BERW - Chapter 17
Chapter 17
When the two of them started fighting, the Fan Residence was bustling. After they had been at it for a while, there were hardly a few people left in the Fan Residence.
Those who had recognized the identities of the two combatants, having realized they could not afford to offend the Yang and Shi clans, fled at once. The ones who stayed behind were either bystanders who had no idea what was going on and merely watched for the spectacle, or people like Shen Yuyao and Qin Shujun, who were not in the least afraid of the Yang and Shi families.
In the end, it was Fan Yuanwai who dispatched most of the household's servants, who took beatings while trying to break up the fight, before the two sides were finally pulled apart.
By the time Yang Keqing and Shi Caiwen were separated, the hair they had so carefully arranged had become bird's nests. Pearls and jade hairpins lay scattered across the ground, some shattered, some cracked, and their clothes were somewhat askew. Fortunately, both sides had aimed for the face, and no one had stooped so low as to tear at clothing.
Though beating each other's faces black and blue was not a pretty sight either.
Yang Keqing touched her right cheek, where she had taken a punch. It was swollen up high, and the slightest touch made her grimace in pain, which only stoked her fury further.
"Shi Caiwen! You... you crude, uncouth girl! When you hit someone you don't hit the face, and when you scold someone you don't expose their shortcomings. Even common folk on the street know that much. You, the eldest daughter of an official's household, don't understand it?"
Shi Caiwen's eyes were ringed black, stars bursting before her vision, her mind not entirely clear, but she could still talk back.
"And you do? Look at my face. Isn't this the work of Miss Yang's fists?"
"You deserved it. I clearly didn't provoke you today, so why did you come asking for a beating? Since you wanted to be hit, I naturally couldn't disappoint you."
"Hmph. I was merely treating you as you treated others. Drop that innocent act. My cousin's marriage was ruined because of you!"
"Nonsense. I don't even know who your cousin is!"
Yang Keqing was beside herself with rage. She shook off the maid supporting her, forced herself to stand straight, elegantly shook out her clothes, and pressed down her exploded hair. Even in her disheveled state, one could tell she was of no ordinary birth.
"Shi Caiwen, today I'll give you a piece of advice: don't trust the people around you too much. Those blinded by anger are the most foolish people in the world." Yang Keqing thought of something that had happened a few days earlier and suddenly understood why Shi Caiwen had come picking a fight with her.
A few days earlier, Minister of Revenue Yang Chengye and Minister of Justice Shi Bingsheng had quarreled once again at the Court of State. The cause was that a close friend from Yang Chengye's school days had been implicated in a corruption case and denounced to the capital. When the Court of Judicial Review investigated, it was confirmed that the man had indeed embezzled and taken bribes.
Once the matter was settled, the documents were sent to the Ministry of Justice. Shi Bingsheng held that witnesses and evidence were both conclusive. Though the accused kept protesting his innocence, he could offer no evidence to clear himself. There was no need for further investigation; a conviction would do.
Yang Chengye, however, trusted his old friend deeply and believed there must be hidden circumstances. He wanted to plead with Shi Bingsheng to hold off submitting the conviction documents to the Court Administration, and to let the Court of Judicial Review look into it further.
Shi Bingsheng considered this an attempt to shield a criminal and refused outright.
Later it was said that the Court of Judicial Review subjected the man to severe torture, and unable to endure it, he changed his story and confessed to every charge.
When Yang Chengye heard of this, he was enraged and cursed Shi Bingsheng in the Court of State as a harsh official, one who tortured loyal subjects with heavy punishment and wronged good men, a vermin upon the state.
Shi Bingsheng, for his part, held that Yang Chengye had bent the law for private ends, treating the laws of the Court as nothing in order to save an old friend. Such conduct was brazen, and without punishment the people's hearts could not be calmed.
The two had a great quarrel at the Court of State, and only when the Emperor intervened did it finally subside.
But the grudge had been recorded, and today it erupted again in the conflict between Shi Caiwen and Yang Keqing.
Yang Keqing believed that Shi Caiwen, like her father, was blinded by those around her and could not see the truth at all.
Hearing this, Shi Caiwen gave a disdainful laugh and shot back in anger, "Yang Keqing, the one truly blinded by anger is you. You pride yourself on being of Great Clan birth, a descendant of nobles, but no one in this world has a body made of jade. We are all mortal flesh and blood. People have seven emotions and six desires; no one can become a saint on the spot!"
So just because a person was a good man in his youth does not mean he will remain one. Yang Chengye blindly trusted his friend, which meant he believed his friend would remain a person of lofty integrity all his life.
A person of lofty integrity would never change his testimony, even unto death, and never bring infamy upon himself. Since the man had broken under torture and changed his story, in Shi Bingsheng's eyes he had truly committed the crime; it could not be false.
He believed the findings of the Court of Judicial Review and considered Yang Chengye to be making a scene out of sheer obstinacy.
Yang Keqing felt that truly, when words do not agree, half a sentence is too many. She gave a cold laugh, which pulled at the wound on her lip and twisted her expression with pain, then swept away with a flick of her sleeve, storming off with her whole entourage.
The moment she had gone, Shi Caiwen hastily clutched her head and stood in place for a long while, recovering.
Her maid Jiao Hong came up to support her and asked anxiously, "Second Lady, are your injuries serious? Should we call a physician to have a look? If anything were to happen to you, and the Madam and the Master learned it came from a fight with Miss Yang, what would we do!"
"What's there to fear? This isn't the first time she and I have fought. She left first today, so you can see I won. When we go back, Father and Mother will be proud of me!"
"No one is proud of having a child who brawls in broad daylight."
"Who says so?!"
Hearing someone contradict her, Shi Caiwen immediately glared over without a shred of courtesy. But when she saw the two figures, one tall and one small, standing beneath the eaves, she frowned.
Why did the build and the voice both feel so familiar?
"Sister-in-law, don't say that. Perhaps Lord Shi is different from others." The little girl's crisp voice sounded sweet and soft, and the small figure walked from the shadows into the light as she spoke.
Under the lamp, she wore a pale yellow dress and carried a candied hawthorn skewer from who knew where. Meeting Shi Caiwen's eyes, she even waved in greeting.
Shi Caiwen found that face extremely familiar.
Wasn't that the Seventh Princess!
The Seventh Princess, Princess Yuyang, the daughter His Majesty held in the palm of his hand, Noble Consort Qu's only beloved daughter, loved even by the Empress and the Crown Prince.
Then could the tall woman at her side be...!
When Shi Caiwen saw the tall woman's face, her legs went weak and she nearly dropped to her knees. "Cou... Cousin!"
Qin Shujun's maternal aunt was none other than Shi Caiwen's own mother.
"Caiwen, I never imagined we would meet here, in this way. As it happens, I invited your elder sister here to play polo. You should stay with us in Yudu Town today, and tomorrow come with me to see your elder sister."
Now Shi Caiwen truly was about to kneel. She stepped back half a pace, unable to believe her own bad luck!
Shi Caiwen, one of the capital's little tyrants, feared two things in all her life: her mother's tears and her elder sister's nagging!
And the most terrifying thing was that her elder sister did not merely nag!
Because she had suddenly suffered such a great shock, and because there were others around and she could not expose Shen Yuyao's identity, Shi Caiwen only bowed slightly with cupped hands and did not formally greet Shen Yuyao.
Shen Yuyao was quite satisfied with this. If Shi Caiwen had made a great fuss and called her Princess, she would have had to pack her things and return to Qianyin Temple overnight, and she did not want her lovely journey to end just like that.
Shi Caiwen needed time to digest the thunderbolt she had encountered today, so she went ahead to the inn to book rooms. Shen Yuyao and Qin Shujun, under Fan Yuanwai's enthusiastic hospitality, left the Fan Residence and continued sightseeing.
On the way, Shen Yuyao asked Qin Shujun about Shi Caiwen.
"Caiwen is my younger cousin. From childhood her temperament was different from other noble girls. She did not care for poetry and song, but loved brandishing blades and swords. That alone would be one thing, but she has a photographic memory when reading, yet cannot remember two moves once she picks up a blade. A prodigy at study and a hopeless case at martial arts, which gave my aunt no end of headaches. The key point is that she refuses to be disciplined, full of clever tricks, and often drives my aunt and uncle to distraction."
The cleverer a person is, the less likely they are to be docile and obedient, and in Shi Caiwen this truth was displayed to the fullest.
Never mind fighting other noble girls; when she was small, girls grew a little faster than boys, and the then tall and imposing Shi Caiwen made who knew how many young gentlemen cry. Even now, when those young gentlemen hear that Shi Caiwen has come, they flee at the mere rumor.
Shen Yuyao listened with keen interest. In Qin Shujun's words, she saw the frivolous youths.
These young people, born and raised in a prosperous age, carried vigorous life in them, brimming with energy.
"I met her a few times at palace banquets before, and she seemed quite well-behaved." Shen Yuyao dug out a portion of her memories. Both Yang Keqing and Shi Caiwen were of high status, and the Original Owner had met them both.
Qin Shujun smiled without a word. Could being at the palace be the same as being in private? The Imperial Palace was under the Emperor's very eyes, and no matter how mischievous Shi Caiwen was, she would not dare carry on in the palace.
Only Shen Yuyao, a princess who had grown up in the palace since childhood, would dare ride a horse to the palace gate in the middle of the night and startle the Imperial Guard with a spooked horse.
Talking as they walked and stopped along the way, the moon rose to its height and the lantern market gradually dispersed. Shen Yuyao then followed Qin Shujun back to the inn.
An oil lamp still burned in the inn's main hall. The waiter busily wiped the tables, and the Innkeeper worked an abacus behind the counter. Seeing people come in, he asked, "Are the guests stopping for a meal, or lodging?"
"Who comes to dine in the dead of night? Naturally we wish to lodge. The rooms should already be booked." Qin Shujun was in a good mood today, and even her words were witty.
"Madam speaks quite rightly. Under what name did the Madam book the rooms?" The Innkeeper laughed heartily and leafed through the ledger.
"The Shi family."
Hearing this, the Innkeeper paused, as though startled that it was a surname rather than a personal name. He raised his head and carefully sized up the woman before him, as though confirming her identity by her attire.
Once he was certain, he turned straight to the first page of the ledger, under the Heaven-class rooms, where a Shi had been recorded early on.
Yet for some reason, the Innkeeper stared at that page for a long while without saying another word, as though he had suddenly frozen.
Qin Shujun frowned slightly and asked, "Has the Innkeeper found it?"
"Found it, found it! Waiter, hurry and take our honored guests upstairs, Heaven Room One and Heaven Room Two!"
The Innkeeper's manner was no different from before, still very warm, but in the instant he raised his head, Shen Yuyao felt an indescribable malice.
Shen Yuyao followed behind Qin Shujun up the stairs. She narrowed her eyes and looked down from the staircase on the first floor. Half the Innkeeper's face lay in darkness beyond the oil lamp's reach, his expression as ferocious as a demon's.
Could this be a Criminal Inn?
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