A Willing Mistake, My Lady – Chapter 66
by Little PandaReports from the Southern Territory
The Son-in-Law’s Disguise is Blown
The sky was a gloomy grey, and light snowflakes drifted outside. It had been nearly a month since Ye Qingyao had arrived at the Marquis Manor. When she had first come, her heart had been filled with trepidation; even though Ah Yin had told her not to worry about anything, she had still felt a lingering unease.
Having lived here for so long without catching even a glimpse of either the Marquis or the Heir, her heart had finally settled. Aside from a few women, neither the older nor the younger master of the house was present in the manor. As for the women, each seemed to have her own affairs to attend to. It was quite interesting.
The Heir’s Wife had only stopped by once to ask if she lacked anything and to have the maids purchase it, speaking very little beyond that. On the other hand, Concubine Sheng seemed to look upon her with distinct dislike. Ye Qingyao truly did not understand the reason for this resentment; she had not even seen the Heir’s face yet, so how could she have provoked the woman’s displeasure?
But none of that mattered. She still ate well and slept soundly here, and she received a monthly allowance of twenty taels of silver. She had just gone to collect it the day before yesterday. Though it was a pittance compared to the kickbacks she used to make at Wanxiang Pavilion, she had still happily stored it away securely. It was enough to buy a donkey cart, after all.
Clad in a pure white fox-fur cloak, Ye Qingyao sat by the window, counting her private hoard by the pale winter light. She had eight hundred and fifty taels in silver notes, two hundred taels in silver ingots, six gold hairpins, two pairs of jade bracelets, and a scattering of copper cash and loose silver.
This was everything she had saved during her time at Wanxiang Pavilion. It was not a grand fortune, and more than half of the jewelry had been gifted by Ah Yin, but it was more than enough for her to find some place where no one knew her and live out the rest of her days in quiet comfort.
When Zhao Lanyin stepped through the door without a sound, what greeted her eyes was the beauty wrapped in white fox fur, reclining on a chaise longue1 as she counted her copper cash one by one, surrounded by scattered bits of silver and jewelry.
She was likely wearing rather thin garments underneath, for as she counted the coins, she reached up to pull the cloak tighter over her shoulders.
“Are those copper coins really so enticing? You didn’t even notice someone coming in,” Zhao Lanyin’s voice drifted softly from behind her.
Ye Qingyao started, hastily turning around to look at her visitor with the startled, uneasy eyes of a fawn.
Seeing that it was Ah Yin, she quickly composed herself and swept her savings out of sight without haste. “Why didn’t you make a sound?” she chided gently. “You scared me to death.”
Seeing her sit up and pat her chest, the cloak draping over her slipping down to her waist, the County Princess stepped closer and raised her hand to drape the fox-fur cloak securely over her shoulders once more.
“Why are you dressed so lightly?” Beneath the fox fur, she wore only a white silk inner robe, her feet bare. Her long hair was loosely held up by nothing more than a fringed gold step-shake hairpin2.
“It’s snowing, so it’s not like I’m going outside. The charcoal brazier in the room keeps it warm, so it doesn’t matter,” Ye Qingyao replied with a careless smile.
“Why are you still counting those copper coins, then? Next time, I’ll bring you gold ones,” Zhao Lanyin said, her gaze flickering over the pouch Ye Qingyao was putting away.
“Alright, but we can’t let the copper coins feel neglected either,” Ye Qingyao said, her eyes crinkling with amusement.
“Jiejie, why don’t I get the same treatment as those copper coins?” As she spoke, she pressed herself into Ye Qingyao’s embrace, drawing the fox-fur cloak over them both.
“Are you really eating vinegar3 over copper coins? Are you a three-year-old child?” Ye Qingyao asked helplessly, squeezed tight against her.
“It won’t be long before I can take you away. Just wait a little longer, and we’ll go back to Nan Commandery together.” The County Princess looked out the window, a spark of fire hidden in her narrow, delicate eyes.
At those words, Ye Qingyao’s lips paled, and her fingers grew cold and stiff. She buried her head in the County Princess’s shoulder, her eyes flushing red as silent tears fell one by one, soaking the other’s robes. She bit her lip hard, refusing to let out a single sound, looking for all the world like a pear blossom shattered by a sudden, violent storm.
“Don’t be afraid. This time, I will make them pay their debt in blood.” The County Princess gently patted Ye Qingyao, her hand resting firmly on the other’s delicate shoulder.
Resting her head on Lanyin’s shoulder, Ye Qingyao wept and shook her head. She did not want to go back, nor did she want Zhao Lanyin to return.
Outside, the snow fell heavier and heavier with a soft, rustling whisper, as if telling secrets unknown to the rest of the world.
The swirling snow had wrapped the red walls and yellow tiles of the Imperial Palace in a coat of shimmering silver. It was a scene of magnificent grandeur, yet it carried the heavy, solemn weight of time and vicissitude.
Inside the grand palace hall, the Emperor, clad in bright yellow everyday robes, lacked his usual aura of sharp majesty. In recent years, the Great Qian Dynasty had been quietly conserving its strength. Even in the face of border conflicts and provocations from the southern territory, the Emperor had consistently handled each threat as it came, maintaining a steady and methodical course.
Back when he was still the Crown Prince, he had fought in a few campaigns alongside the late Emperor. However, perhaps because the dynasty had enjoyed peace for too long since its founding and he himself was growing old, he now firmly adhered to the principle of harmony above all else, choosing to endure whatever could be tolerated.
Furthermore, several years ago, when his own younger brother—the father of County Princess Qingyang—had been ambushed and slain by Japanese invaders4 who had crossed the sea, Great Qian had failed to capture the culprits.
The chief reason was that the southern territory had been ill-equipped for naval warfare at the time, and the enemy had taken the Prince’s domain by surprise. Faced with such a fierce onslaught, the Prince had naturally exerted all his strength to repel them.
After a grueling war of attrition that lasted several years, the Prince and his Consort had finally driven the enemy back, only to fall into a trap. Both lost their lives.
The arrogant invaders had then gone so far as to search and plunder the Prince’s manor with great fanfare. Before the County Princess could evacuate, Ye Qingyao had knocked her out with a bowl of drugged wine. The two had swapped their clothing and tokens of identity, and the steward had smuggled the County Princess out through the city gates.
Meanwhile, Ye Qingyao, dressed in the County Princess’s robes, had fled through the main gates to draw the enemy away and buy her friend enough time to escape the city.
By the time reinforcements arrived three days later, Ye Qingyao had long since vanished. It was as if the enemy had ears everywhere; upon learning that the imperial court had dispatched fifty thousand troops, they had thoroughly ransacked the city and swiftly retreated aboard their sea vessels.
As a result, the reinforcements had arrived to find virtually nothing, capturing only about a thousand stragglers to vent their fury. The Prince had always feared the Emperor’s suspicion and had never dared to covertly amass private troops; who would have thought he would meet his downfall in such an unexpected ambush?
Since the fief was left without a Prince, the imperial court had stationed troops in the southern territory. Yet the cities originally granted to the fief had never been reclaimed; instead, they had been left to County Princess Qingyang as a way for the Emperor to make amends for his deceased younger brother.
Currently, the annual tax revenues from the southern territory were collected by the Dowager Empress and saved on the County Princess’s behalf, to be returned to her when she married.
By keeping the County Princess under his watchful eye in the capital, the Emperor had hoped that once she was safely wed to a husband and secured by the tax revenues of three cities, he would have fully discharged his duty to his late brother.
Yet the southern territory had been far from peaceful since the Prince’s passing. Situated at the southern edge of Great Qian, its lands were barren, and its people were unrefined.
The stationed garrison had quickly come into conflict with the local administration. When the Prince was alive, he had shown great compassion for his subjects and loved them as his own children; though they were not wealthy, they had been free and industrious.
But once the military took over joint administration, numerous disagreements arose. Moreover, because the garrison had failed to save the Prince and his Consort back then, the officials and commoners of the southern territory harbored a deep-seated psychological resistance to the court’s takeover. Consequently, they complied with orders only on the surface while defying them in secret, or even opposed them outright.
This task, fraught with resistance and lacking in material rewards, was something no official wanted. Furthermore, on top of supporting the local population and regional soldiers, they now had to sustain the remaining thirty thousand imperial troops stationed there. Over the years, the friction between the two sides had intensified to a critical point.
Now, a new memorial had been submitted from the southern territory. It actually petitioned for the County Princess to return and inherit the southern cities, taking over both the local population and the administration of the tax revenues.
Back then, the Prince had spent more than half of the tax revenues on developing the region. Now that all the silver was sent to the capital, the commoners and officials received no benefits, and the garrison was rife with complaints. It was truly a massive headache for the Emperor.
The Emperor did not actually covet that small amount of silver. The proposal in the memorial to allow his niece to govern the southern territory was not entirely out of the question either.
Sending a young woman there would essentially be for the sake of having a figurehead to soothe the minds of the people. If he dispatched a couple of capable subordinates to assist her, the entire matter could likely be laid to rest.
However, the Dowager Empress wanted to keep her close and wished to arrange a marriage for her. If she returned to the southern territory, she could under no circumstances be allowed to take the Little General of the Shen family with her.
Whether it meant the border would lose a key military commander or that the two would conspire to declare themselves independent rulers, neither outcome would bring any benefit to Great Qian. Everything now hinged on the decision he would make.
If one were to compare the County Princess with General Shen, the Emperor naturally harbored far greater wariness toward Shen Hetang. Although Old General Shen had voluntarily surrendered the tally that could mobilize two hundred thousand troops before his death, the Emperor still did not dare to gamble against the immense prestige the Shen family commanded within the military.
Since the founding of Great Qian, the military had always been under the control of the Shen family, and only after three generations did that power slowly begin to disperse. Yet if he were to return the tiger tally to the Shen family one day, they would surely rally thousands with a single call. The only thing that brought him great peace of mind was that the family’s lineage was remarkably sparse.
But even as he guarded against the Shen family, he also admired how they produced brilliant talents generation after generation. At present, none of his own sons were capable of going to war; when a critical moment arose, he would still have to rely on the second child of the Shen family.
Setting aside capability, merely deploying the prestige of the Shen family name was already enough to win half the battle.
Therefore, if Qingyang could not remain in the capital, the two of them must have no connection whatsoever. The Emperor had to give this matter careful consideration.
Shen Hetang had no idea the Emperor was currently nursing a headache over their marriage. Having received word from Zhao Lanyin that there would surely be news before long, she simply waited in peace.
Meanwhile, Hua Rong, who had just relocated to the capital, was incredibly nervous about attending court to face the Emperor for the first time. However, his anxiety proved superfluous; only officials of the fourth rank and above were permitted to enter the main hall to meet His Majesty, while the rest were relegated to waiting outside.
Just then, Shen Hetang, clad in official court robes, happened to follow a group of veteran generals into the Throne Hall. Catching a fleeting glimpse of that familiar figure, Hua Rong felt an overwhelming urge to ask the colleague beside him who the youth was.
Although his cheap son-in-law had seemed out of the ordinary from the very beginning, seeing him here still made his eyes go wide. However, being a newcomer, he forced himself to hold back and refrained from asking around.
Yet just because he did not ask did not mean others would not gossip. Thus, he soon learned that the young man who had just entered the Throne Hall—the one who looked identical to his son-in-law—was the Little General of the Shen family. Yes, that very Shen family whom everyone knew.
When he further overheard someone mention that this Little General was actually set to marry County Princess Qingyang, a cold sweat began to break out on his forehead. Was it merely a striking resemblance, or were they truly the exact same person?
Staring toward the grand hall, he found himself utterly bewildered. But then he recalled that they both shared the surname Shen. In that case, there could be no mistake.
But if they were the same person, didn’t that mean his eldest daughter had become a mere concubine? Yet on second thought, even as a concubine, she had still managed to climb into an exceptionally grand marriage.
Though he had been promoted to the fourth rank, for him it was the absolute pinnacle, whereas for the other, it was merely the starting point. The sheer weight of their respective influence was simply incomparable!
At this moment, Hua Rong’s feelings were incredibly complicated. It was like a meat pie had fallen from the heavens; he had just caught it, only for it to fall to the ground with a splat.
His heart was in his throat as he fretted over Jiang Chenyu’s situation, then worried about his own official career. This first day of attending court was certainly eventful.
Today in the imperial court, Shen Hetang had stood like a wooden post for half a day. Since she currently had no official duties to attend to, she only needed to lend an ear while the civil officials engaged in their battles of words.
However, she finally understood what the County Princess had meant. It turned out the other had used the strategy of taking the firewood from under the pot5—by directly withdrawing herself back to her old home.
Although the Emperor had not yet explicitly stated that the marriage was annulled, it was likely because no imperial edict had been issued yet; such matters could only be communicated in private first.
Feeling as light as a feather with all her burdens lifted, Shen Hetang spent her journey home planning where to hold her victory feast. Now that the issue with the County Princess was resolved, she had to move quickly to prevent anyone else from taking advantage of the situation.
Footnotes
- A traditional Chinese daybed or chaise longue, historically known as a guifei ta (Imperial Consort couch), designed for reclining and resting in private quarters.
- A buyao (literally step-shake) is an exquisite traditional Chinese hairpin adorned with dangling ornaments, such as fringes or beads, which sway gracefully with the wearer steps.
- Eating vinegar (chicu) is a classic Chinese colloquialism meaning to be jealous, originating from a Tang Dynasty anecdote where an emperor's chancellor's wife drank what she thought was poison—but was actually vinegar—rather than allow her husband to take a concubine.
- A historical term (wokou) for maritime raiders and pirates, often composed of Japanese, Portuguese, and Chinese elements, who raided the coastal regions of East Asia.
- A classic Chinese idiom (fu di chou xin) from the Thirty-Six Stratagems, meaning to solve a problem fundamentally by removing its source, literally taking the firewood from under the pot.
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