The people in the room were still talking, but Ye Wang no longer dared to listen. He got up and stumbled towards his own yard. Hearing the commotion, the maid in the room opened the door cautiously to check, but saw nothing, so she could only close the door again in confusion.
Ye Wang returned to the courtyard with a pale face, as if he had lost his soul. The maid who was waiting for him saw this and came up to him: “Young Master, what’s the matter?”
“Everyone, get out.” Ye Wang waved his servants away and locked himself in the room alone.
He recalled that conversation over and over again in his mind, but he couldn’t connect them with his mother. He had always known that his mother’s temper wasn’t the best, but his mother was the jewel of the family, and she grew up doted on and pampered. Later, she married into the Duke’s mansion, and his father always let her have her way. Although his father had two other concubines in the mansion, he rarely visited their yards. On the contrary, his mother would occasionally send them some rewards.
In his opinion, his mother might have been short-tempered, but she never had bad intentions.
But he heard those words with his own ears, and they were true and indefensible. He didn’t even have the courage to rush in and question her. Because he knew that his mother had done all of this for him.
Ye Wang shook his head, his back against the wall and helplessly slid down to the ground. He came to look for his mother today. He originally heard from his servants that his father and mother were going to Yong’an Palace to visit Ye Yunting. He was happy, but he was afraid that the servants were just spreading rumors, so he wanted to go to his mother to confirm if it was true. If so, he would ask them to take him along so that the Prince Yong’an could not stop him outside again.
But he didn’t expect to hear such words out of the blue.
He was again fooled by Ye Yunting.
When he was young, he was very envious that others had older brothers to protect them. Later, when he found out that he also had an older brother, he was very happy. But his father and mother said that his eldest brother’s body was frail and that he shouldn’t be disturbed, so he could only visit him secretly.
Later, as he grew older, he went to home school1. He also saw others going to home school with their brothers, and how after school, the elder brothers would take the younger ones horse racing and drinking. He was surrounded by cousins, too, but when he looked at them, he always felt that they were only interested in the Duke’s family and the stock behind them. They were too shy to speak or act. Besides, none of them were as good-looking as Ye Yunting.
It was just that Ye Yunting never went to school. Later, when he occasionally mentioned Ye Yunting in class, his cousins would always wear a look of contempt, and even other people studying at home looked down upon him. He gradually stopped mentioning him.
But he would still go to Ye Yunting’s yard occasionally. He discovered that Ye Yunting was not an illiterate idiot with an empty belly, as those people said. At least, he had seen him practicing calligraphy in the yard, and that calligraphy was much prettier than his; he would also teach the servant beside him to read and practice calligraphy. The servant was stupid, but Ye Yunting was very patient. If the servant did not know how to write a word, he would teach him to write it by hand, much more patiently than the teachers in the home school. He thought that if it was Ye Yunting who came to teach him, his handwriting would definitely be much better than it was now. He even saw him making snacks in the kitchen. The light yellow osmanthus cakes were very fragrant and there were only six pieces in total, but he shared four pieces with the servant. At that time, Ye Wan just felt angry: he was so kind to a servant, so why did he ignore his own brother?
Later, he stopped watching in secret. If he received any good things, he would always wave them in front of Ye Yunting. However, Ye Yunting’s expression always remained indifferent. No matter if he was showing off or provoking him, he would just smile politely, no different from how he would look at his cousins.
In the past, Ye Wan always had a lot of complaints in his heart. That idiot and Ye Yunting got along better. He couldn’t swallow down the feeling that he was not even as good as a servant.
But today he suddenly understood. The truth had been covered up by a layer of gauze, but was bloodily torn and ripped open after these words.
Ye Yunting really should distance himself from him, and maybe even hate him.
Although they were both young masters of the Duke’s mansion, he lived in the best courtyard in the mansion while Ye Yunting lived in the shabbiest and most remote courtyard. He received the best food and clothing, and never had to wear the same clothes twice. Ye Yunting only had the same clothes; he’d seen him wear them for three or four years. When he was young, he went to home school, and when he got older, he went to the Imperial College, but Ye Yunting rarely even stepped out of the palace gate, and could only read and practice calligraphy in the courtyard……
He had doubts before, but his father and mother always said that Ye Yunting was not in good health and his fate was uncertain. He could not receive too many blessings, but instead had to rest and heal.
The more he heard, the more he believed it. Later, he stopped asking questions and took it all for granted. Now, he turned out to be so laughably stupid.
Ye Wang shook his face, and tears flowed from his reddened eyes. Teardrops fell on the ground, burst, and quickly dissipated. His shoulders trembled, and hoarse, dull laughter came from his throat. He laughed at himself for being naive and also for being so stupid.
He recalled that day when he went to the palace to look for Ye Yunting. He blamed him for not resisting, for being a man resigned to his fate of getting married off, causing him to be ridiculed by Ye Wang’s friends. However, all of this turned out to be because of him. Ye Yunting didn’t resist, not because he didn’t want to, but maybe because he couldn’t.
Ye Wang stayed alone in the room for a long time, recalling the words in a self-torturing manner. At first, he would cry. Later, as time passed, his eyes became dry and numb, and he could no longer shed tears.
He didn’t know how to face all this. He was caught in the middle, afraid to question his parents, but no longer able to deceive himself.
If the maid hadn’t come to call him, maybe he would have hidden in the room and kept running away.
“Young Master, Young Master.” The maid’s voice became more urgent. “Madame is outside, please open the door.”
Then Madame Yin’s voice also rang out: “Wan’er, what’s wrong with you? The maid said you didn’t eat dinner either. Your mother asked the cook to make your favorite eight-treasure duck, so hurry up and come out. It won’t taste good if its cold.”
Ye Wang wiped his eyes carelessly, and stood up from the ground, trying hard to make the rough sound from his throat sound normal. “I’m not stupid with food, I just fell asleep.”
She frowned and asked the maid in a low voice: “The young master locked himself in the room as soon as he came back?”
The maid nodded: “Yes, his face was very pale. He looked like he lost his soul.”
She frowned and continued to knock on the door. “Wan’er, did someone wrong you? If you speak out, Mother will let you vent your anger.”
“No.” Ye Wang had a splitting headache. He held his head high and said loudly: “Just leave the stew alone. I don’t want to eat anything, and nobody wronged me.”
He held his head and curled on the ground, burying his head against his diaphragm as if to escape.
Ye Wan had the temperament of a little bully and had never locked himself in a room like this before. Yin Hongye was frightened and did not dare to knock on the door again. She just quietly instructed his personal maidservant, asking her to leave two maids to listen to the movements in the house, and called all the servants in Ye Wan’s yard out to question them one by one.
*
Ye Yunting didn’t know the turmoil that was going on in the Duke’s mansion.
After sending Xue Ping away, he and Li Fengqi went to pay their respects to the old Wangfei.
The old Wangfei was a Buddhist and vegetarian, so she did not have breakfast with them. After the meal, she had to recite sutras in the small Buddhist hall. They could only wait for the old Wangfei to finish reciting the sutras before they could go pay her respects.
When the two of them got there, the old Wangfei had just come out of the Buddhist hall.
Today, she wore a very dark green chang’ao with a light-colored coat on the outside. There were Buddhist beads wrapped around her wrists, and incense surrounded her body.
Seeing the two of them, she took the lead lightly and ordered Yi Qiu to serve tea.
The three of them sat on two sides, with the old Wangfei sitting at the head, and Ye Yunting and Li Fengqi sitting on one side. Yi Qiu came over with the prepared hot tea and said with a smile, “We came back from Rongyang in a hurry, and I didn’t have time to pack up many things. There is only this old tea left in the courtyard. I hope Wangye and Wangfei do not dislike it.”
Ye Yunting took the tea salt and saw that the tea salt was brewed with tuancha. He looked at the old Wangfei before them with some surprise.
Tuancha, also called tea cake, was divided into five categories of fine colors and seven categories of coarse colors. The production process was extremely complicated and delicate. Almost all the top-quality products were supplied to customers, while the rest were sent to the powerful and noble families. They were scarce and expensive. Of course, for the powerful Yong’an Palace, a small amount of tea was nothing.
Ye Yunting was surprised because the old Wangfei even noticed such a small preference of Li Fengqi. He really couldn’t understand why the relationship between mother and son was so cold.
When drinking tea, Li Fengqi only likes to drink tuancha tea, and would rather drink plain water than loose leaf tea. This was a little habit he accidentally discovered while taking care of Li Fengqi. He didn’t know this at first and he had accidentally made Li Fengqi drink ordinary tea several times when he was unconscious. Every time Li Fengqi woke up, he would drink a lot more water to rinse his mouth. Only then did he realize that Prince Yong’an was very picky about tea.
“I’ll ask someone to send some new tea this year.” Li Fengqi took a sip of tea and said, “If there was anything else left behind in Rongyang, Mother can just ask Wu Geng to send someone to fetch it.”
When the old Wangfei heard this, she scoffed and slowly took the prayer beads around her wrists.
The hall fell silent again.
Ye Yunting found that the mother and son spoke surprisingly little. Every meeting always ended in silence. They seemed to be used to this pattern, but he, an outsider, was restless on the sidelines, searching for some words to warm up the scene. But since he was new here, nothing he said seemed appropriate, so he could only stay silent.
After a cup of salt tea, Li Fengqi spoke again, “I have some things I want to ask Mother.”
“What is it?” The old Wangfei paused her hand, and she stopped rotating the beads.
Li Fengqi said, “Old things, they’re not convenient to talk about here.”
The old Wangfei was silent. She stood up slowly. “Let’s go inside.”
Li Fengqi turned his wheelchair and followed closely behind. When he passing by Ye Yunting, he pressed a hand against Ye Yunting’s arm. “I’ll come back as soon as I’m done.”
Ye Yunting nodded. He was not upset. Although he and Li Fengqi were on the same boat, they had only been working together for half a month. If it was about an important matter, Li Fengqi would take the initiative to avoid suspicion even if he didn’t say anything. Sometimes, the less one knew, the longer one could live.
Li Fengqi followed the old Wangfei to the small Buddhist hall in the back.
The small Buddhist hall was filled with incense. The Ksitigarbha2 enshrined on the altar had a solemn appearance and was holding a jewel in his left hand and a tin staff in his right hand. On the left side of the statue was the tablet of the old Wangye Li Huaiqu, and on the right side was a blank tablet.
The old Wangfei lit three joss sticks of incense, and Li Fengqi, beside her, also put on three joss sticks of incense.
After the worship, the old Wangfei slowly spoke, her voice sounding a little hollow in the swirling smoke. “What do you want to ask about?”
Li Fengqi looked at the enshrined tablet, closed his eyes, and said, “Who I am.”
His eyes fell on the blank tablet, which he had seen enshrined here for as long as he could remember. There was no name, no birth date, nothing.
He had guessed that this tablet might belong to his twin brother, but he had not dared to ask for fear of his mother’s grief. Now, he had to ask.
When the old Wangfei heard this, her eyes were a little confused, but after a while, she settled down again. She got down on the mat and said in a quiet voice: “I don’t know where you heard the gossip, but you are indeed my and Huaiqu’s biological child. f you don’t believe me, you can go to the doctors and medical assistants of that year to verify it.”
Li Fengqi clenched his fists. He spoke in a low voice, suppressing the flood of emotions and turned them into a calm question: “Then what about this blank tablet? “
“This is your brother.” The old Wangfei twirled the beads. “When I was in labor, I found out that I was pregnant with twins. After you were born, your brother, who had been in the womb for too long, died as soon as he was born.” She moved the beads in her hand faster and faster: “A twin birth, and one of them was stillborn–it was unlucky, so I did not announce it to the public.”
Li Fengqi wanted to continue asking, why is there no inscription on the tablet? However, seeing her shoulders trembling and her thin body wavering, he couldn’t bear to pursue the question further.
He closed his eyes, looked at the tablet enshrined on the Buddhist altar, and said: “I understand.”
The old princess did not look back, but whispered, “I have been unable to get over this difficulty these years. Every time I see you, I think of your dead brother. I know that I failed to fulfill my duties as a mother. You can blame me or hate me. No matter what, I deserve it.”
“Mother… treats me very well.” Li Fengqi subconsciously touched the peace talisman around his waist and retorted in a harsh voice, “This son has never had any complaints.”
He remembered that when he was very young, every time he acted childish to get his mother’s attention3, his mother would always tell him with a calm expression that men should not be childish. Occasionally, he would envy other people’s mothers for being gentle and affectionate with their children, but then he became seriously ill and his father was not at home, so it was his mother who took care of him without changing her clothes and without resting at night. By the time his father came back, he had been cured, but his mother collapsed.
Later, his father once told him that his mother had an aloof disposition and was not accustomed to talking about many things, but that didn’t mean she didn’t care about him.
From then on, Li Fengqi gradually accepted the fact that his mother was different from others’.
He had many doubts, but he never complained about her coldness.
The old Wangfei’s fingers paused for a moment on the Buddha beads, then put her palms together: “There’s no need to take other people’s words to heart. Just remember that you will always be your father’s most honored child.”
“I understand.” Knowing that there would be no other result if he asked again, Li Fengqi no longer insisted. He looked at the two tablets on the altar again and bowed three times with folded hands before leaving.
Only after he left did the old Wangfei’s straight back bend down. She stood up and walked to the Buddhist altar. Her fingers gently brushed the words “Li Huaiqu” on the tablet, and said in a low, inaudible voice, “Huaiqu, I tried my best…”
Li Fengqi went in for only a few moments before coming back out.
Ye Yunting heard the sound of the wooden wheels rolling against the ground and got up to meet him. However, seeing the heavy expression on Li Fengqi’s face, he did not say anything as he followed him back to the main hall.
Li Fengqi didn’t say a word on the way. Ye Yunting didn’t know what he asked about the past and whether he received an answer. But from his expression, he knew that it must not have been pleasant, so Ye Yunting put a pot of tea in his hand, stepped back with light footsteps and prepared to leave him alone.
When he reached the door, he heard the person behind him say, “If you have nothing else to do, Young Master, please sit with me for a while.” Ye Yunting’s figure stopped for a beat. He turned around and sat down opposite him, rolled up his sleeves and poured him a cup of hot tea.
Through the rising vapor, he heard Li Fengqi say, “I have another name: Hanzhang4.”
Ye Yunting didn’t understand why he suddenly mentioned this, but he still nodded and said, “I heard the old Wangfei use that name yesterday. Is that Wangye’s courtesy name?”
Li Fengqi shook his head. “It’s another name.”
Fengqi was how he was named by his father, but Hanzang was how he was named by his mother. His father called him “Fengqi”, but his mother always liked to call him “Hanzang”. He was used to having two names since he was a child. People around him didn’t know about it and only thought “Hanzhang” was his courtesy name. He never explained it to anyone.
“What kind of situation do you think would lead a mother to give a name originally given to another child ….. to his brother?”
What he said was a bit convoluted. Ye Yunting understood it after thinking about it, but he had not heard that Prince Yong’an had any brothers or sisters.
“Maybe it’s for remembrance?” He actually wanted to ask if the brother was no longer alive, but he felt it was too rude, so he switched to euphemistic words.
Li Fengqi shook his head. “If that was the case, wouldn’t that unnamed brother be too pitiful? If the mother loved the child so much, how could she bear to do that?”
That person died without even leaving a name, not even a name could be engraved on the memorial tablet. For a mother, how tormented must she be?
Ye Yunting was vaguely alarmed, but he still said truthfully, “It may also be that the dead child cannot have a name.”
Li Fengqi’s hand holding the tea cup tightened, and then he laughed, his eyes filled with sadness. “You are right.” The reason why that person’s name could not be engraved on the tablets is because he couldn’t have a name.
The old Wangfei gave birth to a pair of twins, and one of them was stillborn, which was inauspicious. Therefore, according to custom, the dead fetuses could not be buried or have memorial tablets engraved on them. Even if the name had been chosen long ago, it could not be used. It could only be given to another living child–the only way to prove that the dead child had ever been here before.
Li Fengqi lowered his eyes, almost convinced that what Han Chan said was true.
That day, Han Chan came to look for him and said that he was not the biological child of the old prince. Instead, his biological parents were killed by Li Zong’s father, Emperor Xianzong Li Qian. At that time, the old Wangfei was pregnant with and was about to give birth, so the old prince took in the newborn and raised him as his own son. He did not produce any actual evidence, but listed a number of doubts and told him to go to the old Wangfei and ask for proof to find out if it was true or not.
Han Chan said to him at that time: “Li Qian’s position was not proper, and Li Zong followed in his footsteps. The mountains and rivers of Beizhao have long since been rotten like a ship about to sink. If Wangye is willing to cooperate with me, with your strength, changing the dynasty will be an easy matter. After the matter is completed, I will tell you the complete story of your life.
You will be the emperor and I will be the prime minister. “
The doubts Han Chan mentioned coincided with some of Li Fengqi’s speculations. Although he was dubious at the time, he rejected his proposal because of Li Zong.
Li Zong was his younger brother whom he had protected since childhood. There was no way he would betray Li Zong just because of Han Chan’s words and the illusory story of his life and hatred.
Han Chan walked away at that time, only saying that he would regret his choice. Later, he was poisoned by someone, and Li Zong took advantage of the destruction of his veins and immobility due to the poison’s damage, imprisoning him in the royal residence to be humiliated and wait for his death.
Every move Han Chan made was forcing him to give up ib Li Zong. At the same time, it was also reminding him that there was something hidden about his life story.
Li Fengqi had been unable to figure out. During Li Zong’s three years in office, he showed no sign of fearing him. He didn’t believe that Li Zong’s pretenses could hide this from him. One of the reasons for Li Zong attacking him now was that he was poisoned and weak, but it was more likely that Han Chan said something to him. And the thing that could provoke Li Zong to attack him immediately was likely to be related to his life story.
He lowered his eyes and recalled the known clues.
Neither the old Wang nor the old Wangfei were conformists. Assuming that he really had a twin brother who passed away after birth, with their personalities, they would never burn the child’s ashes and abandoned them in the wilderness for such a ridiculous reason as “bad luck”. Moreover, if they really did such a thing, with the power of the palace, such an affair would never be leaked at all, and it would have been even more unlikely for it to be found out ten years later by his younger self.
Then there was only one reason for them to do this, and that was to cover their tracks.
There were no twins at all, and he was not the biological child of the old Wangfei. In order to hide his identity, they had to perform such a scene to make everyone believe that the old Wangfei had really given birth to a pair of twins tragically in the past.
That was why the old Wangfei gave him the “Hanzhang” that she had taken long ago, and that was why the old Wangfei chanted to the uninscribed tablets day after day.
This was a mother’s last remembrance, or confession.
Li Fengqi was so immersed in his thoughts that he didn’t even notice that the tea in his hand was getting cold.
Seeing that he was about to bring the herbal tea to his mouth, Ye Yunting stopped him with clumsy hands, took the teacup, and handed him another cup of hot tea.
“Actually, Wangye can look on the bright side,” his voice was shallow and light, and his pair of dark eyes were clear, seeming to see through the unspoken knot in Li Fengqi’s heart. “The name of a child contains the prayers of the parents. If the mother carefully chooses the name and gives it to another child, she may hope that the child can live a good life with this prayer.”
Li Fengqi had never heard such a statement before. He froze for a long time, but all the memories from his childhood flashed through his mind. After a long time, he drank the tea in one gulp.
Finally, he looked a little relieved. “The Young Master sees things more clearly than I do.”
He recalled the last words the elder Wangfei said.
She said: “You will always be your father’s most honored child.”
--
===Author’s Notes===
The author has something to say:
77: The grandmother is right, I listen to the grandmother *crying emoji*
===Translator’s Notes===
- 家学 (jiā xué): according to here, this primarily refers to learning passed down from generation to generation in the family. ↩︎
- See here for more info. ↩︎
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That's the problem with never speaking out your thoughts... It's so easy to interpret actions in many different ways.
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