Chapter 277: Marquis Zhongyi
Zhou Wangshu and Su Yaoguang moved into their new home.
The new mansion was even larger than the previous Marquis Cheng’an’s Mansion.
On the day they moved into the new mansion, they invited several families with good relationships to the housewarming.
When the Marchioness Jing’an appeared, Jiang Jing went to greet her and took her pulse to see a doctor.
“Madam, your current condition is very good. After taking this dose of medicine, you can stop.”
The Marchioness Jing’an smiled and said, “It’s all thanks to you all that I can live to this day.”
“Madam, does the Marquis still favor that woman?” Zhang Pandi asked curiously.
The Marchioness Jing’an smiled faintly: “Recently, I selected several new concubines for him, all young and beautiful. That woman does have some ability to bewitch men, but men are very good at weighing the pros and cons. She gave birth to a foolish son for the Marquis Jing’an. How could the Marquis set aside the young and beautiful concubines and go to her room to see that foolish son and feel upset?”
“Jiang Yihuan is someone with some tricks up her sleeve. She won’t just give up like this,” Su Yaoguang said.
“Younger sister is right. Although that child is a fool, he is also a son the Marquis has doted on for so long. The Marquis once truly loved him. As long as she says the child is ill, the Marquis has to go see. Perhaps only this can prove he is not a heartless and unjust man.”
“Madam, being able to see through his true nature and waking up sooner is your good fortune.”
The Marchioness Jing’an thought that the Marquis Jing’an had recently been showing solicitousness to her, meaning he wanted her to give birth to a legitimate son.
Although she had found him quite a few concubines, beautiful concubines and the main wife were still distinguishable to that man.
Even if a concubine gave birth to ten or eight sons for him, it could not compare to the main wife giving birth to one legitimate son. For families like theirs, the legitimate son born of the legitimate wife was the one with precious identity; illegitimate sons and daughters were merely second best.
The Marchioness Jing’an touched her increasingly delicate and tender cheek, thinking that of course she would give birth to a “legitimate son.” After all, the Jing’an Marquis Manor did not have only him as a man. She had endured for so many years and suffered so much hardship; the marquis title of the Jing’an Marquis Manor naturally belonged to her son. She would also become the most authoritative Old Madam.
After seeing off the guests, Su Yaoguang and Zhou Wangshu sent the guests out the door and happened to see Xiao Yanci returning to the courtyard opposite in a horse-drawn carriage.
She had almost forgotten that Xiao Yanci and Wang Ruyan had lived opposite before; the opposite side was their wedding house.
Xiao Yanci got out of the horse-drawn carriage and happened to see the perfectly matched Su Yaoguang and Zhou Wangshu. After the two sides made eye contact, Xiao Yanci’s eyes were full of malice.
Zhou Wangshu was truly ruthless, actually destroying the Marquis Cheng’an’s Mansion and making it fall apart in such a short time. Originally thought that after he caused the Marquis Cheng’an’s Mansion to be confiscated, he himself lost the marquis title and was a fool, but the Emperor turned around and gave him the title of Marquis Zhongyi, which could even be inherited. It was so blatant favoritism.
However, he wouldn’t be laughing for long.
Xiao Yanci staggered away.
Zhou Wangshu looked pensive.
Recently, Xiao Yanci had been very quiet, so quiet that it made him feel like some conspiracy was quietly underway.
“Madam, let’s go inside. It’s very cold outside.” Zhou Wangshu held Su Yaoguang and walked in.
Su Yaoguang and Zhou Wangshu returned to the room.
While Su Yaoguang went to the bathroom to bathe, Zhou Wangshu went out once.
Next door at the General’s mansion. Su Rende was about to return to the room to accompany his madam when he saw his tactless good son-in-law push the door in.
“It’s so late, why aren’t you going back to accompany Yaoguang and instead coming to my place?” Su Rende said, “Today you had the housewarming over there and just sent off the guests. Aren’t you tired?”
Zhou Wangshu clutched his chest and said weakly, “My good father-in-law, didn’t you see your son-in-law is injured? I didn’t dare go back, afraid of scaring Yaoguang.”
Su Rende then noticed something wrong with Zhou Wangshu’s condition and hurried over to support him.
“Where did you get this?”
“Opposite.” Zhou Wangshu said, “I saw that Xiao Ci has been acting off lately, so I sneaked over to the opposite side to scout for news, but got discovered. There are only Xiao Ci and Wang Ruyan as masters opposite. How are there so many experts?”
“Someone, quickly call Jiang Jing over.” Su Rende shouted.
Not long after, Jiang Jing arrived carrying the medicine box.
Jiang Jing saw that the person in the room was Zhou Wangshu and said worriedly, “Brother-in-law, does my sister know you’re injured?”
“If she knew, would I still sneak here to find you all?” Zhou Wangshu finished and said to Su Rende, “Father-in-law, send someone to tell Yaoguang that you’re discussing official business with me and I’ll sleep here tonight.”
Su Rende glared at him: “You want me to deceive my daughter?”
“No deception. Am I not here to discuss official business with you?” Zhou Wangshu said, “Did you forget how I got injured?”
Earlier at the doorway, he had seen Xiao Yanci, and Zhou Wangshu felt more and more that something was off, so he sneaked into the mansion opposite. He had thought that even if he couldn’t scout anything, with his skills he could retreat safely. Who would have thought the courtyard opposite hid so many experts.
The stricter the defense opposite, the more problematic it was.
“Someone…” Su Rende ultimately didn’t want Su Yaoguang to worry and sent someone to the opposite side to say something.
Jiang Jing bandaged Zhou Wangshu’s wound.
Zhou Wangshu was still worried and instructed Jiang Jing not to let anything slip.
Jiang Jing was unwilling to deceive Su Yaoguang, but Zhou Wangshu was injured and didn’t want her to worry; it was a well-intentioned lie.
“Brother-in-law, the person who injured you is indeed very skilled. Just a little off and you would have lost your life. Be more careful in the future.”
“It wasn’t that he was a little off; it was that I dodged. If I hadn’t dodged, I’d be a corpse by now.”
This time it was really underestimating the enemy and being careless.
After Jiang Jing bandaged Zhou Wangshu, she left.
Su Rende said, “Suffering such a serious injury and learning nothing. You suffered for nothing.”
“Father-in-law, it wasn’t for nothing. If there was no problem opposite, why arrange so many people to guard it? With his current official position, there shouldn’t be any state secrets not to be shared with outsiders that need such tight guarding, right?”
“You mean…” Su Rende asked, “He has secrets there?”
“There’s commotion at the border. It seems they want you to lead troops out on expedition. If you go, the power in the capital will have to be reorganized. Father-in-law, why don’t you go on the expedition?”
“I’ll consider it.” Su Rende said, “Rest and recover from your injury first today. We’ll talk about anything tomorrow.”
The situation at the border was still unknown; whether to go on expedition was never up to him. It depended on the one above.
Of course, he could also not go and let the opportunity to other military generals.
For military generals, only by establishing merit on the battlefield did they have the opportunity to achieve merit and career. Those ambitious military generals were eager for this expedition opportunity.
However, he heard that the Great General sent to the border this time was a very tough opponent. Besides him, no other military general could match him evenly. If going on expedition, he would have to go personally.
Su Rende had his subordinate arrange a room for Zhou Wangshu to rest.
This boy had taken a stab wound very close to his heart; he couldn’t exert himself today and must rest well.
The next day, Zhou Wangshu mustered his energy and returned to the neighboring Zhongyi Marquis’s Mansion.
At this time, Su Yaoguang was carrying fragrant soup into the room. Seeing him return, she said, “Come here, I stewed chicken soup for you.”
“Drinking chicken soup so early in the morning?” Zhou Wangshu was puzzled.
“If you don’t drink chicken soup, how will your wound heal quickly?” Su Yaoguang said faintly.
Zhou Wangshu’s heart skipped a beat: “That… Madam… what wound?”
Su Yaoguang ladled the soup and put the chicken head in his bowl, smiling as she said, “Don’t you know? If you don’t know, how would I know? Perhaps you can ask this chicken in your bowl that died with eyes wide open; maybe it knows the cause of its death.”
Zhou Wangshu: “…”
The madam was angry.
He disliked eating heads and such the most, including chicken heads, duck heads, fish heads…
Su Yaoguang sighed and said, “Yesterday Father sent someone to say you were sleeping at his place. I thought you had drunk too much, so I brought hangover soup to find you and happened to hear what you all were saying.”
Zhou Wangshu held her hand: “Yaoguang, I didn’t mean to deceive you, I just…”
“If something like this happens again in the future, you can’t deceive me anymore. I know you’re afraid I’ll worry, but I care about you too! If you’re injured, rest well by my side. I’ll watch over you and accompany you; at least that way I’m at ease.”
“Alright, it won’t happen again.”
The butler came to Su Yaoguang for something, and she went out to handle it.
Ming Xiu came in to serve Zhou Wangshu and casually said, “Yesterday the son-in-law rested at the General’s mansion, and the madam stayed next door to your room, watching over you half the night to make sure you had no other issues before leaving. She came back early this morning to stew chicken soup.”
“In the future, persuade the madam not to work herself so hard.”
“The madam won’t listen. Son-in-law should be honest in the future and not trouble the madam anymore.”
Zhou Wangshu hadn’t expected to fall into Xiao Ci’s hands yesterday. In the end, things had been too smooth lately, leading to some underestimation of the enemy.
This incident served as a warning to him.
A few days later, Zhou Wangshu submitted evidence that Xiao Ci was a descendant of a criminal and impeached him during the morning court.
The Emperor was furious and directly threw Xiao Ci into prison.
Prime Minister Wang immediately distanced himself on the spot, saying he had no idea about Xiao Ci’s identity, and had Xiao Ci divorce Wang Ruyan, so Xiao Ci was no longer the Prime Minister’s Mansion’s son-in-law.
Xiao Ci entered the prison.
Zhou Wangshu returned from outside. Su Yaoguang came forward and took the cloak from his hand.
“Let me see how your wound is recovering.”
Upon hearing this, Zhou Wangshu dismissed the servants in the room, untied his belt, and took off his clothes.
Su Yaoguang looked at his wound and nodded satisfactorily: “Recovering well, no inflammation, and the wound is healing nicely.”
“Madam, Xiao Ci has been thrown into prison. The Emperor sentenced him to exile.” Zhou Wangshu said, “Don’t you think everything has gone too smoothly?”
“Indeed very smooth.” Su Yaoguang said, “It always feels like there’s a hand pushing the story forward.”
“Then what do you say…”
“Then follow the direction of that hand and see. Perhaps after walking a bit, we’ll know what’s ahead.”
Zhou Wangshu hugged Su Yaoguang and nodded gently: “You’re right.”
Since they didn’t know what was waiting ahead, they would just walk forward. Once they saw it, they would know what was there.
Xiao Ci was thus easily exiled.
At the same time, Su Rende also had to lead troops on expedition.
The harassment frequency from the border side was increasing; if no general was sent soon, they might directly attack.
“Don’t stop me, I want to leave here…” Zhang Zhaodi’s voice came from inside.
Upon hearing Zhang Zhaodi so agitated, Su Yaoguang hurried in.
“What’s going on?”
“The General is going on expedition, and Madam became very agitated upon hearing the news.”
Su Yaoguang quickly soothed Zhang Zhaodi: “Mother, don’t get agitated. Be careful not to scare the child in your belly.”
Seeing Su Yaoguang, Zhang Zhaodi calmed a bit emotionally, but the hot tears in her eyes couldn’t be held back.
“Back then when I was pregnant with you, he wasn’t even seen. Those years, we orphan and widow depended on each other, suffered so much scorn and hardship. Now we’ve finally reunited, and I’m pregnant with his second child, yet he’s leaving us again. How long until he returns this time? He said before he would make it up to me and stay with me the whole time.”
Su Rende hurried back from outside, held Zhang Zhaodi’s hand, and said, “Good madam, calm down. If you’re unhappy, hit me or scold me, just don’t upset yourself.”
“Would hitting or scolding you do any good? You live up to the people of the world, you’re the world’s hero, but… I don’t want a hero husband; I just want the family together.”
“Madam, this matter came suddenly; I didn’t expect turmoil at the border again. Rest assured, I’ll definitely protect myself and return safe and sound. This time I won’t get amnesia again or forget you and the child.”
“There’s another way…” Su Yaoguang said from the side, “Mother’s belly isn’t big yet; she can follow to the border.”
“No.” Su Rende immediately refused, “Swords have no eyes. As the Great General Who Protects the Nation, how many people want me dead? If your mother follows me, it’ll be very dangerous. Not to mention at her age she’s still bearing my child; she’s already more hard-working than ordinary women. If she travels long distances, it’ll be even more unrestful.”
“I think Yaoguang’s idea is good.” Zhang Zhaodi said, “I know the army has to march fast. I won’t go with the army; I’ll follow slowly behind. This time I won’t separate from you. Even if you’re fighting at the front line, I’ll wait for you in the back. The child in my belly also needs to see his father soon, not wait ten or eight years for you to return triumphant.”
“Yaoguang, look at the bad idea you came up with.” Su Rende complained, “Your mother took it seriously. Quickly dispel her idea.”
The environment at the border was so harsh; he couldn’t bear for her to go there suffering while pregnant.
Now was different from before. Before, he was just a farmer with nothing. Now he had the General’s mansion. As long as she waited for him in the capital, she wouldn’t suffer at all. Moreover, the Emperor would also take care of his family. It would be more secure for her to stay in the capital.
