tugged at Zhicao twice before finally hauling her back to her feet.

Lin Jinlou narrowed his eyes slightly, his gaze as sharp as a sword as he slowly swept it around the room. Simply standing there, he radiated an oppressive, intimidating presence that left everyone breathless, making them involuntarily take a step backward. Finally, Lin Jinlou's gaze locked onto Zhao Yue Chan, and he demanded, "What is the meaning of this?"

Zhao Yue Chan arched an eyebrow and replied, "Yingge was bumped by someone and complained of stomach pain, so I hurriedly had her rest here and sent someone to fetch a physician. Chunyan and Zhicao were standing behind Yingge at the time; Chunyan claims Zhicao pushed her, which is why she collided with Yingge. Zhicao insists she didn't push Chunyan, and that Chunyan tripped into Yingge on her own."

Lin Jinlou pulled up a chair and sat down, his voice as cold and hard as stone. "Has a physician been fetched?"

Yingshuang spoke softly, "Someone has already been sent. They should be arriving shortly."

Lin Jinlou glanced at Yingge. Tear-droplets still clung to her deathly pale face; seeing Lin Jinlou looking toward her, she assumed an even more pitiful air, knitting her slender brows and gazing at him with an expression that seemed to plead, Surely you must pity me. Lin Jinlou turned his head back to Zhao Yue Chan. "You stirred up such a massive spectacle here—turning a formal joint tribunal into a full-scale martial brawl—have you managed to uncover anything? Who exactly pushed Yingge?"

Zhao Yue Chan toyed with the red musk prayer beads on her wrist, her expression detached. "I feel quite uneasy in my conscience even after staging such a massive spectacle. What Yingge is carrying is the Eldest Young Master's flesh and blood, and she is currently the apple of the Eldest Young Master's eye. The Eldest Young Master has warned and admonished me so many times to watch over Yingge with the utmost care. Now that she's suffered a collision like this, if anything were to happen to this child, I would be entirely unforgivable even if I hanged myself from a beam or slit my own throat. Forget a joint tribunal or a martial brawl—if you asked me to perform the role of Xiang Yu the Hegemon King cutting his own throat at Wujiang, I'd gladly do it to save the trouble."

Chunyan collapsed onto her knees with a loud thud, her voice thick with tears. "E... Eldest Young Master, I didn't push her! Someone really shoved me from behind, and because I lost my footing, I crashed into Yingge..." As she spoke, she began inching forward, hoping to clasp Lin Jinlou's leg. But under a single glance from Lin Jinlou, she lost her nerve, let her hands drop limply, and collapsed into a heap on the floor, weeping and wailing, "I wasn't being intentional..."

Yingshuang's eyes flashed with cold severity as she stepped forward and barked, "Shut your mouth! Neither the Eldest Young Master nor the Eldest Grandmother has spoken yet, where do you find the audacity to interrupt?!"

Chunyan was so startled that she shrank her neck in terror, not daring to utter another sound.