Nanny Wang looked in the direction Lang Jiuchuan was pointing and said: “That is our Second Young Mistress’s small Buddha hall, where she makes her offerings.”
Lang Jiuchuan raised an eyebrow and asked: “The Zheng family is a family of scholarly lineage, and your young miss’s husband is a man of letters himself. Yet your young mistress is barely twenty and has already set up a private Buddha hall. Does her husband not object?”
Men of letters prided themselves on a certain loftiness, and were habitually fond of citing the sage’s words about not speaking of the strange, the supernatural, or the unruly. Tang Bozhen was surely not above such thinking. And looking at how even the courtyard’s arrangement aspired to refined elegance, it was clear that its master favored the lofty and the pure — yet Xiao Zheng Shi, young as she was, had gone and built a Buddha hall. How was Tang Bozhen supposed to take that?
Nanny Wang sighed. “Object he does, but what can be done? It’s all for the sake of an heir. The young master prefers refinement and does not believe in gods and Buddhas, but he is a man — how could he truly understand the hardships a woman faces in the inner quarters? Without a son, one has no footing at all. The young mistress wants to pray for a child, and he wants children too, so however much he dislikes it inwardly, he can only endure.”
She paused, then continued: “The eldest son of the first branch is already seven years old, and the first branch is expecting again. The young master, as legitimate second son, has no children of his own. The position of heir to the earldom has not yet been formally petitioned.”
Lang Jiuchuan understood at once. The selection of an heir naturally took into account the succession — with a legitimate grandson from the first branch already established and one more on the way, both born of the original wife, the advantage was already overwhelmingly on that side.
“If they go on living here, even if they do manage an heir, the marriage itself will likely be at an end,” she said, her tone even and unhurried.
Nanny Wang was startled yet again. “Young Miss, if you have seen something amiss, please speak plainly.”
“The feng shui of this Fallen Petals Court is no good. Given enough time, the husband and wife will fall into discord — and there will be a death, or a serious injury.” Lang Jiuchuan said: “See your young mistress first, and then we shall speak further. The feng shui can still be adjusted — it is her small Buddha hall that is the more pressing concern.”
With yin and malevolent energy that dense and fully formed, there was something there that would need to be examined before anything else could be determined.
Nanny Wang was so frightened her face had gone white. Just then, a maidservant arrived to fetch them, and they hurried over.
As they made their way back to the front of the main room, the maidservant called Song Xiang was just escorting a young woman out the door. The two parties met — the young woman stepped slightly to one side, then raised her head, and her gaze met Lang Jiuchuan’s directly.
Lang Jiuchuan looked at this young woman draped in a light cape, simply and elegantly dressed, with dignified and gracious features and a manner both refined and gentle — and blinked once.
She was composed and cultured, carrying the air of books about her entire person, the very image of a young lady raised in the inner chambers of a distinguished household. Her smile was warm, and yet her brow and eyes held a thread of quiet resolve. Her looks were not especially delicate, but they were pleasing to linger on — the kind of serene, dignified bearing that befitted a principal wife. A young woman of such intelligence and virtue would make an excellent and admirable match.
Her Star of Romance was stirring, and the marriage palace in her face was rich with rosy, deep color. The redness between her brows — the sign of an auspicious occasion drawing near. Yet there was also a slight depression in her marriage palace, suggesting a marriage prone to disharmony, with the hearts of husband and wife inclining to drift apart.
Lang Jiuchuan’s gaze moved to the young woman’s life gate. She pressed her lips together. This marriage — it was not a union of true destiny. Within three years, she would lose her life on account of her husband.
Nanny Wang greeted the young woman with a bow: “Miss He, how thoughtful of you to come — your own wedding day nearly upon you, and still you came to visit our young mistress.”
He Fu returned a half bow with a smile, a faint blush rising in her cheeks. “Shi fell ill, and I have been worried for her. My mother rarely allows me to go out, so I was glad of the chance. I hope she recovers quickly and can come to see me off when I marry.”
“Your kind words are a blessing,” said Nanny Wang, much moved.
He Fu, noticing that Lang Jiuchuan was watching her, smiled once more. “This young sister looks quite unfamiliar to me.” Her gaze fell on Lang Jiuchuan’s thin clothing, and she said gently: “Though we are already into the second month, the weather is still cold. You really ought to wear a cape.”
All the more so, she thought, because this girl looked so frail — her face had barely a trace of color.
Those eyes, though, were striking — dark and bright, as if washed clean by water, clear and luminous and full of spirit.
“I am the ninth daughter of the Lang family,” Lang Jiuchuan said.
He Fu paused.
The ninth daughter of the Lang family — ah. If her surname was Lang, then surely she was connected to the Marquis Kaiping’s mansion, where her future father-in-law held an annual memorial service for the late General Anbei. This year her wedding to her betrothed, Xie Zejin, was also in the third month — to avoid any clash with those rites, it had been moved slightly earlier, and the Marquis himself was presiding over the ceremony.
As she was soon to become a member of the Xie family, He Fu had long since received from her parents a full ledger of the Xie family’s connections and associations and had studied it carefully. The late General Anbei had been the future father-in-law’s former superior — a man who died in battle in the prime of his life, leaving behind only a posthumous daughter. This year, with the old Marquis Kaiping’s passing, that daughter had been brought back to the household. She was the ninth, if she recalled correctly.
Marquis Zhenbei regarded General Anbei as a brother, and the two families had long been acquainted — which would make this young girl a kind of junior connection to the family she was marrying into.
Having worked all of this out, He Fu looked at her with even warmer eyes.
Lang Jiuchuan, for her part, sighed inwardly. She gave a small, almost imperceptible nod and walked forward.
She and the Xie family were destined to come to a reckoning sooner or later.
And the young woman before her was about to marry into that family. They had only just met — was she really supposed to say at once: Could you not break off the engagement? This match is no good match for you?
Anyone who heard such words would feel displeased, no matter who they were.
He Fu found Lang Jiuchuan’s complex expression puzzling, but she did not dwell on it, supposing it must simply be a matter of temperament. After all, the two of them were strangers.
Still — how had Lang Jiuchuan come to be in Shi’s courtyard?
He Fu asked Song Xiang: “I didn’t know that Shi was acquainted with the Ninth Miss of the Lang family.”
Song Xiang smiled slightly and offered nothing more, saying only: “It was our eldest young miss who made the introduction.”
He Fu, seeing that Song Xiang was holding something back, was tactful enough not to press the matter and took her leave shortly after. But once settled inside her carriage, she turned and glanced once more toward the inner courtyard of the estate. The image of Lang Jiuchuan’s dark, luminous eyes surfaced in her mind — and she could not tell whether it was her imagination, but those eyes had seemed full of unspoken things, leaving her with a lingering, vague unease.
Lang Jiuchuan followed Nanny Wang into the inner chamber and saw Xiao Zheng Shi. She bore some resemblance to her elder sister, the elder Zheng Shi, but her features were somewhat more vivid and charming. Unfortunately, her face was now veiled by the pallor of illness, and dark yin-evil energy clung to her, giving her brows and eyes a brooding, sharp edge. Her lingering sickness made her entire bearing heavy and gloomy — enough to make one feel an instinctive, inexplicable aversion.
This was precisely why it was said that whether a person was living well could be read in their countenance. Those whose spirits were warm and luminous — at ease in heart and breath, with good fortune following them — made others feel as though they were walking into spring sunshine. The opposite was equally telling.
Xiao Zheng Shi was very much the latter. And beyond that, the marriage palace in her face had already sunken — marking frequent strife between husband and wife, constant quarreling. Her illness had burrowed deep, her spirit was unsettled, and her brow and eyes carried a cold sharpness. The dragon-and-tiger-conflict configuration that belonged to this courtyard had already manifested in her.
Not only had it manifested — something in her Buddha hall was feeding it, drawing out a dense concentration of yin and malevolent energy until it generated the full force of the White Tiger Inauspicious Configuration. If she continued to live here, she would die.
Lang Jiuchuan did not see the need to soften what she had to say. She was not one of those wandering charlatans who kept half their meaning back and spoke in careful circumlocutions. What she thought, she said. Whether they heeded her or not was up to them.
So when the words came, they came directly.
“Move to a different courtyard. If you do not, within a year, your life will be in danger.”
Xiao Zheng Shi gasped as if she had been struck — a sharp pain seized her chest, her face went deathly white, cold sweat broke out across her forehead, and she fixed Lang Jiuchuan with eyes gone red, words grinding out from between her teeth: “What nonsense are you speaking?”