Eight Treasures Trousseau

54

Chapter Fifty-Four: Pity

After Hua Xi Wan changed her clothing, she hurried with her servant girls to the guest hall. When she saw Hou shi's appearance, she couldn't help but feel shocked. After exchanging greetings with Hou shi, Hua Xi Wan sat down.

In the past, Hou shi had always been full-cheeked and of a healthy appearance, but meeting her now, Hua Xi Wan found that the other was extremely thin and her cheeks were sunken in. Her cheekbones were extremely evident and her lips slightly pale. Only that pair of black eyes was bright, and caused Hua Xi Wan's heart to shudder.

"Saozi, are you all right? How come you are so thin?" Hua Xi Wan sighed. "You are still so young—you have to take care of your body. If your health deteriorates, it is not good."

Hou shi laughed softly. "I'm not afraid, and I feel that my health has been very good recently. A figure like wang fei is one that the women of Jing admire." In reality, Hua Xi Wan was not a slender person, but her figure looked beautiful and many young females in Jing copied her.

However, Xian Wang Fu was noble, and Hua shi was from a prestigious family. The things in her dowry were not those that normal people could rival. The hair adornments, the jewelry, grand clothing and gourmet food—many women wanted to copy Hua Xi Wan's style, but they only copied the insignificant details and were a joke.

Hou shi felt scorn towards the females of some prestigious families. When the rumor had been that Hua Xi Wan was a woman without beauty, those people had one face. Now that Hua Xi Wan was a wang fei and deeply favored by Xian Wang, and had Yi'an Marquis Fu at her back, Hua Xi Wan became the object of admiration. These were really people who blew with the wind. There were also some women who acted as though they were virtuous, criticizing Hua Xi Wan for being wasteful, unable to manage a household and ruining the good reputations of women.

Those people acted as though they felt pity and pain, but they forgot that this was a matter of someone else. It was just a group of women who only had respectful relationships with their husbands and could not bear to see other people living better than they did.

What was the use in being virtuous? So what if one was good at managing a household and being frugal? When a man did not like you, being virtuous was called being old-fashioned, being frugal was called being ungenerous. If they liked you, wearing gold was called being noble, being spoiled was called an act of flirtation. In reality, there were not many things that one should not do—what mattered was only whether one liked the other or not.

In the past, Hou shi could not see this, and did not dare to think about these things. Now that her body was damaged due to her miscarriage and she would never be able to have a child, as her husband took a cefei[1], what she received was only a "you will be the most noble mistress in the wang fu."

Her husband was in bed with other women, and in the future, his children would not be hers. She was like a rare object placed on a shelf. She looked valuable, but in reality, she was useless. What was the use in being the most noble mistress?

A few decades ago, there had been a wang ye of the Yan Clan whose body was injured and unable to make a woman pregnant. Consequently, he only ever had the wang fei as the only woman until he died. Countless people had admired this wang fei and praised this wang ye for being deeply in love and righteous in his conduct.

Now that she was unable to become pregnant, even as Junwang Ye took a cefei, many people sympathized with him for being unable to have a legitimate di son. It was as though he was undergoing a great slight.