Chapter 18, 18 Only their heartbeats could be heard.
In the inner courtyard of the Marquis's residence, the servants were dismissed.
In the empty inner courtyard, Shen Xian knelt in the sun. The cool breeze of early spring blew over her, and soon it blew through her clothes, making her feel cold.
With a ruler on her head and the family precepts held high in her hands, she gradually lost her stubbornness and begged for mercy, her initial defiance worn down.
"Father, I know I was wrong, please forgive me."
The Marquis of Jing'an and his wife were sitting under the eaves.
Lady Hou watched her daughter being punished, her heart aching and she wept. She tried several times to beg for mercy, but was glared at by Marquis Jing'an and stopped in her tracks.
"Do you know that His Majesty's headaches have worsened recently, and he has become increasingly irritable? Everyone in the court is on edge, fearing that the slightest mistake could lead to the extermination of their entire clan."
“A few days ago, the Emperor ordered me to come to the capital to report on my duties, clearly intending to strip me of my military power. I racked my brains trying to find a way out for my family, but you all ended up offending the very person who is crucial to our survival.”
"You are not allowed to get up until she learns her lesson today. If you still pamper and spoil her, you will kneel with her. If I don't harden my heart, this huge Jing'an Marquis's mansion will be ruined by her sooner or later."
Lady Hou was scolded and dared not utter a sound, sobbing softly as she cried along with her daughter.
Inside the Hou Mansion's villa, another lively scene unfolded.
Xiuyu was stripped of her upper garment, leaving her back bare, and forced to kneel on the ground as punishment, surrounded by her principal wife, Liu, and a group of concubines.
Nearly seventy years old, Qi Miao held a whip, his face contorted with rage, and mercilessly lashed at Xiuyu's back.
"You've been with me for so many years, always sharp-tongued and causing a lot of trouble at home. Now that I've been dismissed from my post, I thought you'd behave for a couple of days, but I never expected you to go to the Marquis's banquet and stir up trouble. If I don't beat you, do you think you've forgotten your place?"
Xiuyu's back was bruised and torn, and blood splattered all over the ground, staining the whip. The pain made her lips lose all color.
"Even the Marquis of Jing'an is furious about this. I'm afraid even if you were beaten to death, it wouldn't be enough to quell the matter. You can kneel here and wait until you realize your mistake before begging for forgiveness. Otherwise, you can just kneel here and die."
Qi Miao was the absolute ruler at home, and he usually liked to torment his wives and concubines by pinching and hitting them. Now, when he wielded the whip, he did so with even greater force, and none of the wives and concubines watching dared to intervene.
Yuezhi had no way of knowing what happened in other people's homes.
The next morning, after receiving three handwritten letters and an apology gift from the Marquis's residence, she realized that Pei Heng's words on the street were not just a casual consolation.
The three letters were written by Marquis Jing'an, Shen Xian, and Xiuyu, respectively.
The first letter bitterly denounced his failure to properly manage his household, leading to such a terrible incident. The latter two letters were filled with tears and apologies, pleading for forgiveness. Blood and tears stained the paper, making the words on it illegible.
The apology gift consisted of a set of pure gold jewelry, a pair of purple jade bracelets, and a string of jade beads, each of which was extremely valuable.
A few days later, Lady Hou personally brought Shen Xian to apologize.
After kneeling for several days under the family rules, Shen Xian had completely lost her temper. No matter how she tried to hide her swollen eyes, she could not conceal them. She stood with her head down in front of Yue Zhi.
“I was rude that day. I shouldn’t have looked down on you and shouldn’t have asked people to spread rumors and humiliate you. It was all my fault. Father has already punished me. If you are still angry, I am willing to do anything for you. I just ask for your forgiveness.”
Her tone sounded much more sincere. Yuezhi had no intention of getting too entangled with the Marquis's mansion. Having already accepted the apology gift, she only asked Yuezhi to donate one hundred taels of silver to the orphanage in the city before forgiving her.
The maid helped Shen Xian, whose legs were swollen from kneeling, leave. The Lady of the Marquis, still with her kind face, stayed behind to discuss matters with Yue Zhi.
"Since you no longer mind what happened that day, then the marriage between my daughter and General Pei..."
Upon hearing this, Yuezhi felt a tremor in her heart, and an inexplicable unease rose within her.
“Madam, although I am the eldest sister in the family, I am not as learned and knowledgeable as Aheng. Once he has made up his mind, it is not easy to change it even if I try to persuade him.”
That day in the courtyard, Pei Heng had already rejected the marriage proposal in front of both parties, and her words completely severed any possibility of the two families getting married.
Lady Hou smiled awkwardly and didn't ask any further questions. Instead, she said, "If you would do me the honor, I would like to host a banquet at my home in a few days. I would like you to come and have a private chat with me about the women of the inner quarters. Would that be alright?"
The lady and young lady of the Marquis's mansion came to apologize to her personally and offered a way out to ease the relationship between the two families. Yuezhi had no choice but to accept, thus saving face for both families.
*
Lately, Pei Heng has been increasingly busy, returning home only a handful of times. Sometimes he comes home late at night to sleep for a few hours, and then leaves again before dawn.
Yuezhi rarely saw him; she could only tell he had returned by the gold and silver deeds that suddenly appeared beside her bed.
"Sister, Brother Wang said he wants to marry me. He will come to propose marriage once he has prepared the betrothal gifts..." Hua Qing was preoccupied with Wang Qiushi, forgetting all the humiliation she had suffered at the Marquis's mansion, and she didn't even notice Pei Heng's early departures and late returns.
She smiled charmingly, "Someone as foolish as him is hard to find anywhere in the world. I don't dislike that he's foolish, but what will you do if I get married, sister?"
She became depressed as she spoke, and simply shook her head, "I won't get married, I'd rather stay with my sister for the rest of my life."
Yuezhi laughed when she heard this: "I don't have Brother Wang's good temper to pamper you for a lifetime. You should get married sooner rather than later, so that he won't keep nagging me about Brother Wang all day long. My ears are getting calluses."
Hua Qing blushed and nestled against her side coquettishly.
"Sister, how can there be such a good person as you in the world? You always think of others and never think of yourself."
“You and Pei Heng have treated me well, calling me ‘sister,’ so you are my family. Of course I should think about you. Do you really expect me to take care of you for the rest of my life and waste my best years?”
The warm spring sunshine streamed down from above as the two sat side by side in the courtyard, one working on the thread and the other embroidering.
Hua Qing breathed a sigh of relief, "Sister, it is the greatest blessing in my life for my cousin to have you by his side."
Yuezhi smiled without saying a word, simply putting down her needlework and gently patting her head.
On the day of the banquet at the Marquis's residence, Wang Qiushi happened to be in the city to purchase betrothal gifts. He specially came to pick up Hua Qing, and the two of them went to see a house in the city that could be rented.
Yuezhi happily saw the person off, tidied herself up briefly, and in the afternoon, she boarded the carriage from the Marquis's residence to pick her up.
Upon entering the Marquis's residence again, the same steward greeted her at the main gate. After entering, he specifically informed her that the Qi family had moved out of the detached courtyard. Because of the previous incident, the Marquis of Jing'an had reprimanded Qi Miao and ordered that his concubines were no longer allowed to enter the Marquis's residence.
The Marquis's family's attitude was sincere, and Yuezhi gradually let go of her grudges, taking her seat to speak with the Marquis's wife.
Halfway through the banquet, Lady Hou gradually began to talk.
“Your young general is a capable man, and the Marquis intends to give him an important position. The only thing he is worried about is his family. Your family doesn’t have a single servant, so there’s a risk that bad people might break in. After thinking it over, why don’t you move into the Marquis’s mansion so that your young general won’t have to worry about your safety?”
"How can I, a commoner, stay at the Marquis's mansion?"
“Then let’s move to a bigger house. Didn’t the Marquis bestow a few houses upon the young general? You can choose one to live in, and I can also help you get some servants to serve you.”
"This..." Yuezhi finally understood where the house deeds on the bedside table came from.
“I am just a humble embroiderer, why would I need to live in such a large house, nor do I need so many people to take care of me? Madam is busy with many affairs every day, so please don’t worry about me.”
Lady Hou shook her head and said earnestly, "Now you are no longer an embroiderer, but a member of General Pei's family. With his promotion, he will inevitably attract attention. Only when the inner quarters are peaceful can they be at the front without any worries."
Upon hearing this, Yuezhi seemed to be thinking about something.
As dusk fell, a table of ordinary food and wine was set out in a side hall in the front courtyard of the Marquis's residence. The Marquis of Jing'an sat in the main seat, while the others were all prominent families, wealthy merchants, and highly respected military officers from Liangzhou.
A maid brought in a wine jug and filled the cups for the distinguished guests. After they had drunk all the wine, the figure who had been secretly observing from the rooftop left satisfied.
The guards in the courtyard spotted a figure flash across the dim sky and shouted alertly, "Who's there!"
Upon hearing the commotion, the people in the side hall immediately dispersed on alert. Marquis Jing'an dismissed the noble families and wealthy merchants, and gestured to his generals to arrest the suspicious persons in the courtyard.
Yuezhi was coaxed by the Lady of the Marquis to drink two sips of the fruit wine. At first, it tasted sweet and sour with a fruity aroma, but gradually she began to taste the light wine flavor.
It was the first time in her life that she had tasted wine. She felt warm inside and her head was spinning. Even the Lady Hou looked familiar to her.
Fueled by the alcohol, the two chatted amiably, and she almost nodded in agreement to move to the new house and have the Lady Hou help her purchase servants.
Before she could speak, a maidservant came from outside in a panic, "Madam, there's a fire in the front yard!"
Lady Hou's face changed drastically. "How could there be a fire? Quickly, quickly send Miss Yuezhi out of the manor."
Yuezhi was carried out by two nannies while she was in a daze. As they passed through the garden, servants from the Marquis's mansion fetched water from the lake to put out the fire. The fire in the front yard showed no signs of abating, and suddenly the inner yard at the back also caught fire.
The entire manor was in chaos. Some people went forward, some went backward. Yuezhi lost her balance and was gently bumped into, causing her to fall apart from the two nannies.
She stumbled and fell into the artificial hill. The alcohol made her sleepy, and she couldn't even hear people calling her.
She didn't know how much time had passed, but the chaos outside the artificial hill grew louder and louder. The intense heat of the fire made it hard for her to sleep. In her hazy state, she heard the servants from the Marquis's mansion talking about putting out the fire.
"I heard that outsiders have infiltrated the manor and are trying to harm the Marquis. They set fires everywhere after their assassination attempt failed."
"I just saw a general almost capture the man in black, but now both of them have disappeared. I hope something happened to them."
“I was worried when Lord Qi came to stay. All the high-ranking officials in Pingzhou have fled to Liangzhou. The world is going to be in chaos.”
Yuezhi didn't quite hear what they were saying, but she understood the danger of their current situation from their tone. She propped herself up from the gap between the artificial hills and, half-awake and half-drunk, headed towards the side gate of the Marquis's mansion, wanting to go home.
She walked along the wall, occasionally encountering a few servants busy putting out fires and rescuing valuables. No one paid attention to her, and no one stopped to help her.
Gradually, she wandered off to an unknown place, and the surroundings became very quiet; she couldn't see a single person.
Suddenly, a window opened in the corridor she was passing by, and a pair of strong arms reached out, grabbed her around the waist, and pulled her inside. In a dizzying moment, she fell to the ground.
There was a breathing sound in the air that didn't belong to him, rapid and suppressed, with a faint smell of blood.
Yuezhi opened her eyes hazily, unable to see the face of the person on top of her in the darkness. She only knew that her hands were pressed above her head, her mouth was covered by the man, and her legs were pressed down by his knees.
She instinctively sensed danger and whimpered for mercy, but the man pressed her down even tighter, her face turning red.
Inside the closed room, only their heartbeats could be heard.
Suddenly, the man hidden in the darkness let out a restless sigh, his whole body collapsing and crashing down on her, causing her chest to ache.
His hot breath sprayed onto her neck, and his body temperature gradually rose. The familiar scent of soap from the man's clothes lingered in her nostrils, and Yuezhi called out softly in a daze.
"Pei Heng?"
The breath that was about to touch the side of her neck came to an abrupt halt.
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