When the couple arrived at the Dowager Marchioness’s quarters, they found that the maids who usually served inside, including Weizi and the others, were all standing under the eaves. The courtyard, which was ordinarily serene and tranquil, was now filled with a tense, uneasy atmosphere.

Xu Lingyi’s expression tightened slightly, and he quickened his pace. Weizi, seeing Xu Lingyi and his wife approaching, stepped forward quickly to meet them: “Marquis, Madam. The Dowager Marchioness said she wished to lie down for a while.” She curtsied to them both. “She has only kept Nanny Du inside to attend to her.”

Fifth Young Master had been a son born to the Dowager Marchioness in her later years, and she had always doted on him lavishly. Now that this matter of Fengqing had come to light — how could she not be grieved?

Shiyiniang was inwardly guessing as much, when Weizi already slipped quietly inside to announce them.

After a moment she returned: “The Dowager Marchioness asks the Marquis and Madam to come in.” She lifted the curtain to usher them inside.

The inner chamber was so still one could hear a pin drop. The nanmu bed’s gauze curtains were half-drawn. The Dowager Marchioness had removed her bead hairpins and, wearing a small padded jacket, was reclining against a large pillow.

“Mother, where does it hurt?” Xu Lingyi’s eyes flickered with anxiety as he spoke the moment he stepped through the door.

“Nothing, nothing.” The Dowager Marchioness smiled faintly, though her brow could not entirely conceal the weariness and exhaustion beneath. “Getting older, the energy doesn’t keep up — I just wanted to lie down for a while.”

The two stepped forward and paid their respects, while Nanny Du promptly brought over brocade stools and served hot tea.

“Should we ask Imperial Physician Liu to come and have a look?” Xu Lingyi could read the situation well enough from what he saw — his mother had been perfectly spirited when he came in the afternoon, but after he had gone back and returned again after telling her about Fengqing, she seemed drained… Worried that his mother might have been angered into illness by the whole affair, he said: “He could prescribe a formula to help regulate your constitution?”

“No need,” the Dowager Marchioness said with a smile. “I just want to rest.”

Before her words had even settled, Weizi came in to report: “Fifth Young Master has arrived!”

The Dowager Marchioness’s brow arched slightly. “Tell him I’m feeling a little unwell. Ask him to go back for now.” Her tone was flat and distant.

This was love run deep, reproach run sharp, surely.

Shiyiniang pondered this.

Xu Lingyi had already urged: “Mother, Fifth Brother is the most filial of us all. If you say that, he likely won’t sleep a wink tonight. Just let him come in to pay his respects!”

Shiyiniang was gradually beginning to understand why Xu Lingkuan had turned out the way he had.

Whenever Xu Lingyi grew angry, the Dowager Marchioness would step in to mediate; whenever the Dowager Marchioness grew angry, Xu Lingyi would step in to mediate… Not only had this never served to truly correct Fifth Young Master, it had emboldened him further. No wonder his behavior grew more and more outrageous.

She sighed inwardly, and then heard the Dowager Marchioness give a cold laugh: “If he remembered I existed, he wouldn’t be so thoroughly insincere, repeatedly refusing to reform.”

Xu Lingyi exchanged a glance with Nanny Du, and continued to console his mother: “…He is young and doesn’t understand things yet. When all is said and done, it’s my fault as his elder brother. I will keep a close watch on him from now on. Having been through all this, he ought to know what is and isn’t acceptable…”

Nanny Du understood that the Dowager Marchioness’s anger was that of someone who dearly wished Fifth Young Master would do better, and her sharp words were not her true heart. Now that she had received Xu Lingyi’s signal, she promptly went out to ask Fifth Young Master to come in.

Fifth Young Master, finding it was Nanny Du herself who lifted the curtain for him, was already full of astonishment. He paused at the door to the inner chamber, caught his elder brother’s voice urging their mother, and understood that his brother had told her everything. His face flushed red, then drained white — he was utterly mortified, and after much hesitation and shuffling finally made his way inside.

“Mother…” He looked at her with a timid, uncertain expression.

Xu Lingyi quickly stopped what he was saying and greeted his younger brother warmly: “You’re here.”

Fifth Young Master was startled and grateful at once, but remembering his own wrongdoing, his expression also carried a measure of anxiety and dread.

The Dowager Marchioness looked at him with a mixture of tenderness, fury, and helpless resignation, and let her face fall.

“Mother!” Seeing this, Fifth Young Master was frightened, and hurried forward to kneel before her bed. “It is all my fault. I have hurt you and brought shame upon the Xu family. Please beat me as hard as you like — just do not let it make you ill.” With that, he offered up his face for her to strike.

“Beat you…” The Dowager Marchioness looked at her youngest son’s handsome face, and the phrase “gilded without and rotten within” came unbidden to her mind. She could only give a bitter laugh. “If beating you meant you would listen to me for once, I would gladly beat you every single day. But will you remember it if I beat you? Will you change if I beat you?” As she spoke, the rims of her eyes grew wet.

Seeing how things were going, Shiyiniang quietly withdrew to the outer hall.

Nanny Du caught the look in her eye and followed her out from the inner room as well.

The two of them stood in the hall. They exchanged a glance and were about to smile when they heard Third Madam’s voice coming from outside the door: “My goodness! Whatever has happened? Everyone’s standing out in the courtyard!”

“The Dowager Marchioness said she felt a little unwell and wished to lie down, so those serving inside have stepped out,” Weizi answered. “Third Madam, if you’ll wait here a moment, I’ll go in and announce you.” And with that, she lifted the curtain and went inside.

Seeing both Shiyiniang and Nanny Du standing in the outer hall, she was taken aback, and then heard the Dowager Marchioness’s voice from the inner room — not raised, but heavy with undisguised fury: “…As they say, a fall in the pit is a gain in your wit. But not you — you let everyone’s words pass through one ear and out the other. That Liu Huifang — I told you at the time how to handle it. I told you to keep your distance from him, but you turned right around and got yourself tangled up with his younger sister…”

Third Madam’s face turned as white as paper. She knew she had heard something she should not have, and looked to Nanny Du for help.

Nanny Du hesitated, glancing at Shiyiniang.

This was someone else’s affair — anyone else, she might have left to manage on their own. But Nanny Du was the most capable person in the Dowager Marchioness’s inner circle. She gave a quiet sigh and stepped into the inner room with a smile.

The Dowager Marchioness was in the middle of a thorough dressing-down of Xu Lingkuan, whose face had gone crimson, when she suddenly saw Shiyiniang come in. She broke off and, forcing back her displeasure, said: “What is it?”

Shiyiniang quickly stepped forward: “Third Madam has come to pay her respects!”

The Dowager Marchioness laughed coldly: “Tell her I’m not feeling well and am not receiving visitors. Ask her to go back.” With that, she turned away.

Knowing that the Dowager Marchioness’s heart was vexed at this moment and whoever came near would only suffer for it, Shiyiniang respectfully acknowledged the instruction and withdrew from the inner room, then gave Weizi a small shake of her head.

Weizi let out a breath of relief and went outside to give Third Madam her answer: “…The Dowager Marchioness has already retired. Please come again tomorrow, Third Madam, with Third Young Master.”

The maids from Shiyiniang’s courtyard and Fifth Young Master’s personal attendants were all waiting in the yard, and Third Madam had noticed them when she came in. She knew the people from the fourth and fifth households were all here, and hearing this, she could not help smiling with a trace of pique, saying in a discontented tone: “I wonder what matter is so important that it requires keeping the Marquis and Fifth Young Master here — and Fourth Young Sister-in-law as well, of course?”

But the son who had come along with his mother, Xu Sijian, asked with genuine concern: “What is the matter with Grandmother? Has a physician been called? Is it serious?”

Weizi heard the pointed undertone in Third Madam’s words and acted as if she had not, giving her full attention to Xu Sijian’s question: “Nothing serious. Just the usual tiredness that comes with age. Third Young Master need not worry — a little rest and she’ll be quite well.”

Xu Sijian looked as if he wished to ask more, but Third Madam had already taken him by the arm: “Your Fourth Uncle and Fifth Uncle are inside attending to her. We can come back tomorrow and it won’t be any later.” And paying no heed to Xu Sijian’s objections, she dragged him away.

Weizi breathed a sigh of relief, but then looked up to see Xu Siqin and Xu Siyu arriving together.

The Dowager Marchioness, as before, was not receiving.

Xu Siqin was very worried, and kept pressing Weizi with questions about the Dowager Marchioness’s condition, while Xu Siyu cast a sweeping glance at the maids and attendants standing under the eaves, then smiled and asked Weizi: “I wonder if Third Aunt and Third Cousin have come by yet?”

Weizi was momentarily puzzled.

She had not expected Xu Siyu to ask that.

Xu Siyu quickly smiled and explained: “I only ask because I was worried Third Aunt might not know Grandmother was ill.”

“Third Madam and Third Young Master came a little while ago.”

Hearing this, Xu Siyu turned to Xu Siqin: “Then let’s head back as well. We can come and pay our respects when Grandmother is better tomorrow.” With that, he took Xu Siqin by the arm and steered him out. Once outside the Dowager Marchioness’s courtyard, he told the maids accompanying them to fall back a distance, then said quietly to Xu Siqin: “Did you not notice — Mother’s maid and Fifth Uncle’s personal attendant were both standing under the eaves waiting?”

“That’s precisely why I was a little worried.” Xu Siqin frowned. “Since both Fourth Aunt’s maid and Fifth Uncle’s personal attendant are here, Fourth Uncle and Fifth Uncle must both be inside. If two elders have been called in, I doubt this is the simple ‘lack of energy’ Nanny Du described…”

Xu Siyu could not help but laugh. “Elder Brother, you are too straightforward sometimes!”

Xu Siqin raised an eyebrow in puzzlement.

“Think about it — at lunch today, Grandmother was perfectly fine. How is it that she suddenly has so little energy she won’t even see her own grandchildren? And then think — if she were truly ill, Imperial Physician Liu would have been summoned long ago, yet Nanny Du said only Third Madam and Third Cousin had come by…”

Xu Siqin understood all at once: “So when you put it all together, in all likelihood Fifth Uncle has gotten himself into some kind of trouble, and Fourth Uncle has been brought in to help think it through!”

A glint of amusement flashed in Xu Siyu’s eyes: “Your reflexes really are a bit slow.”

“Look who’s talking — you with your sharp little mind!” Xu Siqin grinned. “As long as Grandmother isn’t actually ill, that’s all that matters.”

“Who has a sharp little mind?” Xu Siyu protested. “We agreed — in front of outsiders, you can’t say things like that about me.”

“There are no outsiders here,” Xu Siqin laughed. “Besides, haven’t you got a new aunt now? I think the new wife seems quite decent.”

Xu Siyu smiled, but did not follow that thread. Instead he turned the question back: “Elder Brother, is the Third Miss of the Zhongqin Earl’s family really very lovely? I heard that you’ve been reciting the poem ‘Guanju’ at home…”

Before he had even finished, Xu Siqin had raised his fist and aimed it at his shoulder: “What nonsense are you talking?”

Xu Siyu ducked out of the way, laughing as he ran: “There is a graceful lady, by the river’s shore…”

“You keep talking, just you keep talking…” Xu Siqin, his face burning red, went charging after him.

At this moment, they were still just the young men they were — young men who manufactured reasons for their verse, as the poem said.

…

The Dowager Marchioness vented her anger at great length, while Xu Lingkuan gave assurance after assurance that he would never repeat this offense, and only then did her fury gradually subside: “…You must remember what you have said. Only a man who keeps his word and honors his promises can be considered a true man.”

Fifth Young Master nodded his head vigorously.

Xu Lingyi stepped in to help extricate his brother: “Mother, it’s getting late. Let the maids set dinner. We can continue talking after we’ve eaten.”

The Dowager Marchioness, however, had little faith that any change would take hold. She sighed with helpless resignation: “Very well, set the dinner then.”

Nanny Du, who had been listening from outside for the signs, hurried in to attend the Dowager Marchioness as she changed her clothes, while Shiyiniang asked Weizi to have the meal laid out.

After dinner, the Dowager Marchioness kept Xu Lingyi behind to speak with him.

Fifth Young Master and Shiyiniang rose and took their leave together.

Out the Dowager Marchioness’s door, Fifth Young Master gave Shiyiniang a hasty, perfunctory bow and walked away.

When Shiyiniang returned to her rooms and had washed up, a young maid came from the Dowager Marchioness’s chambers with a message: “The Marquis says he will be staying in the Dowager Marchioness’s quarters tonight, and asks Madam not to wait up.”

Shiyiniang tipped the girl a few coins and went to bed early.

The next morning, just as she was finishing having her hair done, a maid came in to announce: “The First Young Master from Gongxian Hutong has arrived!”

—