The Beauty Within the Gates
Chapter 31
He strode swiftly back to the garden courtyard and noticed two unfamiliar faces outside the east wing. Judging by their appearance, they looked like workers from a clothing shop.
Without waiting for an announcement, Xie Shao stepped directly into the room. Just as he reached the beaded curtain, he overheard the conversation inside.
“These are all unworn, brand new. How can they not be returnable?”
“The shop’s policy is clear. Once the clothes leave the store, unless there is a quality issue, we generally do not accept returns or exchanges. Third Young Madam, you are a valued customer and should be familiar with this rule. If you are dissatisfied with any aspect of these garments, we can take them back for alterations. But as for a refund… we sincerely apologize…”
Xie Shao pushed through the curtain and entered. Inside, he saw two lacquered wooden chests placed in the room, filled with piles of silks and satins.
The colors were vibrant, all ready-made garments, and judging by their condition, they appeared to be entirely new.
Wen Shuse frowned, looking completely at a loss. When she saw Xie Shao return, she stood up and greeted him softly, “Husband.” Then she turned back to the owner of the clothing shop and pleaded in a low voice, “Aunt, look… if you won’t take all of them back, at least take half. Everyone knows I donated all our grain to the battlefield this time. The Xie and Wen families have completely emptied our coffers. We really have no silver left on hand.”
Of course, the shop owner knew. Who didn’t? Since early morning, the whole city had been buzzing that Second Young Lady Wen had donated nearly ten thousand shi of grain and exchanged it for three official positions.
Now, Second Master Wen, Third Young Master Wen, and this very Third Young Master of the Xie family were all Senior Deputy, each with an additional title as Judicial Officer. Ninth rank it might be, but it was still an official post within the government’s rolls.
Ordinary scholars could toil a decade at their books and never achieve such a thing. But wealthy families were simply different. One grand gesture, one sweep of the hand, and an official post could be bought just like that.
The shopkeeper pressed her lips together in a polite smile. “Third Young Madam, you really flatter this old woman. Who in all of Fengcheng doesn’t know how deep the Wen and Xie family coffers run? It’s merely a few pieces of clothing. Third Young Madam saying can’t afford to wear them is teasing this old woman, surely.” Then she turned toward Xie Shao, who had just entered. “Our Senior Deputy Xie is a man of generous means. With Third Young Madam marrying into the Xie family, how could she possibly be wronged?”
Afraid Wen Shuse would keep entangling her in pleas, the shopkeeper quickly took two steps back. “Third Young Madam’s time is precious. This old woman won’t delay you any further. I’ll take my leave.”
In a flash, she whisked herself out the door with her two servants, their footsteps hurried as they exited the garden courtyard.
And just like that, only the two of them remained in the room.
With the interruption, and looking again at the chests full of brightly colored garments, the surge of fury that had driven Xie Shao into the room earlier felt like a droplet of tea spilled from a cup, initially boiling and forceful, then rolling, slowing, and weakening until it barely moved at all.
It wasn’t hard to see what she was doing.
She was so poor that she was trying to return her own clothes.
After waking up this morning, Xie Shao had been hit with blow after blow. At this point, there was hardly anything left in the world that could still surprise him. Clinging to the faintest shred of hope, he asked her quietly, “Have things truly come to this?”
Wen Shuse didn’t answer.
After running all over the city, not only was his head spinning, but his legs felt weak. He walked over and simply dropped into her reclining chair.
He hadn’t even opened his mouth to question her when the little lady, brows deeply knitted, started complaining first. “The clothes were perfectly fine, but I never even wore them once. Ten taels of silver each! I asked her to give me back eight taels, and she wasn’t willing. Isn’t that just a swindler?”
Xie Shao: ……
Both of them had been raised in comfort, used to living like pampered young masters and ladies. When had they ever haggled over a few taels like this? Never mind ten taels per garment; even a hundred taels for a single outfit wouldn’t have made them blink in the past.
The more this reality sank in, the heavier Xie Shao’s heart sank, dropping straight into the abyss. He might as well get the full, painful truth at once. He turned and gestured for her to sit nearby. “I need to ask you something. Sit.”
Compared to earlier, he was far calmer now.
Wen Shuse obediently sat on the round stool across from him. “Husband, please ask.”
He turned his head away, unwilling to look directly at that innocent, yet infuriating, face of hers, and forced his voice to stay level. “The shops are gone too?”
“Mm.”
Even though he already knew the answer, hearing her confirm it out loud still hit far harder than imagining it. He dragged a hand down his face.
This Second Wen … truly had skills.
He squeezed his throbbing temples, forcing himself to stay focused. “Tell me. How did it all disappear?” Two entire family fortunes, the Xie and Wen families, two mountains of gold, how had she managed to burn through them?
Wen Shuse thought for a moment, then reflected honestly, “It’s my fault. I was too greedy.” She shuffled her seat forward a little, swallowed, and looked at her husband’s ashen face, preparing to explain everything in detail.
“Husband doesn’t know… those few days, the grain prices were so tempting. You close your eyes, open them again, and the price has changed. One tael became two, then three, then four… I admit I’m a vulgar person. I couldn’t withstand the temptation. It wasn’t just rice. When I saw the price kept skyrocketing, I went and bought wheat and soybeans too, and then…”
She winced, as if the memory itself hurt. “When I bought them… the price was already a little high.”
All that silver, gone so suddenly—it saddened her too. Her shoulders trembled, and she burst into soft, pitiful sobs. “I had planned to keep all the profit for myself… but who knew everything would be swept clean in one go? When the soldiers came begging for grain, our family was the only one in all of Fengcheng with any left. What was I supposed to do…”
She covered her face and wept, truly looking as though she regretted it down to her bones.
Xie Shao had fallen for this exact “weak spot” of hers several times before; by now, he understood it completely.
She had probably bought half a granary at sky-high prices.
He no longer held even the tiniest sliver of hope. Still, he asked, “How much is left?”
He had expected her to shake her head. Instead, Wen Shuse wiped her tears, sniffled, and said, “Husband, wait a moment.” She suddenly stood up, slipped behind the folding screen, rummaged around for a while, and came out with her arms full of gold hairpins, jade hairpins, and all sorts of gold, silver, and jade jewelry. She dumped them onto the table before him with a loud clatter.
“And there are these.”
Those had clearly just been swept off her dressing table. And looking closely… it really was quite a pile. The little lady looked up at him with genuine surprise and even a bit of hope. “Husband, we should be able to last for a while with this.”
Xie Shao: ……
He turned his head away, unable to look. His heart had long since gone numb.
“But just now, Nanny said the ice blocks we ordered need to be moved to the cellar tomorrow. Summer’s almost here, so we’ll have to pay a few dozen taels…”
Seeing the color drain even further from his face, she stopped herself, unable to keep speaking. After a moment, Wen Shuse instead asked gently, “Husband, have you eaten today?”
He would’ve rather she not asked. The moment she did, his stomach suddenly felt painfully empty.
He had slept until mid-morning and hadn’t had time to eat before the young lady delivered that stunning blow. After that, even though Cui Nian had prepared wine and dishes, he never made it to a single mouthful before being stabbed with yet another blade.
What time was it now? There was no sand timer in the room. He tilted his head, peering through the half-lowered curtain at the sunlight outside. At the very least… it was already around mid-afternoon.
Seeing his expression, the little lady immediately understood. She turned to instruct Nanny Fang, “Go prepare some dishes for the young master.”
No matter how upset a person is, they still get hungry. He had to eat.
They would fill his stomach first; everything else could wait.
Good wine and good dishes were set before him. Wen Shuse sat across from him, resting her chin in her hands as she watched him eat. From time to time, she picked food for him or refilled his cup, her attitude of admitting fault remarkably earnest.
The food and wine, passing his throat, couldn’t heal the wounds in his heart, but they at least allowed him to catch his breath. But the moment he set his chopsticks down, the young lady across from him gazed at him with wide, hopeful eyes and said, “Husband, this month’s grocery bill still hasn’t been paid…”
“Don’t worry, Husband. I’ll take those hairpins and pawn them in a bit. And the clothes, if they won’t take them back, I’ll sell them off cheaply…” By the end, her voice had almost disappeared.
The food he’d just swallowed suddenly felt stuck halfway down his throat.
Who was settling accounts with whom? It wasn’t him calculating her expenses; it was her calculating his.
He finally understood. Trying to argue with her was like rubbing salt directly onto his own heart. He stood up, walked out, and called Minzhang over. “How much silver do we have left?”
Minzhang replied, “A little over fifty taels.”
Last time, he had taken five hundred taels from the Third Young Madam. The young master had spent one hundred taels that very day on food and drink at the Drunken Fragrance Pavilion. Later, on the road to Qingzhou, he provided aid to several groups of refugees. Now, his pouch held just over fifty taels.
Xie Shao said irritably, “Give it to her.”
Minzhang had followed him for years and never once questioned an order. He never hesitated, never doubted. But today, for the first time ever, he wavered. “All… all of it?”
If he handed over everything, the young master would truly be penniless.
Xie Shao: ……
A moment later, Xie Shao extended his hand. Minzhang hurriedly placed the pouch into his palm.
He loosened the drawstring of the pouch and lowered his head, sorting through it for quite a while. In the end, he dug out only a few small lumps of silver, roughly ten taels’ worth, and handed the rest back to Minzhang. “Take this inside to her.”
While Minzhang turned and went back into the room, Xie Shao stood alone beneath the pear blossom tree. A breeze passed, lifting the wide sleeves of his robe. The few pieces of silver in his hand had never felt so solid and tangible before.
Nanzhi arrived, carrying out the Old Madam’s order to summon him, only to find Xie Shao standing there in a daze, completely motionless. His expression was so lost it actually stirred a hint of pity.
But what Third Young Madam had said earlier wasn’t wrong.
The reason the second branch had ended up like this didn’t lie with outsiders. The problem was this very Third Young Master. Unless he changed his habit of spending money like flowing water, the family’s silver would eventually be squandered again, no matter how much there was to begin with.
Previously, even the accounting office had been dismissed; hadn’t the entire eldest branch also devised every possible method to squeeze money from him? Perhaps it was for the best that he had no money left. With no money, no one would harbor any more expectations.
Suppressing her own thoughts, Nanzhi stepped off the long corridor with a smile and called out, “Third Young Master is back? The Old Madam has been thinking of you.”
—
After such a major incident, the Old Madam was bound to know. Finding her lying in bed, Xie Shao set aside his own feelings and had to offer comfort instead. “If the silver is gone, then it’s gone. We can always earn more. What matters most is your health, Grandmother.”
Old Madam suddenly asked him, “Do you blame that girl?”
All morning, the entire mansion had been in an uproar. After the Eldest Madam’s tantrum came a wave of younger family members.
When Wen Shuse was buying grain, every one of them had been thrilled, already imagining how much profit they could share. Now that things had gone wrong, they all turned their arrows toward Wen Shuse.
“So much silver, all donated away! And where was that stingy attitude of hers before? She was counting every coin with us so tightly, but then turned around and tossed the money straight into a fire pit. She must’ve come here specifically to ruin our Xie family!”
“If I were Third Brother, I’d have divorced her the moment I returned.”
A group of them had crowded around Old Madam’s bedside, their opinions perfectly aligned. The underlying message was that he should divorce her.
Old Madam wanted to hear his thoughts.
Xie Shao frowned. “I was the one who handed the household accounts to her voluntarily. Even if she made mistakes, I should bear half the blame. And besides, she didn’t gamble, she didn’t embezzle. She merely donated grain to the front lines. That was an act of righteousness. She raised the Xie family’s reputation. For that, she deserves praise. How could I blame her? But as far as being a spendthrift… those two words are not an injustice accusation against her.”
The Old Madam glanced at his clenched expression, turned her head to suppress a laugh, and felt a wave of relief. She knew her grandson’s character. He wasn’t rotten; he knew right from wrong.
“We truly are bankrupt this time. Have you thought about what to do from now on?” Old Madam Xie looked at him and added, “Shuse bought you an official post…”
Xie Shao cut her off. “I cannot be an official.”
“Why not?”
“Back when Chancellor Xie resigned from officialdom, he made it clear that I must never serve in court. I’m his son, this life, and the road ahead, all have to follow his arrangement. He even threw me a whole mountain of gold to make it so, telling me my only duty in this life was to spend money.”
Old Madam Xie: ……
He really still remembers that…
“But that mountain of gold is gone now, isn’t it?” the Old Madam Xie reasoned. “It was just something said in anger. What real grudge can there be between father and son? If he dares say something so ridiculous again, see if I don’t give him a beating.”
But it was likely not something said in anger at all.
Pei Yuanqiu’s words that day, as blatant as they were in intent, hadn’t been without reason.
Why had Chancellor Xie abruptly resigned and returned to Fengcheng all those years ago?
And how had Fengcheng managed to remain unscathed through several periods of turmoil since then?
The princes of the northwest had been stripped of their power one after another, leaving only Jing Wang remaining.
The recent incident with the armory clearly had someone pulling the strings behind the scenes, yet it was resolved so easily. That likely wasn’t a good sign.
It was all far too obvious.
No matter how determined Chancellor Xie was to wash his hands of worldly affairs, no matter how deeply he hid himself, suspicions would eventually fall upon him. It was only a matter of time before his carefree days ended.
Xie Shao, however, maintained his languid demeanor. “Then just call him back to earn it again.”
“I’m afraid we won’t last until he comes back,” Old Madam said. “When the grain price shot up a few days ago, not just your wife, even I was tempted. In a moment of impulse, I took out all the silver I’d kept hidden at the bottom of my chest and had her invest it too. Now we’ve eaten the last meal without knowing if there’ll be a next. Your father and mother pat their backsides and disappear for months without a single letter. If I wait for him to return and rescue us, the vegetables will have long gone cold.”
Xie Shao stared at her, stunned.
Old Madam turned her head away, avoiding his eyes, looking embarrassed. “Your aunt has been nagging in my ear every day about buying a house in the Eastern Capital. I thought if we profited this time, I’d use my own money to buy it for them. I couldn’t resist the temptation. I’m this old already, and still I ended up ruining my own old-age savings. Truly became a case of trying to steal a chicken and losing the rice.”
Xie Shao: ……
Before leaving, Xie Shao finally reached into his sleeve again. After fumbling for a moment, he pulled out seven or eight taels of silver and handed them to Nanzhi. “Leave these for Old Madam. If there’s any difficulty, tell me. I’ll find a way.”