Chapter 65 Don’t Worry, You Are out of My League!
After they had finished talking business, Qiu Yelan asked to leave as she knew that Jiang Yashuang was timid.
Jiang Yashuang tapped on the edge of the table and said while pointing at two silver notes, “Put them away. The reason I wanted the six thousand taels last time was that my eighth elder brother dropped by to present his respects to my grandmother. And he asked for the money when he knew about it. I don’t lack money, so you don’t need to do this.”
Qiu Yelan took a peep at his countenance and found that he wasn’t standing on ceremony. After having pondered for a moment, she put them away and apologized with seeming embarrassment, “Please excuse my imprudence.” She murmured in her heart, “The young General is a man of such upright character… Could it be said that he was making it up to me?”
Alas, she hadn’t encountered a man of such great moral integrity for a long, long time. This would make her coy, OK?
She might as well thank him when she came up with some other ways in the future… What made her worried was that whether there would still be possible to draw him over and let him gradually be the permanent backstage supporter as he was unwilling to accept the money.
“I didn’t offer you much help.” Jiang Yashuang rose smilingly, “Let me walk you out a few steps, in case that you may encounter some bodyguards…” He seemed to be hesitating for a fraction of second, yet he suggested anyway. “Never go out at midnight if it’s not an emergency. Don’t take it the wrong way. All I’m worrying about is that it may ruin your reputation for chastity if the word that you came to see me at midnight goes out. Besides, all the bodyguards in our family had once defended the North Territory, so they are quite brutal.”
As he was explaining, he observed Qiu Yelan’s countenance. He minded his words lest she couldn’t take them — Now in such circumstances, any girl of thirteen would definitely be extremely shy, however, Qiu Yelan kept a poker face all along. She asked him with detachment, “Will you spoil it?”
“Of course not.” Jiang Yashuang replied immediately.
Qiu Yelan wore a severe countenance, “I believe you!” And then she gave a gentle smile, which was like a spring blossom. “So there’s nothing to worry about! Since no one will know about it, how can my reputation for chastity be ruined?”
Hearing this, Jiang Yashuang became speechless for a while. Then on further reflection, he added, “Don’t take offense. Truth be told, if you still do as you please… I’m afraid that your future husband’s family will despise you.”
“Like I said, will you spoil that?” Qiu Yelan stated sincerely and earnestly, “I have long felt that you are an honest and broad-minded man. Since you won’t spoil the thing that I called on you at midnight and I’m surely wiser than to spoil it out myself, so how could my hushand’s family know about it? And I’ve never thought of fawning on you, right?”
Her last sentence made Jiang Yashuang quite embarrassed. After having composed himself, he felt a bit annoyed and criticized, “How could you, such a young girl, talking about your husband’s family?”
Seeing that Qiu Yelan still wouldn’t stop talking, Jiang Yashuang sulked and inculcated her, “Besides, though you assume that I’m a decent man, yet what if I’m not? Won’t you be spoiled if I’m a scum? What I mean is that you should always guard against the harm others might do to you.”
Qiu Yelan eyed him smilingly, “I sneaked in here.” she stressed, “None of the kick-ass bodyguards noticed me. Even if you are not a decent man, I don’t necessarily have to be afraid of you, right?”
Jiang Yashuang snorted slightly, “You think you are so formidable just because you killed two bodyguards in Ganli Palace? Come on, the reason is just that they didn’t guard against you considering that you are so little and that you are the Commandery Princess. Don’t you remember that you didn’t succeed in sneaking up on me?”
“You call that a surprise attack?” Qiu Yelan denied it quite shamelessly. “Like you said, you’ve already known that I am here.” She even whispered, “Speaking of which, it was you that actually sneaked up on me!”
Preached by her like this, Jiang Yashuang, who had covered his mouth first, immediately coughed his head off, “I’m just afraid that you may alarm the servants. And you don’t want to be taken under escort to meet my grandmother at midnight, do you?”
Qiu Yelan reassured him, “You can rest assured! By then, your grandmother will definitely minimize it or just hush it up and compel everyone in the family not to comment on it, which means that she will live on like nothing happened in order to save your reputation and integrity. Aren’t you worrying about nothing?”
As Qiu Yelan and the Princess Yongfu were of the same age and that Jiang Yashuang and the Princess Yongfu had always been like siblings, so he felt that it was right for him to offer her some guidance since the Commandery Princess and his sibling were peers. But Qiu Yelan’s shameless logic made him feel that he could no longer act as an eldest brother in front of her now, thus he had to avoid arguing with her, “… Well, forget it. Let me walk you out.”
It was probably because he hadn’t prevailed her not to come at midnight and worried that she might still have climbed over the wall to look for him if she had had an emergency, Jiang Yashuang walked her out all the way avoiding being seen. Then he looked around and whispered, “My fourth aunt would like to praise and honor you. When are you going to enter the palace to express your gratitude? I’ll request my elder sister to wait for you in palace.”
Qiu Yelan felt astonished and said, “I’ve just come back after visiting my elder’s grave. I only got wind of it and I don’t know for sure. But anyhow, only after I have received the praise and honor do I need to express my gratitude, right? Wait, I still need to mourn for my mother… Eh…”
She suddenly realized that it was not proper for her to call on others during the time she was mourning for her mother…
“I rather think we should place more weight on the thing that you ran out at midnight.” Jiang Yashuang let out a sigh, “Can you get onto the wall from here? If you can’t…” Before he had finished his words, Qiu Yelan had jumped onto the wall expertly. Then with one bound, she jumped off the wall after having waved to him. Jiang Yashuang felt relieved when feeling sure that there were no other sounds after one thud and he pondered, “I really have no idea about how the Princess Ruan brought up her daughter. The Commandery Princess appeared to be sensible and capable, yet her nature was no better than Yongfu….”
Yet on second thought, he took pity on Qiu Yelan considering her growing circumstance, “Only when the granaries are full do people respect rites and obligations. She has always been in peril, so no wonder that she was uninhibited.”
Though he told Qiu Yelan that others might despise her because of her behavior, yet actually Jiang Yashuang himself took no notice of it. After all, Princess Yongfu who he regarded as a sibling was no better than an unruly person. Not to mention Princess Yongfu, just by taking Empress Jiang and Jiang Yadan as an example, one could tell that the styles of most children in Jiang Family were actually a long way from being well-behaved and well-educated.
And just because there had been so many children who were imprudent and reckless, Marquess Qiu began to guide his younger master who was devious, talented, handsome, cultured and sophisticated for fear that there might have been disasters if his grandchildren, who had no sense of propriety, had continued acting rashly once he had been gone.
He sighed, returning to the night to continue with his unfinished work. In the Prince’s Mansion of Xihe, Qiu Yelan arrived at her room without any difficulty and studied the indigo wooden token in the light she used when getting up at night, “How much silver should I give him?”
She did trust the secret society recommended by Jiang Yashuang. She assumed that the Jiang Family had probably stepped into the secret society, otherwise how could they elude the imperial encirclement and suppression for several times? Life was nothing like a martial arts fiction in which a swordsman could punish and kill officials at will. If there really had been a swordsman who did something like this, he would have been the most wanted.
“It’s probably that when the Jiang Family wants to do something in secret, the secret society will show up and finish it.” Qiu Yelan pondered, “But however brutal the Jiang Family are, they couldn’t have been lawless every day and every year. Undoubtedly, they didn’t keep them for nothing. By ordering them to do some business, they could not only attain the goal of training them but also make some silver money… Tut-tut, Jiang Banchao is really worthy of his name. His grandchildren had always been carrying such kind of wooden tokens in order to introduce customers to their family.”
Since she had judged that she could trust “Tianya”, Qiu Yelan naturally didn’t want to wait anymore. Though it was not the most appropriate time to ask for dowry as the couple Qiu Mengmin and his wife were ill at present, yet it was OK for her to get the dowry list as soon as possible.
Because this time she would go to the Lian Family to get something, the consigner who went to “Tianya” would surely ask the Lian Family to clear it up. But Qiu Yelan would still have had to pay the price even if the Lian Family hadn’t wanted it. As Ruan Qingyan reminded, the Lian Family was no longer like before. Besides, even if they had had a family property, they shouldn’t have paid the money standing to reason. After all, it would have surely been Qiu Yelan who would have got the bigger share.
Moreover, Jiang Yashuang had told her that “Tianya” charged quite a lot.
“As for large bills, I have no more than one thousand taels. The extra is the change my brother gave me…” Qiu Yelan couldn’t help regretting that she forgot asking Jiang Yashuang how much “Tianya” often charged, “If the money I were to pay them was more than their scale of fees, then there would be no problems. I just fear that I didn’t pay them enough. Because on one hand, even if I didn’t pay enough, they would surely be too ashamed to ask me for the rest. And on the other hand, even if they could make up the money, they would definitely be mad at me.”
“I’d rather pay more… Princess Yang asked for eight hundred thousand taels of silver at the first time, which will be no less than four hundred thousand taels even if she makes a discount.” Qiu Yelan was doing the accounts. “I’ll get up a bit earlier tomorrow and go to the General’s Mansion to ask my cousin whether he has any extra silver or not. If he does, then I’ll borrow some from him. I can never make the Lian Family lose any money. Otherwise, if I make up the money, they will owe me one. But If I owe them one, they will probably not speak of it and will be mad when thinking of it.”
How rare it was to get along well with such relatives! Even though she sensed that the Lian Family had their own agendas, yet Qiu Yelan could still bear it. She finally decided to get on with them.
Finally, she made thorough plans. The next morning, no sooner had she been ready to go out than an empress’s decree of praise and honor came from the palace. The empress awarded her something valuable.
So she received the decree, served the people who came to announce the decree and put away the awards… After finished all these things, it had been noon already.
Just as Qiu Yelan was about to change her plans and go to the General’s Mansion, Commandery Princess Qiu Jinzhu suddenly came for her with Master Qiu Yinzhi, “You hounded our grandmother to death and made my father and mother sick because of anger, but now you got the awards from the Empress. You are happy now, aren’t you? You know what…”
Before Qiu Jinzhu had finished her words, Qiu Yelan stepped forward and gave her a slap, which made her almost turn a circle in front of her. Though the cousin was only eleven years old, yet Qiu Yelan dared not to take her lightly considering Kang Lizhang’s precedent. Thus she was determined to teach her a lesson on seeing her coming over, so that she wouldn’t have courage to find fault every once in a while!
After having slapped Qiu Jinzhu, Qiu Yelan saw that Qiu Yinzhi let out a yell and rushed over to beat her. Just at that moment, Qiu Yelan sent the cousin flying onto the woolen blanket with a swift kick. After that, she admonished coldly, “I don’t give a d*mn about who incited you to come for me. Now I’m in the middle of something! Don’t ask for trouble! You can be as silly as you like, but don’t be so silly to get in my way!”
With this, she told Mrs. Zhou and the others, “Take down their servants! Drag them down to the stairs and beat them to death! Don’t you stop until they are disabled!”
Although the present atmosphere of the Prince’s Mansion of Xihe was different from before and they all knew that Qiu Yelan was a handful, yet the servants hadn’t expected that Qiu Yelan was this brutal. Hearing it, they all clamoured, “How could there be a Commandery Princess like this? All we did was only accompanying the sixth Commandery Princess and the little young master to be here. Why should we get beaten up?”
“Precisely! Does it have anything to do with us? Even Yamen should bring a charge against people if they want to arrest them. We did nothing wrong! Who did we provoke?”
“Even if she wants to build prestige, this is really an unreasonable way.”
Hearing the noises of tongues outside, Qiu Yelan left behind the siblings and walked to the stairs outside. She swept her eyes over the crowd coldly, “What? You got a problem?”
Seeing that she look annoyed and recalling that the servants sent by the Empress to announce the decree also treated her kindly, the servants here felt somewhat afraid while holding a grudge. After they had looked at each other for a moment, an old maidservant stepped forward and argued, “We maidservants have done nothing wrong, have we? Your Grace, the punishment is way… too…”
“Qiu Jinzhu and Qiu Yinzhi are indeed young and ignorant, but are you all dead?! Why did you all stand aside?” These people had always been bullying Princess Ruan and her daughter, thus actually Qiu Yelan had already planned to get even with them for this when she was available and now the chance had arrived. She questioned coldly, “My uncle had already gained a notoriety of being unfilial. Now that you let the two siblings come for me just after the Empress had sent me some awards, are you trying to let outsiders know how much the two siblings disrespect me, their elder sister?! I’ve heard that my aunt has always been better to you than me. Now my aunt has just been ill and you waste no time to entrap your little master!”
“They wanted to harm us?” Though Qiu Jinzhu was ruthless and spoiled, yet she was not mindless. Hearing their talk in the room, Qiu Jinzhu stopped crying, wiped her face casually and rushed out, full of misgivings.
Qiu Yelan swept her eyes over her coldly. Recalling that her slap made her unable to fight back and seeing that none of the servants who had always been pampering and spoiling her actually dared to step forward to safeguard her, Qiu Jinzhu immediately huddled for fear that Qiu Yelan might hurt her again.
Only when seeing that she was afraid did Qiu Yelan turn her gaze back and sneer, “If you are not really silly, then please give it a second thought. Do you want to take advantage of me or be wronged when you siblings came for me? And please think harder about who will be one that profits after you have suffered losses?!”
“Qiu Hongzhi! It must be him!” Because Qiu Mengmin and his wife both stayed in bed, now the only person that could have been in charge was Qiu Hongzhi. Without thinking, Qiu Jinzhu gnashed her teeth. Then she lowered her chin and shouted at Qiu Yinzhi who was still making a scene inside the room, “Let’s go to see our mother!”
“Stop right there!” Qiu Yelan’s face darkened, reproaching, “Who told you that you could leave?! All of you knelt in my house for an hour! Otherwise if someone dares to take one step, I’ll break his or her leg!”