The old maidservant ran at full speed, gasping for breath, and by the time she returned with a physician from the clinic, Xie Youran had already given birth inside the carriage — the carriage was filled with cries and screams and was in complete disarray.

Outside the carriage, a crowd of curious onlookers had gathered, muttering and commenting among themselves: “By the look of things, this is some official’s wife. She doesn’t need to go out to earn a living — why was she running around in such a state when about to give birth?”

“Quite right — giving birth in the middle of a busy street like this — will she ever be able to show her face again?”

These voices floated one after another into the carriage, and Xie Youran, caught between shame and fury, screamed at the driver to hurry and drive the carriage away.

But Su Shi had already lost all thought of such things.

Her hands covered in blood, she cradled the baby girl Xie Youran had just delivered and wept in trembling tones: “Physician, look quickly — why is this child not crying?”

The physician looked and saw that the baby girl’s skin was a dark purple, and the child was completely still — he immediately realized with alarm that something was terribly wrong.

The person assisting the birth had not known what to do: amniotic fluid had entered the infant’s mouth and nose, and had not been cleared out in time, causing the infant to suffocate.

Childbirth had always been like walking through the gates of death, and had a skilled midwife been present, she would have known the methods to promptly clear the amniotic fluid from the infant’s mouth and nose in such a situation.

Unfortunately, Su Shi had lived a life of comfort all her years, and so much time had passed that she had long forgotten what the experience of childbirth had been like. Even though she had given birth herself, she had no idea how to handle such a situation. Seeing that the infant was not crying, she had only slapped the baby’s bottom hard, and in doing so had missed the critical window for resuscitation.

After the physician’s attempts at rescue proved futile, he could only regretfully inform them that this child could not be saved.

That day, when Su Shi sent Xie Youran back to the Zhou Family residence, the entire household erupted.

Zhou Sui’an was still at the official bureau and was not at home. Zhao Shi, upon hearing that her daughter-in-law had given birth in a carriage and that the child had not survived, was struck as if by a bolt from the blue.

She wept bitterly, declaring that it was the spirit of Hu Shi’s miscarried infant come back to wreak havoc. She wanted Xie Shi to observe a vegetarian diet at home to pacify the departed soul, but Xie Shi had refused to listen.

And now, the way she saw it, Xie Shi had received her just punishment in this very life.

These words were far too cutting.

Xie Youran had just lost her child and had already been crying herself half to death in the carriage moments ago.

Su Shi had witnessed with her own eyes the malice of Zhao Shi as a mother-in-law, and was trembling all over with rage, condemning Zhao Shi for her cruel words.

Zhao Shi had the moral high ground this time and glared back: “And are you any kinder as a mother? Go and ask throughout the entire world — is there any mother who, when her daughter is about to come to term, does not make her daughter rest and prepare for birth, but instead takes her gallivanting around to tea gatherings? I spent these past several days urging her again and again to stay home, saying that the midwife and physician had all been properly arranged. But would she listen! You, as her mother, failed to raise your daughter properly and have caused harm to the Zhou Family’s flesh and blood. Even if she had safely given birth to a child, it would only have been a girl — whereas the child Hu Shi lost back then was a fully-formed baby boy.”

With that, Zhao Shi simply dropped herself down on the ground, abandoning any semblance of the decorum befitting an official family’s matron, and wept with tears and snot streaming down her face: “Woe is me — how did I end up cursed by your family bringing disaster into my home! One after another, Zhou Family flesh and blood has perished, leaving not a day of peace, yet you, you villainous woman, dare speak ill of me! Do you dare take me to court — let us see which of us is truly the unkind one!”

As she went on, Zhao Shi became increasingly aggrieved and her voice grew louder and louder, and even her daughter-in-law’s attempts to restrain her went unheeded.

All this clamoring drew the neighboring residents out to watch the commotion.

Some who had just returned from the marketplace immediately made the connection and gleefully recounted to the onlooking neighbors the story of how the Zhou Family’s daughter-in-law had given birth on the street, with the infant failing to survive.

Su Shi prided herself on her dignity, and what was more, she had her own fault in this — unable to withstand Zhao Shi’s vicious verbal assault and worried about leaving her daughter, who was still in her post-delivery confinement, at the mercy of this mother-in-law, Su Shi’s temper finally snapped and she simply took the devastated and nearly fainting Xie Youran back to the Xie Family home.

When Xie Sheng returned and heard what had happened, his own head was buzzing and throbbing.

He pointed angrily at Su Shi and scolded: “What part of what Zhao Shi said was wrong? You call yourself a mother! How, at a moment like this, could you drag her around going out and about?”

Su Shi’s own heart was filled with bitter regret.

She wanted to explain that her daughter and her mother-in-law were on terrible terms and that there was truly no way Xie Youran could rest peacefully at home, that she had tried to persuade her but Xie Youran had a stubborn temper and would not listen.

But saying all this was clearly ill-timed.

Xie Sheng said helplessly: “Even if your in-laws were screaming in the street, you should not have taken her back. She is already part of the Zhou Family — now that you have brought her here, how is she to return?”

Su Shi now felt some regret over this as well. After returning home, Xie Youran shut herself in her room and wept, alternately cursing Zhao Shi’s cruelty and lamenting her own ill fortune, which was quite a headache to listen to.

There was nothing to be done now — the proper course of action was for Zhou Sui’an to come quickly and collect her.

When Zhou Sui’an was at the official bureau of the Ministry of Finance and received the report from the Xie Family messenger — informing him that Xie Youran had gone into labor on the way back from the poetry society tea gathering, and that the child had not survived — he too collapsed back into his chair.

In truth, he had some understanding of Xie Youran’s situation. These days, the household atmosphere had been so suffocating that even he was reluctant to come home — how much more so for Xie Youran?

Though he knew he ought to go and bring his wife home to properly recuperate, he felt too listless to move and simply wanted to sit quietly in the bureau for a while.

He slumped in his chair, his thoughts wandering: if not for this child Xie Youran carried, why would he have needed to part ways with Linlang? But how great a joke had heaven played on him, after all his going around in circles, to have him lose two children one after the other.

Zhou Sui’an rarely allowed himself to dwell on the wrongs he had committed, but today he could not help falling into regret: if he had only restrained that small wavering of his heart back then, what would things be like for him now?

With Linlang managing all affairs of the inner household, that concubine Hu Shi would surely have given birth in peace and delivered a son to carry on the Zhou Family line. With two shops generating income, there would have been no shortage of money. And he could have attended to his official duties in peace, coming home comfortably to eat and going out at ease to socialize.

If Zhou Sui’an had experienced occasional pangs of regret at the time of his separation from Chu Linlang, then at this moment that regret had swelled to its absolute peak, flooding his mouth and tongue — an inescapable sourness he could not ignore.

In the past, he had always told himself in private that given his circumstances, had he not been inexperienced and ignorant in his youth, he should have been able to marry a better woman.

So when Zhou Sui’an had found fault with Linlang, he had done so with complete confidence and self-righteousness.

Chu Shi was poorly read and calculating — aside from her beauty and her ability to earn money, she was utterly without merit.

But now, in this second chaotic and turbulent marriage of his, he had come to feel deeply and entirely that wives and wives were profoundly different from one another.

How extraordinarily fortunate he had been to have married Linlang in the first place.

With that thought, he — who ought to have gone to the Xie Family to look in on his wife — found himself rising as if moved by some unseen force and making his way toward Linlang’s residence.

When he arrived at the lane and knocked on the door ring, he waited a long time without anyone coming to the door.

A neighbor, seeing him peering about at the front of the house, kindly called out: “Are you looking for the Chu Family? Surely you know — Chu Niangzi bought herself quite a large house outside the capital and has already moved away.”

Zhou Sui’an was startled: “Bought a house? Where did she get the money for that?”

When she had left the Zhou Family, she had taken the two family shops from their hometown with her. But even if she had sold those shops outright, it would not have been enough to buy a residence in the capital.

Housing on the outskirts of the capital, though cheaper, was still elevated in price due to many officials buying land there — it was not something an ordinary merchant could afford.

The neighbor said with animated relish: “You don’t know — Chu Niangzi is a true deity of wealth. No one knows what kind of business she is doing, but it keeps growing bigger and bigger. Just the other day, she placed an order with my relative for furniture and furnishings — absolutely lavish, she bought two large carriage-loads of goods. Aiyou, I wonder what kind of husband she will find in the future — whoever marries her will certainly have good fortune.”

As Zhou Sui’an emerged from the lane, his spirits had sunk even further.

Why was he still standing in the same place, not progressing — even falling somewhat behind — while Chu Linlang had already moved so far ahead?

Now, as for Chu Linlang: after receiving the Empress Dowager’s imperial decree, she had been occupied with settling into her newly purchased house outside the capital.

That evening the sky was overcast and it looked as though a heavy rain was coming, so nothing was more fitting for dinner than a hot pot.

Ever since she and Situ Sheng had formally become engaged, it was much more convenient for him to come here for meals.

Toward her own future son-in-law, Sun Shi was even warmer and more welcoming than Chu Linlang herself. She had told the kitchen to prepare extra ingredients early in the day and had personally gone down to cook for the prospective son-in-law.

But when Situ Sheng arrived, Sun Shi made the excuse of having eaten too much at dinner and having an upset stomach, saying she would not eat with them, and retired to her own courtyard early.

After all, her daughter and Situ Sheng rarely got to see each other. Her daughter was grown — there was no need for her as the mother to sit and supervise.

In the slight chill of this rainy evening, the two of them sat across from each other on the covered veranda eating a hot pot — it was truly a pleasure.

Only Situ Sheng’s eating habits still had not changed: he kept reaching for the exposed dumpling wrappers in the pot and the fish heads that had been stewing in the broth for flavor.

He was always like this — no matter how abundant the spread of dishes, he habitually reached first for the undesirable scraps. For instance, when eating fish, he would eat the full-of-gill fish heads first, or suck contentedly at fishbones; otherwise he would take the greens first, but avoid the meat among the greens.

Linlang had noticed this the first time they had ever eaten together. At first she thought he liked fish heads, but later realized it was not that at all.

This was simply an indelible mark left on him by the hardships of his childhood.

After all, back in Jiangkou, he and his mother had depended for their livelihood on the support of old subordinates like Sui Qiye, and there had been times of scarcity.

From childhood, Situ Sheng had been accustomed to saving the better things for his mother, Wen Shi. And now, he habitually gave the better portions to Linlang.

Though if it was just him and Guanqi eating, the two would be like a pair of hungry wolves competing — there was no question of either yielding to the other.

Though she understood Situ Sheng’s intentions, whenever Linlang watched him eat this way, her throat always felt tight with unshed tears.

With that thought, she reached out her chopsticks and took the fish head from his bowl, turned around and fed it to the cat on the veranda that was craning its neck and meowing, then placed the largest piece of braised ribs in the pot into Situ Sheng’s bowl.

“How old are you, competing with a cat for food. You gnawed that fish head so clean — what is the cat supposed to eat?”

Situ Sheng smiled and picked up the ribs, lowering his head to eat.

He was this kind of complicated, contradictory man. Though his eating habits revealed traces of frugal poverty, his elegance while eating showed that his upbringing and cultivation were anything but ordinary.

Watching him eat so elegantly and captivatingly, Linlang found herself staring, a smile of complete contentment playing at the corners of her lips.

Situ Sheng set down his chopsticks and reached out to pinch her cheek: “Eating a meal and smiling like a cat that has stolen fish — do you think I am a fish head? If you are that hungry to have a taste, you will have to wait a while…”

Chu Linlang laughed and swatted his hand: “What are you saying!”

After the two of them finished their piping hot pot, they leaned against each other and sat idly on the veranda, watching the curtain of rain falling from the eaves, each sharing the small happenings of recent days.

Situ Sheng was not ordinarily a gossipy person, but today he mentioned the developments at the Zhou Family.

It had not been that Situ Sheng had gone out of his way to find out — the Minister had come to him to say that Zhou Sui’an’s wife had given birth to a daughter who had not survived, and asked him as Zhou Sui’an’s superior to contribute to the gift money along with everyone else.

Additionally, Zhou Sui’an’s performance record over the past year had been truly poor. The Ministry of Finance was not a place to keep idle people, and there were plans to dismiss him from his post. There were people with connections and ability clambering and jostling to get in.

The Minister was soon to retire and go home to his hometown, and all of these unpleasant tasks had been handed over to Situ Sheng to handle. Since it was already an internal understanding that Situ Sheng would take over the Ministry of Finance, it was only natural that such matters be entrusted to him.

Upon hearing Situ Sheng recount that Xie Youran had lost her child, Chu Linlang fell silent for a moment.

If the concubine Hu Shi of the Zhou Family were to find out, she would surely feel the deep gratification of a great enemy’s just punishment.

But to Linlang’s ears, it brought a kind of wistful, lamenting feeling: the Zhou Family had gone to such extraordinary lengths, competing and scheming to continue the family line, yet who could have foreseen things ending in this state of total ruin — the birds flown and the eggs broken.

As Zhou Sui’an’s former wife, Linlang had never wished misfortune upon her former husband. After all, with the separation, they each had their own lives to live.

But life was lived one step at a time, each step earned through effort — how could today’s fruit not be the consequence of yesterday’s seed?

The Zhou Family had now planted yet another seed of unkindness. If her former husband did not handle things properly, there would likely be other bitter harvests to come.

But Chu Linlang had no wish to spend her energy managing another family’s affairs.

Since they had parted, let each go their own way, each finding their own peace and their own path forward. After all, she and Situ Sheng still had an uncertain road ahead of them — who knew what dangers awaited them.

With that thought, she quietly asked: “Has that Hermit Beyond Worldly Concerns been causing you trouble again?”

Situ Sheng heard this and immediately knew what she was asking. He let out a cold laugh: “That father of mine is practiced at coaxing women. He must have reconciled with his former wife and reunited the family. Whatever he said, he managed to appease Tao Huiru. That mother and son have stopped making trouble for him.”

Having said that, Situ Sheng paused and sighed: “His Majesty currently wants to maintain the existing border situation with the Jing Kingdom and is treating their envoys with considerable courtesy. Even if he knows that the Yang Family’s old rebel traitor has mixed himself in among the envoys, he will likely pretend not to know.”

One had to remember that Yang Yi was now the son-in-law of the new Khan.

Even if His Majesty despised this traitorous general, he still had to give the Jing Kingdom’s new Khan a measure of face.

Perhaps it was precisely counting on this that Yang Yi had had the audacity to come along with the envoy delegation.

And the head of that envoy delegation, Kecha, was a complete scoundrel.

Word was that he was a Jing Kingdom warrior, a bellicose brute who, at the slightest provocation, would blow up in rage and behave with the utmost rudeness and arrogance, driving the Jin officials assigned to liaise with him to inwardly spit up blood by the barrel while having to force themselves to endure it.

The Jing Kingdom was very skilled at wielding soft and hard tactics in combination. Whenever Jin had just put forward terms for opening the border markets, this Kecha envoy would throw a fit of arrogance and rudeness, creating havoc.

Then the seemingly mild-mannered and courteous deputy envoy would step in to mediate, calm Kecha down, and then counter-attack the terms Jin had proposed.

With Kecha as a foil, the new terms the deputy envoy put forward by comparison seemed less harsh and not entirely unacceptable.

Several rounds of this, and every time Situ Sheng raised objections, he was impatiently rebuffed by the Crown Prince, who even stated outright that His Majesty had brought him here only to tally the numbers, not to preside over the overall situation.

He hoped Lord Situ would recognize the limits of his role and not overstep his authority.

But Chu Linlang, after hearing just a brief account, had already detected the meaning: “My, the Jing Kingdom’s delegation is just like a theater troupe — some playing the villain, others playing the hero. That Angu Khan truly knows how to arrange things.”

What Situ Sheng loved most was Chu Linlang’s perceptiveness. He had said before that this woman was well-suited for navigating the officialdom — and indeed, from just a few words, she had seen through the strategy of the Jing Kingdom’s delegation.

So he said nothing and simply let Linlang continue.

Linlang felt that she had no particular special talent.

She simply felt that this kind of negotiation between nations was not so different from doing business — it was all the same craft and wit of give and take. Each side in a negotiation had to ensure it held something the other side urgently needed, in order to seize the advantage and bargain freely.

Unlike the officials presiding over the peace talks, who were pulling their hair out in frustration, to Linlang’s eyes the fact that the other party was willing to put on a show was actually a good thing.

Looking at the provocations from the Jing Kingdom at the border — they had seemed eager for immediate battle. But given the Jing Kingdom’s elaborate arrangements, upon careful reflection, might it be that the Jing Kingdom also had its own difficulties, and did not actually want war either, but was trying to use intimidation to extort great advantages?

Situ Sheng gazed brightly at the woman in his arms — especially when she analyzed things in this clear and organized manner, it was far more captivating than reciting poetry.

He could not help pressing a kiss to her pink cheek and exclaiming: “You would outmatch countless cabinet ministers. If they all had your shrewd and practical insight, I too would be spared much trouble and worry.”

Situ Sheng had truly not expected that Chu Linlang, relying solely on experience from the business world and her keen ability to read people, would arrive at a conclusion that perfectly mirrored the intelligence he had gathered through private investigation.

What was lamentable was that the Crown Prince’s faction, unable to distinguish right from wrong, was eager to establish the merit of achieving peace without war before His Majesty, and had dismissed all his objections entirely, unanimously convinced that without concessions, the Jing Kingdom would launch an attack imminently.

The Crown Prince had even rather ungraciously reprimanded Situ Sheng in front of the full cabinet, telling him directly not to know his place.

At the time, many officials who had taken losses in the farmland reform were inwardly laughing with satisfaction, delighted to see Situ Sheng’s obstinate behavior get its comeuppance.

These past few days, the Crown Prince had already made it known — telling him to go back to the Ministry of Finance and forbidding him from further participation in the peace negotiations and market-opening discussions with the Jing Kingdom.

These matters of the court, Situ Sheng had not spelled out in detail, but Chu Linlang could guess at the frustration he was holding inside.

Because Situ Sheng was always privately tightening his brow, wearing an expression burdened with worry.

Moreover, within that Jing Kingdom envoy delegation there was Yang Yi — and it was unclear what role he was playing in this theater.

Yang Yi held Situ Sheng’s birth mother in his hand, using her as a constant lever of control against him, so for Situ Sheng to follow his own conscience and give full expression to his innermost ambitions was truly a most formidable task.

There was not much Linlang could do for Situ Sheng. All she could do was use her long fingers to gently smooth the furrows between the man’s brows and softly say: “Do not worry — the boat will straighten itself when it reaches the bridge. When the time comes, you will surely think of a way to handle things.”

Situ Sheng held her close. His gaze reached outward, but could not pierce through the dark clouds overhead — there was no knowing when the light would finally break through.

But Chu Shi had spoken rightly. He said quietly: “Do not worry — even if the boat’s prow will not straighten on its own, I will find a way to force it straight.”

Chu Linlang said nothing. She knew that the man she leaned against was no ordinary man — he would certainly break through whatever obstacles lay before him. And what she needed to do was to stand by his side without wavering, whatever storms or rains lay ahead…

As for the matter of the Empress Dowager issuing the imperial decree for Chu Linlang, word spread quickly to the residences of all the students at the women’s academy.

Upon learning that Chu Shi had been the victim of deliberate slander, some minds, still inclined toward dirty thoughts, began to speculate idly, deciding that this Lady of Good Fortune, New Plum, must have recently become His Majesty’s secret beloved mistress.

Only this could explain why there was someone like Qi Gong stepping forward to clear her name.

His Majesty surely could not personally explain things to the Empress Dowager, so he had privately entrusted the highly respected and revered Qi Gong to come forward and prove Chu Shi’s innocence.

Thus the three-person entanglement rumor had been cleared up, yet a new rumor about why Chu Shi received such extraordinary favor began to spread.

Chu Linlang had long since grown accustomed to being talked about and still paid no heed to these buzzing, filthy whispers. After all, if they had the nerve to make insinuations about His Majesty, one could only respect and wish them well — and hope their heads were sturdy enough not to capsize in a ditch.

But rumors of this kind were enough to terrify those with guilty consciences.

Su Shi had originally been preoccupied with her second daughter’s domestic troubles, but then some visiting lady friends mentioned the matter of Lady of Good Fortune, New Plum — that this Chu Shi had actually received the Empress Dowager’s extraordinary favor — and Su Shi, connecting this development with its implications, was quietly gripped by retrospective fear, and went again to seek out her eldest daughter for confirmation.

To her surprise, her eldest daughter turned her away with a cold refusal to meet.

No wonder Xie Dongli was angry. The scolding from the Libationer had left her in a thoroughly embarrassing situation.

She was not foolish — she could plainly hear that the Libationer had been nominally reprimanding his daughter-in-law, but was in fact furiously condemning her mother and her younger sister, who had stood at the academy gate wide-eyed and spread the rumor.

Xie Dongli also knew that her second younger sister, who had previously been on poor terms with their mother, had after her marriage attached herself to Su Shi — which Su Shi, with a sense of guilt toward her second daughter, had welcomed as an opportunity to repair the mother-daughter relationship.

Taking money to compensate for past wrongs would have been one thing, but Su Shi and her younger sister had together committed this foolishness, and even the Sixth Prince’s consort had found it difficult to watch.

Moreover, having heard that Xie Youran had given birth in the street, with poor delivery care causing the infant to perish, Xie Dongli was thoroughly troubled and simply refused to see her mother, saving herself the bother of hearing about her second sister’s dismal affairs.

Recalling what her brother — who had recently reported to the Ministry of Finance — had told her lately, Xie Dongli felt it was necessary to give their father a word of warning, to prevent that mother and daughter from causing more trouble and bringing disaster upon the men of the family.

Xie Sheng had previously been unaware of the gossip among these women of the inner household, but when he heard from his eldest daughter that the Libationer Qi Gong had actually stepped forward to publicly clear Chu Shi’s name, and had even moved the Empress Dowager to issue an imperial decree on Chu Shi’s behalf, he truly broke into yet another cold sweat across his forehead.

Upon returning home, he pointed a trembling finger at Su Shi in fury: “What kind of spell did the second one put on you? How did you come to do this thankless, pointless thing? That Chu Shi has already separated from Zhou Sui’an — there is no connection between them anymore. What — did she steal rice from the Zhou Family, that you two mother and daughter are so relentlessly unforgiving?”

Su Shi also felt thoroughly wronged, and argued back to General Xie: “Such filthy talk — how could I have said something like that? I happened to be there, and I and Youran had a private laugh about it with the Hermit Beyond Worldly Concerns — that was all. I am not so foolish as to gossip about her in public. Besides, Youran was already frightened half to death over her previous words about the Quiet Consort — how could she still have the nerve to fabricate rumors about that Chu Shi? I even told Youran, under no circumstances could such words come out of our mouths. As for the Hermit Tao, she is a refined and tranquil person of cultivation — she would never spread this kind of gossip. I truly do not know how it got out and spread the way it did. Youran, without thinking, was just chiming in with a few words after hearing others bring it up at the tea gathering…”

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