Qin Su bellowed, “Shut your mouth!”
This damned girl’s every word was fanning the flames!
“You’ve been perverse in your ways since childhood, and now that you’re older, you’ve only gotten worse…”
Gu Liaoliao, incensed beyond reason, crumpled the bank note into a ball and flung it at him, jabbing a finger at his nose as she cursed, “Coming to our door to bully the young ladies of the Gu family — our Gu family hasn’t fallen that low yet!”
She was so furious her fingertips had gone white.
The man before her seemed to grow more like a stranger with each passing day.
Once, she too had happily climbed into the bridal sedan. They had fought side by side against enemies on the northern frontier, childhood friends, not strangers bound by a blind arranged marriage. But no matter how deep that old affection ran, it couldn’t outweigh his desperate, day-and-night craving for a son.
After her elder brother died in battle, the Lady of Jing’an had grown more and more disdainful of A-Man by the day, and had barely shown her a decent face either — she refused to believe Qin Su hadn’t noticed.
She had braced herself for the possibility that he’d take a concubine, and had simply been waiting for him to tell her himself. Instead, what she got was the Lady of Jing’an parading his already visibly pregnant cousin in front of her, declaring with smug triumph: Yaoniang is carrying Qin Su’s child — the Qin family will finally have an heir.
Leaving her, who had known nothing of it, to face this absurdity all alone.
These past few months, whenever something upset her, Sun Yaoniang would clutch her stomach in pain, and if she went a single day without seeing Qin Su, she’d weep and wail that she couldn’t bear to be without him.
In truth, Qin Su held a post in the Imperial Bodyguard Corps, and had to stand night duty twice every ten days, each time spending two days and a night in the palace.
All Qin Su ever had to say was, “Cousin’s pregnant, she’s easily upset,” “she’s young, don’t hold it against her,” “Mother’s just anxious too — it’ll all be fine once the baby’s born” — she was sick to death of hearing it.
Now that the birth was drawing near, the Lady of Jing’an guarded her like a thief, and pressed her, openly and covertly, to bow her head.
Utterly pointless.
Gu Liaoliao took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm her mind, and said flatly, “Concubine Sun is about to give birth. With me staying at the Marquis of Jing’an’s residence, neither you nor Mother can rest easy — it’s better for everyone if I move back to my own home.”
She hadn’t raised her voice, and yet that very calm made Qin Su tense for an instant, his hand clenching abruptly.
His thin lips pressed tight. He stood silent for a moment, then, in the end, lowered his posture.
Qin Su crouched down before Gu Liaoliao, gazing at her, and coaxed gently, “With you here, what would I have to worry about?”
“Once Yaoniang has the child, I’ll bring it to you to raise, and register it under your name. The physician says it’s a boy — raise him from infancy and he’ll be just like your own.” Black Lotus Novel Reading · Black Lotus Novel
“Cousin and Mother have both already agreed to this.”
Gu Liaoliao smiled, though the smile never reached her eyes.
“And did I agree?”
“What?”
“I said, did I agree?” Gu Liaoliao stroked her palm lightly, her gaze unkind. “A son born of a concubine cannot inherit the title. Stuff a bastard child under my name, and it’s nothing more than borrowing the status of a legitimate eldest son, so he can inherit the title down the road.”
“Your whole family has schemed against me so thoroughly, and now you want me to turn around and thank you for it?”
Thick scorn washed over him like a tide, and Qin Su’s heart skipped a beat. He hastened to deny it, “That’s not what I meant!”
Gu Liaoliao brushed the intricate embroidery on her sleeve and gave a cold snort. “How about this instead — I’ll divide the property and live separately, and you go beg an imperial edict for your cousin, get her a title of rank. Maybe then your son will still have a shot at inheriting, or failing that, you can earn enough merit as heir apparent to petition for imperial favor. In any case, don’t count on pinning it on me. Too filthy.”
The words struck Qin Su’s chest like a blade. He wanted to explain, but meeting those bottomlessly dark eyes, he panicked for no reason he could name.
“A-Liao,” he forced a smile, “you can scold me all you want if you’re upset, but don’t ever say that about dividing the property and living apart again.”
“Fine, it’s all my fault.” He picked up the crumpled bank note off the ground, smoothed it out gently, and set it on the bench, his tone losing its earlier firmness. “I’ll go talk to Mother about Fifth Brother’s matter — don’t be angry anymore.”
Gu Liaoliao’s mouth curved into a mocking, cold smile. See — it clearly wasn’t a big deal at all, he could smooth it over perfectly well. He simply wanted her to bow her head to the Qin family.
He glanced carefully at Gu Liaoliao’s expression, and seeing she remained unmoved, a thread of pleading crept into his voice. “If you don’t want to go back today, just stay here a few days. When my leave comes, I’ll come fetch you and A-Man, and we’ll take A-Man out of the city for a walk, how about it…”
As he said this, a thought suddenly struck him, and he added quickly, “Right, we could go to the Taiqing Temple. I heard Immortal Qingping is about to end his seclusion. Let’s go ask him to take a look at A-Man. A-Man’s illness matters most, doesn’t it?”
Right. They still had their daughter.
With their daughter here, there was no way A-Liao would truly leave him — she was just being temperamental.
Qin Su’s mind settled, and he pressed on, “You remember Immortal Qingping, don’t you? Last year, our household invited him to arrange a feng shui array, and at the time Immortal Qingping said…”
Immortal Qingping had said that his Palace of Children and Grandchildren was afflicted by an inauspicious star, that he’d have difficulty producing heirs.
Afterward, his mother had given him a cup of talisman water, swearing solemnly that drinking it would bring him a son.
He hadn’t believed it at the time. And yet, not long after, one night after drinking too much, he’d mistaken Yaoniang, who’d come to bring him sobering soup, for A-Liao.
Who could have known that just that once, Yaoniang had ended up pregnant.
He was nearly thirty, with nothing to show for it, and his only daughter was mute besides. Colleagues and friends his own age already had sons old enough to be arranging betrothals — he was a full generation behind.
How could he bear to give up this child that felt like a gift from the heavens?
Ah, but A-Liao was in a temper right now — he didn’t dare breathe a word of any of this.
He hedged vaguely, “Immortal Qingping really does live up to his reputation. Have you noticed? Ever since he set up that feng shui array, so many things in our household have gone smoothly…”
The moment she heard “feng shui array,” Gu Liaoliao’s grip on her sleeve tightened at once, her palms drenched in sweat.
She laughed mockingly. “Oh, right, of course! Once that feng shui array was set up, everything went smoothly for you Qin family — while my A-Man ran fever after fever and burned her throat out.”
The smile froze on Qin Su’s face.
No — was she suggesting his mother had arranged the array on purpose to harm A-Man?! Qin Su found the misunderstanding almost laughable. “You’ve grown far too prejudiced against Mother, and besides, Immortal Qingping, he—”
“Enough! No need to say more.” Gu Liaoliao’s breathing quickened, and she raised her voice sharply. “A-Man will not be going to see Immortal Qingping. You can leave now.”
“Don’t be unreasonable — I’m doing this for A-Man too…”
For A-Man? These past six months or more, how much thought had he actually spared for A-Man? And now here he was, “for A-Man” on repeat.
Fire surged up in Gu Liaoliao’s chest. She raised her sleeve and swatted away the hand he reached toward her, her manner fierce. “Get out!”
She gasped for breath in great heaving gulps, a fierce revulsion coursing through her.
Gu Zhizhuo shot a glance, and Qingmei came forward smiling, stepping in front of Qin Su and making a gesture of “please, this way.”
A stifling sense of being misunderstood rose up in Qin Su’s chest.
A-Liao, flitting from one whim to the next like this — how was that any different from some ignorant woman off the streets!
Forget it. He sighed. “A-Liao, I’ll come for you and A-Man when my leave comes.”
Gu Liaoliao’s back was rigid, as though she were enduring something.
The instant Qin Su left, her whole body went slack all at once, her breathing suddenly ragged, quick and shallow, beads of sweat the size of peas welling up across her forehead in an instant, her hands twitching beyond her control — within the space of a few breaths, her pupils, too, began to lose focus.
Trouble!
Gu Zhizhuo was the first to notice.
This was jue syndrome — a collapse brought on by overwhelming emotion, breathing too fast and too hard.
Great rage severs the flow of qi and form — it was a critical condition (note). One careless moment could endanger her life.
Gu Zhizhuo drew out her silver needles, and without a moment’s hesitation, planted the first straight into her throat. Gu Liaoliao’s breathing eased at once, and she forced the words out with effort: “The needle — the needle…”
“Aunt, trust me.”
She raised her hand, about to plant the second needle, when Gu Liaoliao seized her wrist and, with great difficulty, forced out the rest: “A-Man’s afraid of needles — she’ll, she’ll spike a fever, have convulsions…”
Afraid of needles? | black lotus novel Novel Translation Site | black lotus novel
Gu Zhizhuo instinctively looked toward A-Man — the small child seemed to sense something and came running over on her short little legs.
She immediately blocked the needle with her back and called out loudly, “A-Man, could you go pick a begonia blossom for your cousin? Pick a really good one for her — you have the best eye for flowers.”
Mm-hm! She’d pick it! A-Man nodded vigorously with delight, took off running, her wet nurse and maid trailing close behind her.
Gu Zhizhuo continued with the needle.
“Follow me. Breathe out — breathe in—”
Gu Liaoliao slowly steadied her breathing, and soon her hands stopped twitching. She tugged at the corners of her mouth, managing a strained smile. “Yaoyao, when did you go and learn medicine?”
Gu Zhizhuo’s needle hand was perfectly steady.
She understood the “medicine, divination, astrology, physiognomy” cover story had gaping holes — someone like Shen Xu had only to crook a finger, and within three days he’d have dug up every detail down to what illness she’d faked at what age, what roof tiles she’d pried up as a child.
At first, she’d considered “coincidentally encountering” Immortal Wuweizi and formally taking him as her master again, so that everything she knew and did would have a proper origin.
But she had no idea where the immortal was now, and ever since her rebirth, one matter after another had come crashing down on her without pause, leaving her no time at all to fabricate anything.
A wild goose leaves its mark in passing; the wind leaves its sound as it blows.
In this world, nothing could be done without leaving some trace.
Rather than be caught out in a lie, better not to explain at all from the start.
Gu Zhizhuo didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow, smiling smugly. “Aunt, well — the Patriarch of the trade granted me my rice bowl. I know a great many things.”
“Are you feeling better now?”
Gu Liaoliao nodded. She herself didn’t know what had come over her — the moment she’d spoken too urgently, her breathing had gone haywire, and everything before her eyes had gone dark in waves, her head spinning.
Seeing her breathing had evened out and color returned to her face, Gu Zhizhuo withdrew the needles briskly.
She had just put the needle case away when A-Man came bounding back in, eagerly cupping a vermilion begonia blossom in her small palm.
She climbed practiced onto Gu Zhizhuo’s lap and showed off the flower she’d so carefully chosen.
Gu Zhizhuo clapped at once. “Beautiful!”
“Not a single flower in the whole garden is as pretty as this one.”
“A-Man really does have a good eye.”
A-Man, thoroughly pleased with herself, tucked the begonia blossom into Gu Zhizhuo’s hair by her temple.
She covered her mouth with both plump little hands, giggling with unrestrained delight.
Gu Zhizhuo held A-Man close for a moment, then said plainly, “Aunt, I checked A-Man’s pulse. Her muteness — the affliction lies in the heart, not the throat.” She put it more directly, “She lost her voice because she suffered some tremendous fright.”
“Do you remember what happened to her before the high fever?”
“A fright!?”
Gu Liaoliao’s chest tightened, and she nearly lost her breath again.
“Of course I remember.”
She lowered her head, murmuring to herself, “A year ago, the Lady of Jing’an invited Immortal Qingping to arrange a feng shui array for the household, and had A-Man brought along too. Right then, your grandmother suddenly suffered a fit of palpitations and fainted, and I rushed back — I left A-Man in the care of the wet nurse and the nannies.”
At the time, her relationship with Qin Su had still been reasonably harmonious, and the Lady of Jing’an was A-Man’s own grandmother, so leaving her in that care for even a day hadn’t worried her at all.
“It wasn’t until the next day, once your grandmother had recovered somewhat, that I went back. Who could have known — A-Man had spiked a high fever the night before, one that wouldn’t break, and the wet nurse said she’d caught a chill.”
“The fever raged on and off for three days, and once A-Man woke, she never made a sound again.”
“It must have been the Qin family’s doing!”
Gu Liaoliao’s heart pounded fiercely, a pain cutting straight through her.
Gu Zhizhuo’s brow furrowed tight. No wonder, once A-Man went mute, Aunt had broken with the Qin family entirely — not only because of Sun Yaoniang’s appearance, but because of this thorn buried in her heart all along.
Author’s Note:
Note: The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon
