After leaving Shou’an Hall, Hualan went to Wang Shi’s room. Wang Shi had long since heated the floor warming furnace and was waiting inside. When she saw her daughter come in, she quickly called the maids to brew tea and bring hand warmers. Seeing that only Wang Shi was in the room, Hualan asked, “Where is Zhuang Jie’er?”
Wang Shi pulled her daughter onto the heated bed platform and smiled. “She went to play with your younger sisters. They moved the tables and chairs in their room to clear a space, and the girls are playing ‘Blind Man’s Bluff.’ The nannies are watching nearby, so don’t worry.”
Hualan took the hand warmer that Caihuang passed to her, then turned to Wang Shi with a smile. “What is there for me to worry about? This was probably Sixth Sister’s idea again. Last time we came, Rulan and Molan couldn’t be bothered to entertain little children.”
“Sixth Sister is still a child herself, and she loves to play — perfect company for Zhuang Jie’er.” Wang Shi glanced toward the doorway, then waved for all the maids in the room to leave. The last one, Caihuang, let down the curtain and stood guard at the entrance.
Wang Shi sat down beside Hualan and examined her daughter carefully. Noticing that her makeup looked freshly applied and her lashes were still slightly damp, she lowered her voice. “Did you tell Grandmother everything?”
Hualan leaned tiredly against Wang Shi, her eyes half closed. “Grandmother has piercing eyes — how could I possibly hide anything from her? I told her everything.” Wang Shi saw that although her daughter looked weary, her spirit seemed somewhat more at ease, so she knew the conversation had gone well. “What did Grandmother say to you?”
Hualan opened her eyes and smiled. “Grandmother has truly seen the world. After hearing about all the mess in my husband’s family, she gave me two pieces of advice. First, she said I should quickly give up managing the household.” Wang Shi immediately grew anxious and cut in, “Has Grandmother lost her mind? You worked so hard to gain control of the household — after all these years of effort, how can you simply let it go?”
Hualan sighed. “I am reluctant too, but Grandmother is right. In the end, the Zhongqin Earl’s Mansion will never truly belong to my husband. No matter how well I manage it, I am only making things nice for someone else, wearing myself out and spending my own silver for nothing. Besides, my most urgent task right now is to bear a son.”
Wang Shi let out a soft snort. “Nonsense — I know you need to have a son too. Grandmother might as well have said nothing.”
Hualan gave her mother a sideways glance and said peevishly, “You are the one saying nothing useful, Mother. Grandmother did not just state the obvious — she gave me a plan. She said she knows the old Madam of the He Family in Baishitan. The He old Madam’s family of birth is the Zhang Family, who serve as deputy directors of the Imperial Medical Academy. That old Madam learned medicine in her family home from a young age. Without saying more, she is most skilled in women’s internal ailments — but since she is a woman of the inner chambers, she cannot practice medicine openly as men do, and she could not make it widely known. After marrying, even fewer people knew of it. Grandmother is now going to ask her on my behalf.”
Wang Shi’s face lit up with delight. “Really? I truly did not know this — it is fortunate that Grandmother knows the details. Nowadays, although you have that concubine-born child beside you, it is simply not the same as having your own. In the past, for the sake of appearances, you could not openly summon a physician, and those were all men — how thoroughly could they examine you? My poor dear child.”
Hualan’s eyes shone with a glimmer of hope as she said happily, “Grandmother also said there is no need to make a fuss about it. Once the He old Madam is invited as a guest to the family home, I can simply return to my parents’ house at that time. That is precisely why I need to relinquish the household management — so I can slip away easily and gradually tend to my health.”
Wang Shi pressed her palms together and murmured prayers. “Amitabha, merciful Taishang Laojun — my child finally has hope! Grandmother’s word is the most reliable. If she says the He old Madam is capable, then there is no doubt of it.” With the task of bearing a son now in sight, Wang Shi no longer felt that household management was all that important.
Hualan rested lazily against Wang Shi’s shoulder and said in a soft, coaxing voice, “Mother, it is so wonderful that you have all come to the capital. I finally have someone to back me up.”
Wang Shi held her daughter close, her heart filled with boundless tenderness, though her mouth gave a mild scolding. “It is all because of your proud nature — you refused to write the truth in your letters. Your mother-in-law is so shamelessly partial — when your sister-in-law could not produce a son, she was kept in comfort and ease, nursed along for so many years before finally giving birth. You had barely lost your child for a few years before your mother-in-law hastily pushed a girl into your household. At least you had the sense to give your own attendant the status of a concubine early on — once she bore a son, it stopped your mother-in-law’s mouth.”
Hualan felt a wave of bitterness and said resentfully, “My sister-in-law is my mother-in-law’s niece by blood, so naturally she is closer. Now that my sister-in-law’s family has no one in office anymore, she still puts on airs.” Wang Shi patted her daughter on the back with a smile. “Good that you understand. Your husband is capable — once you separate households in the future, you will have good days ahead. For now, stop squabbling with them. Having a son is what matters most.”
Hualan too was full of hope and said quietly, “Let us pray it goes well.”
Wang Shi held her daughter close for a while, then let her thoughts wander further. “Now that your brother’s match is settled, if your sisters also find good families, I will have nothing more to wish for.”
Hualan lifted her head and gave a soft, teasing laugh, drawing out her words. “Mother, you had best just go ahead and betroth Rulan to our cousin. While Grandmother is still hale and our aunt cannot raise too many objections — if you change your mind now, our aunt will laugh herself silly.”
Wang Shi flushed with both embarrassment and anger, raising her hand as if to strike Hualan and scolding, “You heartless thing — you married into an Earl’s mansion, and now you won’t allow your sister to find a good match too? Your uncle is a fine man, but without Grandfather’s former standing, the family is not what it was. And that nephew of mine is honest to the point of being dull — I worry your sister will find him spineless.”
Hualan dodged Wang Shi’s palm with a laugh, blocking with her arm. “Uncle may not hold a high post, but the family’s wealth accumulated over so many generations is still intact. Our cousin being honest is a good thing — no wandering eyes.” Then she suddenly grew melancholy. “Mother, do you think my days in my husband’s family are easy? And mind you, the Zhongqin Earl’s Mansion is already a diminished title — imagine how it would be in a truly prominent noble household. You always say my temper is poor, but Rulan’s is even worse than mine. And she is not particularly striking in looks either — how would she survive in those grand gated compounds?”
Wang Shi saw the exhaustion on her daughter’s face and understood that she had not had it easy. She let out a quiet sigh. After a moment of silence, Hualan broke into a smile. “I must say, I really did not expect Sixth Sister to have grown into such a beauty. Her manners and conversation are charming too. After the New Year, I shall take her out to meet some people — she might very well find a good match. Grandmother will surely be pleased.”
Wang Shi saw her eldest daughter speak ill of her own sister while singing the praises of Minglan, and she narrowed her eyes. “Stop meddling. Grandmother has long had her own ideas about Minglan’s marriage — there is that grandson of the He Family in Baishitan, and then there is the cousin from your aunt’s side and the young man from First Aunt’s maternal family. It was for this very reason that Grandmother made a special trip back to the old home and had Minglan formally registered under my name.”
Hualan blinked, taken aback at Wang Shi naming three candidates in one breath. She then laughed. “What has come over Grandmother? In her earlier years, she only had eyes for scholars from literary families. Your aunt’s family and First Aunt’s family are both in trade — yet she would consider them? The He Family is a good match, though — even if not many of their clan hold office or high positions, they are still a distinguished household. But would they look at Minglan?”
Wang Shi also smiled, her face brightening. “Who is to say otherwise? When matchmaking was done for that shameful woman, Grandmother did not even try very hard. But now that it is Minglan’s turn, Grandmother has opened her mind entirely. She is partial indeed — she cannot bear to let Sixth Sister suffer! Oh, and by the way — that grandson of the He Family is from a branch line.”
Hualan’s brows arched as she said with some reproach, “Mother, all these years of feuding with Lin Yiniang have made you muddled? How can you compare her to my Sixth Sister? She is merely someone Grandmother kindly took in to raise — no money, no connections, no family at all. Even if she wished to find a wealthy noble household, they might not look at her. But Sixth Sister is the true flesh and blood of this family, Grandmother’s proper granddaughter. She has Grandmother and Father and brothers above her, and sisters alongside her. She may not be on the same level as me or Rulan, but she is far from lacking.”
Wang Shi said coldly, “Why are you so warm toward her? It is not as if you came from the same mother!”
Hualan spread her hands with a look of amused resignation. “I cannot help it — the one who did come from the same mother as me is not particularly remarkable.”
She darted aside playfully before Wang Shi could react. But this time, Wang Shi did not flare up. Instead she sighed. “Alas… you and your father speak in exactly the same manner. Grandmother says the same thing too. In a few days, the Marquis of Xiangyang is holding a grand banquet for his seventieth birthday, and your father has specifically told me to bring Molan and Minglan along.”
Hualan was somewhat surprised, then nodded with understanding. “Father is not wrong to think so. An additional good marriage connection is always a help to the family. Only… if Molan marries well, that shameful woman will only be more insufferable.”
Mother and daughter exchanged a look, both of the same mind. In truth, Wang Shi had considered intervening, but with Rulan not yet married, she dared not risk tarnishing the reputation of the Sheng daughters.
That evening, Yuan Shao finished his duties and came to Sheng Mansion, kowtowing to Sheng Lao in greeting, then conversing merrily with his father-in-law and brothers-in-law. Yuan Shao was a shrewd man. As a military officer from a hereditary family, he would ordinarily have had little access to the literati officials — but Sheng Hong had made his children’s marriages bridge both the military and civil worlds, giving Yuan Shao connections on both sides.
Wang Shi, seeing the household so lively, also invited her elder sister and brother-in-law — the Kang couple — to join the gathering. Along with them came the young couple, Chang Wu and his wife. And so Sheng Mansion opened two great tables for the evening.
At the outer table, the men drank and joked, talking of the social ties and favors of officialdom with boisterous cheer. In the inner room next door, a table was set for the women. Minglan listened carefully to the conversations outside, and something struck her. Ancient China truly is a society of family networks, she reflected. Even the literary officials who rose through study and the imperial examinations placed great stock in the complex web of teacher-student and cohort relationships — though of course, the modern world was no different.
Minglan recalled reading somewhere that future political leaders abroad were often cultivated at a handful of elite universities — throw a single bomb into one of Oxford or Cambridge’s grand reunion banquets, the article had joked, and you could take out nearly every notable figure in British politics in one sweep.
Though the men at that outer table held no particularly high ranks — the highest being Sheng Hong’s fifth-rank post — their combined family networks were no small force.
With the whole household together, Wang Shi was in high spirits and had rather too much to drink, her cheeks flushed a becoming rosy red. Beside her, Kang Yima looked somewhat haggard; compared to her younger sister, she had fared much worse by life. Yet seeing Yun’er’s cheeks rosy and her beauty further bloomed in the flush of new marriage, she felt some consolation — at least this match had turned out well. She kept toasting Sheng Lao, and Sheng Lao, in a remarkably generous mood, drank every glass. Then Nanny Fang helped her back to rest.
Zhuang Jie’er’s little face was as rosy as if it had been rouged; she and Minglan had spent the whole afternoon chasing each other in play, and she had come entirely alive. At dinner she sat pressed close to Minglan, and Hualan, seeing her daughter so cheerful and talkative, was all the more delighted.
Minglan was utterly exhausted. She had learned a deep truth: no matter how shy a little creature appeared, once it went wild it burned through energy at a ruinous rate. She was now desperately trying to detach herself from this small bundle of chaos.
When the banquet wound down that evening, Sheng Lao worried that the little maids might not properly look after Minglan after she had drunk wine and walked in the cold air, so she sent Nanny Fang personally to bring Minglan to sleep in Shou’an Hall. After a bowl of sobering tea and a bowl of ginger soup, Minglan felt considerably better. She let herself be washed and undressed in a pleasant daze, and finally lay down with a stuffed stomach, curling her arms around her grandmother and drifting off in a drowsy haze. But after lying there awhile, sleep did not come at once — her mind felt oddly alert, and grandmother and granddaughter fell to chatting.
“I met Kang Uncle for the first time today, and he was… not at all what I expected from what I had heard. He cannot be compared to Father at all.” Minglan thought back to the scene when she had knelt to pay her respects. In his youth Kang Uncle must have been as handsome and refined as Sheng Hong, but where Sheng Hong remained a dignified and imposing middle-aged man, Kang Uncle now had the look of someone ruined by wine and self-indulgence — his eyes murky, his manner arrogant.
Sheng Lao sighed. “Your father went through hardship and the coldness of the world when he was young. He knows how difficult it was to reach where he is today, and so he became cautious and restrained. But your uncle was the only son of his family, raised with the doting of the Kang patriarch…” She left the rest unsaid.
Minglan silently completed the thought: a mother’s excessive indulgence breeds a ruinous son.
“Kang Yima is truly beautiful — she and Mother do not look much alike.” Minglan thought of that worn and faded beauty of a middle-aged woman, and a thought suddenly stirred in her heart. She propped herself up on her round, overfed stomach and rolled closer to Sheng Lao’s side. “Back then — why didn’t Grandfather choose her?”
Sheng Lao reached down in the faint glow of the floor brazier and gave Minglan’s warm little cheek a pinch, scolding her fondly, “You little thing — you put on such a well-behaved front in public, and then say absolutely anything once you are with me. Is that a proper question to ask?”
Minglan nuzzled her head into her grandmother’s arms, wriggling until Sheng Lao laughed and squirmed from the tickling.
“When your grandfather went to propose, he had not specified which daughter he sought. It was the decision of Old Master Wang — and your Kang Yima herself peeked through the screen, made her choice, and picked him.” Sheng Lao spoke evenly. “Old Master Wang and Old Master Kang were both trusted pillars of the late Emperor’s court. The two families were well matched in standing. At the time, your Kang Uncle had just passed the imperial examinations and was full of youthful ambition. As for our family — your grandfather had passed early, and we had no real foothold in officialdom. She was not wrong to choose as she did.”
Minglan nodded along, then something struck her as off. A flash of clarity crossed her mind, and she leaned in and whispered, “Grandmother — could it be… that you never intended to have Kang Yima in the first place?”
The Kang and Wang families were close, and there had long been a spoken understanding of a marriage between them — though which daughter had never been specified. Everyone knew that the Wang family’s most outstanding daughter was the eldest, not the second daughter who had been raised in her uncle’s household since childhood. So the natural assumption was that the Wang family’s eldest would go to the Kang family, and the second daughter would go to the Sheng family, whose roots were shallower.
In the dim light, Sheng Lao’s expression was unreadable, but she reached out and gently patted Minglan on the head — a gesture that seemed to say: you have understood correctly. “If you wished for both high status and a perfectly virtuous young lady, why would she have fallen to you? Besides, I had made inquiries. Your mother has a straightforward nature and a sharp temper, it is true, but her heart is not malicious, and she is capable of managing a household. Truly vicious and cruel deeds are beyond her. That is good enough. Had it not been for… well, our family has nonetheless lived in reasonable harmony.”
Minglan nodded earnestly. Wang Shi’s mind was narrow and she liked to squabble over small things; she was not warm toward people. But she could not truly be called a wicked woman. Things like poisoning, causing miscarriages, or plotting slander — she had neither the disposition nor the capability. Which was precisely why she had once fallen prey to Lin Yiniang’s schemes.
“Your Kang Yima — she looks gentle and kind-faced, but her methods are formidable. Over the years, there is no telling how many women in your uncle’s household have lost their lives or been sold away.” Sheng Lao continued.
This time Minglan did not rush to reply. She lay silent for a moment before saying slowly, “If she were not formidable, the Kang household would be in an even worse state by now. Kang Yima was driven to it — forced to fight back. She will inevitably bear the name of being ‘viciously jealous.’ The women in that household will be called fox-spirits who got what they deserved. But the one who is truly at fault — the world will not necessarily reproach him so harshly.”
This was a world ruled by men. Who would willingly become a fish-eye bead, when everyone wished to be a pearl? Yet under the grinding pressures of life, how many were fortunate enough to remain pearls, always luminous?
“Ha — it seems my Minglan has grown up.” Sheng Lao seemed to be smiling. “Since you understand, that is best. You must know: even the most spirited and outstanding of women will be ruined if she is matched with a worthless husband. Marriage — for a woman, it is her second birth.”
Minglan nestled into the crook of her grandmother’s neck, breathing in the soft, warm scent of sandalwood, feeling a warmth in her heart that she could not put into words. She said quietly, “But it is easy enough to learn a few characters — yet learning to read a person is something else entirely. Many a worthless man hides behind a handsome face.”
This made Sheng Lao laugh. She drew the little granddaughter into her arms, chuckling for a good while before saying, “Little girl — the way you speak sometimes reminds me of the Empress Jing’an. She too rarely blamed the women of the rear palace. She put the accounts where they belonged — with the late Emperor.”
Minglan’s heart stirred. Before she could speak, Sheng Lao continued, and this time her voice held a coldness and gravity unlike any Minglan had heard before. “But listen, Minglan — you must remember: when it truly comes to that moment, it is life or death. If you spare others out of pity, it is you who will die. The Empress Jing’an was brought down by a woman she considered a dear friend — and that is why she died so young.”
Minglan’s heart gave a sharp jolt.
She understood that Sheng Lao was also, in truth, speaking of herself — that her own flesh and blood had been lost at the hands of a woman who appeared pitiable and fragile, and that was what had driven the final wedge between husband and wife.
In the wars women fight among themselves, when the narrowest of paths grows more narrow still, a soft heart is the deadliest weakness.
Minglan let out a long, quiet lament in her heart: she had no wish to become a fish-eye bead.