(6) Sparks of Life at the Manor

Given the bitter cold, once Han Qian and the other two had finished serving their punishment, all three of them crowded into Wang Qiugui's room to huddle together for warmth. The charcoal fire inside burned brightly, and Han Qian flopped straight onto the bed, complaining loudly about her aching legs. Han Jin wore a look of open disdain—they'd only stood for a single hour, and neither he nor Yueming was complaining about being tired, so what did she have to whine about? Yueming, however, paid his expression and feelings not the slightest attention, flopping down right beside Han Qian a moment later, moaning about how "every bone in my body feels like it's coming apart" and the like. Seeing the two of them carrying on so dramatically, Han Jin suddenly felt rather wronged himself—after all, it was plainly his sister who'd started the whole mess, and yet he'd been caught up as an innocent bystander and punished right along with her. And so he wrapped himself around Wang Qiugui's arm, whining and calling her "Mother," and Wang Qiugui patted him to comfort him.

"There, there... whose fault is it that you two didn't know better than to go pulling teeth from a tiger's mouth." Wang Qiugui had no real recourse either—there was no one you didn't want to cross more than the living King of Hell of Yueyue Manor, and getting off without losing a layer of skin already counted as gentle treatment. All she could do was pour them each some hot water to warm themselves up—speaking up on their behalf was simply out of the question. She still remembered, back when Tian Xu and Han Jin had first entered the training grounds to begin their martial studies, how she and Chu Mingxi had shown even the slightest hint of reluctance at seeing their sons worked so hard, their bodies constantly mottled with bruises—and Yue Heng had promptly thrown the boys clean out of the training grounds, scolding the two of them soundly right in front of their own sons, declaring that doting mothers raise ruined children, and that if they couldn't bear to see it, then the boys simply shouldn't be training at all—not a shred of consideration given. The two of them could only hurry to apologize, and from then on, they secretly applied medicine and gave massages to their sons behind closed doors, never daring to show the slightest concern on their faces again.

If you wanted to step in and shield the younger generation while Yue Heng was disciplining them, that would, without question, only make things worse—there was absolutely nothing good to be gained from it.

Just then, Yuelan could be seen leading Guo Huilian over from a distance—having eaten far too much, she needed to walk it off, and Wang Qiugui, worried she wasn't yet familiar with Yueyue Manor, had asked Yuelan to accompany her. To be honest, the poor girl had truly suffered for it, forcing herself to finish that whole bowl piled up like a small mountain.

Now, the bowls at Yueyue Manor ran considerably larger than those in ordinary households, the reason being that most of the residents practiced martial arts, and were mostly men besides, so their appetites tended to run large. Others, like Wang Qiugui, Hu Yiwan, and Han Qian, used the same large bowls too, only they never filled them anywhere near as full, portioning them out according to their own appetites instead. But Yue Heng, for whatever strange reason, had broken entirely from habit, not only heaping food into Guo Huilian's bowl but piling it up to overflowing besides. Young as she was, she'd still managed to read something in everyone's expressions, and gathered, more or less, that she couldn't very well just leave the leftover food for Yue Heng to finish. And so she'd forced herself to eat with all her might, still eating away long after everyone else had already left the table...

Following Guo Huilian and Yuelan came Hu Yiwan, carrying a pot of freshly brewed ginger tea she'd just made—it pained her even to imagine the two being punished out on the training grounds in the howling north wind and pitch darkness of this bitterly cold night. Han Qian and Yueming, seeing Hu Yiwan arrive, hurried up from the bed to greet her properly, and Han Jin, Guo Huilian, and Yuelan followed suit, filling the whole room at once with lively chatter.

Hu Yiwan took a large pot of ginger tea and several bowls out of her carrying case, then produced a bottle of hawthorn and dried tangerine peel pills for Guo Huilian, telling her to take a few now to help settle her stomach, and to keep the rest carefully stored away for future need. Hu Yiwan seemed to have already resigned herself to the worst—that Guo Huilian would, from now on, be living a life of constantly being stuffed to bursting. Perhaps she and her senior martial brother were partly to blame themselves, having both told Guo Huilian, right in front of Yue Heng, to eat well and eat plenty; whatever good intentions the two of them had meant, once carried out by Yue Heng, seemed to fall rather short of the mark. And of all people, no one could tell Yue Heng anything—the only person who ever could was Chu Mingxi. Even that time years ago when she'd managed to talk Yue Heng into cooperating with his own treatment, it had really only worked thanks to Chu Mingxi—without the promise that it would free her to focus fully on treating Chu Mingxi herself, without any worry left on his part, how on earth would that stubborn man have ever submitted so obediently?

Hu Yiwan let out a sigh, feeling somewhat helpless. Ever since Chu Mingxi's passing, no one had been able to keep Yue Heng in check—not even Tian Xu, necessarily—so how could she possibly dare to offer him advice? What was more, now that Yue Heng had finally shown someone even a sliver of goodwill, however clumsily executed, it still counted as real progress, the first hint of true warmth from him in ages. What she feared most was that if she were bold enough to advise him and he simply withdrew that hard-won goodwill and gave up on the whole effort entirely, then Guo Huilian, too, would end up joining the ranks of "those who fear Yue Heng" from here on out. Left with no better option, Hu Yiwan could only bring out the pills to ease the poor girl's discomfort from having overeaten.

Just as everyone in the room was drinking their ginger tea and taking their medicine, Wang Qiugui, quite without warning, began nagging at Han Qian.

"Eighteen years old already, and still no husband's family to speak of. Your Aunt Xi, while she was alive, once expressed interest in arranging a match between our families—Xu'er is the pillar of our whole household at Yueyue Manor now, and there's no better catch anywhere, whether you judge by character or by ability. Why don't we just—"

The moment Han Qian heard her mother bring this up again, she was so startled she spat out a mouthful of ginger tea, and hurried to stop her. "You spent over two years in Chang'an, and I finally got some peace and quiet around here—now you're barely back and already bringing this up again? Haven't I told you already? He's my little brother, plain and simple. I watched Mother and Aunt Xi wipe him clean and change his diapers since he was a baby, watched him run around bare-bottomed as a toddler... please don't put me in this position, I simply cannot think of him as a husband. Besides, my brother has his own mind about these things too—back when Aunt Xi was still alive, you could at least hold him to it with 'a mother's wishes must not be defied,' but now he's the Manor Lord in his own right, and don't you think you ought to respect his opinion on the matter too? Don't just go assuming things on your own."

"You, child..." Wang Qiugui couldn't stand her daughter's habit of saying whatever crossed her mind—what should have been a lovely match had, in Han Qian's telling, instantly turned into something entirely unappealing.

"Well then, what kind of man would satisfy you? Isn't Xu'er good enough? Look across the whole of Daming Prefecture—who could possibly surpass him? And still you're being so choosy..."

"Children have their own fortunes to find..." Seeing mother and daughter on the verge of a real quarrel, Hu Yiwan stepped in to smooth things over.

"Besides, running Yueyue Manor's affairs as Steward is a good deal easier than being the Manor Lord's wife. The Manor Lord's character is fine, no question, but being his wife takes more than just liking him—there are requirements to meet, and this isn't like an ordinary family marrying off a son. The girl's right—with Madam gone now, it really does come down to whether the Manor Lord himself approves, and since the Manor Lord treats Young Master Yue, his adoptive father, as his own true father, oughtn't Young Master Yue's opinion be respected too? The girl is so terrified of Young Master Yue as it is—if she became the Manor Lord's wife, Young Master Yue would become her father-in-law, and then she'd have to pay him the same morning and evening respects and filial devotion the Manor Lord himself does. Does the girl really have the nerve for that? You'd best think it through carefully before pushing this any further."