Chapter 43
Chapter 43
Homecoming (2)
The rest of the people barely dared to breathe. It was after a long time before someone ventured cautiously:
“Did you all see that? Just now, I saw, the person in the State Preceptor’s arms is, is that… Lady Zheng!”
“The sign of an immortal, an immortal! Did you see how the State Preceptor left? Swish——and he disappeared!”
“Well, the State Preceptor is a master not of this world, how could you and I understand the workings of those miraculous abilities? On the other hand, that blood on his robes seems to be Lady Zheng’s. From the looks of it… the odds are against her… sigh, since ancient times, beautiful women are prone to suffering unhappy fates…”
Jiang Weihu beckoned to his assistant:
“Go and report to His Majesty; say that the State Preceptor has returned along with Lady Zheng! If His Majesty asks for the details, you can state the truth.”
“Yes, this subordinate receives the order.”
Cui Wang took Zheng Wan directly to the Senior Grand Secretary’s residence.
The people in charge of the Senior Grand Secretary’s residence had either been imprisoned, disappeared, or fell ill; all the servants had long since been on edge and were in no mood to work. When Cui Wang suddenly appeared in the boudoir with their young lady in his arms, hardly anyone noticed.
However, Luodai was still guarding her mistress’s boudoir loyally. When a man suddenly appeared out of thin air in the lady’s boudoir, and was even carefully carrying a bloodied figure…
She almost screamed reflexively, but when she saw the gold flower chain on the wrist of the bloodied figure, her voice changed:
“My– My lady?
“What’s wrong with my lady?” Afraid of disturbing her bloodied mistress, Luodai kept her voice extremely low.
She immediately realised that this gentleman was the State Preceptor, but when she saw that the intimidating State Preceptor was carefully placing her mistress on the bed, she hurriedly went over to help.
“Get some water and wash her.”
“Oh, oh, alright.”
Luodai hurried out and instructed the maidservant in the yard to go to the kitchen to make hot water. When she came back with the hot water, she found that the cold and frosty State Preceptor was staring at her mistress. His gaze… how could she put it; it wasn’t as greasy as those of the gentlemen in the capital who adored her mistress—it wasn’t too soft, but was very pleasant, as if her mistress had grown in his eyes.
“State Preceptor, the water’s here.”
Cui Wang retreated. The news had reached the sickly Madame Wang in the principal room, and she came over with the support of her handmaiden. When she saw the blood-stained gentleman standing in her daughter’s courtyard, she sensed that something was wrong, and her complexion paled.
“State Preceptor, please pardon my tardy reception.”
The State Preceptor cast her a mild glance, “Don’t go in.”
“My daughter…”
At this moment, Luodai brought out a basin of blood; at the sight of it, Madame Wang cried, “My daughter——” Her eyes rolled up and she fainted away.
Seeing that the people in the courtyard were thrown into confusion, Cui Wang tossed a small bottle over, said “Do not disturb——”, and was in the room before the sentence barely ended, shutting even Luodai outside the door.
Even if one wanted to enter, they would find that they couldn’t even go up the corridor; it was as if there was an invisible substance in the air that prevented anyone from approaching.
In less than two hours, in the courtyard of the Zheng family’s young mistress’s boudoir, came an assortment of people. All of them had come upon receiving the news and were here to welcome State Preceptor back to the court.
His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince, the Eldest Princess, County Princess Rong Qin, Princess Rong Yi, and even His Majesty, who was supposed to be having his midday break at the palace, also hurried over in his imperial carriage with a great deal of pomp and circumstance——
With the arrival of His Majesty, the shrewd ones in the capital who simply bent with the wind also followed.
Even the Senior Grand Secretary who was in prison asked an imperial physician to accompany him back to the manor, out of fear that something might go wrong.
Two hours passed.
Four hours passed.
Six hours passed.
There was no movement coming from the boudoir; still, everyone waited with bated breaths. No one dared to be impatient, and the entire courtyard was silent.
When Zheng Zhai arrived, he was greeted by such a scene:
The emperor seemed to have learned the art of face-changing2. At the sight of Zheng Zhai, he went from “how are you, my treasured minister”, to “how is your health”, to “previously, it was all because those vile characters had deceived me”, and so on. It was as if he wasn’t the one who had just recently flown into a rage in the audience hall and hailed harsh admonishments upon him.
Since the emperor had already set aside his pride to this extent, naturally, Zheng Zhai also smiled and fawned upon him in return. The two tacitly brushed away the previous disagreement and were the very image of harmony between the monarch and his minister.
However, his heart was still unsettled. His subordinate had reported that Wanwan was seriously injured; he simply couldn’t stop worrying before seeing the extent of her injuries for himself.
But the corridor was utterly inaccessible. As though controlled by some supernatural force3, whenever he walked further in, he somehow always circled round, and found himself back to the place from where he started.
Footnotes:
2 face-changing: 变脸 Bian Lian is an ancient Chinese dramatic art that is part of the more general Sichuan opera. Performers wear vividly coloured masks, typically depicting well-known characters from the opera, which they change from one face to another almost instantaneously with the swipe of a fan, a movement of the head, or wave of the hand.
3 supernatural force: the original term used by the author is 鬼打墙 (gui da qiang). is a specific phenomenon where people walking around in the dark often find themselves lost and circling back to where they started, as if a ghost had built a wall that kept them from walking straight. There are many good urban ghost stories out there about this phenomenon! This phrase is also used as an idiomatic expression, to mean a person fails to advance in spite of efforts having been made, but in this particular instance, the author is using it as per its original meaning.