When Yuxi arrived in Haocheng, she didn't start dealing with matters in the Northwest straight away. Instead, she planned to rest for a...
When Yuxi arrived in Haocheng, she didn't start dealing with matters in the Northwest straight away. Instead, she planned to rest for a few days. While she had the time, she intended to arrange the house properly — after all, she might end up living there for the rest of her life, so it needed to be furnished carefully.
Yun Qing handed Yuxi a thick ledger. "This contains the list of antiques, paintings, and calligraphy that we've collected. They're all stored in the warehouse. You can decide how to deal with them."
Yuxi opened it and was very satisfied. "There are quite a lot of them." Not only were there plenty, but many were also highly valuable. As for the ones she wouldn't use, Yuxi planned to sell them later when the opportunity arose. If Yun Qing knew what she was thinking, he would undoubtedly say that she had 'fallen into a money hole📹'.
Yun Qing said, "As long as you like them. Oh, that's right, I've saved up a few boxes of jewellery for you before this and put them in my study. I'll have someone send them over to you later." Although Yuxi already had plenty of beautiful jewellery, none of it had been given to her by Yun Qing.🤔
Sure enough, half an hour later, Xu Wu had three large chests of jewellery carried in by several guards. When they were opened, the glittering jewels inside were so dazzling that they almost blinded Yuxi, Momo Quan, and the others.
Yuxi didn't know whether to laugh or cry as she looked at the scene before her. "I thought it would be three boxes of jewellery, not three chests! How much must all this be worth?"
Momo Quan sifted through the contents. Then, with a smile, she pursed her lips and said, "They don't even know how to take care of such fine pieces. Don't they know that piling them together will scratch them? Such beautiful items, and they've been mistreated."
Yuxi smiled. "He's a man; he's not going to be that meticulous. This is the General's thoughtful gesture—just put everything away properly." It was already good enough that Yun Qing had thought to save the jewellery for her.
Gancao tilted her head. "Madam, aren't you going to wear any of them?" With so much jewellery, Madam could easily wear a different set every day and still have plenty left over.
Yuxi smiled—no matter how fine the pieces were, they had been worn by others. She would never wear someone else's old jewellery. No matter how beautiful they were, she wouldn't touch them.
After dinner, Yuxi took Zaozao for a walk around the garden and looked over the entire Governor-General's residence at the same time. Keeping Yun Qing's earlier comments in mind, Yuxi was quite looking forward to seeing the place.
Even before they entered the garden, they came to a pond. It was full of water lilies, which were not yet in bloom this season, but their leaves were spread out gracefully across the water. The round lotus leaves floated on the water, all a rich green and exuding a unique charm.
As they walked into the yard, they were immediately greeted by a rocky mountain. On top of it was a stone pavilion bearing the characters 'Viewing-the-Mountain Tower'. At the base, a pool had been carved out. The mountain and the water were connected by a winding covered corridor.
After walking a complete circuit, Yuxi commented, "This yard has a bit of a Suzhou garden📹 feel to it." The garden had been built with pavilions beside hills and water. With its curved railings, winding corridors, arched bridges and impressive Taihu rocks, not to mention the flowing water brought in from outside, it truly resembled the Suzhou gardens she had read about. She had never seen one herself, of course, but the scenes in the books matched the one before her well enough.
Momo Quan said, "This residence is no worse than the Jing Wangfu2." That Ji Xuan must have squeezed an enormous amount of 'the people's fat and the people's marrow3' to live in such an exquisitely crafted courtyard. It was a pity they hadn't caught him; otherwise, even skinning him alive wouldn't have eased the people's resentment.
Yuxi was a bit surprised and asked, "Momo, have you been to Jing Wangfu2?" This residence was superior to the Duke's residence, but compared to Jing Wangfu2, it still fell short. It wasn't that this yard was poorly built—rather, every single plant and tree in Jing Wangfu2 had been chosen with great care. Compared to that, this place seemed rather rough.
Momo Quan nodded. "I've been there once—Momo Gui invited me. She wanted me to enter the Wangfu2 to tend to Wangfei4's health, but I refused." Momo Quan was indeed skilled in medicinal cuisine, but Yuchen had no serious health issues, and there were official Imperial Physicians available who were far more competent than someone like her, who only started learning later in life. Because she had refused, Momo Gui never invited her again.
Thinking about how Momo Gui behaves towards her, Yuxi asked, "Momo Gui is very wary of me. Do you know why?" If Momo Gui merely disliked her, Yuxi wouldn't be surprised—she couldn't expect everyone to like her. But being wary of her was pretty strange.
Momo Quan didn't evade the topic as she replied, "Back then, you didn't act like a five-year-old at all. Naturally, Momo Gui kept her distance from you."
Yuxi laughed and then asked, "Why didn't you avoid me back then?" Looking back now, she realised that she had actually revealed many of her horse hooves, even though she had thought she had been very cautious.
Momo Quan answered calmly, "When you've done nothing against your conscience, you don't fear ghosts knocking at your door5. Why would I avoid you?" She had never done anything shameful in her life, nor had she ever aspired to wealth or status, so she didn't overthink things.
Walking past the artificial hill, they saw an open patch of ground that had been turned into a complete mess. Looking at a single pink-white rose blooming there, Yuxi murmured to herself, "What a waste of something good." All the other roses nearby had been uprooted—only this one remained.
Momo Quan suggested, "Why don't we move this rose into a pot?" Clearly, the garden would need to be redone; if they didn't move the rose now, it would be uprooted later anyway.
Yuxi disagreed. "This courtyard doesn't just have this one rose—there are other flowers too! If we moved them all, where would we put them?" There wasn't space for them, nor anyone to tend to them either.
After walking around and seeing so many valuable flowers destroyed, Yuxi thought it was such a shame! Had she known, she would have told Yun Qing not to touch anything in this residence earlier.
That night, Yuxi complained to Yun Qing about it. "Honestly, you really don't know how to cherish things. Once these flowers are destroyed, they're gone for good."
Hearing this complaint, Yun Qing's lips curved upwards. "Back in Linzhou, you acquired a sum of money. When Gao Song and the others heard the news, they had people pry apart the entire Governor-General's Residence."
Yuxi was stunned. "So if the incident in Linzhou hadn't happened, this residence would have remained untouched?" Seeing Yun Qing nod, she realised how much she had lost.
Yun Qing sighed regretfully. "After searching for so long, we still haven't found the money. We have no idea where Ji Xuan hid it."
As smart as she was, Yuxi wasn't a worm inside Ji Xuan's stomach6. "I've already sent people to investigate. If he really did hide it somewhere in the residence, there must be some spider's threads and horse tracks7." If he hid it outside and left no clues, the chances of finding it would be extremely low.
Ji Xuan must have hidden the money somewhere extremely secret, known only to himself. Finding it would require going to great lengths. Yuxi was also worried that, if the money didn't exist at all and it was all in their imagination, then all this fuss would become a joke.
Seeing Yuxi's tightly knitted brows, Yun Qing asked, "Does something else feel unusual to you?"
Yuxi didn't notice anything unusual. "I'm just worried that if someone dug a tunnel in this residence or something like that, it would be far too dangerous." This idea came entirely from something she had read in a book, not from her own wild imagination.
Yun Qing couldn't guarantee this either. "I had the main courtyard examined thoroughly. There won't be any secret tunnels or hidden rooms." However, he wasn't so sure about the other areas.
Footnotes Full List
- Why do I feel like he has given her a piece of jewellery before? If I'm not mistaken, it was when they went on their first date. Or... am I wrong?
- 王 wáng: king, 府 fǔ: residence
- "民脂民膏" (mín zhī mín gāo) — a classical phrase meaning the wealth extracted from the common people, often implying oppressive taxation or corruption.
- 王妃 wángfēi: king's consort
- The proverb, 没做亏心事，不怕鬼敲人 (méi zuò kuī xīn shì， bú pà guǐ qiāo rén), means a clear conscience has nothing to fear.
- The phrase, 不是纪玄肚子里的蛔虫 (bú shì jì xuán dù zǐ lǐ de huí chóng) a metaphor for knowing someone’s thoughts completely.
- The phrase, 蛛丝马迹 (zhū sī mǎ jì), means clues, traces, or hints
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