Chapter 21

“This golden collar looks so nice, it must have cost grandmother a fortune, when I get back, I will have to properly thank her.” Molan said to Minglan while wearing a smile; as lessons were in the morning, Old Madame Sheng let everybody proceed to school, such that to avoid any mishaps.

“It is good-looking, but the weight is not to be underestimated, I once had a golden collar, and it weighs a few kilograms.” Rulan said uncaringly, while Changbai whom was looking at a book unhappily glanced at her.

“A few kilograms?! Then won’t it break the neck? No wonder I never saw you wearing it, and I thought that this collar is very heavy.” Minglan rubbed her neck and muttered.

“Sixth younger sister, this jade lock is of superior quality, it seems like the jade came from the Western Kunlun Mountains.” Changfeng closely examined Minglan’s jade locket.

Molan actually noticed that jade locket quite early ago, seeing that her brother started a conversation topic, she then went to look at Minglan’s jade locket. At first look, Molan saw that the lock piece was only jade white, with a faint touch of crimson that was forming a shape like a phoenix [2], the Jade’s texture was fine, elegant and refreshing, crystal rounded and pure and flawless, “This is a a really good jade, I have never seen any jade as good as this.” Molan commented.

She felt jealous in her heart, and started thinking that Minglan’s jade is better than hers, if she enters Shou’an Hall with her own jade, she’ll be laugh at but if it was Minglan’s jade… But that jade is not hers, thinking of Old Madame Shen rejecting it if she ask for it, she cannot help but feel frustrated.

Rulan from across the room, does not have much understanding of jades, she has been staring at the piece of Jade in front of Muolan’s chest, thinking about Wang Shi’s reminder has made her patient but now that everyone is talking about jades, she could not help but said, “Sixth younger sister, you have to be careful, now that fourth sister has taken notice of your jade, she could go back to father and ask for it. There is no saying that piece of jade your wearing might end up in her pocket.”

Changbai frowned, and returned back to reading his book; Molan’s face turns red and angrily said, “Fifth younger sister, what is the meaning of this? How could I possibly be intentionally trying to take away my sister’s items?”

Rulan saw Changbai’s warning eyes and thought of the planking session; she softened her voice and slowly said, “Nothing? Just that I had some strange thoughts when I saw fourth older sisters’s jade locket, please pay it no mind.”

Minglan immediately went to see the jade locket that was in Molan’s chest, only to see that it is also a warm and fine white jade, especially since it was a rare, odd one, most of the color was as dark as an ink, shiny and pleasant, at first glance, it was as if a magnificent painting of a flowing ink besides a mountain, could not help but be secretly be amazed. Molan furiously say, “This jade that uncle Wang gave is not fake, father gave me this jade in significance of my name [3], right after giving me this jade, father also ordered people to look for another even higher quality Hibiscus jade for you, so why do you still not giving up?”

Rulan faked a laugh and said: “I, as a younger sister doesn’t know if a jade is high quality or not, all I know is that the meaning behind it was that it was my uncle’s gift for me.”

Molan smiled hypocritically: “Fifth younger sister, do not forget, that he’s also my uncle!”

Rulan gritted her teeth and glared at Molan, but doesn’t dare to mention anything more about the legal status of one another.

….

“Today, most of the students are studying for the imperial examinations, everything lies in the gods, ‘I want to be official’ this is not something you can’t tell others but after the examinations, those with no big dreams and those with shallow and boring words are bound to fall eventually despite having a lasting career! Homeworks must be done with your heart and soul, poetry and literatures must be memorised at your finger tips, and learn from the beginning.”

Mr. Zhuang is very clear of his student’s target, more clearly the purpose of students to study, thus he went straight to lessons on the first day of school with the history of the peripheral content of the native around accompanied by many exams because almost all of his students went there for the imperial examinations, so he also gave a lot of model cases of success and failures; he will come up with articles and use it as an example then he points out which are the best examples and points out the weak points of those that had failed the examinations.

This clear goal and clear teaching methods immediately made Minglan respect the teacher in awe, she has always felt that some of the ancient Confucianism are hypocrites, all of them are clearly aiming for the imperial examinations but still keep acting like studying is to cultivate moral education but Mr. Zhuang does say much about this: “The ancient desire of the wise and benevolent in the world; To rule over a country, one must first wants to rule a country, to start a family, one must first desire to start a family, to refine its mind and body, one must first desires to refine its mind and body; you must have the will… Only when you have the will than you can refine your body, only when you refine your body then you can start a family, only when you have a family then you can rule a country, only when you can rule over a country then will there be world peace; learning is not just reciting a few articles a few poems, it is to a long road of refining your mind and body, to have a long foothold, you have to learn through solid foundation!”

In this private school, there were a total of six students and a teacher, outside of the school has maidservants and servants waiting to pour tea and add firewood, in the old times, class always has this unavoidable routine reading poems aloud in ecstasy.

It’s doesn’t matter if you have memorized it thoroughly; you will still have to shake your head, bump your head, squint slightly and have an elongated tone reading; this is not only to make reading appealing but also to read out the essence of the words; Molan felt that this does not look good when a girl does it and always refuses to do it; saying that she will get dizzy after shaking her head, besides since Mr. Zhuang doesn’t really care about them, she decided that it was useless.

Only Minglan felt good, this activity of shaking the head in circular movement before looking down to read is actually good as to avoid the pins and needle in the neck and the pain in the cervical spine; a few shakes and the neck and shoulder are already comfortable, Minglan finally understood how the ancient scholars who spent all their time looking down to read books did not acquire cervical spondylosis [4]; causing her to shake her head harder the harder she studies. Causing Mr.Zhuang to look at her twice in the morning.

Mr. Zhuang has big rules which does not allow the servants to come in, so the grinding of inks and pasting of papers had to be done on their own, the others are okay, but Changdong is still young, it’s hard to grind small ink ingots and he just happen to sit behind Minglan.

Minglan can hear behind her the constant panic and the frequent collision sound and decided to give a helping hand, while Mr. Zhuang is not paying attention, she quickly turned back and swapped her ink set with Changdong’s; this action was so clean cut and perfect, when Mr. Zhuang rose his head, Minglan has been sitting and grinding her ink with a serious and focused eyes.

Mr. Zhuang ‘s little eyes flashed as he continues lecturing, Minglan was relieved. At this time, the little boy came with a soft voice: “…Thank you sixth older sisters.”

Minglan did not look back but only nodded, signifying that she heard it.

Changdong despite being encouraged, still stammered to explain that he was not significant and was only Wang’s maidservants son, it wasn’t that the master is illiterate but he was never enlightened until he was five years old, listening to Mr. Zhuang’s class is like reading the heaven’s book; both hard and shameful: “Older brother… Taught me few words before but then he need to prepare for the exam and I do not want to bother him… Sixth older sisters, I …”

He does not meet people that much that’s why he was timid and does not speak quickly.

Minglan gently said, “Oh” secretly thinking, helping people or helping herself, which is better? In a blink of an eye, she saw Changdong with a weird face, as if he was looking forward and full of eagerness while also cautiously hiding it with fear of being rejected.

Minglan is compassionate, she first looked inside and sees the old lady is talking with Wang Shi and thinks about how long before they have to go to school, then she led Changdong to a cupboard with pears engraved in it and found a book with red dots and gave it to Changdong, she softly said: “This is what the old lady have me to learn words, I have not used this and its new; I will give this to you for you to practice on it, you are young, so do not worry, learning ten words a day would be very smart. Next time every day before school; I will assign you few words and while you listen to Mr. Zhuang lessons you must memorise the words, ok?”

Changdong’s small face bloomed a big smile, he desperately nodded as he repeatedly thanked Minglan; Minglan looked at his grateful look, thought of her own little nephew that was being begged by five adults to go to school and suddenly felt very sad.

On that day, she taught Changdong five characters and shows the pen strokes, Changlong stared with his eyes wide open, summoned the effort to memorise all of them at one go and then wrote them in the red book during Mr. Zhuang’s lessons, after writing, he still practiced writing on the back of the rice paper until the end of class, Minglan looks back and sees the five words already properly written.

“Changdong is really smart, if father finds this out, he must be very happy.” Minglan’s smile touches Changdong’s soft heart.

Changdong’s little face was so delighted that it was filled with happiness as he blushes.

Minglan thought that this child will sooner not have the will to learn but little did she know that Changdong would come to look for her as early as half an hour before the time to wake but it just that Minglan loves to sleep and would always wake up after everybody’ wake up, her waking habit is so bad that Danju almost had to splash water on her face before the proper waking time just to get her to wake up at the right time and now with Changdong, this is going to get even worse.

“Sixth older sisters, sorry, sorry, you sleep well yet I came early, I will be waiting for you outside…” Changdong knows that Minglan is still in the bed that’s why he was standing politely at the stairs that was right before the door and after repeatedly saying that, the small body turned around to run but was grab by Danju and orders Minglan, who was now standing but still refused to let go of her blanket with Cui mama [5] at the bedside who gave a wry smile, it was just then Minglan finally got up.

A four-five years old Changdong, just when he is supposed to be ignorant and sleepyhead had just wake up before the sun just to study. If he is born in a modern family, the seniors might be so happy that they would be setting off fireworks every night in celebration that this child have such an attitude towards studying, Minglan couldn’t bear to keep Changdong wait so she had to endure the ordeal, and wake up early every day.

“Remember, write from left to right, then from top to bottom. When you start a stroke, make sure to pull your brush to the right and then to the left. When you end a stroke, make sure to pull up slowly, when you press the brush down to write, make sure to lift your wrist up slowly, this way your brush head will look nice…” Minglan and little Changdong were sitting side by side in front of a chimney, with Minglan demonstrating stroke by stroke, Cui mama came from outside, carrying a small tea tray that was engraved with black painted flowers, on top of it were two white porcelain cups with colorful flowers engravings.

“Thank you Cui mama. I’m causing trouble for you, it’s all my fault, making you have to work more.” Changdong’s face blushed a little as he took the porcelain cup that Cui mama passed to him while saying a gentle thank you. When he was at Wang Shi’s place, he would not dare to move around; he had only talked to Concubine Xiang the whole day but still didn’t say much either, after several days since Minglan started teaching him, not only did his learning improved; he can also finally speak neatly.

“Oh Buddha, my little boy, why would you say this, it’s all thanks to you coming or else I will have to work a lot harder just to wake this lady up!” Cui mama laughs as she scolds Minglan but Minglan choose to ignore what she heard and only lowers her head and blow the porcelain cup in her hands, Cui mama looks towards Changdong, “Fourth young master you better drink the tea; this is stewed from the new mahogany and plum brown sugar to become a sweet tea; it moisten the lungs and warms the stomach, this is best to drink in the morning, it can also serve as an appetizer for breakfast.”

Changdong held the cup with his two hands and took a sip of the tea, his little mouth was covered in red because of the smoke [6]. He puffed his white cheeks out and tasted the sweetness of the tea wholeheartedly and shyly said, “It really tastes good, thank you mama… But if I would be drinking this every day, then wouldn’t it be hard in your pockets, you don’t have to do this for me in the future, I do not need to drink this…” his words getting softer and softer.

Cui mama said, laughing, “Fourth young master is actually worrying for us, how could this small amount of tea be hard on us? If you come every morning, then I shall serve you tea every day! Just that we don’t know, whether you sixth older sister would have the will…”

With mirth, she looked at Minglan; Minglan forced a hearty smile. Which book said that time traveling to the past to be a young missy would let her sleep the whole day, all lies!

Outside the cabinet with engraved pears, Danju was tasked to help Minglan pack up her bags and put out papers to be used for calligraphy in a bamboo case. Xiaotao who was helping her from a side, obtusely asked, “Older sister Danju, Fourth Young Master coming here is a good thing, but our young lady looks very tired, look at her; yawning with all her might. I would rather let her sleep more, why can’t she teach Fourth Young Master at noon?”

Danju’s wrinkled her delicate eyebrows, and gave a hand signal to Xiaotao to shut her mouth and softly told her, “Don’t gossip! This residence houses many young masters and young ladies. Nobody is better than anyone else. The old madam is already having a hard time, having to make sure that she is not biased to anybody. We have the blessing of getting to live by following the old madam and being safe because of Concubine Wei, who did not say any bad thing to the head, that’s it. you have no idea how much terrible things happened! Minglan’s flatteries and the secret slandered is just one of the many, we should not spread baseless rumors, but fortunately, our lady has a big heart, and never put these things on her heart.

If she continues to be so close to the fourth young master and make him keep on walking in and out of Shou’An Hall, at that point it would be something else different. One can see that fourth young master looks really pathetic; the young lady is not easy to take care of and the old lady doesn’t seem to care and now that he is yearning to learn new words, it is just right.”

Xiaotao was dazed for a moment and her small face which was filled with freckles suddenly looks so lost: “…Older sister Danju, our young lady is polite and had never fought with her sisters, but the old madam pities her and treats her better, if so how would these be gossips?”

Xiaotao nods seriously, then looked down and started working again but then suddenly says: “Oh yeah, I better go and tell those four plants [7] not to gossip about our lady teaching fourth young master!”

Danju covers her laughs and mimicked Minglan and says: “Very good, very good, you pick up things fairly fast.”

Part 2

Time flew by and the Sheng Household was peaceful and eventless. Old Madam Sheng had tidied up the rules of the house, the major power in the household slowly returned to Wang Shi’s hand but people still had their own power in their courtyards and they would ask Old Madam Sheng whenever they had uncertainties. Upon seeing that the household was in order and the maids were able to manage the house better and were more obedient, Sheng Hong felt very satisfied. Only Concubine Lin complained. Regardless, Sheng Hong remembering Governess Kong’s words, stubbornly chose to ignore Concubine Lin even when the siblings, Changfeng and Molan, interceded. Sheng Hong would respond by standing his ground and scolding them.

Concubine Lin refused to let things be. A good few years of spoiling her made her get used to being spoiled, so she resorted to underhanded means like a sudden illness, a sudden resentment, a child crying, a sudden provokation but Sheng Hong in the end, had been sharing a bed with her for more than a decade so no matter how many schemes she used it would be no more than an old trick. Because of this, Sheng Hong had built an immune system against these tricks. He was reminded of back when he was young, when Old Madam Sheng was still serving him; she had been kind to him. Thinking of how their relationship became how it was now made him feel that he was lacking filial piety. This caused an emotional domino effect, resulting in him having an even colder heart towards concubine Lin and devoting his heart into his job.

Encouraging farming, dispatching merchants, within just three years of service under the Deng Prefecture’s governance the place became rich, turned over a lot of taxes, made good performances and with the help of his good connections, there would often be people taking care of things from afar. When the three-year term expired; he would retake and score the evaluation test, rise to a fifth rank officer and assume position again.

With the pride of an official and focusing on having a smooth career, Sheng Hong paid little attention to Concubine Lin’s moods but rather against the poorly tempered Wang Shi, after arguing with her a few times; he got used to it. Today, when he stood his ground, Wang Shi also had nothing to retort. Every time she made mistakes, she would be criticized by Sheng Hong. ‘Not filial’, ‘disrespectful ‘, ‘not virtuous’, after all these retorts had become useless against Sheng Hong, Wang Shi had no strength to fight back while Sheng Hong again and again emerged victorious. On his normal days he would go to the young and beautiful Concubine Xiang and Concubine Ping to soothe his mood and guide his children’s school work; living quite leisurely.

Whenever Concubine Lin notices that the atmosphere was not right, she would go gentle on her schemes and did not dare to mention any request, spending almost all her energy trying to coax Sheng Hong.

Minglan concealed herself in Shou’an Hall with Old Madam Sheng accompanying her; a youngster and an elder coming together and spending their time harmoniously and laughing constantly. Every time Sheng Hong went to Shou’an Hall he felt that the atmosphere was very pleasing and comfortable, it relaxed his mind. The Old Madam was chatting more comfortable while sometimes holding Minglan’s embroidery works. This new feeling of sincere love was quite pleasant, plus with Molan and Rulan working together, Changbai and Changfeng also considered being successful in their studies and with the wife and the concubines also holding their tempers, at first glance, it was all quite harmonious. Sheng Hong felt a new sense of peace and prosperity.

This afternoon they would be attending Mrs. Zhuang’s guzheng class, Minglan’s fingers had been hurting since this morning but Mr. Zhuang kept instructing endlessly; if this went on, there would be no time to rest at noon. Looking up with pity filled eyes; she found out that other than her and Changdong who was practicing writing, all the others were focused on the discussion.

The trending topic in the capital was about the third prince and the fourth prince. The Third Prince had worked his concubines hard, toiling day and night with little to no payback. Up until now he had still not been able to procure a son and the palace invited many a priests and monks; burning incense and praying every day. This attracted lots of attention from officers who were originally just on-lookers since the Fourth Prince’s only son was growing well, already starting to learn to talk. The Fourth Prince had an open heart and a fat body but a rather good temper, thus he held an attraction to the public.

The Emperor’s body was getting worse day by day, the debate about the next candidate had been heating up, and both sides had their own people wagging the flag and moving through the scriptures. It was all awfully noisy.

Mr. Zhuang spoke about a book called <<Confucius’s the=”” of=”” west=”” rituals=”” and=”” family=””>>, inside the book was a sentence: ‘when the Crown Prince died, the Emperor didn’t give the crown prince position to his grandson (crown prince’s son) but instead named the Emperor’s other son the successor'[8]. A good teacher would try to link theories with these topics, plus this Mister had a heroic attitude so he threw out this topic so that students could talk about their own opinion of whether the next ruler of the country should be the rightful heir (crown prince) or someone determined by merit.

At the beginning Chinghai and Changfeng opposed, thinking that speaking ill of the palace would bring about trouble, but Mr. Zhuang waved his hand, smiled and said: “There would be no problem, nowadays even the capital’s teahouse are often talking about this, let alone those princes, government officials and senior officials, discussing behind closed doors won’t attract any trouble. Besides what we are discussing is whether the next ruler of the country should be the rightful heir or someone determined; it has nothing to do with the government; we are all just discussing!”

A teacher’s word had great might in the Sheng Residence, so the students immediately joined the discussion. Both sides are very clear, Changbai and Rulan were naturally on the rightful heir side while Changfeng and Molan were on the determined side. Meanwhile Minglan was fishing in troubled waters [9] while Changdong abstained.

Changbai opened the debate with first implicitly proposing the previous Emperor Qin Ershi, Hu Hai, [10] who’s known as the Rotten Emperor; he wasn’t in the line of inheritance and had ruined the good dynasty. Changfeng quickly refuted it with the example of the dynasty in the hand of Emperor of Wu of Han Liu Che the 10th son of Emperor Jing of Han, who was the oldest living son of Emperor Wen of Han [11]. Changbai countered by continuing reading the classic historical and immediately concisely pointed out Emperor Jing’s of Han love of the little Liu Che to the point of spoiling him and that Liu Che’s mother, Wang Zhi was appointed to become the next empress after the previous empress died. According to the customs of inheritance, it was justifiable for Liu Che to be the next one to take the throne; this was precisely the principle of direct inheritance.

Changfeng’s heart thumped and Molan followed, warmly putting forward the famous fool Emperor Hui of Jin [12]; in a thin and soft voice she said, “… All civil officials and military officials know the wisdom of Emperor Hui of Jin, once he got the throne by being the crown prince, then came the chaos of Jia Nanfeng and the eight princes fighting for power [13], if the throne was only given to another prince, Jin dynasty wouldn’t be in the south [14], Big Brother, what do you say?”

Even if Rulan lacked theoretical weapons, she was still great at carrying the momentum, “How many foolish people such as the Emperor Hui of Jin can there be? It couldn’t be fourth older sister treats all concubine-born children as foolish, right?”

Then they continued citing many extreme examples like the Emperor spending a long time in promoting child’s growth in places, distressing narration of Emperor Yang’s tyranny to the people that had caused a lot of disasters, then quickly counterattacking it with an example of Li Shimin’s (Emperor Taizong’s of Tang) reign of Zhenguan era that was considered to be one of the golden age of China to blow the debate again, the second young master might not be as good as the eldest son but both sides were evenly matched. Meanwhile Mr. Zhuang thought that this is actually quite endearing; they all spoke like a pie – smooth. It was just that they were full of doubts.

Talking for a long time made their mouths dry but then when he tried to find Minglan; he found Minglan leisurely sitting in the side, making him immediately observe Minglan’s situation. This caused Minglan’s eye to widen and freeze! If this time she pretended to be ignorant again, she would gradually be looked down upon by others and would think that her intellectual ability was not on par with the others. Too much cowardice in the life of the young lady, how that would end, she already had a good idea [15].

But of course, answering this would not be consistent with Minglan’s character so she thought before she gave a smile to her siblings and Mr. Zhuang and then said, “I care only about the mind; cannot be stupid, but I have a problem in my heart but I can’t say it out, so might as well put on a show for people to see, count it as entertainment, how about that? But later, all of you better not say a word about it.”

Mr. Zhuang in good mood, gladly nodded with the others. Minglan called for Danju to come in, then whispered something in her ear. After Danju answered under her breath before proceeding to call three little maidservants, one of whom was the new maidservant, Yan Cao who was assigned to cut the grass at Minglan’s courtyard, while the other two were Rulan’s and Molan’s new maidservants.

Three little maidservants stood timidly at the front of the room and then kowtowed as a salute to the master. They then stood straight and glanced at each other in confusion.

Minglan warned them with three sentences, “Mr. Zhuang is now lecturing us, so today comment about our best and lowest of us, three sisters. Mr. Zhuang had just come in to lecture as recently and we are not good at boasting about ourselves. We’ll pay the three of you for the lip service that you would give and the one who says the best would be given a reward by their master!”

Can Yao looked pleasantly surprised at Minglan and the other two went to look at their own masters. Seeing the three ladies were nodding their heads, they affirmed that Minglan was telling the truth. Minglan smiled and looked at the several spectators and sternly said to the three maidservants: “The maidservant to talk first is Fourth Older Sister’s, then Fifth Older Sister’s and then mine. The three young maidservants, which do you think is the most virtuous, smart and has a good temper?”

The young maidservants in the end were still young and lacking. One by one they spoke; one said that Rulan practiced calligraphy every day and respected her parents; the other said that Molan learnt poems every day and had a soft demeanor; Can Yao said that at quite often at night, Minglan practiced embroidery. At the beginning they said things delicately and Minglan, at the side couldn’t withstand it so she tries hard to encourage them. From time to time she would say mention things like that the reward would increase. This made them become more and more vigorous in talking and even start to get anxious and blush later on but they didn’t forget to point that the other side is nonsense; rebutting what the other maidservants say in between their personal attacks.

Minglan waved her hand; stopping them before they quarrelled and asked, “I ask you again, among the three of us sisters; who’s the oldest?” This time there was no objection from the three little maidservants, and they were whispering that it was Molan. Behind her, Minglan heard sounds of moving but ignored it and asked again, “Then among the three of us sisters, was is born from the legal wife?” This time Rulan’s servant answered loudly: “It’s my lady.” The others muttered vague replies.

Minglan looked back at the crowd and smiled. Mr. Zhuang’s eyes showed signs of praise as he sent a small nod towards her. Minglan recognised that this was an indication of praise and cheerfully turned around. Changfeng looked at his brother, Changbai and they stared at each other for a while. It was Changbai who broke the stare first as he swiftly shifted his gaze to the outside and gave a smile. Minglan was incredible.

Sheng Changbai, this person, compared to all the people in the Sheng was different; with a silent nature, strictly upright attitude, accomplished although young and regardless of what books he’s read, he was still conscious and experienced yet talkative, cheerful and flourishing contrary to Sheng Hong. It was said that he resembled the late grandfather of the Wang Household and Wang Shi had also said he had the face of her dead mother.

Today this smile, it was likely that even the younger sister Rulan and concubine Xiao would not enjoy this. Minglan held her hair to cool her neck.

At this time, Changfeng could not help but open his mouth, “Sixth Younger Sister is so wrong.” Everyone looked at him, only to see Changfeng’s eyebrows were raised before he continued, “These little maidservants have just come in recently. They haven’t learned all the rules, how would they distinguish the wise and have a good temper? Naturally it caused a quarrel.” Changbai did not speak. He only slightly raised his mouth as Minglan let out an ‘oh’ and said, “What Third Older Brother said is reasonable, what do you think?”

And then she went back and asked the three small maidservants. Minglan looked serious, “You are young and you do not understand the rules, but you have eyes, I come to ask you, between the three ladies, which is the best-looking, the most talented and is the most virtous? The total score came out.”

[1] a special type of silk.

[2] 皇妃 it translates as Empress or rather Emperor’s concubine, but we use phoenix because phoenix fits better in the sentence and phoenix mostly means as empress.

[3] Molan name is 墨兰, where 墨 means ink.

[4] Cervical spondylosis, also known as cervical osteoarthritis or neck arthritis, is a common, age-related condition that affects the joints and discs in your neck. It develops from wear and tear of the cartilage and bones found in your cervical spine, which is in your neck. While it’s largely due to age, it can be caused by other factors as well.

[5] mama = old maid

[6] There’s tea where its smoke can color your mouth.

[7] cause the four new maids Minglan has had names of plant.

In any case, you didn’t understand what they were saying, here’s the summary:

Cui mama is happy that Changdong is visiting Minglan as with this it is easier to wake up Minglan. Xiatao asks Danju why Minglan couldn’t teach Changdong at noon. Danju then told her that she shouldn’t say such things as it is bad when someone hears that Minglan is teaching Changdong since it would look like Minglan then is better than Changdong, then bad gossip about Minglan would be release. Danju then said that their lives are not like them and they shouldn’t dwell on it when Xiatao realized this she went to tell the four new maids not to spread about this.

[8] [ 公仪仲子嫡子死而立其弟] this is the closes translation we can give to this sentence. It’s simply saying that the emperor doesn’t give the crown prince position to the crown prince’s son but instead to his (Emperor’s) other sons.

[9] Fishing in trouble waters = to involve oneself in a difficult, confused, or dangerous situation, especially with a view to gaining an advantage.

[10] =Real Name: Hu Hai

Title once he became the emperor: Emperor Qin Ershi (Qin stands for Qin Dynasty, with Ershi standing as the second emperor of the Dynasty)

Short summary: He isn’t the crown prince and if it wasn’t for his advisor’s help he wouldn’t have become an emperor. The advisor is only helping him so he could take the throne from him. And as you guess it the dynasty was in chaos in his hands.

[11] =Real Name: Liu Che

Title when he became the emperor: Emperor Wu of Han (Han stands for Han Dynasty).

Short Summary: Originally just a concubine-born child but with the Empress of his father (Emperor Jing) childless and disposed along with the original crown prince (born from a concubine), he appoints Wang Zhi (Liu Che’s mom) his empress and with that the seven-years-old Liu Che being the oldest son of the empress became the crown prince. For more info:

=Real Name: Liu Qi

Title when he became the emperor: Emperor Jing of Han (Han stands for Han Dynasty).

Short Summary: Father of Liu Che, the oldest child of Emperor Wen. A concubine-born.

=Real Name: Liu Heng

Title when he became the emperor: Emperor Wen of Han (Han stands for Han Dynasty).

Short Summary of him: Father of Liu Qi.

[12] =Real Name: Sima Zhong

Title when he became the emperor: Emperor Hui of Jin (Jin stands for Jin Dynasty).

Short Summary of him: Was a concubine-born and also has mental disorder. Here’s an example of how worse it is:

Once, when he heard frogs croaking, he asked, in all seriousness, “Do they croak because they want to, or because the government ordered them to?”

[13] Jia Nanfeng = the Empress of Emperor Hui. Was controlling the emperor to attain power and was involved in killing princes and people of high power. She was one of the main causes of the War of the Eight Princes.

[14] Because of their military strength weaken with the fight of the eight princes; Jin (The dynasty) was force to evacuate to south when the barbarian fought them. Things could have gone differently if the previous emperor gave the throne to someone else and not the Emperor Hui who can’t even manage to secure his position and get rid of the threats.

[15] [处处缩手缩脚的结局迎春小姐已经很好的诠释了] Because we don’t know if this 春小姐 is a new character and since it doesn’t really fit that this is a new character from how it goes, so we decided to translate it as (春小) young lady’s (春) life.

Short summary of the debate:

Rightful Heir Side: Changbai and Rulan (because Changbai is the direct inheritance like the crown prince)

Someone Who’s Determined Side: Changfeng and Molan (because why not?)

Changbai first throw out about the Emperor Ershi who wasn’t the crown prince yet had succeeded the throne and had therefore ruined the dynasty. Changfeng fights back with Emperor Wu who was a concubine-born child yet had succeed the throne and had continue the prosperity of the dynasty, only to be corrected by Changbai that before Emperor Wu became the Emperor, his mother was appointed as the next empress and since he’s the oldest child of the empress, even if he wasn’t born when she was an empress, that still made him technically the crown prince.

Molan fights back by throwing out the foolish Emperor Hui, saying that if the crown prince (Emperor Hui) hadn’t took the throne, Jing Dynasty wouldn’t have been in chaos as it’s because of the Emperor being useless that cause a chaos in power and destroying the dynasty. Rulan retorts back that it had only happened one time and that there wasn’t any other Emperor who was like him.

Then it goes with them continuing providing of what the previous emperors did until Minglan speaks up saying she cares more about the mind and then gave a demonstration of her problem of trusting the history by using the three maidservants of how in the eyes of a lot of people, things can be different -in other words debating about the previous emperors based on records is pointless.