Eleventh Miss followed the First Madam down from the carriage and found herself standing before a decorated gate with black-lacquered tiles. The coachman, the accompanying guards, and the fine horses had all disappeared. Only several women dressed in bright blue jackets and official-green sleeveless robes were coming forward to greet the First Madam with warm courtesy.

Nanny Tao thoughtfully introduced one of them to the First Madam — a stout woman in her thirties with an oily dark complexion: “This is Li Quan’s wife, in charge of the carriages in the household.”

“Nanny Li.” The First Madam nodded pleasantly, and Nanny Xu had already brought out a pouch to offer as a gratuity.

Everyone accepted the pouches with grateful smiles, thanking the First Madam for her generosity. Nanny Tao then escorted the First Madam up the steps of the decorated gate.

Fifth Miss and Eleventh Miss followed unhurriedly behind the First Madam, and they heard Nanny Li beside them say with a smile: “…Our Madam has been speaking of the kinsman Madam every single day. Yesterday, when word came that you had arrived, she immediately gave instructions at noon to have the carriages prepared…”

As she spoke, they had already passed through the decorated gate and saw, arranged in a line before a single-panel spirit screen, three small blue-curtained oil carts used for getting about within the inner courtyard.

“Nanny Li has gone to much trouble!” The First Madam exchanged a few pleasantries with her, then was helped by Nanny Xu into the foremost carriage.

“The two young misses, please board as well!” Nanny Tao looked gently at Fifth Miss and Eleventh Miss with a faint smile. “So that our Madam does not grow anxious waiting.”

Both Fifth Miss and Eleventh Miss nodded to Nanny Tao with a smile, then followed the First Madam’s example and boarded the small oil carts.

In contrast to the plain exterior, the interior was decorated with elegance and splendor.

The carriage curtains were hung with embroidered sashes bearing cloud patterns stitched in five-colored glazed beads. Large red gold-woven sachet pouches hung at each of the four corners. The bright blue silk bolster pillow and seat cushion were embroidered with moon-white plum blossoms…

Dongqing stared with wide eyes and pressed the bolster to her chest: “Miss, this is layered-needle embroidery from the Immortal Silk Pavilion… Teacher Jian’s former employer…” She was already so excited she could barely speak. Hupo, sitting beside her, also showed a flash of astonishment — the Immortal Silk Pavilion’s layered-needle embroidery was like double-sided embroidery, priceless and rare, yet here the Xu Family had used it to decorate the cushions of a simple cart for getting about the inner courtyard…

Eleventh Miss did not look twice.

She had always felt that anything that could be purchased with money was not truly precious!

With no one else present, Eleventh Miss lifted the carriage curtain a tiny crack without any compunction and peered out.

Stout women led harnessed mules out, deftly hitched them to the carriage with quick hands, then gave the mule a light pat on the neck. The mule clip-clopped around the spirit screen and onto a blue-brick path lined on both sides with dense green pines and cypresses.

The carriage traveled for roughly the time it took to drink two cups of tea, then turned left and entered a narrow passage.

On both sides rose high whitewashed walls, and from Eleventh Miss’s vantage point there seemed to be no end to them.

After a while she noticed that at regular intervals along the route, the carriage would pass a square stone lantern column standing against the wall.

She had once read about these lantern columns in a book. They were typically found in imperial palace grounds or large squares — because lighting them required large quantities of pine oil, which was not only expensive but also scarce and not easily purchased no matter how much money one had. And even if one could obtain it, using it year-round would represent a staggering expenditure.

Could it be that the Xu Family truly lit these lantern columns as street lamps every night?

Eleventh Miss leaned forward instinctively, trying to make out whether the columns showed signs of use…

“Miss, do not let the women accompanying the carriage see you!” Dongqing warned her in a low voice.

Apart from a woman leading the mule, the blue-curtained oil cart also had an older woman standing at the carriage window keeping pace — this arrangement was originally intended so that those inside could summon help if needed. But every advantage has its drawback, and the attendant could easily notice if someone inside had lifted the curtain to look out…

Eleventh Miss glanced at the clear sight of the red-gold-and-chrysoprase-stone hairpin in the hair of the woman keeping pace outside, and smiled as she let the curtain fall.

Dongqing looked on with a sigh of relief.

Eleventh Miss laughed at her: “Did a single plum blossom bolster leave you awestruck?”

“Miss, this is no time for joking.” Dongqing said with a reproach. “You know as well as I do. The First Elder Miss is the most precious thing in the First Madam’s eyes — she fears for her every moment. If you were to spoil things for her, the First Madam would…”  She trailed off.

“I know!” Eleventh Miss promptly assured her. “I will sit still and behave myself!”

Dongqing could not help breaking into a warm smile.

She knew: whatever the young miss promised, she would always carry through!

Eleventh Miss, looking at her, felt a quiet ache in her heart.

Everyone around her must have been uneasy about this meeting with Yuanniang. Otherwise, why would they be so worried?

At this thought, she glanced at Hupo, who was sitting beside Dongqing — she had not said a word since they boarded.

Hupo’s expression looked perfectly calm.

Perhaps it was simply that people who had been together longer felt things more acutely, so she was not like Dongqing — anxious and on edge.

Eleventh Miss gave a self-deprecating smile, cast her eyes to one side, and caught sight of a handkerchief Hupo had twisted into a crumpled knot.

—

The monotonous, cold sound of mule hooves seemed to stretch time itself.

She did not know how long had passed when the carriage turned left, and after roughly the time it takes to burn half a stick of incense, it came to a stop.

This must be where Yuanniang lived…

Eleventh Miss was still thinking when the woman attendant at the carriage window spoke in a warm and mild voice from beyond the curtain: “Young Miss kinsman, we have arrived!”

Hupo responded with “understood,” then ducked her head and lifted the curtain. She saw the attendant had already placed a stepping stool in position. She stepped down first, then turned to help Eleventh Miss alight.

They had stopped before a Manchu-style gate with sloped ramp-cut stone steps leading up to it. Stone lions as tall as a person stood at either side of the threshold with charmingly bashful expressions. The somewhat anxious figure of the First Madam, supported by Nanny Xu, had already disappeared through the doorway.

Eleventh Miss was secretly a little startled, and yet felt she was making too much of it.

They had not seen each other as mother and daughter for more than ten years after all…

The thought flashed through her mind and she broke into a cold sweat down her back.

Given that longing was so powerful, why had Yuanniang not gone to the second gate to meet her mother… Was it possible to interpret this as meaning her health had deteriorated to the point where going to the second gate to receive her mother would have serious consequences… so she could not…

At this thought, Eleventh Miss’s gaze dropped to those sloped ramp-cut stone steps.

Cut at a slant all the way up to the door lintel… if one descended from the high threshold, a carriage could drive straight in from outside the gate…

She saw Fifth Miss enter through the Manchu gate with Ziwei and Ziyuan, so she composed herself, and followed with Dongqing and Hupo.

Directly ahead was a passageway hall, with corridors running along the left and right sides. The courtyard was covered entirely in square blue stone bricks. At the doorway of the passage hall and at each corner of the covered corridors stood maids dressed in bright blue jackets and official-green sleeveless robes, all maintaining silence with hands at their sides. Seeing Fifth Miss and Eleventh Miss, the maids all dipped into a curtsy together.

Eleventh Miss followed Fifth Miss through the right-hand corridor and into the passage hall.

The west room of the passage hall was furnished with a central hanging, a long console table, rosewood armchairs, and side tables in black-lacquered wood, arranged as a reception area. The center and east of the hall were bare and empty.

Coming out of the passage hall, they found the First Madam and her entourage nowhere in sight. Before them lay yet another courtyard. Directly opposite was a five-bay main room with side chambers, flanked on both sides by three-bay wing rooms with side chambers, connected by covered walkways into a closed rectangular corridor. The courtyard was laid with a crosshatch of blue-brick paths, and at each of the four corners stood a young pine tree of about a person’s height.

Seeing Fifth Miss and Eleventh Miss emerge from the passage hall, the maids standing under the eaves of the main room all dipped into a curtsy together.

Eleventh Miss heard Fifth Miss let out a soft sigh — a sound very much like wistfulness.

Was she lamenting herself, or lamenting Yuanniang?

“Young Miss kinsman, this way!” Nanny Tao had apparently noticed they had not kept up and turned back to find them, now standing at the entrance to a side chamber off the main room and beckoning to them.

The two of them quickly made their way along the right-hand covered walkway.

“Our Madam lives in the courtyard at the back,” Nanny Tao explained with a smile, and then led them through a black-lacquered corner gate beside the side chamber into the third courtyard.

The third courtyard was the same as the second — a five-bay main room with side chambers, three-bay wing rooms with side chambers, and blue-brick crossing paths. But in the northwest corner stood a rockery made of Lake Tai stones, and in the southeast corner grew a few holly trees. Compared with the cold emptiness of the previous courtyard, this one had a sense of life about it.

Fifth Miss and Eleventh Miss followed Nanny Tao along the right-hand covered walkway to the entrance of the main room. The young maids standing to one side had already eagerly lifted the door curtain, and seeing them approach, called out “young miss kinsman” with bright smiles.

Both Fifth Miss and Eleventh Miss nodded with a smile to those young maids, and entered the main room.

The floor was laid with gold-polished bricks as smooth as mirrors. The ceiling was painted in vivid colored decorations, and from it hung clusters of triple and quintuple ram’s-horn palace lanterns. On the central wall hung a large painting of Guanyin Bodhisattva seated in meditation. On the long console table in the center stood a cloisonné enamel three-legged incense burner, from which the scent of sandalwood was gently curling upward. To the left of the console table was a purple sandalwood stand holding a foot-high white jade hand-shaped ornament, and to the right stood a flower vase of pale sky-blue glaze from the Ru kilns.

Eleventh Miss was inwardly astonished.

Looking further to the east. A purple sandalwood stepped-arch floor screen hung with bright blue curtains; in the center of the secondary room stood a multi-tiered curio shelf displaying a cloisonné-and-green-jade flower basket, a blue-and-white porcelain plum vase, a white stone longevity landscape arrangement, a purple-overlaid-on-green glass vase…

Looking to the west. Twelve purple sandalwood lattice panels set with ivory inlay and mirror glass, the middle four standing open, through which one could see a purple-framed ivory inlaid screen of five hundred luohans dividing the western secondary room from the western inner room.

Eleventh Miss could not help but hold her breath.

It was simply too… extravagant!

It was not the extravagance alone that surprised her — the real shock was the stark contrast with the plain blue bricks and gray tiles she had observed throughout the journey leading here.

Particularly those purple sandalwood lattice panels set with ivory inlay and mirror glass. Royal blue glass floating with golden red peony blossoms — that dazzling splendor was enough to rob one of breath.

At this thought, she glanced over at Fifth Miss.

Fifth Miss’s face still bore a composed and appropriate smile, only that smile had grown somewhat strained. Her posture remained perfectly upright, only that uprightness had stiffened somewhat… It seemed she had absorbed something of a small shock.

—