What was the meaning of Minglan bringing both her and Xia Zhu to attend in a scene like today’s?
Xiaotao’s marriage away from the household was imminent, and Luzhi would soon be of age to be released as well — within a year or two at most, all of the senior maids of Jiaxi Residence would be replaced entirely. Cuixiu and Chunya had found favor with the mistress, but they were still young. That left… Xia He understood clearly in her heart, and quietly resolved to be more diligent in her duties in the coming days, and less prone to acting on her own clever ideas.
Minglan gazed at Bi Si, still kowtowing over and over, and felt a pang of sadness. “You never had much in the way of grand ambitions since you were small — neither particularly quick nor loyal, neither especially hardworking nor diligent. A good meal, a decent outfit, and you were content.” In the modern world, she might have made an ideal, unambitious second wife — never tempted by thoughts of rising higher.
“You have served at my side without ever behaving much like a proper maidservant — loafing about day after day, shirking work, picking up the easy tasks and avoiding the hard. It was only because Danju and the others were generous-natured and never quarreled with you over it. I may not have been particularly fond of you — but we have been together for ten years all the same. One is not made of wood or stone.”
They say the fondness for remembering the past is a sign of growing old. Minglan felt suddenly as though she had woken from a dream of Yangzhou — the past played before her eyes in vivid detail, one betrayal and wound after another, one parting and separation after another, and when she looked back, she realized, with a start, that she had grown old.
“But then, you never stirred up any great trouble either.” Bi Si was lazy by nature — she lacked Ruomei’s air of contemptuous superiority, and she lacked Yancao’s scheming eye for getting ahead. “I had originally thought that once Xiaotao and Luzhi were settled in marriage, I would find you someone kind and warm-hearted with a solid household, and marry you off — so that you might live out your life in warmth and comfort, and our years as mistress and maid would end on good terms, a proper beginning and a proper end.”
Bi Si’s mind was in turmoil; she could not make sense of where Minglan’s words were leading — until she heard a light chime of sound and a flash of gold and pearl landed before her eyes. Minglan had tossed the pair of bracelets, still wrapped in their silk cloth, down in front of her, and her cool, composed voice came to Bi Si’s ears.
“I will not punish you, nor beat or scold you. But our ties are at an end.” Minglan gave a quiet sigh. “You still have brothers and a mother at home — I am releasing you to go back to them now. These bracelets are yours. Whatever silver, pearls, and cloth you have saved up over the years, take it all with you — buy a piece of land, or lease out a small shop… In the end, from here on, you will make your own way.”
With these last words, Minglan gave a small wave of her hand toward the two servant women.
The sound in Bi Si’s ears became a roar, and the only words she could make out were those four: “releasing you to go home” —
She did not want to go! She did not want to go home! Ever since her grandfather and father had died one after another, the household had deteriorated day by day, which was why she had been sold into the Sheng family in the first place. Her mother was timid and ineffectual, her brother feckless, her sister-in-law sharp and unkind. The family home was poor — you had to work and scrimp over every copper coin. How could that compare to living at Minglan’s side, clothed in fine silks, never lifting a hand to coarse work, drifting through leisurely days?
She immediately made to burst into desperate pleas — only to find a cloth shoved swiftly back into her mouth, making it impossible to say a word.
She thrashed and struggled, howling muffled cries, sending beseeching looks toward Minglan with every bit of force she had — but the two servant women’s hands were iron clamps, gripping her so that she could not move a muscle, and she could only watch helplessly as she was dragged away from Minglan’s presence.
Once they were out the door, one of the servant women said lightly and scathingly: “I’d calm down if I were you, miss — do you still fancy yourself one of the precious ones?” The other added: “Madam is far too kind-hearted, if you ask me. This sort of wretched creature, who nearly got the young master killed — if it were up to me, she’d have been sold off as far away as possible long ago. That would really put your mind at ease!”
The cutting words drifted intermittently back into the room. Xia He’s eyes grew hot and stinging — she and Bi Si had shared a room for the past two years, living side by side morning and night. Though they could not exactly be called as close as sisters, seeing Bi Si come to this end still weighed on her heart with something very much like grief. In that moment, she thought that when she had more freedom to come and go, she would visit Bi Si often, and offer what small help she could.
As fate would have it, things did not unfold that way. Some years later, Xia He married a rather capable young estate manager, and followed her husband south to oversee the Gu family’s farmlands. They were gone for several years, and when she finally saw Bi Si again, a full decade had passed. By then, she could scarcely believe that this ruddy, loud-voiced, large-handed, coarse-footed, ungainly woman before her was the same idle girl she had once known — the one who had moved through life like a willow in the breeze, fond of jade green, delighting in refined pleasures.
After Bi Si had been dealt with, Minglan’s own spirits were low for a moment. Then she said: “Xia He, go and pack up her belongings for her — every stitch and thread, take it all along, and don’t let anyone else pocket anything. Xia Zhu, go watch the outside. I wish to speak with the First Mistress for a while.”
The two girls murmured their acknowledgment — one stepped directly out the door, the other drew the door softly shut from outside.
Now only the two of them remained in the room. Shao Shi had gone completely rigid, perching on her seat in the restless, startled manner of a bird fearing the bowstring, and when she caught Minglan looking at her steadily without blinking, her panic intensified. “Sister-in-law, please don’t frighten me — I know I was wrong this time! It was my fault, I…”
Having heard Ren Yiniang’s full confession, the words of remorse were still the same old refrain — yet behind them now was something marginally more genuine, each word clearly coming from the heart.
“Wherein exactly did Sister-in-law go wrong?” Minglan pressed. “Was it listening to Ren Yiniang’s urging? Or was it failing to listen to me?”
Shao Shi was immediately stumped by the question and turned a mottled black-red in her struggle to answer.
“Let me take Sister-in-law’s pulse, as it were.” Minglan pressed on, step by step. “Sister-in-law made two errors. First: you could not bring yourself to trust me. Second: you were all too quick to trust someone else! When it comes down to it, Sister-in-law simply could not trust me. Ren Yiniang said I was placing you and yours in plain sight as a decoy for Tuan Ge’er — and you actually half-believed her, didn’t you?”
Shao Shi dared not make a sound in response and could only wave her hands in frantic denial: “No — no, no, no… how could that be…”
“Let me be perfectly clear!” Minglan brought both palms down on the table and pushed herself to her feet. “The capital is in upheaval — anyone who would come to cause trouble at a Marquis’s estate would be one of two kinds of people: those who come for wealth, or those who come with other designs. I deliberately had the main chambers of Jiaxi Residence lit up bright as day on purpose — precisely to lure in the greedy sort of bandit. Hmph! Is there any place in this entire estate with more obvious wealth and valuables on display than my quarters? A common robber who finished ransacking my rooms would be too laden down to walk away!”
Shao Shi’s jaw dropped, and she stammered: “I — I always wondered — how could your courtyard be lit up quite so brightly like that…!”
“And if those who came were after a specific person — hmph — the bad blood between the Marquis and his brothers is no secret; it has erupted more than once and half of the capital knows about it. Whether it was a force sent from the palace to arrest someone, or a move by that good stepmother-in-law of ours, it would only be directed at me and my children — what would it have to do with you? And as for your courtyard — if anyone did try to enter… your courtyard is built right up against the lake! Three sides out of four face the water! Would bandits really bring rafts on their persons for a nighttime raid?! There is only one entrance and exit — easily defended, difficult to breach. Do you know how many guards I had stationed there? Master Tu himself said that short of an enemy force many times over, they could not get in!”
Minglan leaned both palms on the table, her bearing imposing and unyielding, and Shao Shi felt very much like crawling under the table.
“I’ll tell you honestly — the threat I was most on guard against was from that Madam’s side! The rebel faction did not belong to her personally — the number of people available to her to cause trouble was limited. What I feared was the obvious threat being easy to dodge while the hidden one was hard to guard against! Think of how many people serving in this household were left over from the old days — the human heart is unpredictable, and in the midst of the chaos, with servant women and maids moving in and out, a single hairpin, a packet of medicine, a rock, a thorn — Tuan Ge’er is barely this big. How could he defend against any of it? But before things came to a head, could I say this kind of thing aloud? Words like that cut to the heart — I could not have said them!”
Shao Shi’s tears were welling; she was almost ready to sink to her knees before Minglan, and slumped weakly against the table, pleading: “Sister-in-law — it was as if lard had blinded my eyes — I was blind and foolish and did not recognize kindness when I saw it. If — if anything had truly… I will give my life to repay Tuan Ge’er…”
“I will not have Sister-in-law pay with her life.” Minglan said coldly. “I have always had a fondness for Xian Jie’er, and even if the Marquis holds little regard for her, I have it in my heart to help secure her a good future. But if Tuan Ge’er had truly been killed because of you — what do you think I would feel?”
Shao Shi flinched as though jolted, and her hands flew up in denial: “No, no… Xian’er had nothing to do with any of this…” She felt a sudden, overwhelming surge of gratitude toward Rong Jie’er — if it were not for the girl’s fierce and desperate rescue of her brother, even if she and Xian Jie’er had survived, their days ahead would have been miserable enough.
“Such a close call — only half a step away…” A look of deep and genuine terror passed through Minglan’s eyes. “If it were not for Rong Jie’er’s fierce courage and determination, Tuan Ge’er would have lost his little life. What the situation would be right now is something I cannot bear to imagine.”
Shao Shi dared not pursue the thought — never mind Minglan, even the fury of Gu Tingye alone would have been enough to reduce them both to ash, with plenty of heat to spare. The more she thought about it, the more frightened she became, until cold sweat covered the palms and backs of both hands.
Minglan fixed Shao Shi in a long, cold gaze before finally saying: “I am saying all of this today not for your sake. It is for Xian Jie’er.”
Shao Shi looked up blankly, not following.
“When you slipped away to hide in Kou Xiang Courtyard, you only intended to bring Xian Jie’er with you, is that right?” Minglan sighed. “Xian Jie’er is a good child. Even in that moment, she still thought of Rong Jie’er and called her along.”
Shao Shi’s eyes instantly brimmed over with tears, and she lifted her face and wept: “My good daughter! I nearly destroyed you, yet you turned around and saved me!”
Xian Jie’er had called for Rong Jie’er; Rong Jie’er had saved Tuan Ge’er; which in turn had indirectly saved her own and her mother’s standing — the mysterious workings of heaven, truly, good deeds beget good returns! In that moment, a feeling of profound reverence rose in her heart, toward the workings of heaven and divine justice, toward the turning of cause and effect.
Minglan opened the door, and as she stood in the doorway, she said in a measured, solemn voice: “Sister-in-law may rest easy. As long as you do not act foolishly again in the days to come, I will treat both girls as though they were my own daughters.” She paused. “I am as good as my word.”
With that, she did not look back — she took Xia Zhu’s arm, who was waiting just outside the door, and walked away.
That evening, after dinner, Luzhi came to report a message passed along by Qiong Mama: Shao Shi had explained the full course of events to Xian Jie’er, and the mother and daughter had wept in each other’s arms for a long while. Shao Shi was wracked with guilt, yet also felt a weight lift from her heart.
Early the next morning, Xian Jie’er came with swollen, red-rimmed eyes to pay her respects to Minglan, twisting her hands awkwardly and shifting on her feet. Minglan looked at her with tender affection, patted her on the head, and told her to go and play with Rong Jie’er and Tuan Ge’er.
With Shao Shi, however, Minglan was in no such generous mood. She still observed every courtesy — but her bearing was stern and her manner cool, and not one unnecessary word passed her lips. The result was that Shao Shi was frightened into complete submission and quiet compliance.
Minglan had often thought — if Shao Shi had stood in awe of her from the beginning, the way she had stood in awe of that Madam, then no matter how hard Ren Yiniang had urged and goaded, Shao Shi would likely never have dared to go near Tuan Ge’er’s hiding place — Qiu Niang was a perfectly good example of that.
Petty people fear power, not virtue — gentle persuasion does not work on everyone.
Faced with this frustrating reality, Minglan could only sigh.