After just a few words, Meng Fu noticed that there was something strange in his expression. It seemed that Prince Xuan’s illness was fake. She remained calm, flipping through the memorials before her while seemingly casually asking a few questions, only occasionally lifting her head to glance at the subordinate.
After this round of questioning, Meng Fu formed a preliminary judgment — Prince Xuan was no longer in Yecheng. Combining that with what Nanny Liu had said, she believed there was a strong possibility Prince Xuan was right here in the capital.
Seeing that she could no longer get any useful information out of him, Meng Fu dismissed the subordinate and, at the same time, dispatched shadow guards to follow him.
The subordinate left the palace and returned to his temporary residence. Prince Xuan asked him what the emperor had summoned him for today. The subordinate replied, “The emperor inquired about your illness. He asked when you would be able to come to the capital and said that if you couldn’t make it, he’d send two imperial physicians to examine you.”
Prince Xuan nodded and said, “That does sound like something he would say.”
He paused and then asked again, “Did the emperor smile at you again today?”
The subordinate shook his head and said, “No.”
His Majesty seemed much more normal this time.
Prince Xuan was now completely relieved. It seemed that the emperor’s previous smiles truly didn’t carry any other meaning — or perhaps he had once suspected, but the suspicion had already been dispelled.
Delays would bring changes. He had to hurry and trick the former Crown Prince’s remaining people into his own hands — there could be no more delay.
The shadow guards quickly located Prince Xuan’s whereabouts in the capital. As per the emperor’s orders, they quietly shadowed him and closely monitored his daily activities.
The emperor, because of Nanny Liu and Prince Xuan’s matter, had again gotten a bellyful of anger and was especially eager to find someone to scold so that he could let it out.
But recently, all the servants, concubines, and even the old madam at the Marquis of Xuanping’s residence had all figured it out clearly — don’t provoke the Madam under any circumstances. No matter what the reason is, the one who ends up getting hurt will definitely be yourself. So, no one dared to touch Li Yue’s bad nerve.
Li Yue had no way to vent his anger, so the next day, when teaching Hua Xiaoling and Qu Hanyan, he was especially strict. Even Qingping was dragged into extra training for another half an hour.
Hua Xiaoling was standing with her calves trembling and happened to glance sideways, only to see Qu Hanyan staring with her big bright eyes at Madam, who was currently demonstrating sword techniques.
Was Qu Hanyan a masochist? It was already like this and yet she still wore that face of: “Madam, please train me harder” — such a perverse expression.
This was killing her — how did she never notice Qu Hanyan had this kind of kink before?
At noon, the steward brought over a new ledger. Li Yue didn’t want to look at it, and with a wave of his large hand, he actually told Qingping to send the ledger to Xie Wenzhao’s Songxuan Hall.
When Qingping arrived, Xie Wenzhao wasn’t in the residence. His young attendant took the ledger and delivered it to the study. When that servant saw the ledger, he was nearly dumbfounded.
He had heard the Madam had changed a lot lately, but not to the point of going mad!
Since when did households make the man manage the household accounts? What on earth was Madam thinking?
But this kind of thing was not something a small servant like him could question. He obediently delivered the ledger into the study, only hoping that when the marquis returned and saw the stack of ledgers, he wouldn’t be too angry.
Li Yue didn’t care at all whether Xie Wenzhao could manage the accounts. Even if he lost the entire Marquis’ estate, it wouldn’t affect Li Yue one bit. In the future, once he and Meng Fu switched back, if Meng Fu lacked anything or was wronged by anyone, he could always step in and take care of it properly.
But after Meng Fu returns… could it be that she still wants to stay here?
This wasn’t the first time Li Yue had thought about this question. Even now, he still didn’t have an answer.
In his opinion, what’s so great about this broken place? But Meng Fu had already stayed here for four years. During those four years, her situation was much more miserable than his current one — and yet, she seemed to have never considered leaving.
Li Yue let out a long sigh. Next time he sees Meng Fu, he has to ask her what her plans for the future are.
If she still wants to stay in the marquis’ residence, then what should he do?
Li Yue patted his head and mulled it over for a long while, thinking of all kinds of possibilities, and then, based on those possibilities, extended various outcomes. In the end, he managed to mentally supplement himself into a belly full of anger.
After Meng Fu left the Marquis of Xuanping’s residence, she would be seeking a heli with Xie Wenzhao.
[和离 heli — formal, mutual divorce in ancient China; culturally different from modern divorce, often stigmatized for women.]
For a woman, heli was indeed not an easy matter. It concerned not only the feelings between two people, but also the interests of the families behind them.
However, Li Yue didn’t think this was a problem. Meng Fu surely had no feelings for Xie Wenzhao. As for family interests? What kind of eyes did Meng Yanxing have to pick such a lousy son-in-law? And he still had the nerve to talk about interests?
A woman’s life after heli might not be easy, but Li Yue felt it would at least be happier than staying in the marquis’ residence.
What he didn’t know was what Meng Fu was truly thinking.
Sun Yulian hadn’t come out of Qiuxiang Hall for days, but her information network was still as sharp as ever. She knew that the ledger, after many turns, had ended up back in Madam’s hands. Just as she was about to sigh that Madam’s methods were brilliant — not shedding a single soldier or drop of blood and making the old madam yield on her own — she heard that Madam had sent the ledger to Songxuan Hall, and that Xie Wenzhao would be managing the accounts from now on.
When Sun Yulian heard this news, she wasn’t even too surprised. She even felt a strange sense of of course, as if… this was indeed something Madam would do.
She had once wanted to manage the accounts, hoping to use it as a way to elevate her status in the residence, to get Xie Wenzhao to look at her more. She had once had that chance but didn’t grasp it properly — in the end, she became a joke.
Now looking at Madam — she didn’t have the ledgers, wasn’t liked by the marquis or the old madam — yet wasn’t she doing just fine? Which servant dared to act presumptuously in front of Madam now? Even the old madam and the marquis were being worn down by Madam, left with no means to deal with her.
Sun Yulian felt that maybe she should start learning from Madam. She had a hunch that the ledger would eventually return to Madam’s hands again. If she could win Madam over, maybe she’d get the ledger too.
After some deep consideration, Sun Yulian suppressed all her negative emotions regarding Xie Wenzhao and lifted her foot to head toward Jixue Courtyard.
That night, Xie Wenzhao returned to the estate. Seeing the ledger on his desk, and hearing from the servant why it had been placed there, his face showed the same expression the servant had worn earlier that day.
Was Meng Fu crazy? How dare she!
Xie Wenzhao was livid, and he really wanted to throw all those ledgers straight into Jixue Courtyard.
But he feared that even if he did that, Meng Fu wouldn’t care. In the end, he’d be the one who had to send someone to pick the ledgers back up.
Whoever cares more about the Marquis’ estate is destined to pay more for it.
Xie Wenzhao had been spoiled by the old madam since childhood — his limbs lazy, and unable to tell grain from bean. He had no clue how to read ledgers. And with the old madam currently ill, and the doctor having warned that she mustn’t overexert herself, he truly didn’t want to trouble her — it really could only fall to him.
Xie Wenzhao flipped through a couple of pages and found that there were places he didn’t quite understand. He summoned the steward and had him explain.
Over the next few days, Xie Wenzhao honestly stayed in Songxuan Hall, learning bookkeeping from the steward. In the blazing summer heat, the sun burned like fire. Even with several ice basins in the study, he was still sweating profusely from calculating. The steward had to point out errors here and there: “You miscalculated here,” “That part isn’t right.”
And yet, Xie Wenzhao couldn’t completely trust the steward — otherwise, wouldn’t the whole estate be at the steward’s command? After these few days, Xie Wenzhao was completely inflamed — red eyes, a sore throat, even blisters forming on his lips. His colleagues even teased him: “How’d you get yourself into this state?”
Meanwhile, there was still no movement from Jixue Courtyard. Xie Wenzhao made a few inquiries — the servants said that Madam was ill and couldn’t manage things.
That excuse was provided by Sun Yulian. If the marquis found out that Madam was spending her days so cheerfully, he might very well come knocking at her door soon.
She wasn’t wrong. Xie Wenzhao didn’t doubt the servants’ words, thinking that Meng Fu’s health had always been poor and it wasn’t unusual for her to fall sick. So, he continued to exhaust himself — serving at the Ministry of Revenue during the day, and staying up all night to go over accounts. In just a few days, he had already lost a visible amount of weight.
In the end, Xie Wenzhao truly couldn’t endure any longer. He felt that if this went on, he might really need to be carried out. The old madam had fallen ill recently, and the doctor had warned her not to overexert herself, so Xie Wenzhao certainly couldn’t bother her. At last, he lowered his head and decided to go talk with Meng Fu — to ask if she could at least help manage a little bit.
Xie Wenzhao hesitated for nearly half an afternoon before finally swallowing his pride and going to Jixue Courtyard. However, what he saw upon entering the courtyard was completely different from the sick-in-bed image of Meng Fu he had imagined.
He arrived at dusk. The sunset had dyed half the sky red. Meng Fu was sitting in a rocking chair, with Qingping standing beside her, fanning her.
His eldest concubine, Hua Xiaoling, was standing on the other side, waving her hands and feet as she told her a story.
The second concubine, Sun Yulian, was holding a chilled plum drink, moving delicately and gracefully out from the room, and brought the sour plum soup to her.
What was most infuriating was that Third Concubine Qu Hanyan, who had been wearing a cold expression toward him all this time, was now dressed in a light pink gauze dress, standing atop a short wooden stump, holding a long sword in her hand, slowly raising it and assuming a stance — by the looks of it, she was about to perform a sword dance for Meng Fu.
And Meng Fu was pinching the space between her brows, her gaze drifting elsewhere, seemingly not even very interested in watching.