Hearing Chu Linlang’s inquiry, Situ Sheng slowly came back to his senses and reached out to gently point at her hair: “Your temple hair is a little disheveled…”

Chu Linlang took it at face value and quickly straightened her bun.

Then, letting the matter of the Zhou family drop entirely, she took advantage of accompanying the lord on his outing to also pick up more supplies the household needed.

The furnishings of the residence were sparse and paltry — hardly befitting the home of a Fifth-rank official.

Though Chu Linlang had no skill in calligraphy or painting, she had a great talent for creating appearances. With just the right touches of decoration, any home could look neat and refined.

Then she could also have the lord casually write out some hanging scrolls with phrases like “A man’s ambitions span the four seas” or “One glance takes in all the mountains below” — frame them properly and hang them in the main hall, and it would no longer feel cold and bare with nothing on the walls.

Situ Sheng perhaps had nothing to do that day and nodded his approval at all of Chu Linlang’s enthusiastic suggestions, allowing his household manager to spend as freely as she liked.

But by the time they had finished buying things, both Guanqi and Dongxue’s arms were nearly buckling under the load. Guanqi could no longer hold back and said: “Auntie, when are you going to stop buying things? Is the lord’s salary enough to cover all this spending?”

Chu Linlang turned around to look at the two of them and was startled herself — not only were Guanqi and Dongxue laden with items, but Situ Sheng himself was carrying several boxes.

Her habit of going on a spending spree whenever she was feeling unsettled — how had it gotten the better of her again?

She laughed sheepishly and tried to help take some things from her employer. But Situ Sheng said her arms were too slender to carry much, and besides, these were not heavy — he could manage them just fine.

And it seemed that the habitually frugal Situ Sheng had been drawn into the mood of spending by her, as he pointed to two flower vases on a stall and asked: “Which one do you think is better?”

Chu Linlang declared that neither was up to much and quickly suggested heading home.

Since Lord Situ had been pestered by that drunkard from the Zhou family at the banquet, he had probably not had a proper meal either. She had just the thing — she had bought a piece of pork, and could go back and make her signature crispy pork broth noodles for the lord to fill his stomach.

At this, even Guanqi, who had been carrying things, stopped complaining about being tired and hurried eagerly toward home to eat Madam Chu’s noodles.

The market fair was on today, and the streets were fairly crowded. Situ Sheng, tall and solidly built, steadily shielded the slight and delicate Chu Linlang so that she wouldn’t be jostled by the crowd.

This way, the two of them had no thought for propriety between men and women and walked quite close together.

The sight of them strolling along, talking as they went, happened to catch other eyes.

As it happened, Xie Youran was seated in a carriage that day, going out with her mother to purchase items for her trousseau. Of course, the ever-present nuisance of an Aunt An who couldn’t be shaken off was also with them.

Aunt An had been severely reproached by her brother-in-law that day, and her husband, trying to save face before his brother-in-law, had actually slapped her several times.

After returning home that day, within a few days An Shi went to her elder sister’s house to play the victim and weep her grievances.

She reflected: the Su family had in former times been of the stock of a duke. But unfortunately by her father’s generation the family fortunes had dwindled, leaving only the empty title of Chengguo Duke.

And when she had married into the An family, it had been entirely because the An family was wealthy and willing to offer financial support.

Who could have foreseen that her husband would have no ambition whatsoever, content to sit on the family inheritance and watch it drain away while frittering his time in the rooms of his concubines, growing ever more disrespectful toward her as the first wife.

Aunt An had always been in the habit of pouring out her grievances to her elder sister. Now she dug in her heels and insisted she had only acted out of love for Youran, hoping to preserve the family wealth for her, and had suffered for it. She hadn’t forced the Zhou family to repudiate their wife. It was that shortsighted Zhao Shi who had used her as a pretext and gotten her scolded by both her brother-in-law and her husband. If her elder sister refused to see her anymore, she didn’t want to go on living. At that point, she might as well make room for that courtyard full of concubines.

Su Shi also knew that her younger sister’s marriage was a difficult one. Her husband was no great official, yet was forever bringing women into the household.

If the household expenses weren’t so great, would a younger sister raised in silks and satins be forever clawing after money?

And so this round of weeping and appeals finally softened Su Shi’s heart, and she secretly began seeing her younger sister again, behind her husband’s back.

Thus Aunt An once again accompanied Su Shi and Xie Youran when they went out to buy things and have tea.

Xie Youran was tired of listening to her aunt drone on again about the concubines scheming and fighting for favor in her household, and impatiently lifted the carriage curtain to look outside.

Just then she saw Situ Sheng, arms laden with parcels, head bowed speaking quietly with Chu Linlang…

Xie Youran thought she was seeing things. She yanked the curtain wide open and craned her neck, peering until she was certain, before muttering in bewildered suspicion: “How has Situ Sheng gotten mixed up with that Chu woman?”

Aunt An craned her neck for a look as well. Once the carriage turned the corner and they could no longer see, she drew her neck back in and said with a cold laugh: “I knew she was no simple creature. No wonder she agreed to the separation so readily — she’d already found her next man, and was out there chasing after some other fellow!”

Even Xie Youran found this impossible to believe. She glared at her aunt and cried out: “Stop talking nonsense this instant! Does Auntie know who that man is? Would he look twice at some wilted, discarded divorced woman?”

Su Shi, hearing the two of them speak, finally understood what they had just seen, and explained: “Your father mentioned it — that Chu woman had nowhere to turn, so she appealed to Lord Situ. Lord Situ took pity on her and gave her a position as a household manageress.”

*So that was it*, she thought. How could that lofty, aloof Situ Sheng possibly get entangled with a woman who had already been married? It was just that shameless Chu Linlang who had gone and thrown herself at the Deputy Minister’s residence looking for a position!

Just think — Chu Linlang had shops and silver of her own, and was hardly short of money. A woman who had been an official’s wife, still in the bloom of her years and by no means plain — she could find a widower, or some poor and struggling scholar, and cobble together another marriage. Why on earth would she plant herself in the household of an unmarried man as a servant?

Chu Linlang was counting on her looks, thinking she could be right there on the doorstep and climb up to use Situ Sheng as a powerful patron!

At this thought, Xie Youran couldn’t help but laugh coldly: other men might be bewitched by Chu Linlang’s beauty, but Situ Sheng was a rigid, pedantic person by nature — how could he possibly fall for her fox-like wiles?

Even if Chu Linlang were sufficiently capable and actually managed to crawl into the Deputy Minister’s bed someday, did she honestly think that, given her background, Situ Sheng would ever take her as his wife?

It was laughable — Chu Linlang was always loudly proclaiming she would not be a concubine, abandoned Zhou Sui’an on that principle, only to turn around and eagerly burrow her way into the Situ household to wait for her chance to become a concubine?

She should take a good look at herself first — she wasn’t even fit to be a favored maidservant!

Though thinking it through this way made her feel considerably better, the sight of Situ Sheng carrying things and walking beside Chu Linlang was still a thorn in her eye. She suddenly recalled how, back in Jizhou, Zhou Sui’an had also walked at Chu Linlang’s side like that when they went out on the streets together.

This Chu woman certainly knew how to put men to use — just a shopping trip, and she actually dared to make her own employer carry a mountain of parcels for her!

Then thinking back on her secret meetings with Zhou Sui’an recently and the endless complaints he had subjected her to, Xie Youran felt a swell of irritation rising in her chest.

She thought of how Zhou Sui’an had once been with Chu Linlang — all gentle attentiveness, all the appearance of a man who knew how to cherish a woman. Even in their own private meetings he had carried himself with a certain literary elegance, proud and dashing.

Yet who could have imagined that after a single scolding from her father, he would come to her and take out all his ill temper!

Wasn’t it all his mother Zhao Shi’s foolishness — bungling the separation and provoking Chu Linlang to file a complaint with the authorities! What had that to do with her?

When Zhou Sui’an had berated her until her face burned, Xie Youran too had surged with temper. If it weren’t for the fact that she was already carrying his child, she truly would have wanted to cut things off with him entirely and let him see what she was made of.

But there would be time for that — once she was through the door, she could always set him straight after the wedding!

Thinking this, she heard Aunt An still whispering gossip into her mother’s ear nearby and felt a wave of displaced resentment. She laughed coldly: “What is Auntie so indignant about? If you hadn’t been so greedy for the silver our family paid out, none of this would have happened — Chu Linlang would never have gone to the authorities, and Father wouldn’t have had to pay double the silver.”

It was Aunt An’s meddling and self-serving scheming that had caused the Xie family to pay out double what they had originally intended.

Xie Sheng, furious, had not only summoned his younger sister’s husband and made a point of warning him to rein in his own wife, but had also docked the dowry originally set for Xie Youran, telling her to take two empty trunks along to the Zhou family — she could carry them in herself.

In Xie Sheng’s own words: matters having come to this, there was no choice but to brazen it out and marry the girl off. But all things would be kept simple and low-key — she would be married quietly and without ceremony.

In the grand households of the capital, there was no shortage of scandals. So long as they kept a low profile, after a few years had passed, no one would bring it up anymore.

But Xie Youran was having none of it. She went to her mother demanding to know whether she was truly their own flesh and blood. In the end, Su Shi had no choice but to dip into her own dowry savings to supplement her second daughter’s.

Even so, Xie Youran was not satisfied. She felt that compared to the grand ceremony when her elder sister had married a prince, her own wedding fell far short. Seeing her aunt stir up more trouble yet again, she couldn’t hold back this pointed remark — it also served as a message that the aunt should stop trying to skim from her trousseau.

Aunt An, stung to the point of losing face, could only argue in her own defense that she had returned all that silver to her brother-in-law Xie Sheng, and that it was Xie Sheng who had refused to use it for the second daughter. How could anyone say *she* had taken the silver?

As she spoke, Aunt An grew so aggrieved that she broke into loud, wailing sobs, telling her elder sister that being lectured by someone of the younger generation like this was intolerable — she had no wish to go on living, and would go home and throw herself in the well to atone.

Seeing her younger sister backed into a corner, Su Shi had no choice but to reprimand her second daughter for being thoughtless and tell her to quickly apologize to her aunt.

But Xie Youran, once her stubborn streak was up, would talk back to the Queen Mother of Heaven herself! The Xie family carriage erupted in an aggrieved chorus of cries and wailing.

In the end, Aunt An finally managed to step down from her predicament with her elder sister’s coaxing, and her sobs gradually subsided.

But all of this had truly enraged Xie Youran. Everyone in the Xie family — old and young — was taking turns treating her as the easy target!

And that Chu woman — a common country divorcée, yet managing to make herself the great menace! When the chance came, she would see to it that she ground that woman into the dust until she cried out to heaven with nowhere to turn!

—

Back to the great menace of a household manager, Chu Linlang — that day, after buying a great deal of fabric, she brought the lord home and made the broth noodles.

She was very good at making crispy pork noodles. Back in Jizhou, she had brought them to Zhou Sui’an several times when he was working on the waterway.

Situ Sheng had perhaps also eaten a few bowls back then. So the day before, he had asked Chu Linlang whether she could make them for him.

Since the employer had made the request, she made the crispy pork pieces even larger than usual, so the lord could eat heartily and satisfy his craving.

Once the meal was finished, Guanqi and Dongxue cleared the table and washed the bowls together. Chu Linlang went back to her room to look at the fabric she had just bought, then took a measuring tape and prepared to go to the study to take the employer’s measurements.

It wasn’t until she was measuring around the man’s throat and looked up abruptly to see his throat moving as he swallowed, and met his eyes looking down at her from beneath lowered lids, that she was struck by the realization that this man was not her husband.

Talking about this, Guanqi also felt somewhat discouraged. In truth, wasn’t the lord himself the one who cared least about his own safety?

Having finished reading the letter, he moved both the original and the translation to the side by the brazier and watched as the flames consumed them bit by bit, dissolving them to nothing in an instant…

He was far too reckless with himself! The last time Prince Tai had tried to kill and silence witnesses, the lord had clearly known in advance that there was a trap set in the county seat of Lianzhou, yet had still gone there alone and taken the risk — only to feign walking into the trap, so as to make Prince Tai’s faction lower their guard.

No one knew better than he did: the master, who before others appeared gentle and refined, even-tempered and approachable — aside from the single obsession that lived in his heart, he cared not at all for anything else in the world.

People said he was calculating and obsessed with advancement. Yet they did not know that in Situ Sheng’s eyes, promotions and titles, official reputation and fame, even his own life — none of it was worth much.

She knew Situ Sheng was still at home, and Guanqi had not gone out to buy food — so surely the meal she had cooked today hadn’t been unsatisfying? Had he turned picky and refused to eat?

There were certain places like the elbow and armpit that Chu Linlang found awkward to measure with the soft tape. And out of habit, she simply stretched out her palm to feel and move it across his arm and chest.

Thinking of how the lord had come home last time badly wounded, Guanqi felt a tight, painful clutch in his heart every time. Even during the recuperation afterward, he had continued as usual, carrying on with official duties without letting anyone notice.

Just as the flames were about to die out, Guanqi happened to walk in. Seeing the master burn a letter — this was nothing out of the ordinary to him.

But she thought it through again, and Linlang finally let out a sigh and used the leftover cold rice to make a hot, fragrant fried rice with eggs, peas, and a small piece of ham.

The first time someone knocked at the door, Xia He, seeing it was broad daylight and not thinking anything of it, opened it. But the people outside seemed to take that as an open gate — they brought men and trunks pushing right in.

The master slept in the study because he always had trouble sleeping. On the nights he had insomnia, he would read or mold clay figures to pass the time.

She was so close, he could even see the fine, delicate arch of her thin brows, and the fragrant breath from her parted lips — filtered through the thin fabric of her single garment — pressing against his chest…

Being praised by a man of Situ Sheng’s formidable learning was always something that put one in a good mood. With the measurements done, Chu Linlang took the paper with the recorded figures, and walked back to her room humming a little tune, ready to cut the fabric.

Every time the master was plunged into one of his spells of low spirits, it was his regular pattern to go days without eating or drinking, shutting himself away alone.

The handsome expression on his face — the warmth that had just been building there — gradually faded away without a trace, leaving nothing but an emotionless, cold blankness.

Chu Linlang assumed Situ Sheng was busy with official duties and deliberately filled a warm bowl of food, then set it on a steamer rack over a pot of hot water to keep it warm.

Thinking of this, she quickly withdrew her hands, cleared her throat, stepped back, and resumed measuring with the soft tape.

When she heard them explain their purpose — and that they had been hovering outside the gate for several days without seeing anyone — she suddenly understood the true reason behind Situ Sheng’s habit of returning late at night and leaving the residence to go to ruin.

It had never occurred to her that, having left the Zhou family, this skill of hers would not go to waste — she could continue putting it to use by cutting clothes for her employer.

Sure enough, when Guanqi seemed about to say something more, Situ Sheng shot him a cold, piercing look, and with two simple words — “Get out” — cut short whatever else Guanqi had left to say.

She had heard from Guanqi that the official office was not terribly busy every single day. But the lord had formed the habit of eating dinner at the office, and sometimes would stay there reading until deep into the night before coming home to sleep.

After all, if someone urgently needed the lord for official matters, they could find him at the Court of Judicial Review. And for matters that couldn’t be brought into the light — those people would presumably not dare to go there.

The master cared so little for his own well-being, with no telling what kind of danger he would put himself in the very next moment.

She was standing so close to him, measuring him by hand… it really was too forward of her!

He simply pushed the window shut a little and lowered his voice: “They’ve pressed you again from that side?”

Before long, the dinner table in the main hall was laid with hot, steaming dishes. Chu Linlang untied her apron and called to Guanqi, asking him to invite the lord out for dinner.

Situ Sheng tilted his head slightly downward and could see a pair of soft, luminously white hands — like nimble white doves taking flight — touching lightly down his body, measuring inch by inch…

Situ Sheng said offhandedly, his eyes on the top of Chu Linlang’s head with its small loose hairs not smoothed down with any hair oil: “How so?”

Chu Linlang was about to ask if he was hungry, when she lowered her head and saw that Situ Sheng’s palm was clenched tight and dripping blood.

Situ Sheng knew Chu Linlang was perceptive, but hadn’t expected her to see through even this small calculation of his, and couldn’t help but laugh: “If you were a man, it truly would be fitting for you to enter government through the imperial examinations. The key pressure points here — you figured all of them out on your own. It seems that in having you as my capable household manager, I have truly been blessed by Heaven.”

“What — people have been knocking on the door to deliver gifts these past few days?”

Situ Sheng put on his outer robe, moved slowly to the window, pushed it open a little, and then, with that gently flowing melody as a backdrop, steadied his thoughts and composed himself, easing the inexplicable restlessness that had just come over him.

Situ Sheng paused, reached out, and took up the envelope. From inside he withdrew a single page of paper covered in what appeared to be the random ink-dots of a child at play — dense and scattered. But anyone who understood arithmetic would know these dots followed a certain pattern.

It was just that Situ Sheng’s frame was considerably taller and larger than an ordinary man — fortunately she had bought extra fabric.

At times, watching the master wake with a start from a shallow, nightmare-ridden sleep, staring wide-eyed until dawn, it seemed as though he was utterly at odds with this world of mortal existence.

Whenever she saw a new style of men’s robes circulating in the capital, she could measure them with her eye alone, then go home and cut out a pattern roughly matching the design, dressing her husband with studied elegance.

Because Situ Sheng had been returning very late recently, she had no one to consult and simply made the decision herself: during the day, if anyone came and knocked, they would pretend no one was home, even if they were inside, and simply refuse to open the door.

That evening, when Chu Linlang came to the kitchen to get hot water for washing her face, she found that the dishes Guanqi had delivered to the study earlier had been returned untouched, exactly as sent.

Guanqi waved her off, saying the lord was occupied and not to disturb him, and that he would take food to the study later.

That day, she had been unsettled on account of Yuan’er’s situation and had carelessly spent a good deal of Situ Sheng’s silver — truly a breach of the Situ household’s principles of frugality.

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