maidservant

Chapter 7: Gan Tang heard the secret of the mansion that the eldest lady was caught cheating
The master took the third concubine away, leaving the lady gritting her teeth in secret.

A few days later, Gan Tang went to deliver something to Young Master Yan Lie on behalf of Miss Yu. When he came back, he went to the toilet at the corner wall, but saw his master walking into the lady's courtyard in a threatening manner. The master kicked open the carved door, and the hem of his official uniform swept down the celadon vase on the table.

Gan Tang wanted to run away, but he heard his master say, "Su! Why is there 30% less purple ginseng in the Third Concubine's courtyard?"

It was related to Yushuyuan. Gan Tang huddled in the corner and listened.

The lady knelt on a futon, playing the zither, Buddhist beads tangled around the pegs. "Master, you have a good memory. The other day you personally gave the key to the storehouse to Yushuyuan." The string snapped with a clang, and drops of blood trickled down her fingertips. "Just like when you personally lifted my veil."

The master crushed the walnut in his hand and said, "You are so jealous! Sister Yu wants to attend the banquet, but she will only add a few pieces of brocade satin."

"It's more than just embroidered satin!" The lady stood up suddenly, her gilded armor swiping across the account book. "Last month on the 30th, we carried a load of brocade, and this spring, twelve hu of oriental pearls—my lord, you've probably forgotten that when the Su family gave you 100,000 taels of silver to cover your shortfall, you never mentioned the word 'jealousy'."

A jackdaw startled outside the window, and the master's jade pendant banged against the nanmu pillar: "How dare you! I honor you as my wife!"

"Legal wife?" The lady snapped the strings of her zither, and the golden thread wrapped around the Buddhist beads fell to the ground. "The red bellyband in the secret compartment of the master's study is well hidden. I know the background of the concubine kept in the West City Villa, and you know it too. Otherwise, you would have known about the young son of the Third Concubine. Why didn't you punish me then?"

The master slapped him and said, "Shut up!"

She suddenly chuckled, "When you knelt in the Su family ancestral hall and swore that you would never take a concubine, you looked much more respectable than you do now."

The master dropped the teacup, and the broken pieces splashed onto his wife's embroidered shoes. "You shrew! I'll send you to the ancestral temple tomorrow."

"Go!" The lady pulled open her clothes to reveal an old scar on her collarbone. "Let the whole capital see how Minister Yan favors his concubine over his wife!"

Gan Tang was horrified for a moment, then quickly ran away after regaining her composure. She knew that these things should never be known to her.

The lady did not go to the ancestral temple. She took Yan Lie back to her parents' home.

When Gan Tang was seeing his wife off on the 16th day of the first lunar month, he noticed that Yan Lie had changed into a set of obsidian bracelets.

He stood in front of the carriage holding a gilded heater, and suddenly turned his head to look at the eaves of Yushu Courtyard - there was a new string of bronze wind chimes hanging there, which was given by the master years ago. After all, he was the only boy in the mansion, and no matter what his wife was like, the master always favored him.

Gan Tang was about to lower his head when he met his sinister gaze, which was like an ice-hardened blade scraping across the red mole between his eyebrows.

"It's good to go back to my parents' home, it's good to go back to my parents' home, it's good to go back to my parents' home..." The third concubine leaned against the window frame of the warm room, and her fingertips tapped on the porcelain vase in a rhythm of three long and two short beats.

When the lady returned home in late spring, in March, she was accompanied by ten more carriages than when she left. A lean but powerful man emerged from the last green-covered carriage, his dark, tight-fitting outfit draped over his slender arms and slim waist. A soft sword was coiled three times around his waist.

Miss Yu was so frightened that she clutched Gan Tang's sleeves tightly - the man's eyes were frighteningly bright and there was a scar on his face, making him look very much like a wild dog tearing apart a dead rat in a slave station.

This was the new martial arts master, Su Qi. He always practiced swordplay in the mornings at 3:30 AM, splitting the first rays of light. Gan Tang once caught him wielding a single sword, slashing down a peach blossom tree. The sword's energy swept past her temple, severing half a silk flower. From then on, Miss Yu avoided the East Garden, even daring to visit her beloved swing.

"This is the Seven Star Sword Technique of the Yangzhou Su family." Madam Zhou sewed Miss Yu's spring shirt, the needle tip gleaming coldly in the sunlight. "Twenty years ago, the Su family won first place in the Aristocratic Family Sword Competition with this sword technique."

Gan Tang counted the silk threads and recalled the day when his wife returned. Su Qi's scabbard was inlaid with seven black jades arranged in the shape of the Big Dipper.

The third concubine called the nanny over and chatted with her for a long time.

Gan Tang heard some rumors: the Su family had a childhood sweetheart of his wife, but because he was only the swordsman of the eldest young master Su, the old master separated them. He also learned from the nanny that Su Qi was the swordsman of the eldest young master Su.

On the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival, Gan Tang had saved seventeen taels of silver from the money he had earned from the ear room for several months and from embroidering handkerchiefs for the other rooms.

She was touching the silver clove earrings given by her Third Aunt, when she suddenly heard the sound of a sword breaking through the air outside the window - Su Qi was dancing with a sword under the moon.

How could the master not know what Gan Tang could find out? The master knew that the lady was angry with him, and he was even more reluctant to go to the lady's courtyard.

After a while, the fifth concubine came to look for the third concubine, and the master happened to be there too.

The sun was very scorching after the White Dew Festival. When Gan Tang was helping Miss Yu through the Nine-Curved Corridor, he saw that the sweat on Fifth Aunt's temples had washed away her rouge.

The Third Aunt wore a newly cut dress of sky-blue satin after rain today. The hem of her skirt swept across the undried morning dew on the stone steps, leaving dark water marks, which looked like the blurred distant mountains in an ink painting.

"Madam will be delighted to see these." Fifth Aunt pointed to the twelve camphorwood boxes behind her. The gilded locks dazzled people in the sunlight.

The master's jade pendant jingled against the jade belt around her waist: "Su has become more and more erratic recently, it's time..." Before she finished speaking, the fifth concubine suddenly slipped and fell into the master's arms.

The Third Aunt hurriedly reached out to help: "Sister, why are you carrying so many boxes? What are you going to do?"

"My brother sent some new porcelain, and I wanted to let Madam choose first. But remembering how I upset Madam a few days ago, I didn't dare go alone, so I came to ask my sister to come along."

The master thought for a moment and felt that it was time to ease the tension between him and his wife, so he called Miss Yu to go with him. The group carried several boxes of belongings and headed towards Yuheng Courtyard.

The copper door knocker of Yuhengyuan was wrapped with faded red silk. When the door was pushed open, the "creaking" sound startled the sparrows under the eaves.

Gan Tang counted the blue bricks under the corridor and saw half a piece of gold foil embedded in the cracks of the stone - it was from the Bodhisattva statue that his wife had broken in the first month of the year.

Miss Yu suddenly tugged at her sleeve: "Gan Tang, why isn't there even a cicada chirping in this courtyard?"

The fifth aunt's laughter sounded like a partridge with its neck pinched: "Sister, look at this red-glazed gall-shaped vase." The words got stuck in her throat.

The picture of the two immortals of harmony and unity hanging above the main hall's door lintel was half tilted. The third concubine dug her nails, stained with balsam juice, into the master's arm and said, "Husband, this..."

"Everyone, step back!" The master suddenly shouted, frightening the servant who was carrying the box so much that he dropped it in a hurry.

Nanny Zhou rushed out of the moon-shaped door, the silver hairpin on her hair askew. "Sister, come back with me to study!" The golden bell on Miss Yu's wrist got tangled in Gan Tang's belt. As they tugged, Gan Tang heard the crisp sound of shattering porcelain from the inner courtyard, mixed with the mistress's hoarse sneer: "Yan Lang doesn't believe me."

"Bitch!,,,

After Gan Tang returned to the yard, he kept thinking about the faint fragrance when the door of the lady's inner room opened.

She has always been very attentive and has a keen sense of smell. The faint fragrance seemed familiar, as if she had smelled it when Third Aunt was teaching Miss Yu to identify medicinal herbs.

The whole mansion soon knew about Yu Hengyuan's affairs.

　Everyone~ From February 2th to February 18nd, this novel will be participating in the ranking. Please read the two newly updated chapters every day. This "reading rate" is very important to me! Thank you! ~~~
　　
　
(End of this chapter)