To Be A Virtuous Wife

13

What had occurred at Chang De Gong Fu did make its way through the aristocratic circles of the city of Jing. The type of people that Jing City never lacked for were officials and nobility. When the incident spread, the Duke of Chang De couldn't bear to go out to hear the mockery in other people's words. Every time he went to court, he rushed as fast as he could home after it ended.

Last time, he had gone to houyuan to ask Liang shi what had happened. The result was that he had saw Liang shi sobbing her heart out in her room. He knew that it was hard to be a stepmother. Now that da yatou was a wang fei, Liang shi could only respect her. She had to endure it even if she was annoyed. She was victimized.

They were all daughters of Chang De Gong Fu. Why was it that san yatouwas so considerate and sensible, but da yatou was this senseless? If her paternal home was shamed, she, as a married daughter, wouldn't be well-off either.

Liang Rong was walking in the courtyards and saw his aunt's husband furiously marching past. He quickly retreated and bowed to the Duke of Chang De. The duke wasn't in the mood to pay him any attention so he nodded and strode away. This made Liang Rong to look longer at him.

"Gongzi,[1] what's going on with gu lao ye[2]?"The manservant that followed him said worriedly, "His face didn't look so good."

Thinking of the rumors these past days in Jing City, Liang Rong furrowed his brow. Because of the separation of the sexes, he hadn't had many interactions with his cousin-in-name, Qu Qing Ju. But in his memories, every time he saw her, she always preferred to lower her head and didn't speak. How did things get this bad? With aunt's nature and skills, how come she couldn't managed a little girl?

Now the reputation of Chang De Gong Fu wasn't good and in passing, people were saying to not marry any daughters of the Liang family. This had ruined the reputations of the sisters in his home and he felt somewhat insecure. The person they offended this time wasn't somebody ordinary, but the second imperial son Duan Wang. It wouldn't be very easy to supress the gossip.

But he had heard before that Rui Wang's mother Shu Fei and Duan Wang's mother Jin Fei did not get along. If they could get the support of Rui Wang, things would be much easier to accomplish. Furthermore, the present Emperor was old and all the imperial sons had reached adulthood. The Emperor's favourite was Rui Wang. Recently, the rumors had been saying that the Emperor was going to establish Rui Wang as taizi. [3] If that was true, then supporting Rui Wang would cause no harm and create many advantages.

Qu Qing Ju, after hearing the jokes that Huang Yang had heard about Chang De Gong Fu, was in a mood good enough that she ate an extra half-bowl of rice at noon. In the afternoon, she rewarded all the servants in the zhengyuan.

Wang fei's actions made everybody in zhengyuan feel confused and worried. Logically, wang fei should be angry but why did it not look like that?

There were some that asked Huang Yang, but while Huang Yang looked young, his brains were very quick and not one word could be pried from him.

Qu Qing Ju didn't care what about what the servants did and absolved the other qieshi of paying their respects in the next two days. She concentrated on combing through the memories that remained of the original in the body. These memories weren't hers and in her heart, they were like scenes of a movie. She would remember them but she wouldn't be involved in them.

After she managed to organize everything, Qu Qing Ju had nothing to do except eat, read and look at flowers until a mama from Zhong Jing Palace[4] came.

The mistress of Zhong Jing Place was Duan Wang's mother Jing Fei and this mama had come to convey Jing Fei's words. The meaning was that she had her that her erxifu[5] had recovered and as her mufei, she missed her so she was to, along with the two ce fei, go tomorrow to Zhong Jing Palace to visit.