Chapter 50: The Old Prince Next Door 3

All of Su Huandan’s earlier guesses had been right.

The spooked horse incident really had been arranged by the wet nurse and people from the Duke of Yi Household.

Otherwise, with only the original host’s wet nurse, there was no way she could have drugged two horses.

But the truth of the matter was not what people outside had guessed. The original host had not seduced the Duke’s eldest nephew, and although the Duke’s wife, her eldest sister-in-law by marriage, did not particularly like her, she would never have deliberately made things hard for her.

The one behind it was Concubine Qiu of the Duke of Yi.

Concubine Qiu’s background was something worth talking about too. Her father had been the martial instructor for the four Yi brothers, and all their riding and archery skills had been learned from him.

And Concubine Qiu had always had her eye on the position of Fourth Master Zhao’s legal wife¹. In the end, however, the old madam would rather marry Zhao Si to an orphan girl with no father, no mother, and no clan to rely on than choose her.

On the very day the original host got married, Concubine Qiu climbed into the drunken heir’s bed.

The original host did not know about that. All she knew was that less than two months after her own marriage, Concubine Qiu became Concubine Qiu and entered the heir’s inner courtyard.

In the spring of the following year, she gave birth to a daughter. She had delivered after only six months of pregnancy, and that child was now the eldest young lady of the Duke of Yi Household. She was born of a concubine, but the ducal household had only this one girl, so she was cherished like a treasure.

And now that not-yet-seven-year-old eldest young lady was kneeling right in front of Su Huandan.

As for how she had slipped out of the ducal household and made her way into Su Huandan’s front gate, Su Huandan had no interest in finding out. Either the household management had failed, or someone had deliberately sent her. Su Huandan leaned toward the second possibility.

“Go back and tell your father this: since I didn’t die, then Concubine Qiu doesn’t need to pay with her life. Whatever injury was on my forehead, whatever leg of mine was broken, she can suffer the exact same thing. Go on. And from now on, you don’t need to call me Fourth Aunt when you see me. From today onward, we’re unrelated. Tell your father that too.”

Don’t say Su Huandan was being too harsh on a child barely over six.

The little girl was kneeling on the ground with a proud, arrogant expression, and the way she looked at Su Huandan was full of contempt and disdain.

There was also anger and hatred at the fact that Su Huandan had actually made her kneel there.

Her mother had ruined this girl. Deep down, she had already divided her elders into ranks and classes, and a widow like the original host, someone who was destined to be of no help to her in the future, naturally was not treated by the girl as an elder at all.

Otherwise, under the etiquette of ancient times, it was perfectly normal for a junior to kneel before an elder. How could she possibly have shown such a colorful range of expressions?

It was obvious the little girl did not regard the original host as an elder.

The little girl went back and repeated Su Huandan’s words exactly as they had been said.

The Duke’s wife immediately let out a laugh. “It seems the Duke miscalculated. Concubine Qiu may be the treasure of your heart, but she’s not the treasure of Fourth Sister-in-law’s heart. How did you ever imagine that sending the eldest young lady over to kneel for a while would make Fourth Sister-in-law spare Concubine Qiu?”

Originally, the plan had only been to send her to an estate to live out her years in comfort. But now? Now her face would be ruined and her leg broken.

Serves her right. The Duke’s wife found the whole situation immensely satisfying.

She did not like Madam Su, but she disliked Concubine Qiu even more.

A teacher’s daughter, no less. Yet when it came to climbing into beds and seducing men, her methods were smoother than those of a brothel girl.

It was a good thing that after giving birth to the eldest young lady, her health had been damaged and she could no longer bear children. Otherwise, this household might well have ended up with a “second madam.”

In the Duke of Yi’s heart, Concubine Qiu was his own. Compared with her, his widowed younger sister-in-law was only that, a younger sister-in-law.

So after hearing the words his daughter brought back, he simply heard them and left it at that. Afterward, Concubine Qiu suffered no injury and continued living in the household as before.

In the end, the only consequences were that the wet nurse Song and her whole family were sold off, and the Duke of Yi Household paid Su Huandan ten thousand taels of silver as compensation.

Those ten thousand taels came from the public accounts of the Duke of Yi Household. In private, the Duke of Yi also gave her two farming estates near the capital. One was a first-rate paddy estate with a thousand mu of land. The other was a five-hundred-mu hillside, half planted with timber trees for furniture, and half with all kinds of fruit trees.

Su Huandan looked at this compensation and scoffed. The original host had truly been a fool, always believing the people of the Duke of Yi Household treated her as family. And now?

Even the justice she was owed had been measured out in money. Calling the original host stupid to death would not be unfair.

Still, one could not be too hard on the original host. She was an orphan, after all. She had been this cautious and careful and still ended up harmed. She really had been a pitiful soul.

As for Su Huandan?

She accepted every bit of the compensation.

You want her to avenge the original host?

Sorry, that wasn’t part of her job. But using the compensation obtained because of the original host’s death, Su Huandan would donate all of it in the names of the original host and her husband over the course of this life.

This was called accumulating hidden virtue². In the future, the original host and her husband might be able to rely on that virtue to be reborn into a better life. If she could do that much, Su Huandan could live with a clear conscience.

As for this new life?

Naturally, she would live however she wanted. First, though, she had to heal her injuries.

The days of recuperation passed quickly. Su Huandan used diluted Spiritual Spring Water on herself, and after a full two months, not only was there no scar left at her temple and her left leg completely healed, even her appearance had become bloomingly beautiful, with a graceful, alluring figure.

The original host had been thin and bony. Su Huandan now was not exactly fat either, but she was full in all the right places.

The original host had not been short, around one meter seventy. With that height and such a small frame, once she filled out even a little, her figure could truly be called a bombshell body.

In just two months, Su Huandan had changed completely.

And by then, the New Year was almost here.

Su Huandan did not need to worry about the household’s New Year’s goods. The Duke of Yi Household sent some, and so did her two elder brothers-in-law born of concubines. All three households delivered New Year’s gifts.

Every year, the original host’s return gift had been a red packet of two hundred taels of silver for each household.

Two hundred taels actually was not even enough to match the value of the jewelry included in the gifts they sent, let alone the fact that these New Year’s goods came from all over the land, with local specialties from every region. The time, effort, and money involved were certainly far beyond two hundred taels.

But what could anyone really demand from a widow, and one who had been widowed her entire married life at that?

At least she still gave two hundred taels. If she had been stingier, even if she sent you two chickens, two fish, and four jin of pastries, outsiders would only say that life was hard for a widow.

This was the sort of thing there was no point arguing over.

Su Huandan did not stir up any trouble either. She sent two hundred taels to each household, and that was that.

And as a widow, all she had to do through the entire first month of the year was keep her doors shut and live quietly. Everyone thought widows were unlucky, and since no one wanted to invite her over during the New Year, Su Huandan simply lived her own life. And those little days of hers were quite blissful indeed.

Her mind was entirely in the kitchen, where she was working with the newly arrived cook to experiment with delicious dishes.

“Wash the cabbage hearts leaf by leaf and set them aside to dry. Then marinate the thin, long slices of pork belly with yellow wine, chopped scallions, and minced ginger for half an hour. After that, slice the steamed cured meat, softened a bit from steaming, into thin pieces as well. Layer one cabbage leaf, one layer of marinated pork belly, then one layer of cured meat, roll them up, and secure them with small wooden picks so they don’t fall apart. Then blanch them in a pot of boiling water until cooked through. After that, make a garlic oil and vinegar dipping sauce to go with them. The taste is absolutely incredible.” While recovering from her injuries, Su Huandan had described all kinds of dishes out loud, and the cook had already mastered making them.

One talked, the other cooked. There really wasn’t anything difficult about it.

With two or three dishes she was craving and a pot of warmed shochu³, she wouldn’t trade this life even for immortality.

Translator’s Notes