She was not yet through the door, and already a concubine was here eyeing her dowry. Such brazen intimidation — a gently raised daughter from a good family would probably find this utterly unbearable.
But Jin Shengyu was different. Girls who had never seen the world might be cowed by such a petty trick. As for herself — she had fought three hundred rounds with a vicious mother-in-law, and had seen every manner of filth and ugliness. Was she supposed to be frightened by such a small maneuver?
She straightened herself slightly in her seat, and said in a cool, measured voice: “As for this match — I had assumed your Marquis was the eager one. I did not expect you to be even more eager than the Marquis.”
Liu Shi did not care about her sharp tongue, and kept up her smile: “Mistress is quite right. When our lady of the house was formerly alive, all household matters were managed by her. After she passed, I stood in to manage the affairs. It has truly felt like a great weight upon my shoulders — almost too much to bear. Now that I hear Mistress is to join the household, I — for one — sincerely and wholeheartedly look forward to Mistress entering the door, so I may hand over the housekeeping and take some rest.”
Jin Shengyu gave a sound of acknowledgment. “I take it that arranging the new residence in the capital has been troublesome for Madam Liu?”
“That it has.” Liu Shi said. “Our young Madam, in marrying into the ducal household, took all of the late Madam’s private savings with her — practically hollowing out the marquis’s residence. Now it is she whose days are comfortable, while our side has been left with a great empty hole. When money was needed the other day, the thought was to ask our young Madam for a few thousand to tide us over — but she refused flat out, and I had nothing left to say. I suppose it is because I am of low standing and do not merit the Duchess’s attention. I shall have to wait until Mistress enters the marquis’s household, and then deal with the Duchess through Mistress.”
But no sooner had she finished speaking than she saw Jin Shengyu across from her break into a smile — those eyes looking directly at her as if they could see right through skin and flesh.
“How gracious of you, to know yourself to be of low standing. You’ve come to my door today and said this great mouthful — how is it you do not realize you have overstepped your station? You are aware that you are of low standing, yet you came here without proper authorization to call on the person your master is formally negotiating a match with, pouring out your grievances — how hard you have it, how depleted the marquis’s coffers are — going to all this trouble to slander Marquis Jiang. What exactly is your purpose? Furthermore, as a concubine, you should never speak ill of the master’s legitimate daughter behind her back. Know this: she is the mistress, and you are the servant. Just because she calls you Yiniang does not mean you are truly her elder. The deeds of your past, creating such a stir that everyone knew of them — to this day you still have not learned to show restraint, but grow even more outrageous. Are you counting on my being an easy-going sort who does not readily make enemies, and so you have come deliberately to make things unpleasant, to frighten me off from entering the Kaiguo Marquis’s residence — so that you may continue to hold the household affairs in your grip, acting as a mistress in all but name?”
Liu Shi was dumbstruck. Before coming she had imagined the fierceness of a general’s daughter — at worst, a slap of the hand on the table and she would be thrown out, ending the match altogether. She had not expected that instead the woman would take the trouble to dress her down at length. When Liu Shi had mentioned Yun Pan, she had intended to use her as a weapon, hoping the two women would come to blows with each other — but instead, Jin Shengyu had taken Yun Pan’s side entirely and rebuked her for overstepping. She was not even inside the door yet, and already had such hostility toward her. If she truly did enter this household, would there be any survival for Liu Shi?
Thinking this, Liu Shi decided she had nothing to lose. She rose and said: “Mistress should not speak so — I am treating Mistress sincerely as my lady, which is why I have said all this.”
Jin Shengyu said really? “Setting aside the fact that I have not settled anything with Marquis Jiang yet and cannot be called your lady — even if I were, the household conduct of the marquis’s residence being so lawless as to let a concubine go parading around forming connections everywhere — is that permissible?”
Her words were like blades. Liu Shi was ready for all of this, and was not angered. She folded her hands and said: “I am not going around making random connections — what is wrong with coming here to pay my respects to Mistress?”
That shameless manner was enough to make one seethe. Jin Shengyu said: “You are not just here for me. Whoever your Marquis proposes to — you intend to come and cause trouble. I had not thought before that noble and prominent households could produce a concubine so lacking in propriety. Having met you today, I finally understand why the County Princess, so gifted a woman, died young. I imagine Madam Liu played no small part in that — constantly whispering poison in the County Princess’s presence?”
Liu Shi felt that things had gone far enough now that this match certainly would not come to anything — they would be strangers forever after anyway, so what use was there in keeping up appearances? She said: “Mistress speaks too strongly. The former lady passed away from illness. I waited on her sickbed for not just a day or two — Mistress does not know the facts, so please do not speak carelessly.”
Jin Shengyu spat out a sound of contempt. “More likely it is precisely because you were the one waiting on her at that sickbed that a woman of good years came to lose her life! You took the County Princess’s husband from her, seized control of the household, drove the legitimate daughter out of her own home, and now your reach has extended even further — to taking an interest in my dowry.” She grew increasingly incensed, slapped the table as she rose, and snapped: “You came here today — who put you up to it? Do not tell me it was Marquis Jiang himself who sent you as his vanguard, meaning to use on me the same methods he used on the County Princess?”
Her manner was so forceful that Liu Shi was caught completely off guard. She exchanged a helpless look with the two maidservants, thinking: since things have come this far anyway, better just to muddy the waters completely and be done with it. She said: “My Marquis naturally knows — he sent me to sound out how large Mistress’s dowry is, and whether it might fill the deficit in the marquis’s household.”
This remark earned her a cry of “wretched slave,” and as Liu Shi was still calculating that the match could not now proceed, five or six maidservants suddenly came in through the door of the flower hall. At Jin Shengyu’s command: “Tie up this thieving wretch and her two old women, good and tight! Send someone to Marquis Jiang’s lodging to find him — tell him his concubine has been causing trouble at the General’s residence and has been apprehended by me. Tell him to come quickly and collect her.”
Those ordered to act immediately split into two groups — one went out to the second gate to send word, and the rest swarmed in together and, as if hog-tying an animal, first bound the two maidservants who had been scared witless.
Liu Shi refused to accept it and struggled, saying: “On what grounds are you binding me! I am not one of your General’s household!”
“If you are not of the General’s household, what is the reason for coming in and sowing discord?” Jin Shengyu said through clenched teeth. “I have long heard your name, and have long wanted to meet you. Today you have delivered yourself to my door — if I do not make a proper example of you, I would be wasting this fine opportunity! I am nothing like the County Princess with her patient temperament, who let you do your underhanded mischief without restraint. You have landed yourself in my hands — if I do not beat and deal with you properly for your door-disgracing, bone-rotting shamelessness, then I am being far too lenient with you, vile woman!”
Liu Shi fought back all the more — but how was she a match for several strong maidservants pressing down on her? Before long her hair was in disarray and her clothes disheveled.
Seeing no hope, she let out a screech at the top of her voice: “Help! Help! The General’s household is killing someone! Call yourself a proper-family lady — running a private torture chamber in the inner court… If you have the nerve, kill me today — I don’t want to live! I don’t want to live!”
“Oh!” At the top of Liu Shi’s screaming and shrieking, the maidservant directly across from her let out an even louder shout — “Great heavens! This woman has fainted!” — and under Liu Shi’s bewildered glare, the maidservant rolled up her sleeves, raised a hand the size of a cattail-leaf fan, and declared: “Allow this servant to slap her awake.”
Then came a rapid flurry of ten or more slaps across the face, until Liu Shi saw stars and her ears rang ceaselessly.
Jin Shengyu looked down from her height at Liu Shi, trussed up like a wrapped dumpling, and only then felt this foul breath begin to leave her chest.
Women who made themselves concubines like this — once you showed them any indulgence, the next time they would climb right up onto your head. In life as in chess, the opening move matters most. She did not care if she earned the name of a tigress — if she was to enter the marquis’s household, she would bring this concubine to full submission. Let her dare say a single word against it, and she would be beaten within an inch of her life.
When grinding words to dust was less satisfying than one good beating — and the meat had practically been delivered to the door — why not make use of it?
Seeing the binding completed, she tilted her chin upward: “Hang her upside down in the front pavilion!”
The maidservants received their orders and, head-and-foot, carried the captives to the front courtyard, where they used thick cloth strips to tie them up and hung them upside down from the crossbeam of the cool pavilion. Three writhing bodies dangled in staggered heights, like hanged ghosts beneath a banyan tree.
The general’s wife came out to inspect upon hearing the news and was left utterly stupefied, turning back to ask her sister-in-law: “What happened? Who are all these people?”
Jin Shengyu’s face was perfectly calm. “The concubine from the Kaiguo Marquis’s household came to my door trying to ruin the match.”
The general’s wife exclaimed: “This concubine has remarkable nerve.”
“It goes to show that the Kaiguo Marquis’s household is indeed lax in its rules. A mere concubine — she can enter any residence she likes, meet any person she likes, and say anything she likes…” Jin Shengyu said in a long, drawn-out tone, with a soft laugh. “Most interesting indeed!”
Jiang Heng’s small residence on the Street of Small Grain Merchants was not far from the General’s household. Once word was sent there, he came galloping over in about the time it takes to burn two sticks of incense.
He rushed through the door and looked around rapidly. He had thought there must be some mistake on the General’s part — but then he saw three people hanging upside down under the pavilion, and fixing his eyes on them, the first one was none other than Liu Yanqiao herself.
She had been hanging there for some time and had also been slapped, and her face was red and swollen to a livid color. At the sight of it, Jiang Heng’s heart went completely cold. He cried out that he had brought disgrace upon his family, and hastened to apologize to the figure standing composed and upright under the covered walkway.
“It is entirely my fault for managing my household without discipline, allowing a concubine to come and cause trouble for Second Mistress — I beg Mistress’s pardon. I will take her away and deal with her now, and ask Mistress to please calm her anger.” His voice carried a note of hopeless weeping, and with his head bowed he said: “I left in the morning, and she followed out behind me the moment I was gone… I truly did not expect this, did not expect this at all…”
Even the general’s wife could see the helplessness in his heart, and appealed to her sister-in-law: “Her feet belong to her — she can go wherever she likes, see whoever she likes and say whatever she likes. What can anyone else do about it?”
Jin Shengyu looked at the man standing before the steps. He stood in the sunlight, sweat beading at his temples, looking a little wretched. A man capable of making the County Princess consent to marry him must surely have had fine looks — and so he did, though at this moment there was not the slightest spirit in him; the whole person looked as if everything had been drained out of him, utterly powerless to turn the tide, presenting a look of wretched helplessness.
She found, oddly, that she pitied him. He had raised the concubine to the heavens, and then found himself unable to govern her anymore — and in the end, it was he himself who suffered.
“Marquis Jiang — your concubine came and spoke all manner of rubbish before me, slandering the Duchess, and at the same time going on and on about how the marquis’s household was in deficit — and she claimed to be acting on your orders, that you had sent her as a vanguard to ask me how large my dowry was, and to urge me to marry before the end of the year so that the dowry might be used to set up the new residence… Today I simply want to confirm — are these truly the words of Marquis Jiang? Is there truly such a shameless person under heaven?”
Jiang Heng was utterly deflated, by this point incapable of any further surprise at anything Liu Shi did. He stood there limply and said with resignation: “My conscience is clear before heaven. To have produced such a disgracing concubine — what else is there to say? If I deny it, I imagine Mistress would not believe me either. She has been trapping and betraying me every step of the way — were it not for the fact that she has borne me three children, I would have the heart to strangle her with my own hands…” He shook his head. “But enough. Things have come to this — there is nothing more to be said. I have caused trouble for the general’s wife and Second Mistress today. I will take her away and deal with her, then come to offer my apologies to you both once I have done so.”
He bowed deeply, almost without the courage to raise his face. He looked at the woman who had been hung upside down, and wondered strangely why he had ever poured so many years into her. In the past she had been gentle and compliant, living with quiet, careful caution in the County Princess’s shadow, and each time he had felt moved to pity for her — and from pity he had grown more and more tender toward her, and increasingly at odds with the County Princess.
Looking back now — had he truly failed to see through her? Had all her goodness over the years been an act? Laughable… truly laughable… He had always felt that though she lacked talent and refinement, there was a kind of quiet, solitary loneliness about her — like a poem one could never finish reciting. Yet looking at her now, there was not a spark of spirit left in her. She hung there head-down, a stranger, looking stupid and ridiculous — her mouth working as if she wanted to call out for help, but too ashamed to do so. She looked for all the world like a dead fish, and he could barely stand to look at her.
Jin Shengyu had been watching carefully for any change in his expression — but there was none. From beginning to end, his face held only a gray exhaustion; no anger, no urgency to defend himself, no protest at all. He had simply accepted his fate. The more it was so, the more it felt somehow pitiable.
The bound Liu Shi was let down from under the pavilion. She dared not cry out, and only murmured weakly: “My Lord… it is not what you think…”
He looked at her blankly. “Did someone carry you to the General’s residence?”
Liu Shi’s graceful bearing was now completely gone. Her clothes were in tatters, her hair scattered loose, and she frantically reached up to smooth it — but no matter how she tried, it would not go right.
The general’s wife and Jin Shengyu exchanged a glance. They watched Jiang Heng trudge toward the gate with his arms hanging loosely at his sides. Women have a certain capacity for compassion with the suffering of others, and at this moment they finally tasted what Wang Shi had meant by “saving the suffering.”
“Marquis Jiang,” Jin Shengyu suddenly called after him. “Please prepare the betrothal gifts. Your concubine has already come here to make trouble — if you dare renege now, I will come and beat my way to your marquis’s residence!”
Jiang Heng thought he had misheard, and turned back in bewilderment. Once his mind slowly began working again, a rush of joy overcame him. He quickly clasped his hands: “Certainly — certainly!”
Liu Shi was dumbstruck. After all this havoc, they were still going ahead with the match? She had come resolved to tear everything apart and make it impossible — and after all this back-and-forth, they had ended up settled? What did that make her? She had gone to all the trouble of playing the villain, and ended up playing matchmaker instead?
“My Lord…” She covered her face and burst into tears. “Such a fierce woman — how will your concubine ever survive from now on…”
Jiang Heng did not give her so much as a glance, and walked out of the courtyard with long strides. She had no recourse, and could only hitch up her skirts and follow.
Outside the gate, Jiang Heng stopped short and turned to shout at her: “What a fine piece of work you have done — daring to go and cause trouble at the General’s residence. Do you not think you have done enough to shame me — you will not rest until you have seen me dead?”
“No, no, my Lord.” Liu Shi wept and sobbed, trying to justify herself: “I only went to pay Second Mistress Jin a respectful call — and instead she turned it back on me and used it as a chance to establish her authority and put me in my place. Those words… those words were all fabricated by her — how could your concubine say ill of our young Madam before an outsider? Knowing full well my Lord was to have relations with her — how could I not do everything to be in her good favor, and instead go and expose the marquis’s household’s shortcomings?”
“So you do know she is an outsider. I ask you this — since you know she is an outsider, what were you doing at the General’s residence? With your standing, you should be keeping well out of the way — and yet there you were, rolling your sleeves up and walking into that household. What did you think you were doing?” Jiang Heng berated her roundly, then pointed at her from head to toe: “Just take a good look at yourself — look at what state you are in now! I left you to manage the household and you cannot manage it; I left you to teach the children and you cannot teach them either; you have raised Xue Pan to act like a tyrant — at this point, I would almost call myself her old man!”
Liu Shi heard him speaking ill of Xue Pan, which she absolutely had to defend. She clutched her chest and said: “Why is Xue Pan so headstrong — is it not because she is a daughter born of a concubine? Since childhood she watched Yun Pan eat well and dress well; as for herself — when she was wronged, she did not even dare tell her father. It is because she was suppressed for too long that she became like this!”
This capacity of Liu Shi’s for inverting black and white was something Jiang Heng had well and truly come to understand. “Have I not treated Xue Pan well enough? Did Yun Pan eat fine food and fine clothes while Xue Pan ate chaff and wore rags? You two — mother and daughter — insatiable as a snake trying to swallow an elephant. Do you think I do not know? You came to the General’s residence today: if you had judged Second Mistress Jin to be a docile sort, you would have future leverage over her; if you had found her fierce, then you would make trouble and ruin the match — even if it meant destroying my reputation, it would be no matter to you. Am I right or not?”
Right in every detail — but what fool would admit it? Liu Shi’s eyes shifted, and then she suddenly changed to a plaintive tone and pulled at his sleeve: “My Lord — even if I said something wrong before Second Mistress Jin, it was because I care about you. You are marrying someone else now — how do I account for these ten-odd years of devotion? I am miserable, I cannot accept it…”
But Jiang Heng yanked back his sleeve, sending her stumbling off balance. “Say no more — stop making a spectacle of yourself in the capital. Go back to Youzhou now, and do not step outside the marquis’s residence without my leave!” Then he fixed the two maidservants who stood there dumbstruck, eyes blazing: “What are you standing there for? Take her to the carriage this instant! Keep a good watch over her — if she dares come running back to the capital again, I will hold you responsible!”
The two maidservants shook with fright and dared not delay a moment, hurriedly helping her up into the carriage.
Liu Shi wailed inside the carriage: “My Lord… my Lord, I bore you children, you cannot treat me like this!”
Nanny Kong could only quietly try to calm her: “Yiniang, please say no more, please.” She urged the driver onward at the same time. “Go, go.”
The carriage slowly drove away. Liu Shi clung to the window and looked back — Jiang Heng did not even watch her go; he turned at once, mounted his horse, and rode off toward the far end of the long street.
“This heartless man!” She choked with rage. “It is clear he has made up his mind and turned to stone. Does he have any place for me in his eyes from now on?”
Nanny Kong said: “Yiniang, do not worry just yet. My Lord is in a temper right now — once this has passed and you coax him a little, my Lord’s ear is always soft; it will not be long before he changes his mind. Yiniang need not fret. Let them go ahead and arrange this match. That Miss Jin is so old now — she may not even be able to bear sons. What is there to fear? Yiniang has young Master Mi — he is the very life of my Lord’s heart. As long as young Master Mi is here, my Lord may be taken with novelty for a while, but he will surely return to your rooms in time.”
Liu Shi considered this and thought there was logic in it, and gradually stopped crying. But after the ordeal she had just gone through, her whole body ached — she could only let out a long breath, leaned against the carriage frame, and cursed: “That wretched, death-deserving Jin Shengyu — she had the better of me today, all because we brought too few people and had to let ourselves be carved up in her territory. Wait, then. When she enters the marquis’s household — time is long ahead. I will have my day… I will have my day to repay this humiliation. If I do not pull out her intestines, I will have lived my life as a person in vain…” She let out an “aiyo,” as though she had pulled the corner of her mouth, and immediately covered her cheek with her hand; her head began to buzz and ring again.