Seventh Miss took a deep breath and lifted the two children onto the kang before standing up.
Standing on the kang, both children were now taller than Seventh Miss—truly like inflating balloons, growing so fast.
She tried to distribute her gaze fairly between Fourth Lang and Fifth Lang, speaking solemnly. “Shou Ge and Fu Ge must both listen carefully. Right now, you may not yet understand what Seventh Aunt means, but don’t forget these words. When you grow up, you’ll naturally understand. And don’t tell anyone else, all right?”
Fourth Lang and Fifth Lang exchanged glances, both nodding vigorously like pecking chickens.
Seventh Miss raised her head and met Xu Fengjia’s eyes. Meeting that fervent gaze, she frowned slightly and glanced away, then turned back to face the two children, speaking softly. “Your mother has already died. Death means she’s gone to a very, very far away place and will never come back.”
She paused, then continued, “But this doesn’t mean your mother didn’t love you or abandoned you without care. Your mother loved you both very much. If there had been even the slightest possibility, she definitely wouldn’t have left you. However, everyone has things they cannot do—for example, Fifth Lang cannot stop eating pine nut candy, and Fourth Lang cannot go without sleeping for four or five hours.”
Fourth Lang listened intently, but Fifth Lang suddenly burst out laughing. Seeing the expressions on his brother’s and Seventh Miss’s faces, he quieted down again, blinking his large eyes as he listened to Seventh Miss continue.
“Death is the same kind of thing. She didn’t want to die, but there was no way to change it. So she left and will never return, entrusting you to Seventh Aunt’s care. Therefore, Seventh Aunt is also like a mother to you, just like a foster mother—called ‘foster mother’ because she raises you. If you’re willing, you can also call Seventh Aunt ‘Mother.’ However, there is ultimately only one mother. If this one is also Mother and that one is also Mother, which mother is the greater one?”
Fourth Lang’s expression immediately changed, about to speak.
Seventh Miss covered his mouth again, saying gently, “Let Seventh Aunt finish—you must understand that although Mother isn’t by your side now, you cannot forget her. No one in this world loves you more than she did… If even you don’t remember Mother, then fifty years from now, who else will remember her?”
Fifth Lang suddenly interjected, “Seventh Aunt will remember!” He giggled as he spoke.
“By then Seventh Aunt will be old and confused, unable to remember anything!” Seventh Miss couldn’t help but smile slightly before continuing earnestly. “So you cannot call Seventh Aunt ‘Mother.’ But Seventh Aunt will take care of you just as Mother would… Together with your father, we’ll take care of Fourth Lang and Fifth Lang.”
She shot another glance at Xu Fengjia. “Although we’re also being a father and mother for the first time, so there are many things we don’t understand, we’ll learn together how to care for Fourth Lang and Fifth Lang, all right?”
Xu Fengjia sighed deeply and murmured, “Good, good.”
He stepped forward, placing his hands on the children’s backs and patting their small shoulders. Then, unusually, he bent down, gathered both children into his embrace, and smiled. “Who wants to play with blocks with Father?”
Fifth Lang immediately cheered, laughing as he hugged Xu Fengjia’s neck. Fourth Lang struggled and turned back to embrace Seventh Miss. Seventh Miss waved her hand, letting Xu Fengjia carry Fifth Lang out first. Only then did she look at Fourth Lang, saying softly, “If you have anything to say in the future, you can come directly and ask Seventh Aunt, all right? You did very well today. From now on, if you have something to say, don’t keep it bottled up inside—you need to speak it out so Seventh Aunt knows what Fourth Lang is thinking, yes?”
Fourth Lang blinked, hesitating for a long time before asking, “Will Seventh Aunt… also… die?”
She hadn’t expected this child to understand the meaning of death so quickly.
Seventh Miss thought for a moment and smiled. “No, neither Seventh Aunt nor Father will die.”
She smiled as she watched Fourth Lang’s small shoulders visibly relax. The child rarely leaned against Seventh Miss’s shoulder, playing with his own fingers, laughing with contentment.
The more Seventh Miss looked at him, the more adorable she found him, and she couldn’t help kissing Fourth Lang’s cheek.
Fourth Lang giggled, then after thinking for a while, asked Seventh Miss, “Then in the future, can Seventh Aunt kiss Fourth Lang more often?”
As he asked this, there was a hint of carefulness, of hope he was trying hard to disguise.
Seventh Miss immediately thought of her own days at the orphanage.
Between her two lives, she had rarely thought about events from so many years ago.
It wasn’t until Fourth Lang asked this that she suddenly remembered the past, her heart aching so sharply it was almost unbearable, and she even felt the rare sting of tears.
She said softly, “Yes, Seventh Aunt will kiss you often from now on, and kiss your younger brother too.”
After a pause, she proactively asked, “Does Fourth Lang not want to call me Seventh Aunt? Do you want your own special way of addressing me, just you and your brother?”
Fourth Lang immediately nodded vigorously again.
Seventh Miss tilted her head in thought. She kissed Fourth Lang again before smiling. “Then from now on, Fourth Lang can call me… well, call me…”
She suddenly thought that if she had children in the future, they would surely call her Mother.
At that time, what would Fourth Lang and Fifth Lang think…
Before, when she hadn’t thought about having children, calling her Seventh Aunt didn’t seem to make much difference. Now that she wanted to have children, she had to start worrying about the future.
Seventh Miss sighed and said softly, “Then Fourth Lang can call me Seventh Mother. I’m both Fourth Lang’s Seventh Aunt and Fourth Lang’s second mother. Does that sound nice?”
Fourth Lang repeated “Seventh Mother” several times. He giggled, looking at Seventh Miss as if still not quite daring to be certain. “Besides me and my brother…”
Seventh Miss smiled and shook her head. “No one else will call me that.”
Fourth Lang immediately cheered, kissed Seventh Miss several times, then squirmed. “Blocks…”
After all, he was still a child. Once the knot in his heart was untied, he was eager to play.
Seventh Miss couldn’t help but laugh. She stood up and personally carried Fourth Lang to the nursery, joining Xu Fengjia in playing blocks with the two children for a while before they separated for their meals.
The two walked out of the room side by side. Seventh Miss didn’t return to the West Three Rooms but instead wandered into the East Quiet Chamber, standing in a daze before Fifth Miss’s portrait for a long while.
Xu Fengjia also stood behind her, gazing at Fifth Miss’s portrait along with her, lost in thought.
This was the first time they had entered the East Quiet Chamber together to remember Fifth Miss. Seventh Miss stood frozen for a long time, her heart filled with complex emotions, and she slowly sighed.
“I’m a bit afraid.”
“Afraid of what?” Xu Fengjia asked in a low voice.
Seventh Miss closed her eyes, then stepped forward several paces, lifting the light gauze covering the painting and gazing at the eternal smile of the person in the portrait.
“I’m afraid I’ve misled the two children, making them believe they can still receive from their mother some things that others receive… things that Fifth Sister can no longer possibly give.”
She paused, then continued, “I’m also afraid I’ll raise the two children poorly. I have no experience at all. I’m very afraid of making mistakes, and when I go below in the future—if there is a below—I’ll have no way to answer to Fifth Sister.”
“I’m even more afraid… I’m afraid I’ll raise the children very well, that they’ll live their lives peacefully and joyfully. But there is no below, and Fifth Sister will have no way of knowing… of knowing…”
Her voice tightened slightly. “I’m also very afraid my mother will be cold and lonely below, afraid she’ll be disappointed in me, because ultimately I haven’t lived my life too well, and I couldn’t take care of Ninth Brother either. But I’m also afraid—life has so many, many regrets.”
Xu Fengjia suddenly embraced her lightly, then released her and said loudly, “What’s there to fear? Eating is more important.”
Seventh Miss immediately smiled through her tears. “All you think about is eating!”
#
Although there were still many matters to arrange behind the scenes, it was approaching the new year after all, and for the entire household, the most important thing was celebrating the new year.
By the twenty-eighth of the twelfth month, several hundred male and female servants of the household were arranged by rank outside Menghua Pavilion. Xu Fengjia and Seventh Miss personally read through the roster. Each person received new clothes and reward money according to their rank. The various courtyards also privately rewarded their servants who had worked hard all year. Seventh Miss supervised strictly, gathering the servants from Leshan Residence, Qingping Court, and Mingde Hall together, arranging for each to have one day off to return home and rest, and creating a duty roster to prevent anyone from slacking off during new year visits.
New Year’s Eve was even livelier. This year everyone was present, and both Duke Pingguo and the Grand Madam wanted things done grandly. Therefore, starting from the twenty-ninth of the twelfth month, the main kitchen worked for a full day, preparing over a hundred types of foods for ancestral offerings. On New Year’s Eve morning, after the men and women had returned from paying respects at the palace, the ancestral hall was opened. Dozens of people were arranged by gender and generation, with Duke Pingguo as chief officiant and Xu Fengjia offering the wine. Fourth Lang and Fifth Lang also had roles presenting silk, starting with the earliest ancestors and proceeding in order with worship. Duke Pingguo murmured in a low voice, reporting the year’s major and minor affairs. Everyone’s expressions were solemn. Although the weather was cold and there were only a few braziers in the ancestral hall, making standing frozen for so long truly difficult to endure, no one uttered a word. After completing this solemn worship, they escorted the Grand Madam to Leshan Residence, took turns paying their respects to her, then proceeded to Liushang Hall. Servants who were off duty could return home for New Year’s Eve, while those on duty remained serving in the inner courtyard. Each was given an additional five coins of silver as compensation for working on New Year’s Eve.
This custom had just been initiated by Seventh Miss this year. She wielded both kindness and authority with such formidable skill, and with everyone still shaken by the Wu family incident, they were careful in all matters, maintaining harmony above and below. No one dared cause any trouble, all fearing that any incident would be recorded in the files and they would suffer under Seventh Miss’s methods again.
The New Year’s Eve banquet was much livelier than at the Yang family. When Seventh Miss left the Yang household, there had been only four masters. Usually it felt peaceful, but come the new year it suddenly felt cold and desolate—unlike the second branch where three sons had married in succession, so counting everyone there were over ten people, lively and talking and laughing, which felt like a proper new year celebration. Now that Seventh Miss had married into the Xu family, at the reunion dinner there were twenty-two masters from top to bottom, young and old in the Xu household—not counting concubines. Everyone gathering to eat together created the lively atmosphere of a great family.
If at ordinary gatherings there were still sidelong glances and silent conflicts, and when speaking with sisters-in-law one had to be careful everywhere, during the new year festival there was no need for such caution. Even someone with Duke Pingguo’s stern temperament was all smiles during the new year, continuously offering auspicious words. The people of Great Qin valued harmony in the first month most highly. Even Fifth Young Madam now smiled at Seventh Miss, teasing her, “When we make dumplings in a bit, Sixth Sister-in-law must show us your skills.”
Last year during the new year, the several dumplings Seventh Miss had made were without exception either broken skins or exposed filling—not a single one was edible. Hearing Fifth Young Madam bring up the past, everyone laughed, saying, “That’s right, has your dumpling-making skill improved this year?”
Seventh Miss’s face reddened slightly as she mumbled, “Fifth Sister-in-law just likes to tease me. After all, I came from the south—where would I have made dumplings before?”
She had never shown such a girlish manner before. Even Fourth Lang and Fifth Lang clapped their hands laughing at her, and Xu Fengjia laughed heartily with great interest, saying, “I never expected you’d have moments of making a fool of yourself too?”
Amid the laughter and conversation, everyone finished dinner but didn’t disperse. While watching the young servants set off firecrackers and fireworks for entertainment, several large baskets of dumpling filling and dumpling wrappers were brought over. Everyone personally made a few dumplings—this was northern custom, while in the Suzhou area making tangyuan served the same purpose. Even Xu Fengjia, Duke Pingguo, and others picked up dumpling wrappers and filled them with stuffing.
Seventh Miss had always been clumsy at such things. She made four in a row, all oddly shaped. When First Young Madam saw this, she rarely laughed. Smiling, she said, “Sixth Sister-in-law, come, I’ll help you make one.”
She took a small silver charm with “hundred sons, thousand grandsons” from a small basket, scooped out a bit of filling, stuffed the charm inside, then showed Seventh Miss how to pinch the dumpling wrapper closed. “Like this, squeeze with your thumb—”
Unexpectedly, Seventh Miss used too much force and squeezed the entire wrapper apart. This made even Madam Xu laugh continuously, the Grand Madam doubled over with laughter, and even the servants standing below laughed, saying, “Truly the Young Madam’s hands aren’t made for such work.”
Amid such laughter and merriment, even Yu An helped Fourth Lang and Fifth Lang form a few dumplings. Seventh Miss, with Xu Fengjia taking her hands, half guiding and half applying force for her, managed to make two dumplings, finally completing the tradition. Someone took the dumplings away to cook them, while everyone told jokes for entertainment, called in female storytellers to tell tales, and invited two performers to do magic tricks to keep the children from falling asleep too early.
When the hour of Zi arrived, the dumplings were presented. Everyone said, “Eat jiaozi, eat jiaozi,” and each served themselves several to eat.
Seventh Miss first watched Guyu and Chunfen carefully. Seeing that both were cautious, checking the filling before giving dumplings to Fourth Lang and Fifth Lang, afraid of the children being hurt by hard objects or choking, she finally felt at ease. She carefully ate a scalding dumpling and felt her teeth contact something hard. Frowning, she spit it out to look—indeed it was a plum blossom charm with two or three babies at play engraved on it. Xu Fengjia leaned over to look and said, “I didn’t expect you’d be the first to find one this year.”
Before he finished speaking, everyone else also found auspicious objects one after another. It turned out the Xu family custom was that the auspicious dumplings all had secret marks—everyone would get one, no one left out. Seventh Miss had just happened to eat the first one. Everyone laughed again, then paid respects to the elders for the new year. Hearing the firecrackers outside gradually stop, they each retired to rest.
The next morning, everyone in the household rose again. The female family members, starting with the Grand Madam, dressed in full formal attire by rank. The men with official titles were personally led by Duke Pingguo to the palace to pay respects to the Emperor, Crown Prince, Empress Dowager, and Empress. Because it was the New Year’s Day court ceremony, it was especially grand. After performing the rites, no one dared linger and each returned to their residence. The family members paid new year visits to each other. Upon returning to the residence, there were spring couplets bestowed by the Dowager Consort, the Emperor, the Empress, and Sixth Miss. Everyone hastily set up incense tables to receive the gifts. Two eunuchs carried the “Fu” character over Duke Pingguo’s head, then solemnly posted and displayed it. After such a busy day, by evening Seventh Miss was completely exhausted and hurriedly went to bed to catch up on sleep.
As the head young madam of the household, she was different from ordinary sisters-in-law who only needed to prepare for returning to their natal homes on the third day. The next day after rising, she had to visit the Sun family, Qin family, and other places to pay new year calls. Madam Xu personally went to the Yang family to pay new year visits, while First Young Madam and Fifth Young Madam stayed home to receive visiting relatives and friends. After another busy day like this, on the third day when married daughters returned to their natal families, Seventh Miss finally had time. Together with Xu Fengjia and bringing the two babies, she returned to the Yang family for new year visits.