CH 111

Chapter 111 – Interest

PeiYan thought of YuTang’s distinct, clear like spring-water eyes.

Always looking at the world with bright and curious eyes.

This kind of spirited young lady, if you were to leave her at home, she would still somehow manage to cause mischief.

Pei Yan tossed a piece of peanut crisp into his mouth.

Wasn’t this a good example? She couldn’t leave the house, so she made peanut crisps at home.

If she continued to stay at home further, who knows what else she would send?

“Ah Ming,” he called, “Invite Lady Yu for tea.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he suddenly remembered all the guests living in his family’s residence and immediately changed his mind, “I’d better go see Lady Yu instead. Have them to prepare an ordinary sedan chair, we’ll go and return quietly.”

In the evening, he still had a reception banquet to host.

Ah Ming responded and went.

Half an hour later, a small sedan with green curtains left the back door of the Pei Mansion quietly and unnoticed.

All the Pei family’s guests stayed in the Violet Qi East Pavilion. Although it was called a pavilion, it was actually a compound with nine winding paths and turns, and when you look around, there were flower walls and little footpaths everywhere, so it was easy to get lost and lose your sense of direction.

The grand elder of the Peng family was standing in front of a wide open window. On his left was a bamboo forest, and on his right was a picturesque stone landscape of Taihu lake.

“The Pei family is quite interesting.” He grunted a little and said mildly, “If we were to visit another guest staying here, I’m afraid we would be lost.”

He was about fifty years old, tall, with a beard, thick eyebrows and big eyes, and had a refined bearing, like a scholar who was well-versed in poetry and literature.

Behind him was a man of twenty-five or six years old, he had strikingly handsome features, but unfortunately, his face was marred by a purplish scar that ran diagonally from the corner of his eye to the corner of his mouth, which was not only hideous, but also menacing, making people avert their eyes.

“Eldest uncle,” he whispered, “So, are we still visiting the Wu family from Huzhou?”

He spoke with a mild voice, but his eyes revealed a hostile aura that showed his impatience.

The Peng family and the Wu family had partnered up in some shady dealings in the past and thus, they could talk to each other without reservation.

“Of course.” The Peng family’s patriarch turned to the young man and said, “Pei Yan said that this is an auction, but it’s only a cover for making all the families compete and destroy each another. I heard that the Wu family was the first to arrive. Going by their family’s usual way of doing things. before the auction starts, they would certainly try to find collaborators, and deprive Pei Yan of his monopoly over the price. At that time, we’ll just join in as well.”

The youth wanted to say something in reply but stopped himself.

The Peng family’s patriarch replied, “Eleven, you have to remember, the imperial court wants to remove the maritime division and only by joining forces can we ward off the danger this time. The auction will begin in two days, so you should not show yourself. Be careful when you go out at night too, the Pei family is not simple. You should think of an excuse now, just in case you’re discovered so as to not cause any misunderstandings.”

The courtyard wasn’t very big, with seven or eight prominent families living in it at the same time, along with the complex web of relationships among them. Everybody came because of the valuable nautical chart, and it was easy for people to get the impression that they had ulterior motives for wandering in the courtyard in the middle of the night.

The young man called “Eleven” was the “Eleventh Master Peng”, that Lin Jue spoke of.

He respectfully acquiesced, but raised his head and said discontentedly, “No matter how powerful the Pei family is, they only produced one Pei Yu. Now that he is dead, the rest of them, Pei Xuan is weak and incompetent, Pei Yan is arrogant, over-confident and narrow-minded. After taking over as head of the Pei family, instead of thinking of ways to make the Pei family reach further heights, he focused on suppressing the eldest branch. In my view, even if the Pei family still had some value, it is only a broken ship. Eldest uncle need not be concerned.”

Eldest master Peng frowned.

His nephew was a scholarly genius. At a young age, he pass the provincial scholar examination, and the Peng family spent a lot of resources to support him, so much so that he and Gu Chang of the Gu family in Hangzhou were called “The brightest minds of the times”. Unfortunately, his face was ruined in an accident and he was unable to advance further in his career and he could only manage their family’s general affairs. On the other hand, Gu Chang was able to raise up in ranks and achieve numerous successes. This made his nephew cynical, bitter and resentful. Many matters that could be resolved amicably was settled by him with aggression, violence and bloodshed, making people recoil in disgust.

However, this nephew of his was undoubtedly intelligent.

He was capable of accomplishing many things that others can’t. It was a pity to abandon such talent but there was danger in using him as well.

Fortunately, he was filial, devoted to their family’s affairs, and sufficiently compliant to the elders of the family. Even if he did not agree with the family’s decisions, but once the decision was made, he would still follow it.

This was also why several elders felt that they should train him further.

But he was also extremely prideful.

The brilliant minds of the world were evaluated at his whim and fancy, and no one was good enough for him to take them seriously.

However, circumstances dictate who the heroes will be. No matter PeiYan or PeiXuan, they were legitimate double honor imperial scholars. Even if Eleven should be more intelligent, more resourceful, more talented, better-versed in all the arts, if his talent was not utilised by the emperor, he could only look on as others steer the country’s course and leave their names in history. He could only admit defeat and resign himself to his fate!

However, now was not the time to talk to him about this. Once they returned to Fujian, they could have a proper discussion with him then.

Otherwise he would really think that he could control these people like marionettes, seriously lacking in self-awareness!

“This is the Pei family’s territory, even if the Pei family is rotting from the inside, you must not be presumptuous.” Grand Elder Peng admonished him, “Don’t you forget, at the very beginning, we felt that the painting should be easy enough for us to obtain, yet what happened?”

A trace of hostility flashed across the bottom of Eleventh Master Peng’s eyes.

At first, the Peng family was afraid of alerting the Pei family and attracting unwanted attention of the other families, so they decided to find an inconspicuous person to get their hands on the painting, and he was also one of those in agreement with such a decision.

“Eldest uncle, I know.” Eleventh Master Peng bowed his head and said, “There will be no mistakes this time.”

Grand Elder Peng nodded his head.

He was still confident that his nephew would do a good job.

“I’ll be meeting the Wu family later to have a feel of their thoughts on the auction.” He mused, “Perhaps we can even team up with the Wu family.”

The segment of the nautical chart that the Pei family took out to show them was the same as the one they had in their possession.

They had no way to figure out what exactly went wrong, or if the nautical chart they had was real or if the Pei family’s copy was the real one instead. Therefore their family was forced to participate in this auction.

Grand Elder Pei was an amicable and honest man, but he heard stories of Pei Yan’s tyrannical nature. This was his first time interacting with Pei Yan, so he didn’t know Pei Yan’s character well. If Pei Yan intends to use this nautical chart as his golden goose, their family will have to incur heavy losses.

That’s nothing.

There will always be losses and gains.

The only fear was that the auctioned nautical chart and their family’s was exactly the same, or that the Pei family’s was a fake …… that will really be infuriating.

Although Pei Yan knows that the Peng family was up to not good, but he had a dry sense of humor. For people like the Peng family, he had an even stronger urge to mess with them. Whatever the Peng family wants to do, he would let them be, and so he naturally he did not bother to assign people to keep an eye on the Peng family’s movements.

After all, they are living in the Pei family’s estate; there is nothing that can be kept hidden from him.

He stopped the carriage in the alley by the back door of the Yu family’s home.

Normally not many people passed by here.

Especially in the afternoon, most of the men in Qingzhu Lane were working in their stores, and the women were either resting or doing needlework, so it was very quiet.

He reminded Ah Ming, “Be careful not to disturb Mrs. Yu. I don’t want to make a formal house visit.”

Ah Ming knew that his Third Master did not like socializing, so he assented and went to the front door to knock.

The person who came to answer the door was Old Aunty Chen, who heard Ah Ming say that he was the Pei family’s attendant who came looking for Yu Tang. Seeing how cute he was, she liked him very much and took him to Yu Tang’s place without asking further.

Yu Tang was surprised to see Ah Ming, and when she found out the reason for Ah Ming’s visit, she got extremely worried and confused.

She sent Shuang Tao to bring Ah Ming some peanut crisps, and she lowered her voice, asking Ah Ming, “You were saying that Third Master wants to see me, and his carriage is at the back door of our house?”

Ah Ming nodded several times. He saw that Yu Tang was wearing a red silk robe, her face was white as a snow jade, and she was smiling, looking kind and affable. He kind-heartedly tipped off Yu Tang and said, “Our Third Master is probably concerned about your family’s mountain forest land. He asked about it before he came.”

Yu Tang had wanted to meet Pei Yan for a while now, and it was good that things worked out this way.

“Please wait!” Yu Tang was also afraid of Pei Yan coming inside her house. With his finnicky temperament, who wouldn’t be uncomfortable in his presence? Besides, her mother had just taken her medicine and was resting in bed. If she knew that Pei Yan came, she would most definitely get up and receive him personally. Yu Tang replied, “I’ll inform my family and meet with Third Master.”

Ah Ming took the peanut crisps given by Shuang Tao and left in high spirits. Yu Tang instructed Shuang Tao to cover for her, before slipping out of the back door to see Pei Yan.

The weather was getting warmer with each passing day. Pei Yan wore a moon-white silk jacket with a small green seal around his waist, and he stood there like a statuesque tree, with unparalleled elegance.

Yu Tang quietly admired the scene for a brief moment.

Unexpectedly, when she saw him in person, she lost her train of thought.

“Why are you so slow?” Pei Yan said with annoyance, “I’ll just ask you some questions before going off.”

Completely devoid of any gentlemanly air.

Yu Tang inwardly criticized him.

If it wasn’t for the fact that she happened to be dressed “properly” today, she wouldn’t have been able to meet him outside so quickly either!

However, when she thought of Ah Ming saying that Pei Yan was here about their family’s mountain forest, she felt that she shouldn’t be so petty and argue with Pei Yan about this.

“Third Master, what do you need?” She got straight to the point.

Pei Yan didn’t realize that there was something wrong with his tone of voice and words, and Yu Tang’s straightforwardness also kept him from having to beat around the bush, so he was in a pretty good mood.

“That mountain forest land belonging to your family, have you decided what to plant?” He said briskly, “The spring season for planting seeds is already over, so if you still continue being indecisive, you will have to postpone it for another year.”

Yu Tang was hoping to find out what Pei Yan had to say, and this was exactly what she wanted. She replied, “I always thought it was good to plant sea buckthorn trees previously, but everyone told me not to plant it. So I just wanted to ask, if our family forest land was sold to you, what would you plant?”

What did she mean?

She wanted to sell the forest land to his family because it was useless?

Did he look like a fool?

Pei Yan’s face darkened. He answered, “You want to sell the mountain forest land to my family?”

“No, no.” Yu Tang realized that Pei Yan misunderstood her and hurriedly continued, “I meant it as an example. If it were you, what would you do?”

This kind of assumption is pointless.

Pei Yan was irked and said, “I’ve never thought about it. I wouldn’t know.” After saying that, as if his words didn’t relieve his feelings of frustration, he continued, “Unless your family’s situation was dire, and you had to sell the fields and land in order to live, on account of us being neighbours, I would help you out by buying it. Once I’ve bought it, I’ll have to give my family an explanation, so I’ll have no choice but to rack my brains for a suitable course of action, so maybe I’ll think about it carefully then.”