Wang Xipei asked, "Is this the 'suit for the wife' in the dispute between the civil and military officials?"
A scholar in a long gown said, "That's right. But now, neither the civil servants nor the military officials mention this matter. The military officials seduce their brothers' wives, and the scholars abandon their wives. They're all too shameless."
Wang Xipei suddenly recalled the first time she met the fifth prince Xuanyuan Huaiyu. It was a dispute between civil and military officials. He came to thank his brother Wang Suwen for Ren's army, and ended up following her through the hole in the courtyard wall into the house.
My mood dropped for a moment.
Luo Yu came trotting over with two large paper bags in her arms. "Miss, we have five kinds of fillings."
Wang Xipei was happy again: "Slow down, don't run, or you'll fall."
Luo Yu was very moved: "Miss..."
"Don't drop the buns."
"Miss!" Luo Yu's cheeks were puffed up bigger than buns.
Wang Xipei laughed: "Just kidding, of course I'm worried you'll fall. You can buy new buns if you drop them, but falling rain is unique in the world!"
Wang Xipei invited the maids to come and eat buns. Xuan Mo and Xuan Qing asked the three of them to eat first. Recently, they always felt that someone was watching them, but they could not find anyone.
When they were in the Gu tribe, they often released the three kites, but when they arrived in the Central Plains, they could basically only be kept in their arms, otherwise they could be used to explore a few things.
Wang Xipei continued listening while eating the delicious meat buns.
An old lady said, "Tsk, tsk, tsk, how pitiful those mother and son were when they were first kicked out. They didn't know the ropes, and they couldn't find any work writing letters for others. They'd been hungry for two days. The son had to work as a laborer, a boatman, paid daily. It was hard work, and he had no experience. Her youngest son's shoulders were covered with blisters from the ropes, but he had to work anyway. The friction continued, and his skin was broken and bleeding, and his flesh and blood were stuck to his clothes.
The county magistrate's wife didn't even have a pair of scissors or a needle and thread. She was so shy that she blushed and came to my house to borrow some. I went to the dilapidated temple with her and saw how rotten the youngest son's shoulders were.
I kindly burned some wood ash over there. Isn't that how we country folk treat it? Sprinkle the ash over it, wrap it in cloth, and it will naturally grow back.
The county magistrate's wife refused to let him go, insisting on taking her son to the clinic to get that incredibly expensive gold medicine. Alas, the noblewoman is different. Back then, she was too thin to support her feverish son. Although she despised my wood ash, she felt sorry for him, so I offered to help and let my son carry him over. She was so grateful that she always gives me an extra bun when I buy one.
Someone nearby laughed: "No wonder you're always the one who comes to buy buns at your house."
The old lady said, "Of course. She doesn't recognize my eldest daughter, my second daughter, or my mother-in-law. My sons and husbands all have to go to work early in the morning. So it's natural for me to come. A bun is five cents. If it were you, wouldn't you come? Besides, it's not like I didn't buy any."
Wang Xipei wanted to hear the rest of the conversation, but when she saw the topic was off topic, she was about to speak when she saw Ruoqing was even more anxious than her: "Auntie, please continue. What happened next?"
"It's really infuriating to talk about what happened later. The doctor was kind-hearted. He agreed to give me credit, applied some gold wound medicine, and prescribed medicine to reduce the fever. We finally managed to get the patient back to the dilapidated temple to lie down.
The county magistrate's concubine came and said that the county magistrate loved her deeply and that he had done it for her sake. He would be delighted anytime she was willing to come back.
If the county magistrate's wife had not given birth to two sons and was not magnanimous and did not care about status, the county magistrate would have demoted his wife to a concubine and married her as his principal wife.
She said that the county magistrate knelt down and hugged her and cried, saying that she had lost and found her again, and that he wanted to complete the wedding that took place 20 years ago, but she did not want the title of legal wife.
She advised the county magistrate's wife to know the situation and kneel down at the door of the county magistrate's mansion to admit her mistake, so that she could keep her position as the legal wife, but she should not be delusional and do anything to her. Although she was just a concubine, she was like a treasure in the county magistrate's heart. If he dared to touch a hair on her after returning, the county magistrate would chop off his wife's paws and feed them to the dogs.
She stretched out her foot to show the magistrate's wife her shoes, saying that the jewels she wore on her feet were something no decent lady would ever wear on her head. She then pointed to her own clothes, headgear, earrings, and necklaces, saying that they were all bought by the magistrate to make her smile.
Then he said, "Do you know why he doesn't buy these for you? Because he thinks you don't deserve them. He spends all the money you've saved with such hard work, and he's still worried it's not enough. That's a world of difference."
The county magistrate's wife remained silent, but it seemed as if she had gained weight since then. She probably couldn't understand what the man had just said. I think she's a simpleton. That concubine, at first glance, is a talker with a lot of tricks; not everything she said was necessarily true.
During those days, she was taking care of her son. Sometimes I would bring her a bowl of rice porridge, and she would feed her son. In short, I never saw her eat anything.
It was really as if it was raining but the roof was leaking. There was only one corner of the dilapidated temple that could provide some shelter from the wind and rain, but for some reason, several tiles on the corner of the roof were broken. It was raining in the middle of the night and there was nowhere to move. She could only support herself with her hands and use herself to shield her son from the rain.
After her son recovered, he heard that Hengshan Temple was looking for people with good handwriting to copy sutras and that the work had already been assigned. Her son then learned that these jobs were taken care of by special brokers who would then find people to do them. Since her son had good handwriting, he became a member of that broker's staff and was assigned jobs copying sutras, rare manuscripts, letters, prescriptions, and account books. I saw her son copying all day and all night.
Later, I took on more laundry work, and when I couldn't finish it, I asked the county magistrate's wife if she minded it. If she didn't, we could do it together. She didn't mind, so when I took on a job helping clean a wealthy family before the New Year, I took her with me.
It turned out that the wealthy family knew her before, but the old lady didn't dare to recognize her. After all, she was strong and fat now, so she asked her daughter-in-law to come and recognize her.
She has become more open and not as shy as before. When people recognize her, she admits it.
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