CH 19

At the lunch table, Berry Brown and Ah Mu ate like starving dogs again. They didn’t even look up once. Dan Yi didn’t have much of an appetite, and he just ate some vegetables slowly.

“Dan Yi, why don’t you eat meat?” Chen Ziqi asked. He tossed a piece of fish from his bowl into Dan Yi’s bowl using his chopsticks. “My mum says that if little children don’t eat meat, they won’t grow tall.”

Linghe got the shock of her life. Her Young Master never ate food that had touched someone else’s saliva, and Chen Ziqi had used his own chopsticks to give Dan Yi that piece of fish instead of using the serving chopsticks. Afraid that Dan Yi would be disgusted, Linghe immediately moved to use the common chopsticks to remove that piece of fish from her master’s bowl.

Dan Yi looked at the short little Chen Ziqi. “You eat a lot of meat, but I don’t see you growing,” he said.

“That’s because I didn’t get to eat meat before,” Chen Ziqi said. He grabbed a big piece of pork elbow and polished it off in one big mouthful. He and his mother had been poor in the past, and could only afford to eat meat about once every ten days. Now that he could eat meat every day, he was determined to eat more to make for what he had missed out on previously.

Dan Yi looked at Chen Ziqi applying himself assiduously to chewing his meat, then looked at the offending piece of fish in his bowl. Linghe’s chopsticks had already extended to remove it, but he used his own chopsticks to pick it up and put it into his mouth. He ate it slowly, then swallowed. Linghe was astonished. “Young Master…” she said uncertainly.

Dan Yi waved his hands, dismissing her unspoken concern.

Like Chen Ziqi, Chang Er also liked to eat pork elbow. The two of them polished off the dish in a trice and drank some soup to wash it down. Chang Er wanted to reach out to pinch Ah Mu’s face, but discovered that Berry Brown was in between them. She decided to pinch Berry Brown’s forearm instead. “Zimo, you look like you’ve gotten skinnier,” she remarked.

“Mmph..” Chen Zimo’s hand shook violently, and the rice bowl he was holding fell onto the table with a crash. The rice fell out and spattered everywhere, giving Chang Er a big shock.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. Berry Brown was trying to shrink away, but she grabbed hold of his arm and rolled up his sleeve. On that thin, tanned arm, there were a few black and blue lines that criss-crossed over each other. They looked like they had been made by a bamboo cane or something similar.

Berry Brown pulled his arm out of Chang Er’s grasp. He didn’t say anything, and just picked up his rice bowl and continued to eat.

Ah Mu looked at Berry Brown, then silently pushed the chicken in front of him towards Berry Brown.

A hush fell over the table. Chang Er felt very unhappy about the situation, but she also wasn’t sure what to say. Cheng Jieyu looked to be quite the formidable person, so it was unlikely that anyone would have dared to bully Chen Zimo. That really only left one possibility as to who the perpetrator of these injuries was.

“Moving forward, why don’t you come eat lunch here with me and Ah Mu every day?” Chen Ziqi said, breaking the silence. He picked up his chopsticks, and once again applied himself to stuffing food into his mouth. To him, Chen Zimo’s injuries weren’t anything surprising; in Jiuru Town, there were countless children who had been abused by their parents. Cheng Jieyu didn’t seem like a maternal person, so he didn’t find it odd that she would beat Berry Brown. He just found it very cruel that she starved him as well.

A ray of hope shone in Berry Brown’s eyes. He turned to get Chang Er’s approval.

Chang Er gave Chen Ziqi a pointed look, then turned to smile at Berry Brown. “The little b… prince is right. Come over with Ah Mu in future,” she said. She had nearly called Chen Ziqi “little bratty bastard” out of habit.

After Berry Brown and Ah Mu went to the guestrooms to take a nap, Chang Er grabbed hold of Chen Ziqi by the ear. “You little bratty bastard, stop sending random children to your old mother here. Ah Mu is one thing – he doesn’t have any family at all, but Chen Zimo has a mother! It’s not appropriate for me to interfere with his care,” she said.

If Cheng Jieyu thought that she was trying to steal Chen Zimo from her, there was definitely going to be trouble.

“Didn’t you see that he was practically starving to death?” Chen Ziqi said, struggling out of Chang Er’s grasp. “I’ve taken Berry Brown in as my brother, and I’m only inviting him for a meal. Don’t kick up such a fuss.”

“Oh, you think this is a fuss?” Chang Er asked threateningly, raising a hand to smack him.

Chen Ziqi escaped as fast as lightning. He ran and hid behind Dan Yi, who was drinking tea in the garden pavilion.

On seeing Dan Yi, Chang Er put down her hand.

“Niangniang, I’ve just brewed some lotus leaf tea. It’s good for warding against the dry air in autumn. Would you like some?” Linghe said, smiling as she filled two teacups for Chang Er and Chen Ziqi.

The tea smelt of fragrant lotus leaves, and Linghe had added some sugar to it. The taste was pleasantly sweet and refreshing. 

“This lotus leaf tea is really nice. I can never make it taste like this,” Chang Er said. She couldn’t help taking another sip.

“You always don’t add enough rock sugar, so of course it isn’t as nice,” Chen Ziqi muttered. He finished his tea and pulled a face at his mother.

Chang Er grit her teeth, then mouthed “You little rascal!*” at Chen Ziqi. She didn’t say anything out loud. She looked at Chen Ziqi, who was sitting beside Dan Yi as naturally as could be. She found this very strange. Weren’t these two kids just introduced a few days ago?

*T/N: Actually, Chang Er calls him a little rabbit (兔崽子), but it doesn’t have the same feel in English. She’s basically calling him a rascal.

“Wanbei* has something to discuss with niangniang,” Dan Yi said, putting down his teacup. Even that simple motion looked cultured and refined.

*T/N: Wanbei (晚辈) is how someone of a later generation would address someone of an earlier generation. It literally means “I of the later generation”. This is a very polite form of address coming from Dan Yi.

Chang Er nodded, transfixed by Dan Yi’s good looks and elegant deportment. She’d always felt that Dan Yi gave off even more of a regal air than the Imperial princes who were older than him. She turned to look at Chen Ziqi, who was holding his teacup in both his hands and guzzling tea noisily. Urgh, she didn’t even want to think about how lacking in regal bearing her son was compared to Dan Yi!

“Danyang Palace will be ready tomorrow. I’m a little afraid to live in such a big palace on my own. Could you let Chen Ziqi stay there with me for some time?” Dan Yi said, smiling disarmingly at Chang Er.

Let her son live in another palace? Chang Er was rather reluctant to do so. She and Chen Ziqi had always been together all this while. She looked over to see Chen Ziqi’s reaction, and immediately felt her teeth ache in irritation. Chen Ziqi’s eyes were giving her a look that said he really, really wanted to go stay with Dan Yi. Sons really were unfilial when they grew up – this Chen Ziqi clearly had forgotten all about her now that he had a new playmate!

“Fine, since you two want to play together, he can go stay with you,” Chang Er said. She felt like she had overlooked something. After racking her brains for a while, she recalled some of the palace rules that she had been taught. “Danyang Palace is the residence of the Phoenix King though. I think it’s best if you got the Emperor’s approval first.”

“I will let the Emperor know about this,” Dan Yi said, nodding in satisfaction.

Chang Er felt a little out of place, so she stood up to leave. She gestured to Chen Ziqi to come with her. When he refused to budge, she grabbed hold of him physically in annoyance. “You’re really getting out of hand. Come with me now,” she said.

Chen Ziqi was dragged off by his mother, and he turned to cast a pitiful look in Dan Yi’s direction.

Dan Yi had already achieved his goal, so he didn’t intend to interfere in the mother and son’s affairs. He picked up his teacup and sipped his tea slowly, giving Chen Ziqi a “what can I possibly do?” look.

Chen Ziqi bared his teeth at Dan Yi, making various hand signs at him and mouthing curses at him for being disloyal.

Chang Er dragged him into the house and closed the door. “What’s up with you?” Chen Ziqi asked his mother. Chang Er released him, and before he could get his footing, a letter smacked lightly onto his face, then fell onto the floor. Chen Ziqi picked it up. It was addressed to “My dear sister Chang Er”.

“Your jiujiu sent us a letter,” Chang Er said, pursing her lips. It was undoubtedly a letter asking for money or something similar. “I wasn’t going to bother with it, but since you’re moving to the Danyang Palace tomorrow, I won’t have anyone to read it to me. Read it to me now.”

“I don’t know that many words either,” Chen Ziqi muttered. He nevertheless opened the letter despite his protests. The chief of the farmlands had probably helped to write it. Even the paper used for the letter was the high grade paper that only the chief had.

I heard that you’ve been made a Jieyu. Jingang Sect has sent us a lot of nice things. Chief Zhou has also given us two chickens and a goat. Chief Zhou is very something something to our family, he’s even something that little house of yours. The Jingang Sect has also invited our family to their Mid-autumn Festival celebrations. Your sister-in-law, your nephew and I don’t have anything appropriate to wear, and we’re afraid that we’ll embarrass you if we don’t dress well. Can you tell the Emperor to give our family something a few nice clothes to wear…

Chen Ziqi didn’t know how to read all of the words, so when he encountered a word that he couldn’t read, he replaced it with the word “something”. 

Chang Er barked a derisive laugh. “They want me to go ask the Emperor to bestow some nice clothes on them? Who do they think he is? I’m not an ordinary daughter-in-law who can ask her father-in-law for some hand-me-downs to give to my poor relatives! This is the Emperor we’re talking about!” 

She didn’t think her brother would be dumb enough to ask her for something like this, so it was probably her sister-in-law who came up with this idiotic idea to try and get clothes from the palace. She obviously just wanted to be able to impress the people of the Jingang Sect.

“I hear Li Pin niangniang was originally from the Jingang Sect.” Fuyuan, the head eunuch of the Qingyun palace, suddenly spoke out of the blue.

Chang Er stared blankly into space for a moment, then realised what this meant. Li Pin had had two of her fingers cut off because she had practised the Pincers of Steel technique, and this was one of the secret techniques of the Jingang Sect. When they were still living in Jiuru Town, she had also heard people say that the younger sister of the Jingang Sect leader had married into the Imperial Palace…

“Shit!” Chang Er exclaimed, slapping her hand on the table. Even though she wasn’t particularly fond of her sister-in-law and her nephew, they were still her brother’s family at the end of the day. She couldn’t let them walk blindly into this trap.

Chen Ziqi smirked, revelling in their misfortune. “Do you think the Jingang Sect leader will cut off Chang Jiabao’s two fingers to get revenge for his sister?” he asked, making snipping motions with his hands.

“Shut up!” Chang Er smacked Chen Ziqi’s arm. “You walk around like a peacock in the palace but secretly get your relatives killed – you think that’s how you should behave?”

Chen Ziqi held his arm where Chang Er had hit him, his lips curled in dissatisfaction. “Then what do you plan to do?” he asked after a moment.

“Write a letter for me back home,” Chang Er said, clenching her teeth.

“What do you want to say?” Chen Ziqi asked, climbing onto his chair and laying out a random sheet of paper on his desk.

“Scram,” Chang Er said decisively.

“Huh?”

Chen Ziqi didn’t know how to write the word “scram*”, so he had no choice but to ask Dan Yi for help. “Help me write a letter to my jiujiu,” he said.

*T/N: I know “scram” isn’t a hard word in English, but the Chinese word is gun (滚), which isn’t that easy to write – I mean, look at it.

Dan Yi: “… …”

As such, ten days later, the farmlands received a letter from the palace, addressed to “my dear brother” in flowing, imperious-looking script. The Chief immediately called the Chang family over and opened the letter reverently in their presence. On that snow white sheet of paper, there was only one huge word, written in that same imperious-looking script.

“What does it say?”

“SCRAM!”

Author’s note: Mini-theater

Birdie Gong: My spouse asked me to help him write a letter home. Do you think this means he recognises my position in the family?

Qiqi: Sure sure, I’ve recognised it. Just write it, quick

Birdie Gong: What’s the content?

Qiqi: 滚*!

*T/N: Here, 滚 means “scram”.

Birdie Gong: I’m talking to you nicely, why are you being rude to me?!

Qiqi: The content is “滚!”

Birdie Gong: Using only one word isn’t clear. Do you want to 滚* on the bed or 滚* on the carpet?

*T/N: 滚 here means “roll”. Birdie Gong is asking Qiqi if he wants to have sexytime on the bed or on the carpet.

Qiqi: … … 滚*!

*T/N: 滚 here means “scram” again. Don’t you just lurve the Chinese language? :3