When the Old Madam saw Shen Che, her eyes couldn’t move away, filled with tears. “You’ve gotten thinner and darker,” she said, holding Shen Che’s hand tightly.
“With such a big sun in the frontier, of course, I’ve gotten darker. Doesn’t it make me look more manly?” Shen Che replied with a mischievous grin.
The Old Madam gave Shen Che a reproachful look. “Your elder brother will be entering the capital to present captives soon. Why didn’t you return with him?”
This great victory at Leyuan Pass, where Shen Yu had defeated a larger force and captured the chieftain Zhe Li, was an enormous achievement. Anyone associated with this victory was bound for promotion and wealth. That’s why the Old Madam was complaining to Shen Che; if he had returned with Shen Yu, he might have shed his reputation as a wastrel.
Shen Che wiped away the Old Madam’s tears. “Grandson just missed you. Our family already has an Elder Brother, and a Third Brother has also achieved merit. How can our family claim all the good fortune in the world? I still prefer to be a carefree man of leisure.”
The Old Madam knew she couldn’t control Shen Che in important matters and could only let him do as he pleased. In her old age, she no longer cared much for wealth and glory, only for peace and safety. After chattering with Shen Che for a while, she turned to Ji Cheng. “Oh my, why have you all become so thin?”
Shen Che’s thinness might have been the Old Madam’s imagination, always worrying he couldn’t get used to food outside. But Ji Cheng’s thinness was real. She had always been slender, but this time she must have lost at least ten jin. Her eyes were sunken, her face so small it could be covered with one palm, and her bony frame had reduced her beauty by three parts.
One look at Ji Cheng, and the Old Madam knew she must have suffered greatly. She turned to scold Shen Che, “Is this how you take care of your wife? Look how thin she’s become.”
Shen Che’s gaze swept coolly over Ji Cheng’s face, as if finding her an eyesore, and quickly moved away.
Ji Cheng smiled at the Old Madam. “It’s all my fault. I couldn’t get used to the food in the frontier. It was beef and mutton every day, without any vegetables. I had constant mouth ulcers from the heat in my body.”
The Old Madam nodded, seemingly accepting Ji Cheng’s explanation.
However, after Ji Cheng returned to the Nine Li Courtyard, her two sisters-in-law began gossiping behind her back. Fourth Young Madam Li Rui said to Shen Yu’s wife, Cui Long, “Elder Sister-in-law, did you see Second Sister-in-law’s condition? She looks like she’s aged four or five years. Did you see her hands? Tsk tsk, they’re so rough. I think I even saw calluses. Who knows what she’s been through?”
Cui Long replied, “She probably didn’t adapt well to the frontier. Besides, they were in a war zone. How could the care there compare to home? She inevitably suffered. After some time recuperating at home, she’ll naturally become plump again.”
“She brought this suffering upon herself. Knowing there would be many battles ahead, she still thought it was a pleasure trip. Now that she’s tasted hardship, maybe she’ll stop being so reckless in the future,” Li Rui said with a sneer.
Cui Long didn’t engage with Li Rui’s comments. She had heard from her cousin, Cui Ling, that her second brother-in-law still cared deeply for his wife, and Cui Long didn’t want to offend anyone unnecessarily. “She went to the frontier to take care of Second Brother, after all.”
Li Rui found this tactful elder sister-in-law quite dull. Although she didn’t like her sister-in-law Shen Cui either, she had to admit that talking with Shen Cui was sometimes more enjoyable. She imagined how Shen Cui would gloat if she saw Ji Cheng in this state.
Ji Cheng didn’t care about Li Rui’s gossip behind her back. Even if she heard it, she would just laugh it off. However, when she saw herself in the mercury mirror, she was shocked. It would be a lie to say she didn’t care about her appearance at all.
Even if a woman is on the brink of death, she still cares about her looks. If she must die, she wants to die beautiful.
When Ji Cheng was with the Saiya family, she hardly had time to look in the mirror. The Saiya family only had one bronze mirror, and it was so old and tarnished that you could only make out a silhouette, barely distinguishing between nose and mouth. So although she knew she might look haggard, she hadn’t expected it to be this bad.
Her once fair and delicate skin was now tanned and rough. Her face had thinned so much that her eyes looked as big as copper bells, frightening to behold. Her fingers were even worse. Due to the hard labor at the Saiya household, calluses had formed at the base of her fingers, so rough that they would catch on the silk of her clothes.
Yüqian hurriedly prepared a basin of milk for Ji Cheng to soak her hands and feet, then went to prepare a bath with peach blossom powder.
As Yüqian helped Ji Cheng bathe, she complained, “How did Nangui take care of you? She doesn’t know how to serve at all. Miss, you also didn’t take care of yourself. Even though you’re naturally beautiful, you can’t just let yourself go like this. Look, you even have a few freckles on the tip of your nose now. Those won’t go away easily.”
Ji Cheng held a small mirror, turning her face left and right in dismay. She had indeed neglected herself terribly. With her current appearance, even Shen Che would probably find her an eyesore.
At this thought, Ji Cheng suddenly became dejected again. How ridiculous and shameful that she still hoped for Shen Che to look at her more. Ji Cheng tossed the mirror onto a pile of clothes, no longer in the mood to look at herself, and let Yüqian fuss over her.
Yüqian, being easily excitable, nearly jumped through the roof when she saw the marks on the inside of Ji Cheng’s thighs. “Miss, what happened here? How did you get these?”
The scars on Ji Cheng’s inner thighs were from horseback riding. When she was searching for Ma Yuantong, she had ridden for days, leaving her inner thighs raw and bloody. It wasn’t until after she found Ma Yuantong that she barely managed to treat the wounds. Her pants had stuck to the bloody flesh, and she had to painfully tear open the scabbed wounds to remove them. The wounds had healed and reopened multiple times, so it wasn’t surprising that scars remained.
Yüqian said, “This looks so unsightly. The young master will surely be displeased when he sees it.”
Ji Cheng instinctively closed her legs. “What nonsense are you talking about? Aren’t you embarrassed?”
Yüqian finally shut her mouth.
Ji Cheng rested well in her room for three days before she felt better. However, during these three days, Shen Che never returned to the Nine Li Courtyard, or more precisely, he never returned to the main hall – Woyun Hall.
Three days later, when Ji Cheng went to pay her respects to the Old Madam, the latter had already eagerly handed back the household management responsibilities to Ji Cheng. Ji Cheng took the token of authority feeling unworthy. If the Old Madam knew what she had done in the frontier, she might want to kill her. How could she deserve such trust?
Ji Cheng was now taking things one day at a time, not daring to be frank with the Old Madam. But paper cannot wrap fire; when Shen Yu’s army returns to the capital, the events on the grasslands will likely be impossible to hide from the Old Madam.
However, as long as Ji Cheng held the position of Second Young Madam for one more day, she had to fulfill her duties. In the flower hall at the bottom of the Nine Li Courtyard, Ji Cheng was listening to reports from various household managers and flipping through account books page by page.
The people below thought themselves clever, but Ji Cheng could easily discern who was loyal and who was treacherous with just a little thought. She was considering how to properly reorganize these people. Before, thinking she had plenty of time and not wanting to be too high-profile as a Second Young Madam of humble origins, she had planned to take things slowly and remove those people gradually. Now the situation was very different, but she could at least contribute to the next Second Young Madam.
As Ji Cheng was pondering how to begin, she saw Shen Che, who had been out all night, enter from outside. His wife, Ji Cheng naturally stood up to greet him, but Shen Che merely walked past her indifferently.
This was like a drop of water falling into a pot of hot oil. The people giving reports felt their hearts splatter with oil droplets. Those who had intended to fully support Ji Cheng now hesitated, while the old servants who had planned to challenge the new mistress were secretly delighted.
The Old Madam was most concerned about Shen Che’s couple. From the moment Shen Che returned, she had sensed something amiss between the young couple. Today, hearing reports from below, she became even more worried.
“Ah Qing, what’s going on? Weren’t they fine when they left? Ah Che even said he just wanted to take Cheng girl out to see the world. How did they become like strangers after returning?” the Old Madam asked anxiously.
Although Cao Mama wasn’t very quick-witted, she was very attentive to matters the Old Madam cared about. She had already inquired about this matter but hadn’t dared to mention it to the Old Madam for the past half month. Now that the Old Madam had asked, she no longer concealed it.
“This servant heard that when Ah Che was on the grasslands, he was often seen together with a Turkic woman,” Cao Mama said.
Sometimes, one sentence can explain everything.
The Old Madam felt a surge of turbid qi in her heart. After a long while, she sighed deeply, “Ah, how long have they been married? I thought he was happy at first and hoped it would last. Who knew…” Who knew men always tire of the old and favor the new?
“When Ah Che returns, tell him to come to my room. I have something to say to him,” the Old Madam said.
Cao Mama replied, “Ah Che doesn’t seem to return to the Nine Li Courtyard much these days.”
The Old Madam was shocked. “Has it come to this point already?” After thinking for a moment, she changed her mind. “It takes two hands to clap in marital problems. Cheng’s girl may seem gentle on the outside, but she’s stubborn inside. Call her over, I have something to say to her. Although her husband has made a mistake, as a wife, she shouldn’t push him away out of anger. I had hoped her marriage would help Ah Che settle down, but it seems to have had the opposite effect.”
Hearing the Old Madam’s tone, which seemed to show some dissatisfaction with Ji Cheng, Cao Mama couldn’t help but advise, “The Young Madam is still a young girl, she doesn’t have your wisdom, Old Madam. It’s natural for her attitude to become harsh when she feels wronged. You should just counsel her gently.”
The Old Madam raised her eyes to look at Cao Mama, who quickly explained, “It’s just that she looks quite pitiful, so thin and dark. She’s completely different from when she left, must have suffered a lot.”
The Old Madam couldn’t help but smile. “Do you think I’m some man-eating evil mother-in-law? We can talk like this in private, but since they’re married, I can only hope for the best for them.”