Fish Meat – Chapter 149

The Second Year of Zhao Wu

Morning Like Blue Clouds (13)

That day, Li Yanyi became furious during the morning court, punishing two Geng Bai followers by demoting their official positions and stripping one of his noble title, sending them back to serve as local governors. She thought this would make the officials more restrained, but at the next morning court, these people remained unchanged. Luan Jiang simply repackaged those old arguments with sweet words [diplomatic language], implying they still wanted Li Yanyi to arrest Ah Xin and punish her.

            

Li Yanyi kept her head raised, looking at the beams of Taiji Hall throughout. After Luan Jiang and others finished speaking, Li Yanyi only responded with two “hmm” sounds, indicating she heard them, neither agreeing nor opposing.

Luan Jiang noticed Li Yanyi had undergone a subtle change. She wasn’t being inattentive – when other ministers discussed river transport and the Path of Ten Thousand Directions issues, she responded quite actively, though still without making definitive statements. After letting various interested parties take turns speaking, she finally spoke calmly, telling the beloved ministers to remain patient, giving each some benefits [favors] while also revealing some of their weaknesses to their rivals. This left all parties quite satisfied yet unable to lower their guard.

Suddenly, a feeling of inscrutability clouded Luan Jiang’s mind.

            

Previously, Li Yanyi had shown the inexperience and rashness of a new ruler. Though she had imperial dignity, her emotions were obvious, and while her words and actions carried imperial authority, her likes and dislikes were too easy to guess. For example, with the Xie family and the Wei family. But today, regarding the Path of Ten Thousand Directions, she dangled the juiciest piece of meat [most profitable opportunity] past Wei Tingxu’s mouth and gave it to Bo Lan instead. Though Wei Tingxu didn’t say anything and showed no expression, he certainly couldn’t be unconcerned about this.

As the first female emperor since ancient times, the previous Li Yanyi was still too green [inexperienced]. She naturally understood the way between ruler and subjects, but had never truly mastered the central power of the entire Da Yu, had never held the winds and rain [control/power] at the center of this vast and extremely complex power struggle.

If during the previous two years, Li Yanyi had been managing the nation and balancing the court solely based on knowledge from classical texts, Zuo Xu’s teachings, and personal understanding, today’s Li Yanyi suddenly showed signs of truly beginning to grasp things [literally: showing signs of entering the door/beginning level].

            

She began to contain what she thought was her sharp edge, hide her deadly dagger [metaphor for aggressive tactics], and started learning how to truly become inscrutable to others.

But why did she suddenly see through everything?

Luan Jiang stretched his neck trying to catch a glimpse of Li Yanyi’s expression from afar, but discovered Li Yanyi had already hidden her gaze. There was neither sharpness nor hesitation, just like a deep lake. This lake might be hiding monsters ready to surge out at any time, or it might never show even a ripple.

            

When did Li Yanyi begin to have this enlightenment?

And what event made her sink her breath [calm down]?

Wanquan District, Wei Mansion.

            

Actually, this place was about to be renamed to “Zhuo Jun Mansion.”

Originally, Zhen Wenjun thought Wei Tingxu would give the residence an especially immortal-like name, and she had been quietly looking through ancient texts. Unexpectedly, Wei Tingxu chose one character each from their names to name the residence, seemingly very casual and lazy, but thinking carefully, it had a particularly sweet meaning.

“This residence has a special connection with us, it’s our shared home, so I hope it won’t be called Wei Mansion. Taking one character each from your name and mine, this home has both you and me in it.”

            

Actually, just calling it “Wei Mansion” wouldn’t have been inappropriate either.

The property deed could only be written in Wei Tingxu’s name, as Zhen Wenjun was of slave status. The false identity that Jiang Daochang and Ah Jiao made for her back then was that of a slave. After entering the Wei household, there hadn’t been a suitable opportunity or status to change this. According to Da Yu’s current laws, unless she married a noble family’s son who was willing to change her household registration, she would remain a slave for life, unable to ever change her status, let alone purchase property. Therefore, even though all items in the mansion came from her hands, she still had no right to have her name written on the property deed.

Zhen Wenjun herself didn’t care about these things; whether her name was added or not made no difference to her.

            

She didn’t care, but Wei Tingxu did.

Wei Tingxu needed to go to the Forbbiden Garden every day, with numerous historical compilation tasks requiring vast amounts of energy. Busy during the day, after returning at night she still needed to organize various memorials, often working until late at night. She appeared to have no free time at all.

Some people appear to be worn out from official duties [literally: exhausted by documents], but actually have time to pamper others in private.

            

The three characters for “Zhuo Jun Mansion” were personally written by her, and Ah Zhu took them to be carved. They would be delivered in three days.

Wei Tingxu hadn’t even told Zhen Wenjun about this matter. Until Ah Zhu asked her whether the plaque should be hung at the main gate or the main hall, Zhen Wenjun was still wrapped in a drum [in the dark]:

“Plaque? What plaque?”

            

Ah Zhu smiled gently, the fine wrinkles at her eyes looking kind and pleasant:

“It should be a surprise from the young lady for you, Wenjun. You’ll know when you unveil the plaque yourself when it arrives.”

For a moment, Zhen Wenjun hadn’t realized what could be done with the plaque. When it was delivered and she unveiled it herself, seeing “Zhuo” and “Jun” written together, her nose stung and she nearly burst into tears.

            

“Wenjun, this plaque should be hung at the main entrance, right?” Ah Zhu asked with a smile.

Zhen Wenjun pretended to casually wipe away her tears: “Yes, that’s right, Zizhuo said to hang it here.”

Ah Zhu called the house servants to bring a wooden ladder, and carefully hung up the new plaque.

            

Zhen Wenjun stood in front of the residence looking at it again and again, reluctant to go inside.

Ah Zhu prepared lunch and came out to call her to eat, having to call several times before getting her to come back.

“You like it that much?” Ah Zhu asked while helping her take the osmanthus cakes out of the steamer.

            

“Yes, I like it very much.” Zhen Wenjun picked up the osmanthus cakes, eating two in one bite, head lowered as she sipped the sour plum soup. She didn’t raise her head, but Ah Zhu knew her eyes had misted over again.

“The young lady said,” Ah Zhu said, “it must be to your liking. Whether it’s this plaque or any detail in the house, everything needs your approval. The young lady said this is your home, you are the master, and only things you approve of are qualified to enter Zhuo Jun Mansion.”

Zhen Wenjun’s face grew faintly hot.

            

Did Zizhuo really say such things to Ah Zhu?

Did she really say such mushy [literally: giving goosebumps] words to others?

Wei Zizhuo, are you really such a person?

            

While eating and smiling, Zhen Wenjun accidentally ate three entire bamboo steamers of osmanthus cakes and drank more than half a pot of sour plum soup, making herself completely stuffed. Looking out through the open window, the newly planted wandering flowers in the courtyard were arranged awkwardly. Zhen Wenjun, who used to be a gardener, couldn’t resist going out personally to trim and arrange them, if only to help digest her meal.

These past few days of continuous rain had left the garden flower beds somewhat muddy. The clothes Zhen Wenjun was wearing were newly made by Wei Tingxu, and not wanting to dirty them, she changed into a plain set of old clothes before going to the flower beds.

Halfway through trimming the flowers, she suddenly heard the sound of carriages and horses outside the gate. Zhen Wenjun wondered why Wei Tingxu was returning so early today, and excitedly ran to the gate with mud still on her hands, only to find it was a stranger.

            

Ah Zhu had gone out to buy fabric, and most of the house servants were out running errands. The two guards at the gate stepped forward and asked:

“May we ask who you are, sir?”

The visitor sat in the lead carriage, with a long beard and a ruddy complexion, looking to be in his forties. His round belly made it very difficult for him to get down from the carriage – his short legs couldn’t successfully dismount from the horse on their own, needing both hands to help lift himself down. After this person difficultly reached the ground, he patted his hands and instructed the two people who came with him to move the wooden boxes from the carriage into the Wei Mansion.

            

Zhen Wenjun stepped forward to ask who he was and what these boxes were that were being delivered to Wei Mansion. The man wasn’t as tall as Zhen Wenjun and had to look up to talk to her. Just as he was about to speak, the wooden box he tried to carry down from the carriage was too heavy to hold steady. The man yelped “Aiya!”, and Zhen Wenjun stepped forward, firmly supporting the wooden box.

“Quite strong,” the man muttered, and instead of taking the box back, he went to get another one.

After struggling to bring down another box, he turned around to see Zhen Wenjun still there, and said, “Just put them in the main hall.”

            

“You are…”

“Oh, I am Lu Yan from the Lu family of Jiangling. These are items that the Secretary Assistant asked me to buy. Isn’t Wei Mansion still under renovation? I was worried this elder wouldn’t have time to collect them, so I delivered them myself. Come, come, help move these things inside.”

Zhen Wenjun, clearly mistaken for a Wei Mansion servant, remained silent, while the servants looked to her for guidance. The man walked into Wei Mansion as if it were his own home, leading his people inside. The guards, who previously worked at Wei Lun’s residence, were used to gift-bearers coming daily with various excuses, so they didn’t think to stop this person and his two attendants from carrying in several ordinary-looking boxes. They could be placed in the corner of the main hall, not too far or in too private a location, otherwise it would be exhausting to move them later.

            

Zhen Wenjun followed behind him carrying a box into the main hall. The man put down his box while repeatedly praising how elegant the hall was, asking whose paintings these were and whose original works those were, saying it was worthy of Da Yu’s first female official, and that such refined taste couldn’t be matched by ordinary people.

Zhen Wenjun quietly put down the wooden box.

Even with the owner absent, he was enthusiastically giving compliments, presumably hoping they would be passed on to Wei Tingxu through me, this “servant,” Zhen Wenjun thought to herself. Seemingly casual praise is more effective at winning people over. She roughly understood the purpose of this person’s visit today.

            

Sure enough, after being seated and served tea, he casually took a sip before eagerly asking: “When will the Secretary Assistant return?”

Zhen Wenjun, being dirty, didn’t want to sit and soil Wei Tingxu’s beloved golden nanmu wood chair, so she stood to the side and said:

“The young lady returns around the third quarter of the You hour [around 5-7 PM].”

            

“Oh, that’s still early, still early.” Lu Yan continued drinking tea with evident enjoyment. Putting down the teacup, he asked, “Could this tea be the priceless Ancient Pool Snow Pine?”

Zhen Wenjun hadn’t expected that this man, who appeared fat-headed with yellow teeth, would actually be able to recognize calligraphy and paintings, and even understand tea. This tea was Wei Tingxu’s favorite, and indeed was Ancient Pool Snow Pine – one could search all of Da Yu and barely gather enough to fill a cart. It was quite a rare tea, with a taste very similar to One Stone Cang, but Ancient Pool Snow Pine had a bit more sweetness to it. He could actually distinguish it.

“That’s right, our young lady particularly loves this variety. Is Sir Lu also knowledgeable about the tea ceremony?”

            

Lu Yan giggled, the wrinkles on his face trembling up and down: “Young miss, could it be that you think I’m not as elegant as those young gentlemen? Not only am I expert in the tea ceremony, but I’m also deeply accomplished in music, chess, calligraphy, painting, poetry, and musical theory. I hear the Secretary Assistant is also a person of refined taste who appreciates tea and food. I think Sir Lu and the Secretary Assistant must have many things in common and could surely become close friends despite our age difference, hahahahaha.”

Since Wei Tingxu became Da Yu’s first female official, she had heard plenty of flattering words, but this kind of self-promotion was a first. Unable to decide whether to laugh or cry, she nodded and said: “As you say, Sir Lu. If you have no other business, I won’t keep you company, as I still have work to finish.”

Lu Yan hurriedly said: “Hey, hey, don’t go, there is business, there is business.” He nodded his chin toward the wooden box Zhen Wenjun had just put down and said: “You, open that box.”

            

When Zhen Wenjun lifted the wooden lid, she was almost blinded – a miniature ornamental mountain made of gold, silver, and red jade combined nearly dazzled her eyes with its brilliance, radiating an unmistakably expensive glow.

Lu Yan said: “This is Master Li Yishan’s masterpiece from the previous dynasty, called ‘Splendid Future,’ nothing could be more suitable for the Secretary Assistant. Not to mention the gold and silver parts, just a red jade piece this large and complete is now nearly impossible to find in Da Yu. Moreover, the auspicious cloud pattern faintly visible within the jade is worth countless gold… Ah, why is this spot a bit dirty? Quick, polish it brighter!”

Zhen Wenjun’s hands were also black, and she didn’t carry a handkerchief. Just as she was about to use her sleeve to wipe it, Lu Yan stopped her. Lu Yan sighed, seemingly disappointed with the low quality of Wei Tingxu’s servants, and took out his own handkerchief to toss to Zhen Wenjun.

            

While polishing the ostentatiously wealthy ‘Splendid Future,’ Zhen Wenjun heard Lu Yan quietly ask above her head: “I heard the Secretary Assistant once had an engagement with Young Master Wu of the Zhangsun family? Is this true or not? Though that Young Master Wu has some good looks, his dragon yang preference [preference for men] is no secret in Runing anymore. Someone like the Secretary Assistant should be accompanied by a more gentle and understanding person! If Young Master Wu were to enter the household, he likely wouldn’t win the Secretary Assistant’s heart, instead…”

Zhen Wenjun stopped what she was doing and turned her head to look at Lu Yan in confusion, not quite understanding.

Lu Yan chuckled, opened another box, and took out eight scrolls, unrolling them one by one, showing paintings of eight different men. He pointed at the men in the paintings and told Zhen Wenjun: “Though unworthy, I have eight sons, each carefully educated by me. While I dare not claim they’re the finest in Runing in appearance and learning, they are more than capable of relieving the Secretary Assistant’s worries and boredom. I just don’t know the Secretary Assistant’s preferences, so please, young miss, give me some hints. I can then have my sons practice accordingly. When the time comes, whichever one catches the Secretary Assistant’s eye, you won’t miss out on your reward.”

            

As he said this, Lu Yan slipped a gold ingot into Zhen Wenjun’s hand.

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LP: Old man, you’re seeking death!

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