Love Like the Galaxy

Chapter Twenty-Seven:
The First Scandal Of My Life (Part 1)

Shaoshang leaned against the carriage window, lifting the curtains with one hand and pressing the veil with the other. She had developed the habit of constantly looking out the window when traveling. No matter where she went, she always looked at the road she hadn’t yet walked, so that her heart didn’t feel empty.

Fortunately, during this era, women could show their heads and face. What troubled her was that the road conditions were not good. The loess road was stable, but the wind and sand blew in their faces. The slate road was clean, but was bumpy the entire way. Oh, how she missed tar and cement.

Sitting across from her was Cheng Yang; she was staring at her and lost in thought.

She had heard from Mu Xu that the first time the brothers had taken Niao Niao out, they neither went to the bustling market or the magnificent palace city. Instead, they had someone drive around the inner side of the city wall, which took several days of effort. Every day, Wei Xi went out and didn’t return until the lamps were lit. On the last day, Eldest Aunt almost got angry again.

“Did you know, Cousin?” Shaoshang suddenly turned her head back from the window and smiled. “When building a capital city, it’s necessary to consider the terrain of one mountain, two rivers, and three terrain. In other words, it must be backed by the mountains, have an extensive water system, and the terrain has to be flat and majestic.” It would be best to have a narrow passage in front and behind of the capital, which was convenient for garrisoning troops, storing food, and repopulation.

Cheng Yang smiled at her cousin’s childish excitement. “It’s not just the capital city. If you go outside the city in the future, you’ll know that the fortresses built by those aristocratic families are all like that.”

Shaoshang looked envious. “We don’t have a fortress in our family. Father just rebuilt his ancestral house in his hometown.” So far, the Cheng family had become a landowner with a wealthy family. It was superficial to think about using numbers to evaluate those families simply and roughly, and there were many marginal factors that have to be taken into account.

Shaoshang faced Cheng Yang and made a playful face at her before sticking her head back out of the window.

Overlooking the magnificent and massive capital city was a vertical rectangle with thick walls towering from east, west, north, south, and four sides, with more than ten gates unevenly distributed. So far, she had not left the city gate.

The Cheng family rose late to fame, just like a homestead. The most central and bustling locations had already been occupied by other families. The Cheng family’s warehouse was almost adjacent to the city wall, and it took nearly an hour and a half by carriage to get there. Most of the roads were broken, making it more difficult than before to circle the city wall.

The establishment of this warehouse was naturally the idea of Madam Xiao. The Cheng family was small, and many of the captured gifts piled up at home were purely in vain. It would be better to sell them to the shops for profit; and, according to the rise and fall of prices, they could stock up on cloth, firewood, and charcoal in advance. Simply put, the warehouse was for dressing, stocking, and transit purposes.

The two young ladies from the Master’s family came to check the goods, and the warehouse keeper was naturally very respectful. He opened the four connecting doors at the front and led more than ten servants waiting on the side, resembling a ribbon cutting ceremony.

Cheng Yang’s face turned blue when she was jolted. Mu Xu wished she could carry her whole body out of the carriage. However, she didn’t want to lose the prestige of Madam Xiao and insisted on getting out of the carriage herself. After a few pleasantries, she regained her composure and was led by the steward to the back to order goods. Shaoshang didn’t much care for this. Her small body had just recovered so she couldn’t make any mistakes. So, she sat down in the front hall and was served by Lian Fang.

After taking a few sips of warm buttermilk mixed with shredded ginger, Shaoshang felt relieved and looked around.

In the center of the front hall of the warehouse was a large square earth stove, which dispersed heat throughout the room. Shaoshang sat alone. To her left, seven or eight warehouse servants knelt in a row with friendly expressions. To her right, the maidservants that accompanied them from the mansion knelt in a row with solemn expressions. She was so happy in her heart that she wouldn’t exchange being the president of the student council for this extravagance!

Shaoshang was about to get up when suddenly there was a sound of a horse pulling its reins outside. With the sound of wheels rolling, a carriage covered in brocade parked in front of the warehouse door. Two fat, healthy, and tall horses couldn’t help snort, and their nostrils were filled with white breath. Two children dressed in satin jackets jumped out of the carriage to serve on both sides, followed by a long, jade-clad young man in formal attire who slowly got out.

Shaoshang’s eye twitched. Why was Bamboo Embroidery Ball Boy here?

One of the boys approached and loudly exclaimed, “My Young Master could see the emblem from a distance. May I ask if this is the warehouse set up by General Cheng, Marquis of Qu Ling? Due to the long journey, I hadn’t prepared enough and I would like to ask for some charcoal salary.”

Shaoshang remained calm and quiet. The deputy steward on the side looked at her and thought she was a timid little girl. He ran up to the door and loudly replied, “But the driver of the Yuan Marquis’s Mansion in Jinyang Square? It’s freezing cold so why don’t you rest in the hall while we prepare?” The carriage also had a clear family emblem, which the old servant who had lived for a long time in the capital knew.

For whatever reason, Yuan Shen neither stepped forward nor spoke; he continued to stand leisurely in front of the carriage. His gaze turned towards the hall, intentionally or unintentionally sweeping over someone. Shaoshang bit her lips. He was here to collect his debt.

Seeing Shaoshang pretending to not notice him, Yuan Shen raised a beautiful long eyebrow and was about to step up into the warehouse. At that moment, Shaoshang boldly shot up, arched her arm and made a bow, forcing a smile. “Ah… it’s Young Master Yuan! It’s been a few days since the banquet. My Eldest Brother misses Young Master very much, and he doesn’t know when he’ll be able to hear you sing poetry again…” Ugh, she couldn’t keep this up!

The steward exuded a sense of appreciation, feeling that the Young Mistress spoke in a decent voice, had a graceful posture, and had a nice attitude. Unlike the little ladies in the capital, when they encountered the kind Young Master, it was like a bear encountering honey.

“The Young Mistress may have made a mistake,” Yuan Shen said, smiling brightly. “On that day, I said that it was Fù, not poetry, that I would discuss next time.” He deliberately paused on the last word.

Shaoshang suppressed the urge to spit blood: you son of a bitch!
[What Shaoshang really says here is MMP (mā mài pī), which is an expletive that means “your mom is a prostitute!”]

Yuan Shen saw she wasn’t speaking and took a step forward. “Doesn’t the Young Mistress also like Kuai Tong’s Fù?”

The steward and surrounding servants all looked at Shaoshang with admiration.

Everyone thought to themselves: It was rumored outside that the youngest daughter of the Cheng family had been raised by Madam Ge. She was crude and arrogant, but unexpectedly, she could discuss poetry and prose with the well-known Young Master Shanjian in the capital. Sure enough, dragon and phoenix twins have good roots, and how can the bad rumors be?

Shaoshang felt her face heat up as everyone looked at her. She wished she could catch Yuan Shen and give him a seven-wound punch. She couldn’t help but curse to herself, ‘Kuai Tong? What fast pass? She only knew of Shen Tong, Yuan Tong, Zhong Tong, and Bu Tong… Oh, she knew what he meant!’
[Kuai Tong (d. 196 BCE) was an advisor of several political advisors. His name also means ‘rush through,’ or ‘fast pass.’ Shen Tong, Yuan Tong, and Zhong Tong are all express courier companies in China. The Bu Tong is actually ‘gou pì bù tōng’ which means bullshit, or a load of crap. I couldn’t think of a way to make the sentence flow like it does in Chinese, so I left it in. Either way, she mad.]

The heroine didn’t suffer from the loss in front of her. She closed her eyes and admitted, “You’re right. It’s Fù, not poetry.” The last few words were almost squeezed through her teeth.

Yuan Shen knew he won, and his smile was full of spring. His lips were red and his teeth white, and he was like a beautiful jade. The way he laughed was too illegal, and the middle-aged man who had been sitting in the driver’s seat of the carriage was startled. After following the Young Master for so many years, he could tell between a real and fake smile. He hurriedly went to see the female figure standing in the hall, who was indeed a small beauty as carved as jade.

At this moment, the deputy steward just sent someone back carrying a large bag of fine charcoal. The driver jumped off the carriage, picked up the sack, thanked him, and then presented a bag of gold ingots as payment. The deputy steward waved his hand and said, “If I ask for money from the Young Master for such a small thing, my Master’s family will come down on this old slave. It’s impossible! Absolutely impossible!”

The middle-aged man took back the money but, to his surprise, Yuan Shen still didn’t leave. He looked ahead with his neck tilted to one side, then glanced at Shaoshang before bowing and saying goodbye.

He left and the aftershocks rippled. The steward couldn’t help but praise Yuan Shen for his outstanding demeanor, Lian Fang and the rest of the servants whispered to each other, either admiring or revering him.

Shaoshang lowered her head and began to think.

She felt that she had made a big mistake and urgently needed to make a correction. She asked the steward after a moment, “Who are the families on the left and right sides of our warehouse? Do you know if they come and go on a daily basis?”

“On the left is an old shop that makes orange peel sauce,” the steward replied, “which supplies the major food buildings in the capital. On the right is also a warehouse, but it hoards construction materials such as wood and stone. There’s also an alley that leads directly to the city wall.”

Shaoshang thanked him and then said she wanted to take a look around.

After two walkthroughs, she turned away the other servants in the warehouse and only took her maids with her to the back alley, saying she wanted to look at the scenery. When she walked to the entrance of the alley, she left the rest of her maidservants, and walked another ten feet forward. Sure enough, she saw an abrupt corner. Shaoshang left Lian Fang and A’Mei there and ordered, “If you hear my voice, come immediately and ask everyone to find me.”

Turning the corner, she saw the magnificent and elegant carriage of the Yuan family parked there. Yuan Shen was wearing a snow-white fur cloak, holding a small white jade hand stove in his hands. His fingers were as slender as jade; she almost could not distinguish between them and the hand warmer.

He stood in front of the carriage with a smile on his face, waiting quietly. The two boys and driver were nowhere to be seen.

The location of the warehouse was already secluded, and this alley was even more deserted. Shaoshang examined him coldly for a while, then walked straight over and stopped at least three meters away. “What advice does Young Master Yuan have?”

Yuan Shen didn’t beat around the bush this time. “Has Young Mistress already spoken to Madam Sang?”

“No,” Shaoshang said simply. “I didn’t want to pass the message on your behalf.”

Yuan Shen had a good handle on his temper and rarely got angry. He couldn’t help but be angry at her words. “Since that’s the case, why did you agree to me that day? Young Mistress should know that a word is irreparable.”

Shaoshang didn’t bat an eyelash. “I broke my promise, so what?”

Yuan Shen frowned, as if he had just met the girl in front of him for the first time. He carefully examined her; her gentle and charming appearance, but with such a perverse and eccentric temperament… he estimated that the entire capital city could not find another girl like her.

In fact, he didn’t have to pass on that sentence either, but after waiting for a few days without hearing from her, he guessed that she had no intention of keeping her promise and became indignant, then became angry instead.

After the servant who was watching the Cheng family came back to report earlier that morning, he suffered the bumpy carriage ride to the warehouse. Yuan Shen wanted to question her in person. Up until now, he wasn’t sure if he was trying to share the worries of his elders or whether he couldn’t get angry with this cunning and beautiful little girl. If his peers were to know about it, they would have laughed all the way from His Majesty’s court.

After careful deliberation, Yuan Shen decided that he couldn’t be the only one unhappy.

He lowered his face and took a few steps toward Shaoshang, coldly saying, “There are three things in this world; pleading earnestly, coercion, and inducement. Since Young Mistress is unwilling to speak, I also have other ways.”

Shaoshang was startled and took a few steps back. She realized that she had been about the same age as Yuan Shen in her previous life, but as soon as he got closer, she immediately felt the oppression of the young man’s height and momentum. As soon as he approached, she immediately smelled the faint scent of pine branches on him and realized that only by tilting her neck could she have a direct conversation.

Naturally, Shaoshang recognized the threat in Yuan Shen’s words. She was just a young girl with no social resources, but Yuan Shen was a prominent figure who had been in the court for several years. If she really annoyed him and became narrow-minded, what could she do if he retaliated?

Shaoshang was worried. Unexpectedly, Yuan Shen’s face turned and he smiled again. “Speaking of it, it’s all under my command. I just ask the Young Mistress to pass a message. Why won’t you do this? If you pass on the message for me, I will do something for the Young Mistress in the future as a reward.”

Shaoshang’s interest was piqued. “Anything can be done?” she asked. As she listened to these words, her mind became lively again. She was not Zhao Min or Guo Xiang, and would definitely make good use of this promise.

Yuan Shen saw the fish had taken the bait and smiled. “Of course. Except for rebellion, treason, and that I cannot marry you. Everything besides these three things is fine.”

Shaoshang was about to nod along, but when she heard the last point, she sputtered, “You -!”

Her small face turned red and she glared fiercely at Yuan Shen, like a little wolf. She wasn’t really a naïve little girl, so she couldn’t recognize that the sentence was teasing. She suppressed her anger and sneered. “Young Master, I have heard a lot of flattery in my daily life. When and where did I say that I wanted to marry you? I advise you to be sober and not take other people’s politeness so seriously. You really think you are a descendant of the stars…”

Before she finished speaking, Yuan Shen was interrupting her. “It turns out that Young Mistress has never thought about it. That’s really surprising. Isn’t it you who brought it up when we first met?”

Shaoshang’s face burned. She stamped her feet and stuttered angrily, “You! What nonsense are you talking about? It’s clearly you…!”

“If the Young Mistress has no intention of me, why would she agree first and then break the promise? Isn’t it just to get me to meet you again? If you don’t really want to have a connection to me, why don’t you pass on the message to Madam Sang and we can mind our own business.”

What he said made sense, but she had nothing to say.

Shaoshang was stunned. If she wasn’t involved in this, she would also feel that this was a means of winning.

Yuan Shen let out a sigh when he saw her stunned expression, no longer showing the haughty and sarcastic expression he had just seen. However, in the blink of an eye, he felt that her face was lost and pitiful.

“Why are you so unwilling to pass on the message to Madam Sang?” he asked, feeling himself soften. “Is there something wrong? You can talk to me and see if I can help.” He thought of how difficult it was for Shaoshang when she was young, and perhaps there were hidden secrets among the housewives that he was not aware of.

However, if anyone heard such kind and understanding words come from him, it would be estimated that from the Third Duke to the Nine Ministers, to the guests in their own homes would be startled. Yuan Shanjian actually knew how to cherish the fairer sex.

Who knew that when she was asked, Shaoshang became even more sluggish.

Was it necessary for her to say there was actually no good reason, that she had a bad personality since childhood and did not enjoy helping others? Helping her grandmother cross the road was just a fantasy for her, even if the blackboard was erased in front of her, she would always step on it. It was rare to act bravely for righteousness, so it was time to die and come back to this broken place to experience the pain of growing up again.

“Alternatively, you may be worried that the messenger is not in favor of your aunt and uncle.” Yuan Shen looked at the girl in a daze and his voice softened even more. “You can rest assured that the past is over, and the elders are quite old now. It’s just the concern of an old friend.”

So, that sad palace south of the Orchid Terrace was not about buildings, but emotions? Shaoshang was not only confused, but also embarrassed. She hated that she didn’t ask Cheng Yang a few more questions at the beginning.

Among the few advantages of Shaoshang, one worth praising was that she was reasonable. She hesitated for a moment, trying to organize her thoughts, and then spoke, “It’s my fault.”

She was indeed wrong.

She hadn’t adjusted to her new identity and still considered herself to be that small town girl from an 1800-tiered city. In her previous life, she had no parents, and her uncle was just a petty official, so she could play tricks, talk back, and do many other things that were not up to her standards.

But now, that was not possible. Old Master Cheng’s father was at least a middle or upper level official nationwide. Moreover, people valued faith and promise, underestimated life and death, upheld filial piety and integrity, and advocated loyalty and righteousness. There was no Imperial examination system here, people with particularly good moral characters may even be directly awarded official positions – whether they had a good moral character or not. The social atmosphere was at least such that they actually committed crimes against the wind and destroyed their promises in person!

Shaoshang regained her good mood and respectfully raised her arms. “Young Master, you are meticulous in your actions. I believe you have heard about my family’s situation.” Specifically, the situation with Madam Ge.

“I have been afraid of right and wrong since I was young and have made many mistakes, but not doing well. I never met the Young Master before, and when I suddenly met you that day, I felt uneasy. I agreed to your request in order to get away quickly. After thinking about it, I didn’t regret it.”

Shaoshang’s face was sincere, and every word was genuine.

“Just now, Young Master Yuan’s teachings made me suddenly realize. Being entrusted by others is a matter of loyalty. Alright. I will deliver the message to Third Aunt when I go back today. You don’t need to thank me, just please forgive this little girl’s rudeness. What do you think?”

In her previous life, she had turned around and wanted to study hard. Those who had hung around her before had not gone to school to find her. When the leaders of the junior high were moved by her determination to make a clean break with her past, with the same energy, Yuan Shen might not have held onto her.

Yuan Shen’s expression was calm. “If I still need you to pass messages in the future, what should I do?” he asked.

Shaoshang had been so full of sincerity and he acted as if he were hit on the head… was this man not touched?!

She resisted snapping back at him. “If Third Aunt doesn’t mind, I won’t stop you from telling me something later. But if she doesn’t like it, then…” she said with a straight face, “I will respect my elders. If so, then we will not meet again.”

After saying such a solemn and dignified sentence, Shaoshang breathed a sigh of relief, feeling that her image had greatly improved. Then, without waiting for Yuan Shen’s reply, she bowed respectfully and turned to leave.

As she walked around the abrupt corner, she never heard a sound behind her. She couldn’t help but look back, and saw Yuan Shen standing motionless in the same spot. As she couldn’t see the expression on his face from this distance, only the cold wind in the alley blew his crow feather-like long hair, gently brushing it.

Shaoshang shook her head and realized that the rank of this commodity was a bit high. Looking at his gentle demeanor, she turned back and turned her face like flipping through a book. It was really difficult to get along with him, so it was better to slip away.