Chapter 7#

Father, Guess How Long Those Wooden Spirit Tablets Can Withstand the Flames? Chapter Number: 7203901#

Disciplining Chu Tan had drained too much of Rong Yu’s strength, and he’d been infuriated in the bathhouse as well. His body had always been frail, and now that he’d finally rested, he felt his eyelids grow heavy and his limbs refuse to move.

Mo Shu accordingly escorted him back to the bedchamber to rest.

That sleep was not peaceful. In his dreams, a great serpent chased him, coiled around him, squeezed until he could not breathe.

Then the scene shifted—the enormous serpent’s head pressed close to his cheek, a scarlet forked tongue probing into his ear, whispering: “I will stay by your side every day, young master.”

Rong Yu woke with a start.

Through the thick gauze bed-curtains, fragmented voices drifted into his ears.

“Mo Shu.” Rong Yu’s voice was hoarse.

“Young master is awake.” Mo Shu drew open the bed-curtains and handed him a cup of tea.

The tea moistened his parched throat. Rong Yu raised a hand to rub his brow. “What’s all that noise outside?”

“Chong Qing, from the master’s side, came to invite you to the front hall for a talk. I said you were asleep and would naturally go over once you woke. But he wouldn’t listen—kept urging like his life depended on it—so I had him wait at the door.” Mo Shu set the teacup down, then took a handkerchief to dab the sweat from Rong Yu’s forehead. “Did the young master have a nightmare?”

Rong Yu waved a hand and had Mo Shu help him sit up.

“Young master really means to go? The front courtyard must have heard about what happened in our yard, and they’re calling you over to be lectured.” Mo Shu’s face was full of reluctance, but when the master summoned, one could not refuse.

Muttering all the while, he helped Rong Yu into a padded robe, then draped the large cloak over him, bundling him up in thick layers.

Sure enough, the moment they entered the front hall, a teacup came flying at them, smashing right at Rong Yu’s feet. Shards and tea leaves scattered across the floor.

Mo Shu started in fright and hurriedly checked whether any shard had cut Rong Yu’s legs—fortunately, Rong Yu was wearing thick clothing, so no harm was done.

Rong Yu lowered his gaze and said slowly, “What has made Father so angry?”

“You have the nerve to ask?” Rong Xiuyong slammed the table in fury. “I ask you—what day is it today? The twenty-ninth of the twelfth month! What do you think you’re doing, raising a ruckus and shouting about killing in your courtyard?! Do we still celebrate tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve?! Do we still get to have this New Year?! Are you afraid this year hasn’t been dramatic enough, and you want the entire Rong family to see blood next year?!”

There was a saying: avoid taboos at the start of the first month, and avoid them at the end of the twelfth. The ancients had many superstitions regarding the New Year. Mother Qin had also said that shedding blood during the New Year brought bad luck, and Rong Xiuyong, holding a high official position, was even more superstitious about such things.

But Rong Yu had far fewer scruples. Neither the original owner of this body nor he himself had ever been ones to restrain their impulses.

He said languidly, “Lü’e tried to crawl into my bed. Father has always taught that our Rong family is one of pure reputation—that we should keep ourselves clean and cultivate virtue. Your son has always heeded Father’s teachings and would never tolerate such filth.”

“You, obedient? You, obedient?” Rong Xiuyong nearly laughed in anger. He turned to a woman seated nearby and said, “Did you hear that? He says he’s obedient? I think that’s the biggest joke under heaven!”

The woman wore a helpless expression. “Husband, Third Young Master is still a child who doesn’t understand. Why bother lowering yourself to his level? Besides, Third Young Master didn’t kill Lü’e—she’s locked up safe and sound. Please stop scolding him.”

“He’s already seventeen—how is that still young?! If he were someone else’s son, he’d be a father by now! Only he has such a foul reputation that no girl is willing to marry him! And you—you’re always indulging him, spoiling him rotten!”

Rong Xiuyong roared, “Lü’e is fine, but that Chu Tan nearly got whipped to death by him! The servants reported he was carried out like a lump of mud, covered in blood!”

He turned back to Rong Yu and cursed, “I didn’t know you’d learned so many ways to torment people! Though Chu Tan is now of base status, he was originally an official’s son. If word of you degrading him like this gets out, outsiders will surely condemn you for kicking a man when he’s down—vicious and tyrannical!”

Rong Yu smiled slightly. “Plenty of people outside already say plenty of things about me. Nothing new there. Father needn’t act like it’s the first time he’s heard of it.”

“You—!” Rong Xiuyong choked on his words, nearly fainting from rage.

The woman hurried over to soothe Rong Xiuyong’s chest, then looked at Rong Yu and pleaded softly, “Third Young Master, don’t be angry with your father. He’s only worried about you, afraid you might go down the wrong path. This morning when he went to the ancestral hall to offer incense, he prayed to the ancestors to bless you children with bright futures.”

Rong Yu lifted his eyelids, and the first sight of the woman stirred an intense aversion in his heart.

This woman was none other than the second wife, née Bai. She wasn’t particularly beautiful, but her bearing was gentle and refined. She wore plain-colored clothing, and the jewelry in her hair was understated, making her seem all the more meek and soft—a veritable white lotus flower.

In his memories, this Madam Bai had been very good to the original owner, at least on the surface. Three years ago, when the original owner and Lady Yang had encountered mountain bandits, the original owner had been unconscious for nearly half a month. Madam Bai had knelt at Zhenguo Temple for two days and two nights, vowing to eat vegetarian, chant Buddhist prayers, and burn incense daily thereafter, begging the Bodhisattva to protect Rong Yu’s safety.

Later, when Madam Bai was elevated to the position of second wife, she showed Rong Yu even more care and affection—even more than she showed Rong Yue. The noble ladies of the capital had originally looked down on her humble origins, but somehow this matter had quietly spread.

Everyone suddenly felt that Madam Bai was a kind and magnanimous person—after all, not every stepmother could treat her stepson so well.

Coupled with Rong Yue’s growing reputation in the capital, outsiders said that mother and son shared the same Bodhisattva-like heart, and even the Empress had praised them several times.

All of this only made Rong Yu seem all the more ungrateful, willful, and vicious by comparison.

But was that really the truth?

Ever since Lady Yang passed away, Rong Yu had never attended school again, nor the family’s private academy. The reason was that Madam Bai claimed to worry about his poor health and wouldn’t let him study with so many others, for fear of overexertion.

She had then proposed to Rong Xiuyong that a tutor be hired specifically for him. Rong Xiuyong had never liked this son, so of course he refused, saying that Rong Yu was already crippled in both legs and had no hope in the imperial examinations or an official career—why go to all that trouble.

Rong Yu had only felt that Rong Xiuyong was too cruel to him. Father and son had a massive argument, and Rong Yu never studied again, becoming a complete good-for-nothing aristocrat.

Furthermore, every time Madam Bai went out to banquets and chatted with the other ladies, the topic would inevitably turn to everyone’s children.

Whenever Madam Bai mentioned Rong Yu, she would always put on a look of having hardships she couldn’t speak of. When the crowd asked curiously, she’d shed a few tears, reveal bits and pieces of Rong Yu’s disgraceful deeds in the household in a few words, then cover her mouth and clumsily try to “make excuses” for Rong Yu. The women of the inner chambers were all sharp as tacks—who couldn’t read between those lines?

Over time, Rong Yu’s evil reputation spread throughout the capital.

Another example: now. Whenever Rong Xiuyong scolded Rong Yu, Madam Bai would stand by playing the peacemaker, putting on a show of maternal kindness. Yet she always managed to make Rong Xiuyong even angrier, more and more disgusted with Rong Yu.

At the mention of the ancestral hall, Rong Xiuyong’s fury surged anew. He shoved Madam Bai aside, strode up to Rong Yu, and jabbed a finger at his nose.

“I ask you—in this entire year, how many times have you gone to the ancestral hall to pay respects? Your second brother goes every first and fifteenth of the month to offer incense. What about you? Aside from your birth mother, have you offered a single stick of incense to any other ancestor?!”

Rong Xiuyong’s face was red and his neck was bulging—if he weren’t a man of letters, he would have beaten Rong Yu right then.

“You unfilial wretch! Get to the ancestral hall right now and kneel! Confess your sins to the ancestors!”

Mo Shu hastily knelt and begged, “Master, the young master has a leg ailment—he cannot kneel!”

Rong Xiuyong snorted angrily, “Why can’t he kneel! His calves are broken, but his thighs are perfectly fine, aren’t they?”

Madam Bai’s face showed pained sympathy. “Oh dear, this, this… Third Young Master, just say a few soft words to your father and admit your fault.”

In the past, every time Madam Bai said such things, it would provoke the original owner’s rebellious streak, and he’d stiffen his neck and fight to the bitter end.

But now, with Rong Yu in his place, he didn’t so much as blink. He neither took Madam Bai’s bait nor softened toward Rong Xiuyong.

He kept his eyes lowered and spoke in a gentle, slow voice, “Father truly wants me to kneel in the ancestral hall?”

“Don’t tell me I’m joking with you! Go now! You can get up when you know you’ve done wrong!”

Rong Yu let out a light laugh, stroking the warm-jade-inlaid armrest of his wheelchair. “But Father knows my nature is willful. If I were to accidentally bump into something and knock over a candle stand… Father, guess how long those wooden spirit tablets can withstand the flames?”

Rong Xiuyong narrowed his eyes, squeezing words through his teeth. “Are you threatening me?”

Rong Yu crossed his hands and propped his chin on them. His ten fingers were white as snow, fingertips flushed pink, like exquisite jade carvings. He gazed quietly at Rong Xiuyong, a faint smile curving at the corners of his lips, and slowly enunciated a few words.

“How would I dare?”

Rong Xiuyong couldn’t afford to gamble. If Rong Yu really did burn down the ancestral hall, by tomorrow the matter would reach the ears of everyone in the city. Not only would his political rivals in court use it to attack him for failing to govern his household, but even the emperor, who valued filial piety above all, would likely hold it against him—in a fit of rage, he might even demote or suspend Rong Xiuyong from office.

His bloodshot eyes glared fixedly at Rong Yu, and he muttered, “A true heaven-sent curse…”

After a long moment, he snatched up the vases and teacups from the table and smashed them all to the floor.

“Get out! Get out of my sight! Go back to your courtyard and don’t let me see you again!”

Mo Shu hastily pushed Rong Yu away.

Even after they’d gone a good distance, Rong Xiuyong’s curses and Madam Bai’s placating voice could still be heard.

Mo Shu had worn a look of panic inside the room, but once they were outside, his expression immediately changed.

He asked cheerfully, “Young master, from the master’s words, does that mean we don’t have to come over tomorrow either? Then we can spend the New Year together!”

—

At Biying Pavilion, in the servants’ quarters.

Because Chu Tan was badly wounded and reeked of blood, no one was willing to share a room with him, so he’d been given a room alone. At this moment, a physician was tending to his wounds.

The physician was in his thirties, dressed in a blue robe, with a refined and scholarly air.

He frowned at the hideous crisscrossing whip welts on Chu Tan’s back, speaking worriedly, “The wounds from the past few days haven’t even healed properly, and now new ones have been added. I’m afraid it won’t be better for at least two or three months.”

If Rong Yu were here, he would certainly be surprised—he’d estimated the wounds would take at least half a year to heal, but judging by this physician’s tone, they would be fully recovered in just three months.

After the physician cleaned the wounds, he took out several jade bottles from his medicine case and said, “Your Highness, this servant will now apply the medicine. Bear with it.”

Chu Tan lay prone on the bed, eyes slightly closed. He no longer resembled the groveling, servile slave he’d been outside; instead, an unapproachable, imperial air of nobility surrounded him.

Even bare-chested and bearing wretched wounds, he was like a wounded beast—quietly lying in ambush, dangerous and proud.

White medicinal powder sprinkled onto the wounds, bubbling up like it was boiling upon contact with blood, accompanied by a sizzling sound that set one’s teeth on edge.

Yet Chu Tan didn’t even twitch an eyelid. One might have thought the powder was all bluster, eliciting no reaction at all.

Only the physician knew that this medicine came from a formula they’d obtained from the barbarians while stationed at the frontier. Though it was remarkably effective at healing wounds, the pain it inflicted was also extremely intense. Those thick-skinned soldiers in the army—men who wouldn’t cry out even when having flesh cut out or legs severed in battle—would grimace and wail like ghosts once this medicine was applied.

Yet this young man before him, only eighteen years old, could endure such tremendous pain without so much as a change in expression.

Cai Shu’s eyes showed satisfaction and admiration. Only a person with such a resilient will could deserve to be their master, could lead them to accomplish their great undertaking.

“However… this Third Young Master of the Rong family acts far too erratically. If Your Highness has no need, it would be best not to provoke him.”

Chu Tan said indifferently, “His temperament is peculiar. If I hadn’t used such a method, it would have been difficult to get close to him.”

Cai Shu nodded. “True. The sooner we obtain that thing, the more advantage we’ll have.”

While waiting for the powder to be absorbed, Cai Shu also brought up the commotion he’d heard from the front courtyard earlier.

Cai Shu clucked his tongue. “Daring to threaten burning down the ancestral hall—bold, indeed.”

Chu Tan lifted his eyelids, a dark glint flashing through his pitch-black pupils, and a smile curved at the corners of his mouth. “Yes. Bold—and quite extraordinary too.”

【Author’s Note:】

My computer is having problems and won’t connect to the internet, wailing loudly