WMSG Chapter 16
by VolareYe Yueshen was on his way back to his room, and as he was about to part with his eldest brother, he couldn’t help but ask, “Big brother, what is the punishment for murder? According to the law, what should happen?”
“Execution,” Ye Yuanshen answered without hesitation.
“Then… what if it’s a member of a prominent family who commits the crime?” Ye Yueshen didn’t quite believe in the enforcement power of this era, still clinging to a glimmer of hope, “Can the fathers and brothers in the family work things out at the yamen, to get them acquitted or given a lighter sentence?”
Ye Yuanshen looked at him with a complicated expression. He still looked innocent with his pure and beautiful appearance. Ye Yuanshen smiled, “What? Who do you want to kill?” He leaned close to his ear and said treasonous words in a low voice, “Qi Wang?”
Ye Yueshen was quite shocked and took a step back, “I didn’t say it was him.”
This answer was a bit dangerous. This brother, who had not hesitated to stand in front of him when he mistakenly thought the Emperor was going to harm him, actually had the intention of killing someone. Then, of course, it was the fault of the person who was to be killed, Ye Yuanshen thought.
But he couldn’t let such a thing happen. His brother was still young and had a great life ahead of him. A young man’s absurd fantasies had to be nipped in the bud.
But his brother always had his own ideas and didn’t listen to advice very well. So Ye Yuanshen threatened him with himself, saying with a smile that was not quite a smile, “I’m afraid the only thing that can be done is to arrange for someone to take the blame. This older brother didn’t restrain his younger brother well, so I’ll have to take the punishment on his behalf.”
Ye Yueshen was stunned, his eyes drifting as if in a daze.
“What’s wrong?” Ye Yuanshen felt that he had achieved his goal and asked him calmly.
Ye Yueshen’s voice was very soft, “It’s the first time I’ve heard such beautiful words, I’m savoring them.”
This time it was Ye Yuanshen’s turn to be stunned. The probing and alienation he suddenly felt from his brother made him feel a little chilled. His intuition told him that he shouldn’t think about it too much.
Ye Yueshen ate dinner in his own room. Marquis Ye and the Junzhu had gone to a pre-wedding banquet at some relative’s house.
Before going to bed, he suddenly didn’t like the layout of his room. He closed the door and started working on it himself, moving the small square table in the main room that wasn’t used much to the side room, and moving several tall tables to more reasonable places. Then he sat satisfied on the small kang in the main room, sorting some needlework into small boxes.
When the maid heard the noise and came in to check, Ye Yueshen had already let down his hair. He suddenly realized that he never styled his hair very well, so he stopped her, “Cancong, are you free?”
Cancong hadn’t served in the room for several days, so she said a little strangely, “I’m free, what are your orders, Third Master?”
“I’m not skilled at styling hair, can you teach me?” Ye Yueshen asked very earnestly.
Cancong said with a smile that of course she could. Ye Yueshen sat in front of the dressing table, looking at himself in the mirror. Cancong’s hands were on the back of his head, so he couldn’t see very well.
So he asked Cancong to call Yin Jian over. Cancong combed his hair, teaching him step by step in slow motion. Afraid that he would forget, he immediately practiced on Yin Jian’s hair.
He combed it clumsily, with some strands falling out, and the results were mediocre. Cancong then called over two more maids, named Xiaoqing and Xiaodian respectively. Their clothes were not as good as Cancong’s and Yin Jian’s, and they walked over timidly.
Yin Jian was admiring his male hairstyle in the mirror, feeling very good and somewhat arrogantly instructed, “You don’t need to perform the greetings, just come and sit down.”
Xiaoqing and Xiaodian sat down. Ye Yueshen felt that their names were a bit casual, especially compared to Cancong and Yin Jian, which made them seem even more perfunctory.
So, while helping them loosen their hair, he gave them new names, “How about Xiaoqing changing her name to Yunzheng, and Xiaodian changing her name to Xiawei?”
Yunzheng and Xiawei were very happy to get such nice names, but Yin Jian was a little unhappy, pouting as she sat beside him peeling water chestnuts.
The fact that he came back wearing Qi Wang’s clothes couldn’t be hidden. The Junzhu came to see him after returning home, followed by a young man about his age.
When they came in, Yunzheng had already styled her hair and was looking in the mirror, Yin Jian was styling Ye Yueshen’s hair into a girl’s bun, and Ye Yueshen was focused on styling Xiawei’s hair, ignoring what they were doing to his hair.
The girls were laughing and playing, and they quieted down when they saw the Junzhu.
The Junzhu also smiled, remembering that before Ye Yueshen was born, the Imperial Physician had said that this pregnancy was likely to be a daughter, and they had already sought a good name at the temple: Yue.
A hint of disgust flashed in the young man’s eyes, and he sneered, “This… what kind of system is this? Spoiled servants are arrogant, and they’re climbing all over their master’s head.”
The Junzhu also put away her smile and put on a stern face, “Everyone, get out.”
The girls were frightened and slipped out along the wall. Ye Yueshen was a little apprehensive and quickly explained, “I wanted to learn how to style hair, so I called them over.”
Fortunately, the Junzhu didn’t dwell on it, and helped Ye Yueshen take off the butterfly hairpin, “Yin’er has been missing you and came to see you after not seeing you for so long.”
Ye Yueshen quickly realized that the young man in front of him was Yuan Bianyin, “Ye Yueshen’s” cousin, whose mother was the younger sister of Marquis Ye. She was very spoiled and pampered at home, and got her wish to marry a Zanhua scholar she had met once. Now she was posted in Yanzhou.
Yuan Bianyin was staying at his uncle Marquis Ye’s house and studying at the Ye family’s school. The impression he gave was that of an upright gentleman, but the original story said that he was falsely high-minded. In reality, he was very resentful that his mother, the daughter of the Marquis’s mansion, had married a Zanhua scholar without a family background, and took the initiative to request to come to the capital to stay at his uncle’s house.
Because he was about the same height as Ye Yueshen and had similar features, he was also taken in by Gong Shengyin as a substitute.
However, Yuan Bianyin played the role of cannon fodder villain, frequently provoking and framing the protagonist Shou Liu Qingying, and ended up miserably.
Ye Yueshen calmly looked at Yuan Bianyin, who was frowning slightly, and arrogantly looked at his hair styled with hairpins and ornaments, revealing an unbearable expression. He said dissatisfied, “If these cunning servants are not disciplined, they will corrupt their master in a few days. Once these obsequious things taste the sweetness of using their looks to manipulate people, they will definitely become lawless.”
Ye Yueshen felt that seeing a person’s impending death through their vibrant life was a very subtle feeling. He wasn’t very interested in arguing with him.
A trace of impatience flashed in the Junzhu’s eyes, but her tolerance and cultivation in dealing with the younger generation quickly suppressed her unfriendly expression. The silence for a moment was like a warning of forbearance.
In the end, she still saved face for her husband’s nephew, after all, arguing with a younger generation would be considered a loss of face for the elders, “The girls from just now will come with me, and I’ll have someone teach them well before letting them come back.”
“Mother…” Ye Yueshen’s tone was pleading, but his eyes were firm, “Mother, they came to help me. If they are punished because of this, then who will dare to help me in the future?”
The Junzhu gave him a look to calm him down, which roughly meant that there was still room for discussion when Yuan Bianyin was not around.
So Ye Yueshen quieted down, but Yuan Bianyin did not quiet down, “What does cousin think? If servants don’t listen to the master’s wishes, isn’t that a sign of incompetence in managing subordinates? Aunt is disciplining them on your behalf so that cousin you will have someone to use.”
Ye Yueshen understood that there was no point in arguing further, there was a cognitive gap between them: Yuan Bianyin thought they should do anything without complaint.
And Ye Yueshen thought they were kindly helping him, the difference being that after receiving help, you should also help back in return.
The Junzhu held Ye Yueshen’s hand, preventing them from arguing further, and casually mentioned, “The Imperial Physician said that you can stop taking medicine tomorrow, and you should go back to school to study these days, right?”
The Junzhu smiled and patted his hand, “If I don’t constantly remind you, I don’t know how long you’ll drag it out.”
Obviously, this wasn’t a good topic to stop them from arguing, Yuan Bianyin said again, “If you fall behind one day, you have to make it up tomorrow. If you make up for today tomorrow, then tomorrow’s work will be left behind again, wouldn’t you always be falling behind one day? What’s more…”
Gong Xunwu had asked him to go to the Qi Wang Manor at noon tomorrow. He was worried about the unknown that was about to happen, but the Junzhu provided him with an option to avoid it, after all, “parents’ orders must not be disobeyed” was emphasized here.
Ye Yueshen interrupted Yuan Bianyin, “I’ll go to school tomorrow.”
As for the Qi Wang Manor, he wouldn’t be able to make it. Ye Yueshen ignored Yuan Bianyin’s dissatisfaction and asked the Junzhu, “Mother, do you have the new pillow I made for you? Is it much more comfortable than the old one?”
Yuan Bianyin’s grasp of propriety on the surface was to a degree that was annoying but could not be criticized. His moderate refutation made him seem like an aloof and upright person, which was exactly the kind of quality that old-fashioned scholars appreciated and praised in the younger generation.
He bowed to the Junzhu to take his leave, subtly expressing his refusal to associate with his hopeless cousin.
The remaining mother and son looked at each other and smiled, not taking it to heart, but Ye Yueshen really liked this kind of unspoken feeling of family standing on his side.
This feeling dispelled some of his unease, the chaos after the loss of life was slowly smoothed over, and the humanity that had flowed away during the violence gradually recovered, snugly wrapping his beating heart.
Before going to sleep, Ye Yueshen huddled in the quilt. The only thing he was thinking about was that tomorrow he had to remember to ask the page to go to the Qi Wang Manor to tell Gong Xunwu that he couldn’t make the appointment today. The wording must emphasize that the Junzhu wanted him to study hard, and it would be best to add the set of things that Yuan Bianyin had used to teach him a lesson.
Studying at a courteous ancient-style school was a novel experience. When Ye Yueshen walked in, he was attracted by the neat order of the small square tables and small drum stools in front of him.
Every teenager studying here was related to the Marquis’s mansion, some were relatives of the Marquis’s mansion, some were relatives of the Junzhu’s family, the Jingguo Duke Zheng clan, and some were children of Marquis Ye’s friends and retainers.
The entire school respected Ye Yueshen, which was unsurprisingly a tacit agreement among everyone.
But the original Ye Yueshen was a righteous little sun. The chivalry he yearned for led him to make friends with commoners, such as those waiters, and naturally he wouldn’t be too distant from his classmates.
When Ye Yueshen returned to school, everyone erupted with enthusiasm, surrounding him with concern and inquiries.
This feeling of being the center of attention was unprecedented, Ye Yueshen’s cheeks were a little hot, and he was a little unnaturally managing it, and he had no time to think about Gong Xunwu, who had asked him to go to the Qi Wang Manor today.
The teacher lectured on an article that Ye Yueshen had never even heard of. By the time it ended, it was noon, and servants brought in refreshments and tea, as there wasn’t a very formal lunch at the school.
Ye Yueshen glanced at the writing brush that Yuan Bianyin had placed on the corner of the table, and secretly folded up the simplified character article he had written and hid it in his sleeve.
Just as he was about to eat glutinous rice cake, he suddenly heard someone call him Xiao Yue. He looked up and saw Ye Yuanshen standing smiling at the door, with Gong Xunwu standing beside him with a gloomy expression.
The silver fruit pick in Ye Yueshen’s hand fell on the table with a clatter. He screamed in his heart, “Oh my god, I forgot to trouble the page to go to the Qi Wang Manor to tell Gong Xunwu that I couldn’t make the appointment today.”