Chapter Eighty: Confession

The Third Elder Madam and Fifth Miss Xue wanted to argue, but the facts left them with no choice but to admit it. And thanks to the main branch, they had been able to walk away from today’s affair unscathed. However aggrieved Fifth Miss Xue might be, she could only bear it for the time being.

Once everyone had left, Old Madam Xue’s expression grew stern. She brought Xue Fanzhi back to her room and asked, “Is this matter connected to you? Otherwise, why were you so rash today?”

She had noticed that today Xue Fanzhi was not at all as she usually was. The girl seemed to have a burning urge, a constant desire to step forward and curse out Second Madam Xie.

Second Madam Xie was indeed hateful, and there had been a little enmity between her and Xue Fanzhi as well, but none of that seemed enough to explain such blatant disregard for her own reputation.

After all, for an unmarried young lady, sharpness of tongue was no virtue.

Everything Xue Fanzhi did today was too unlike her. Why?

Xue Fanzhi thought to herself that today’s self was the true self. In her previous life, she had lived too tightly bound. In truth, even then she had wanted to rush out and give Second Madam Xie a proper scolding, to fight them head-on, but for one reason and another she had never dared act on it. In this life, she only wanted to live freely and without restraint.

But she could not tell Old Madam Xue about her past life.

After thinking it over, Xue Fanzhi said, “Grandmother, lately I’ve been reading some court miscellanies. I came across stories about Ban Jieyu and Zhao Feiyan.”

Old Madam Xue looked at her in puzzlement.

Xue Fanzhi went on, “Ban Jieyu’s virtue was praised far and wide; Zhao Feiyan’s was reviled. Yet if we look at the lives of those two women, who truly lived more happily? Did the opinions others held of them while they were alive affect their lives? If one does not care about such judgments, is it better to be Zhao Feiyan or Ban Jieyu?”

Both Zhao Feiyan and Ban Jieyu had once been favored consorts of Emperor Cheng of Han.

In the days when Ban Jieyu enjoyed the greatest favor, Emperor Cheng invited her to sit with him in the same palanquin. Ban Jieyu, wishing to emphasize her own propriety, or perhaps truly believing in her bones that as merely a Jieyu she was unworthy to ride in the emperor’s palanquin, refused.

The result was that since she herself had decided she was unworthy, Emperor Cheng naturally went looking for women who did deem themselves worthy: the Zhao sisters, Feiyan and Hede.

Xue Fanzhi had read this story in her previous life as well, but had paid it little mind. Today, because Old Madam Xue had asked, she suddenly remembered it. As she spoke, she was deeply stirred herself. Had she not spent her previous life trying to be Ban Jieyu, yielding and enduring everywhere?

Xiao Yi had given her more than enough support, but she had bound herself anyway, feeling she was unfit to be willful. If only she could have been half as bold and overbearing as Wen Xian, perhaps she would not have died.

As for reputation, when Emperor Cheng was still alive, no one would ever have dared speak ill of Zhao Feiyan; otherwise, how could she have later become empress dowager? And the reason Zhao Feiyan’s reputation was so poor was not necessarily because she truly was a calamity. Xue Fanzhi faintly felt the real reason was that Zhao Feiyan had no children. If Zhao Feiyan’s son had become emperor, who would have dared criticize his mother?

Thus she came to an immature rule for living: so long as you do not harm others, happiness is enough.

She did not say this creed aloud. Instead, after explaining the two choices she knew of, she said to Old Madam Xue, “I heard from the servants that Fifth Miss, jealous of Sixth Young Master, went to Second Madam Xie to tip her off, saying that Sixth Young Master Xue liked Sixth Miss, and that Second Madam Xie would come to our house to disgrace her. As it turned out, Second Madam Xie really did come, so I set the trap in advance and waited for Sixth Young Master Xie to step into the pit. In the end, because his intentions were indeed foul, he really did take the bait. I seized the chance, and that was what you saw, Grandmother.”

Aside from the matter of her previous life, she confessed everything.

Because even if she did not confess, her grandmother would still uncover traces of what happened. Rather than let her grandmother suspect her later, she might as well be candid now.

Old Madam Xue was shocked to learn that this affair truly had something to do with Xue Fanzhi. No wonder this normally obedient granddaughter had taken time to become involved in something like this.

Thinking of the story she had just told about Zhao Feiyan and Ban Jieyu, Old Madam Xue’s expression grew even more severe.

She asked, “Eighth Miss, are these truly your honest thoughts?”

Xue Fanzhi naturally nodded, showing no trace of guilt or regret at being questioned by an elder.

Old Madam Xue fell into thought, reflecting on her own life.

For the sake of a good reputation, when she could not bear children, she had taken the initiative to arrange for her husband to have favored concubines.

For the sake of a good reputation, even though she knew she disliked Xue Yang’s mother, she had not destroyed the mother to keep the son.

For the sake of a good reputation, when her husband kept taking concubines one after another, she could only swallow her anger in silence.

And in the end, what had she gained?

The physician had said she suffered from liver stagnation, qi constraint, and pain in both ribs!

If her husband had not died so early, the one who would have been driven to death in the end might have been her.

Looking at it now, was Heaven not reminding her that reputation mattered less than a long life? Only by living longer could she have such a good granddaughter, and only then could she truly enjoy her later years in peace.

Old Madam Xue, whose heart had never been particularly broad to begin with, now wavered even more.

She looked at Xue Fanzhi and said, “So you knew all along that Fifth Miss had deliberately tried to frame Sixth Miss and caused all this trouble?” Yet instead of telling Sixth Miss or blaming Fifth Miss, this child had set another trap to lure Second Madam Xie into the net. It showed that she had truly changed, no longer the purely kindhearted Eighth Miss Xue. And for some reason, as her grandmother, she found herself very fond of it.

Xue Fanzhi could not tell what Old Madam Xue was truly thinking. All she could do was try her best not to hide anything from her grandmother.

She nodded. “It was all arranged by me in advance.”

Old Madam Xue asked, “And that servant boy? He was arranged by you too, was he? Which household was he from? Why didn’t Sixth Young Master Xie identify him?”

Xue Fanzhi’s heart gave a jolt. This was exactly the question she had feared her grandmother would ask.

That servant boy had been one of Xiao Yi’s guards in disguise, and she absolutely could not tell her grandmother that. Otherwise, her grandmother would ask why the Ninth Prince helped you, why the Ninth Prince came to our house, when did you and the Ninth Prince ever come into contact, and it would never end.

A flash of inspiration struck her, and she said, “It was a reliable man found by the cousin of Honglian from my room. He doesn’t live in our main courtyard, but in the back lane of the outer courtyard.”

The back lane housed many impoverished relatives and servants of the Xue family.

Hearing that it had been Honglian, Old Madam Xue did not ask further. Honglian was a household-born servant and had some connections.

After thinking for a moment, Old Madam Xue said, “In the future, if you are going to do anything like this again and do not have enough people, do not take unnecessary risks. I’ll assign you someone capable. If you need anything, go to him.”

Then she called Nurse Jiang over and said, “Isn’t there a boy from your natal family who has been looking for work? Assign him to Eighth Miss, and let him take his orders from her from now on.”

Xue Fanzhi was a girl. What future could a servant boy have following her around?

Nurse Jiang’s grandnephew was a very clever lad, and she had originally hoped to plead with Old Madam Xue to assign him to the eldest young master instead.

But whether a person had that kind of fortune still depended on fate. Though a little disappointed, Nurse Jiang was a very open-minded woman, so she agreed and went out to carry out the order.