CH 114

Chapter 114 – A Favor

There’s something like that?

Yu Tang got interested and wanted to learn more. The tea room was a short distance away from them, so she quickly hid behind the pillar to eavesdrop on their conversation.

Unfortunately, their voices were too soft, and the distance between them was a little far, so she did not hear anything.

Yu Tang was sorely disappointed and became a little distracted while setting up the wedding hall, almost knocking over the fruit plates on the long table. She quickly cleared her wandering thoughts and focused on preparing for Yu Yuan’s wedding.

The wedding ceremony went smoothly.

The bride got off the sedan chair, paid respects, and was sent to the bridal chamber, and Yu Tang took Madam Chen’s arm to visit the bride.

Lady Xiang was clad in a red wedding gown, her headpiece was full of pearls and precious jewels, and was beautifully dressed. All the women who came to watch the ceremony sang her praises and felt that the Yu family had made a good marriage match.

As her sister-in-law, Yu Tang naturally had to take care of her.

She quietly asked Lady Xiang, “Is sister-in-law hungry?” She also wanted to help make a good impression for Yu Yuan and said, “When my elder brother went to receive the bride, he repeatedly instructed me to take good care of my future sister-in-law. I have hidden some cakes and pastries, so if sister-in-law is hungry or needs to go to the washroom, remember to tell me, I have already planned out everything.”

As per tradition, the new bride was not allowed to leave the bridal chamber, so if the husband’s side did not arrange anything in advance, she would end up hungry and thirsty without even a cup of water to quench her thirst.

Although Yu Tang is Yu Yuan’s cousin, but the two branches of the Yu family only had the two of them, therefore, the relationship between them was akin to them being siblings. Therefore, Yu Tang can be considered as her only sister-in-law, so she naturally wanted to be good to her as well. As soon as Lady Xiang heard her words, she replied: “My nursemaid also came with me, and she has prepared some water and snacks, so you do not have to worry.” After saying this, she quietly slipped a purse she had prepared earlier and hidden in her sleeves into Yu Tang’s hand and said in a low voice, “This is specially prepared for you. Earlier, there were too many people around and I couldn’t take it out. Take this and buy some flower headpieces to wear.”

Her sister-in-law’s kindness, Yu Tang naturally received it happily.

The purse was heavy in her hand, and Yu Tang guessed that it was filled with silver ingots or silver melon seeds.

This was a very generous gift.

Yu Tang was touched and thanked Lady Xiang with a smile. After that, she stayed by Lady Xiang’s side to take care of her and waited until Yu Yuan had completed his wine toasting with the guests and had returned to the bridal chamber before she left. 

The next day, Lady Xiang prepared a celebratory gift for Yu Tang as per the customs, a pair of shoes and socks, and two rolls of fine cloth. The socks were made from Songjiang fine cloth, and the shoes were embellished with pearls the size of rice grains. The two rolls of cloth, one was red with gold trimmings, and the another was a yellow-green two-tone cloth, unique and beautiful. Even Madam Chen did not manage to conceal her surprise and contrary to the elders’ usual reserved manner, exclaimed “So expensive!”.

Perhaps it was because she was really satisfied with the marriage, Lady Xiang smiled widely and her eyes showed her elation.

She said warmly, “Dearest sister is so beautiful. You ought to dress up prettily. If Aunt says such things, it will only make me embarrassed.”

Madam Chen thought of the fact that Yu Tang’s marriage was still not settled, and these two cloths were indeed excellent gifts, and she liked them very much, so she stopped resisting and asked Yu Tang to thank Lady Xiang.

Yu Tang took Lady Xiang’s arm and sweetly called her “sister-in-law”, making Lady Xiang, who grew up with a bunch of boys in the Wei family, so happy that she repeatedly nodded her head, and if she hadn’t been afraid of breaking customs, she would have given Yu Tang the Hetian jade bracelet she had on as well.

Yu Tang was resolved to form a good relationship with Lady Xiang – when she returned home yesterday, she opened the purse Lady Xiang gave her and found it full of gold melon seeds.

This showed how much Lady Xiang valued her.

After three days, Lady Xiang and Yu Yuan visited the Wei family.

They had to return to the bride’s home twice.

The first time was the Wei family’s, and the second time was nine days later to the Xiang family’s.

Fortunately, both trips went well.

After that, the two newlyweds started to manage their finances and inventory, and the new lady of house was busy getting acquainted with various relatives, neighbors and friends.

In the blink of an eye, it was already the end of March.

During this period, Yu Tang asked people to inquire about Li Duan’s wedding, but Li family’s main doors were locked up and closed to guests.

Allegedly, Mrs. Li was sick and went to Hangzhou for medical treatment, and Li Duan went along as her companion.

Neighbors commented that Li Duan was very filial, as he even stopped his studies and accompanied his mother to Hangzhou, and wondered if he would delay sitting for the exams in the following year.

Some discussed the sort of illness Mrs. Li had and whether it was serious, and expressed sorrow that if Mrs. Li could not survive, and with Old Master Li’s age, he would certainly want to remarry, and by then the two sons of the Li family would not have it as good as they had it now.

Yutang listened and pursed her lips into a grim line, secretly deploring the fact that she hadn’t heard anything of interest.

At this time, the Peng, Tao and other families would have already returned to their respective homes. Pei Yan surmised that the Yu family would also be more or less done with their family affairs and arranged for Yu Wen to come over for some tea.

Yu Wen understood that it was likely to be about the matters surrounding the auction.

He saw that Lady Xiang was a capable and intelligent woman, and asked Yu Yuan: “Should I have Lady Xiang come along as well?”

Yu Yuan immediately vetoed it. “I think it’s best for her to remain at home. The fewer, the better =  lesser people should be aware of the nautical chart.”

For example, his mother Madam Wang and aunt, Madam Chen, were still kept in the dark. Just because Lady Xiang was married to him and acted prudently, they should not treat her differently.

As long as his nephew was fine with the arrangement, Yu Wen didn’t have any opinions.

He handed the things he had prepared to give to Pei Yan to Yu Yuan, saying “Take these, and be careful not to break them!”

It was a pair of azure-colored Ru kiln slim-neck plum vases.

He had asked Master Wu to buy them.

Master Wu had gone to great lengths to find them for the family, and the two plum vases totalled 4,400 taels of silver, which was a discounted price thanks to Master Wu’s efforts. At the time, Master Wu was concerned that their family did not have so much silver on hand, and politely said, “There is also a pair of coral-red, three-inches high vases. It will also be good as a gift or to keep as dowry for your daughter, costing only 1,200 taels.”

Yu Wen did not hesitate in selecting the more expensive pair of plum vases.

The freshly issued silver bills obtained from the auction of the nautical chart was still warm in his pockets as Yu Wen counted out 4,400 taels and gave it to Master Wu.

Master Wu took the silver bills and laughed, saying to Yu Wen, “I’ve lived next door to you for such a long time, but I didn’t expect you to be this composed and have such deep pockets.”

Yu Wen blushed and replied, “This is a thank you gift for someone important, so we have to show our sincerity.”

Master Wu wasn’t a nosy person, he merely listened and didn’t pry further. He accepted the silver bills and left.

Yu Yuan carefully carried the pair of brocade boxes containing plum vases and went to the Pei’s residence with Yu Wen and Yu Tang.

Pei Yan met them in his study where he had first received them.

It was a beautiful spring day, and they sat under the balsam fir tree in the courtyard in front of the study to chat.

“An incident occurred during the auction.” Pei Yan wore a lustrous fine cloth robe, and his raven-black hair was casually pinned back with a bamboo hairpin. He looked relaxed and comfortable as he sat on the tai shi chair, commenting, “I was expecting several families to work out a countermeasure, and the nautical chart might not fetch a high price. However, who knew that the Tao family would partner up with the Sheng and Yin family, and that the Wu family would team up with the Song and Peng family. Both sides jointly won the nautical chart. The Lee family, as expected, did not intervene. Although the result was a little different from my expectations, but at least nothing went wrong, so it can be said to be a success.”

Yu Wen did not conceal his gratitude and said openly, “Not only was it a success, but it’s already the best outcome we could have. No trouble would result from a monopoly, and there will also be no issues arising from it being too common and thus, being unappreciated by everyone. If it weren’t for you, this matter would not have proceeded so smoothly. Speaking of which, I really have to thank Third Master!”

Pei Yan exchanged a few polite niceties.

Yu Tang hesitated for a moment, as she struggled to decide if she should speak up or not.

Pei Yan smiled and said, “Lady Yu, if you have anything to say, just say it. I will definitely tell you everything I know.”

He seemed to be in a very good mood.

Upon seeing this, Yu Tang said straightforwardly, “The Peng and Song family ……”

If she remembered correctly, the Song and Pei family were relatives.

Pei Yan didn’t think much of it and remarked, “Powerplay within families is always in a constant state of flux, making something like kinship negatable. You don’t have to worry about the Song family. It’s their family’s decision who they want to work with. No matter what happens in the future, it is also him as the patriarch who will bear the responsibility. We, as the bystanders, can only caution him and cannot force his decision.”

Listening to his tone, Pei Yan wasn’t very optimistic about the Wu, Song, Peng family alliance.

Yu Tang thought of her former life’s Jiang family of Suzhou.

Evidently, even without this auction happening, the Song family would gradually lose their current prominence within a few years’ time.

This might be due to individual ability.

She was only concerned that with the Peng family aligning with the Song family, her feud with the Li family would include the Peng family, and Pei Yan would stand on the side of the Peng family. Now that she heard him say as such, her heart settled.

Pei Yan asked about the sea buckthorn tree, “How’s the progress? Have the trees survived?”

Right after their discussion, even before Yu Tang could send someone to dig up the trees at Pei Yan’s residence, Hu Xing showed up with workers and delivered the trees to their house, and Yu Wen asked fifth uncle to plant the trees at the foot of the mountain, and these days Yu Tang didn’t have the time to check on them.

“I am planning to check on it in the next couple of days. ” Yu Tang added, “Father entrusted the cultivation of the rice fields to me. I heard from my attendant that it’s about the time for new saplings to emerge, so I want to go and have a look.”

For rice cultivation, it took a few days after the seeds were planted to know if they would live, and a few months later to know if they are growing well.

Yu Bo handed over management of the mountain forest land to Yu Yuan, and Yu Wen thought that Yu Yuan could help take care of Yu Tang, so he handed over the management of the family’s paddy fields to Yu Tang as well.

In a few days, Yutang was going to visit the country estate with Yu Yuan and take a look at the sea buckthorn trees that were moved there.

Pei Yan commented, “If you have any questions, you can send someone to ask Hu Xing. If he is not available, he will also instruct the stewards below him with the relevant experience to help you out.”

Yu Tang expressed her gratitude time and again.

Pei Yan brought up the topic of the Peng family: “They should have found out by now that the two nautical charts were the same, so they would not spare the Li family. The Li family, most likely, would confess and incriminate you. I don’t know how many people from your side knows about the nautical chart, however, it’s better to keep silent about it. If someone asks, just say you don’t know anything. If they still don’t believe it, they can confront the Lu family.”

Yu Tang’s heart immediately tightened.

Yu Wen replied nervously, “Yes definitely. Only the three of us know about it, and no one will tell. You can rest assured.”

Pei Yan was pleasantly surprised and satisfied with Yu Wen’s prudence, he remarked, “If you really can’t escape from the situation, you can have someone come and inform me.” He added, “I can help you solve a momentary crisis, but I can’t solve problems for a lifetime. It would be best if you can silently dispel the suspicions of those people.”

Yu Wen nodded his head repeatedly.

Ah Ming ran in and reported, “The youngest son of the second branch of the Gu family in Hangzhou has sent a message, saying that he wants to visit you tomorrow.”

The young master of the second branch of the Gu family, Gu Chang?

Yu Tang stilled.