Chapter 2

4.

The next morning, when it was time to serve tea to the elders, Madam Wei deliberately made my husband and me wait an hour.

She lifted her cup of hot tea and spoke unhurriedly.

“Eldest Nephew’s wife, now that you’ve entered the Gong family, you should learn the rules. Hand over the account books for your two incense shops. Let the second branch manage them for you, so you and your foolish husband don’t suffer a loss.”

I raised my teacup, gently blew across the surface, and replied calmly, “You can’t even manage your own dowry, yet you still have time to worry about mine.”

Madam Wei slapped the table and sprang to her feet.

“What did you say?”

“Shopkeeper Luo at the gambling house in the eastern city pawned your gold hairpin to cover your debt just the other day.”

I smiled at her.

“If you don’t believe me, I can have him brought here to settle the matter before the ancestral tablets. How does that sound?”

Madam Wei’s face turned deathly pale.

Beside me, Gong Yan held a piece of pastry. He chewed and clapped, speaking indistinctly.

“Second Aunt lost face.”

The servants in the hall couldn’t help laughing aloud.

Madam Wei glared at me, then swept out of the room.

Back at the side residence, Gong Yan closed the door. Amusement glimmered in his eyes.

“Wife, how did you find out she went to the gambling house?”

“Last night I searched the cabinet and happened to see the clues you’d written down.”

I handed him several pages of the ledger.

“Every month she receives a sum from the household funds. The books say it’s for your medicine, but in reality it goes to the gambling house. You knew about this, but you haven’t acted against her yet.”

“Madam Wei isn’t clever enough to come up with this herself,” Gong Yan said. “Someone is directing her from behind the scenes.”

I tucked the pages back into my sleeve.

“Then let her keep trying whatever she likes. From today on, every expense at this residence goes through me first.”

Gong Yan nodded. Suddenly, he reached out and adjusted the strand of hair that had fallen beside my temple.

His touch was so gentle, as though he feared that the slightest pressure might hurt something.

I looked up at him.

The tips of his ears instantly turned bright red. He lowered his head in a hurry and pretended to study the wooden bird.

I struggled to hold back a smile.

“You were doing so well playing the fool. Why blush now?”

“It’s too hot.”

Outside the window, a light snow was still drifting down.

That evening, the side residence’s kitchen sent over a pot of ginseng soup.

The girl who brought it was a round-faced maid named Xing’er. She set the tray on the table, her eyes repeatedly darting toward Gong Yan. A patch on the back of her hand was red from a burn.

“Eldest Young Master, please drink it while it’s hot,” she said softly. “Second Madam specially told the kitchen to make it for you.”

Gong Yan had just reached out when I picked up the pot first.

Two slices of ginseng floated in the soup, whose overly sweet aroma rose to my nose. But when I leaned closer, I caught the faintest bitter-almond scent.

When I was little, my maternal grandfather loved collecting medicinal herbs. I had once seen spoiled bitter almonds in his apothecary. Their smell was very much like the one in this soup.

“Xing’er.”

I scooped up a spoonful and held it beneath the lamplight. “When did the kitchen get this old ginseng from the north?”

Xing’er froze.

“It was… this afternoon.”

“Who brought it?”

“It was… Nanny Liu from Second Madam’s courtyard.”

At that, her face turned white. She hurried to add, “I only brought the soup. I really don’t know anything else!”

Beside me, Gong Yan played with the wooden bird, still wearing his foolish expression.

Under the table, the tip of his shoe lightly touched mine.

I understood. He wanted me to spare the maid.

I set the pot back on the tray, my voice softening a little.

“Take it back. Tell them the eldest young master ate too many pastries this afternoon and is sleepy now. It’ll be fine if he drinks it tomorrow morning.”

Xing’er looked as if she had just escaped death. She hurriedly picked up the tray and ran out.

At the door, she stopped and looked back at me. Her lips moved, but in the end she didn’t dare say anything.

As soon as the door closed, Gong Yan’s smile vanished. He took a silver needle and tested the soup.

The needle did not change color.

“A silver needle won’t detect this,” I said.

He looked up at me. “Wife, do you know medicine?”

“Only a little.”

I wrapped the pot in a cloth.

“We’ll ask Physician Chu to examine it tomorrow. Tonight, don’t touch anything the kitchen sends over.”

He watched me busy myself with one thing after another, then asked, “Why didn’t you keep Xing’er here?”

“If she’s really working for Second Aunt, she may not know much. If she isn’t, wouldn’t we only frighten her?”

I placed the cloth at the bottom of a box.

“Her hands were shaking badly when she brought the soup. For now, let’s not alert her.”

Gong Yan was quiet for a moment. Then he placed the wooden bird in front of me.

“Its belly opens.”

I pressed the bird’s belly. To my surprise, a tiny copper plate, no bigger than my little fingernail, was hidden inside. A code for the Gong family’s storeroom access tokens was engraved on it.

“Whoever collected the herbs, charcoal, and food in recent days, and when, is recorded here,” he said. “I was going to investigate it myself.”

“If you do it, the second branch will immediately grow wary.”

I slipped the copper plate into my sleeve.

“I’ll go tomorrow.”

He frowned. “The people at the storeroom talk too much.”

“I’m your wife now. I’m only going to ask a few questions about the accounts. Who can stop me?”

Early the next morning, I took Nanny Feng to the storeroom.

The storekeeper’s surname was He. As soon as he saw me enter, he put on an exceedingly welcoming smile and rapidly flipped through the account book.

“What account would the eldest young mistress like to see? Second Madam has always handled the eldest young master’s medicine. Everything is properly recorded.”

I didn’t answer. First, I looked at the medicine cabinet behind him.

The upper shelves were neatly arranged with angelica, astragalus, dried ginger, and other herbs. But one compartment deep inside was empty, and half a ring of white powder remained along its wooden edge.

“What used to be kept in this compartment?”

Storekeeper He answered, “An ordinary sedative. It ran out a few days ago.”

“What was it called?”

He named a medicinal herb.

I frowned slightly.

“The smell in my husband’s room last night wasn’t like that. Nanny Feng, ask Physician Chu to come here. Since Storekeeper He says it’s a sedative, it’ll be no trouble to have the physician take a look.”

The smile on Storekeeper He’s face froze, and sweat quickly beaded on his forehead.

He lunged for the account book, but Nanny Feng caught him by the wrist first.

Nanny Feng was usually gentle with me. But when angered, she was like an old hen protecting her chicks.

“Keep your hands to yourself! How dare you snatch something from my young mistress?”

Storekeeper He winced in pain and hurriedly claimed he had remembered incorrectly.

He changed his story, saying the compartment used to hold a medicinal powder brought in from outside the city. Second Madam had instructed them to use it only as a tonic for the eldest young master.

I picked up the ledger and pointed to an entry from the twelfth lunar month of last year.

“The cost of this medicine appears every month, but the column recording who collected it is blank.”

I turned to another page.

“Storekeeper He, who told you to keep the accounts this way?”

His face turned gray. He fell to his knees.

He refused to name Gong Chenglu. He only begged me to spare his son, who was working at one of Gong Chenglu’s outlying estates. If he let anything slip, his son might come to harm.

I told Nanny Feng to keep an eye on him and demanded that he hand over the secondary ledger he had hidden.

It was concealed in a secret compartment beneath the rice jar. The pages had yellowed with damp.

It clearly recorded each delivery of medicinal powder, when it was collected, and a large sum of money that had never appeared in the public accounts.

On our way back to the side residence, Nanny Feng muttered angrily without stopping.

“The Gong family really is a wolves’ den! Who knows what the young master has endured all these years…”

I said nothing.

At the gate of the courtyard, Gong Yan was squatting on the stone steps, happily teasing a line of ants.

Hearing our footsteps, he looked up and smiled at me, a streak of mud still on his face.

I walked over and tossed the secondary ledger into his lap.

“Here’s what you wanted.”

He read two pages. The smile slowly vanished from his face.

“Where is Storekeeper He?”

“I agreed to leave him alone for now,” I replied. “His son is under your second uncle’s control. If you arrest him right now, you’ll only drive him into a corner, and then his testimony won’t be reliable.”

Gong Yan watched me for a long moment.

His gaze made me uncomfortable, so I asked, “What are you staring at?”

“Nothing.”

He tucked the ledger into his sleeve, then reached up to brush a speck of dust from my hair.

“My wife is much better at managing a household than I expected.”

“Don’t think you can sweet-talk me.”

“I’m being sincere.”

He gave a soft laugh.

“I’ll roast chestnuts for you tonight.”

I glanced at the mud on his hands and finally couldn’t help laughing.

“Wash your hands first. If the chestnuts taste like dirt, I’ll stuff every one of them into your mouth!”

5.

Three days after the wedding, on the day of my homecoming visit, I took Gong Yan back to the Cheng residence.

My brother stood at the gate, his expression dark. He pulled me aside and lowered his voice.

“Heng, how long are you going to keep making trouble? The Lu family has sent people to ask about you twice. Divorce Gong Yan. I’ll help you put everything right.”

I shook off his hand.

“How will you put it right? Give me to Lu Zhixing again, so Cheng Wanrou can become his concubine?”

My brother was so stumped that his face reddened.

Lu Zhixing emerged from the hall. He wore an ivory-white robe and still looked as refined and proper as he had in the past. But when he saw me, he avoided my gaze.

“Heng, Wanrou isn’t in good health. That’s why I caught her ball.”

“Was she so unwell that you had to pay for it with my life?”

I gestured toward Gong Yan.

“I’m already married. If you still have any dignity as a scholar, don’t use my personal name.”

Lu Zhixing clenched his fists.

“You know I have always loved you.”

I laughed aloud.

“You loved me, so it didn’t matter if you watched me take thirty lashes. You loved me, so you caught her ball. Lu Zhixing, save that devotion of yours for Cheng Wanrou.”

His face went white.

Cheng Wanrou appeared from behind my mother in a newly tailored peach-pink dress. The moment she saw Gong Yan, she looked briefly startled, then said gently, “Elder Sister, Brother Gong doesn’t look as frightening as the rumors say. It’s only that your dowry was so small. I’m afraid you’ll have a hard life.”

Mother immediately chimed in, “If you agree to come back, your mother will prepare more dowry for you.”

I stepped up to her.

“No need. If you truly mean well, return the red-gold phoenix hairpin Grandmother left me.”

Mother instinctively touched her hair.

The phoenix hairpin was in Cheng Wanrou’s hair.

Wanrou’s eyes reddened, and she hurried to remove it.

“If Elder Sister likes it, I’ll return it to you.”

“I don’t want something you’ve already worn.”

I looked at Mother and asked only one question.

“Why is the dowry Grandmother left for me on her?”

Mother parted her lips but couldn’t speak.

Gong Yan suddenly stepped forward. Tilting his head like a child, he pointed at the hairpin and said foolishly, “Bad person took Wife’s things.”