Sleeping with Lingdang last night—this was the consequence. Although they had only slept embraced together, the result was that Yun Ye had to take a concubine. From the contemptuous looks of Li Anlan and Xinyue, Yun Ye knew his good reputation was completely ruined.
The only happy person was Grandmother. She gave Lingdang all the family assets she had saved over the years. The steward ran to the Ministry of Rites three times before settling Lingdang’s status, and also brought back a set of official robes.
“Husband, Lingdang is too old—she’s already twenty years old. Making her a concubine is beneath her status. Why don’t you look again and pick someone younger?”
Xinyue no longer cared whether Little Lingdang became a concubine or not. She now cared more about the Yun family’s reputation. Honestly speaking, taking a twenty-year-old concubine was indeed somewhat embarrassing. When the steward went to the Ministry of Rites, they mainly needed to verify whether the Yun family was truly taking a concubine. Yun Ye chased the official who came to inquire for three li.
No one could understand Yun Ye’s current state of mind. Toward Little Lingdang, he had always harbored brotherly feelings. Suddenly she had become his wife, and he had initiated it. If he told people that he had no awareness at the time and that it was a mistake, Little Lingdang would have no path forward except hanging herself.
Every year in Chang’an, several thousand maids were bedded by their masters, but only a handful successfully became concubines with official status. Being bedded wasn’t the big problem—not acknowledging it afterward was the greatest humiliation.
Seeing Little Lingdang’s bashful appearance, Yun Ye couldn’t utter a single word of explanation. However, Xinyue still believed her husband. A beauty like Little Lingdang, fresh as a spring onion, had been by his side all these years without him touching her—how could an accident suddenly happen in an instant? From her husband’s expression, she had already determined that in his dazed state, he had mistaken Little Lingdang for herself or Li Anlan.
“I’m going on a honeymoon, just Lingdang and me. You two stay home and crack melon seeds.”
Li Anlan didn’t care at all. She had long wanted to push Lingdang to Yun Ye, and now she had finally succeeded. Cracking melon seeds indifferently, she said, “With a new love, forget the old—this is men’s nature. Go ahead, go ahead. I’ll take care of myself with Rong’er.”
Her words sounded tragic, but her indifferent attitude made people furious. Little Lingdang shyly nestled in Li Anlan’s arms acting coquettish. Li Anlan scraped Lingdang’s eyebrow, then suddenly looked at Yun Ye strangely. Her eyes rolled, and immediately she laughed so hard she couldn’t get up. That day, Lingdang had foolishly told her that the marquis had “slept” with her. This phrase was too broad, with two possibilities. She had chosen the most likely one. Only today did she discover Lingdang was still a virgin. If she still didn’t understand what had happened, she would have wasted three years struggling in Lingnan.
After whispering with Xinyue, the two of them laughed so hard they could barely survive. Little Lingdang was utterly bewildered by their laughter, watching them fearfully, thinking the two noble ladies had lost their minds.
Yun Ye also laughed. Li Anlan finally stopped laughing and dragged Lingdang to the bedroom. Yun Ye knew this woman had a spring palace album in her room.
“A twenty-year-old woman who doesn’t know about these bedroom matters—husband, do you plan to teach her first before consummating the marriage?” Xinyue was very pleased with herself for telling such a funny joke and was immediately infected by her own joke, gasping for breath.
The Yun family now had a third lady. All the friends in Chang’an knew about it. Zhangsun Chong rushed back from Jingzhou specifically to see what kind of stunning beauty this new sister-in-law was, to have seduced the pure-as-jade Yun Ye into ignoring her twenty-year age.
Cheng Chumo had been a groom for less than fifteen days. Upon hearing this news, he immediately abandoned his lovely wife at home and came specially to watch the excitement. They say when marrying, marry virtue; when taking concubines, take beauty. What kind of romantic fortune would someone with Yun Ye’s exceptionally high standards have?
After Lingdang came out to meet the guests, these bastards dispersed in a crowd. It wasn’t that Lingdang wasn’t beautiful, but because they were too familiar with her. What was strange about marrying Lingdang? They had long considered Lingdang to be Yun Ye’s chamber maid. Utterly boring.
A group of people surrounded a persimmon tree poking at persimmons with long poles, not to eat them, but to see whose head the overripe persimmons would fall on. Li Chengqian’s forehead was already covered in persimmon pulp. Cheng Chumo’s mouth was rather large, and when a persimmon fell, it landed right in his mouth. In his excitement, he forgot that persimmons needed to be peeled, and his tongue was puckered so badly it couldn’t turn.
Li Tai stood under the persimmon tree, cursing Li Huairen for cheating at cards. He clearly still had four cards in his hand—why did they suddenly become two? This caused him to lose the game and still get hit by persimmons.
Li Huairen chuckled, his long pole poking even more vigorously. Persimmons rained down on Li Tai’s body. Before long, he looked like he’d been fished out of a sauce vat.
They had already ravaged three trees. Only Li Ke remained spotless in his moon-white long robe. His obsession with cleanliness had become increasingly severe. He had now developed to the point of bringing his own tea bowl, rice bowl, and spoon wherever he went. His white silk handkerchief was absolutely only used once. If his feet could avoid touching the ground, they wouldn’t touch it. Most excessive of all, he now went out wearing even the conical hats women wore. Cheng Chumo had said that in three more years, he would be a second Chenxin. The popular Chang’an drama “Mulan” should find him to be the lead actor.
Since the Three Scourges of Chang’an appeared, there correspondingly appeared the Three Young Masters of Chang’an. The leader was Li Ke—first-rate in learning, excellent in demeanor. It was said he could show meticulous care toward women. The women in his household already outnumbered the servants.
So he stubbornly believed himself romantic and elegant, that his younger brother Li An should have some of his qualities. When he saw the foolishly grinning Li An deliver a basket of the largest grapes to Shishi, only to receive a word of thanks from Shishi yet be so delighted he waved his arms about, then get pulled aside by Xiao Wu for extortion, he vexedly tapped his own head with his fan. That basket of grapes was the essence of all the grapes in his princely residence’s cellar. Li An had spent two hours picking in the cellar to gather one basket. These stored fresh fruits most feared being disturbed. Now the remaining grapes in the cellar probably wouldn’t last more than a few days.
“Why doesn’t he understand?” Just as he turned his head, a bright red persimmon flew toward his forehead. He tilted his head lightly, and the persimmon flew past his cheek. That group had gone mad. Feeling it was too stupid to stand in place waiting for persimmons to fall on their heads, they had now started a persimmon war. The persimmon that just flew over was merely an accident.
One was an accident, but when accidents appeared one after another, it was no longer accidental. After executing a great flip and inverted planting maneuver, he had just steadied himself when two persimmons accurately stamped onto his face. One persimmon was very hard, not yet fully ripe. It hurt when it hit his cheek and didn’t even crack when it fell to the ground. This damn thing was a rock! Li Ke let out a strange cry and joined the fray…
In Huang Shu’s bathhouse, seven men soaked naked in the water. Cheng Chumo moaned painfully and said, “So boring! I’m not going to the palace for duty tomorrow. Too dull, too tiresome, too…”
“I don’t know why I agreed to go to Jingzhou with Father. The place is sparsely populated, beasts roam everywhere. All I do is hunt, then hunt some more. Mountain bandits and lake pirates have all fled to the depths of the great marshes. The vast Yunmeng Marsh has now become a place where bandits run rampant. I hate dealing with local bandits—exterminating them has no technical content whatsoever. I need to seek more cunning enemies. If I continue dealing with local bandits, I feel I’ve already become much stupider.”
“I’m not too bad off. I have endless books to read, endless memorials to review. Every day I open my eyes and start being busy, only stealing a moment’s leisure when the lamps are extinguished.”
Li Huairen chuckled and said, “My old man now raises me like a pig. As long as I don’t cause trouble and obediently stay home to play chess with him, it’s fine. But his chess skills are too terrible. Even if I give him a chariot and a horse, I can still annihilate him completely. Yet I can’t win—if I win, he gets angry; if I lose to him, he mocks me. Life is unbearable.”
“A bunch of philistines. We have flowers in spring, leaves in summer, fruits in autumn, snow in winter. In our leisure time, we have beautiful women for company, playing instruments in harmony—endless refined pleasures. Every frown and smile of a beauty is a story. You don’t know how to appreciate it. I don’t know how I’ve managed to tolerate you philistines all these years. It looks like I’ll have to continue tolerating you.”
“Time to move our bodies. I feel like I’ve rusted. When I walk, I can hear the sound of my joints grinding. Especially beneath the Wude Hall—even quieter and more terrifying. That Xiao Cangsheng has almost turned into a night owl. In the pitch-black places, you can see his glowing green eyes.”
“That’s not possible. His Majesty absolutely won’t release all seven of us outside. When Bug went to the Western Regions, a city massacre resulted. When I went to Goguryeo, a no-man’s land appeared. The entire court’s civil and military officials are watching us closely—we can’t move at all.”
“Ye Zi, actually what I most want is to lead a hundred thousand troops, with me as commander, Chumo as vanguard, Bug as left wing, Huairen as right wing, you as rear camp, Qing Que managing military construction, and Little Ke in charge of provisions. We’d depart from Yumen Pass and march west continuously, breaking cities we encounter, destroying nations we meet, killing all the way to the edge of the sky to see what else remains for us to conquer.”
Yun Ye sat up, looked at these fellows immersed in their dreams, and said loudly, “Conquer what? If your military construction is capable enough to build giant ships, the result of marching west continuously would be discovering you’ve killed your way back to the Great Tang, and the landing place would be Dengzhou. There’s absolutely no mistake.”
“Impossible! We march continuously west, not backtracking—why would we end up in Dengzhou? That’s to the east. You’re directionally challenged—we’re not.” Zhangsun Chong was very dissatisfied with Yun Ye’s nonsense.
“Bug, let’s make a bet. I don’t care if you go east, west, even south or north—as long as you keep walking continuously, you’ll absolutely walk back to your starting point. Trust me, there’s no mistake. This is something someone learned at the cost of blood. Just consider that we’re living on a great sphere.”