Chapter 44: Banquet
After sending Cui Xun away, Gao An came in holding a stack of invitations: “They are all officials who want to seek an audience with the Prince. Many of them, to curry favor with the Prince, specially had their family members bring along boys of similar age to A Li to request to see him together.
“Among them is also an invitation from Xu He.”
He wanted Yan Bei to pick a few to go through the motions. Since they had come, it wouldn’t do to hide and not see them.
Yan Bei glanced at them for a moment and put them down: “Very well. Give them to the Du Family and let them make the selections. See which ones they pick? Record them all.”
Gao An accepted the order.
As he turned his head, he saw that the Du Family Father and Son had just arrived outside, so he placed the invitations to the side.
With the Du Family Father and Son coming to the small garden to entertain guests, naturally most of the household staff had to come to await dispatch. At this moment, who would still be thinking about the study that no one occupied?
With no one else to disturb them, things went exceptionally smoothly for Yue Tang,
Behind the Peony Painting, there was indeed a mechanism—it was a wall cabinet.
Wei Zhang had learned about these things in his early years. He groped around the mechanism a few times, tried a few methods, and soon heard a click; the wall cabinet opened a hole about half a foot square.
Wei Zhang felt inside and pulled out a stack of papers of various sizes, along with a box.
Yue Tang took the box—it was a fan case. Opening it, she saw it was a quite valuable collection with calligraphy from famous people.
She flipped through these papers; they were just some handles on mid-level officials in the court that the Du Family had gathered, evidence of their corruption and perversion of justice.
For such a secret mechanism, hiding only these seemed unreasonable.
Just as she was frowning and looking through these letters, Wei Zhang suddenly said: “There’s another thing!”
As he spoke, he, who was stretching his arm to grope in the deepest part, pulled out a beaded bracelet with eyes burning brightly.
It was a beaded bracelet for a woman to wear on her wrist!
The beaded bracelet actually consisted of three loops, but the middle one was fixed together with a gold-inlaid jade clasp. And one of the loops was already broken. Looking at the break, it seemed like it had been torn apart by brute force.
The beads were indeed round and large each one, not ordinary items; at a gold shop, they would be worth at least two or three hundred taels of silver.
“This isn’t something he should be hiding. And there are scratches on this gold and jade; it’s not new. It was worn by someone!” Yue Tang said decisively, “Search more!”
But Wei Zhang furrowed his brows tightly: “Someone’s coming!”
Yue Tang listened attentively, and indeed there was an extremely faint sound of wind from the shadows; just from hearing it, she knew the newcomer was someone with extremely high kung fu!
Without a word, she stuffed the bracelet away, quickly flipped through this evidence of crimes, firmly memorized the names involved among them, then swiftly restored the hidden compartment to its original position, and retreated out the back window the way they came!
They had just leaped out the window when masked guards from the Prince’s Mansion silently leaped in from another direction.
……
On the way back to the small building, the beaded bracelet in Yue Tang’s sleeve was burning hot like red-hot coals.
Both He Jianzhong and Zhang Shaode had confirmed at life-and-death moments that there was something fishy in Du Minghuan’s study, which this hidden sentry guarded day and night.
Perhaps besides the hidden compartment just now, there were other places to hide things.
But even just this one place they found was certainly extremely important.
And the things hidden inside naturally couldn’t be ordinary items.
So, why would Du Minghuan treasure this broken beaded bracelet, which wasn’t even top-quality new and not some priceless treasure?
And hide it together with the evidence of crimes he had collected on those officials?
So, was this beaded bracelet related to these officials?
And which faction did these officials belong to?……
In the blink of an eye, Yue Tang had been gone for half a shichen.
Lan Qin was in the small building, biding her time quietly.
“Where is Lady He?”
When the Du Family maidservant came in, Lan Qin was washing her hands using the water in the basin.
She turned back calmly with a smile: “The lady went to the lavatory. Do you have business?”
The maidservant said: “Prince Jingyang has arrived today with the young heir apparent.
“Just now the message came for our marquis to lead a few officials who also brought their wives and children to converse together. Several tea ceremonies have been set up in Begonia Hall. The marquis values the Top Scholar and has already sent for Lord Xu. He also sent me to summon Lady He to attend.”
The maidservant’s attitude wasn’t very respectful, but her words were clear enough.
Lan Qin realized it was a tricky matter and said: “I understand. I’ll go find our lady right away.”
The maidservant nodded, gave her a few up-and-down looks, and left.
Lan Qin let out a breath, and just as she was about to turn, Yue Tang walked out from behind the screen.
Lan Qin’s heart settled: “Did it go smoothly?”
Yue Tang nodded: “We’ll talk when we get back.”
She paused and then said: “Can’t we decline this tea ceremony?”
“I’m afraid not.” Lan Qin shook her head. “First, the Du Family’s attitude toward us is out in the open; they won’t miss a chance to make you look bad.
“Second, Xu He won’t pass up a chance to show off. If his family doesn’t attend, he’ll feel it’s a loss of face, and it’ll be hard to deal with him later.
“Third,” she sighed here, glanced toward outside the door, and continued: “Even if the Du Family or Xu He don’t mention it, there are plenty today who want to see the Top Scholar’s Wife from the countryside make a fool of herself; they’ll definitely egg it on.”
Yue Tang sighed too: “In that case, call someone to lead the way.”
The little maidservant outside the door couldn’t pretend to be deaf this time and obediently led the way ahead.
The banquet site wasn’t far; after rounding a few pebble paths, they arrived.
It was a waterside pavilion by the lake with a terrace, where about ten table settings were already laid out.
At the north end, three long tables were placed, with the middle one arranged particularly elaborately—no need to say, that was Prince Jingyang’s seat. The two on either side were naturally for the hosts, Du Minghuan and Son, or perhaps other Du Family members.
Below these long tables, five table and chairs were set on each side; people had arrived to about seventy or eighty percent capacity. Behind each table sat an official sitting primly, along with their family members.
Yue Tang was the last to arrive; Xu He was already displeased and grumbled lowly to her: “Where were you? Why are you so late! The Prince is summoning; it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If you ruin my good thing, you can’t bear the responsibility!”
“Got it.”
Yue Tang responded indifferently and sat down.
She was preoccupied with the thing in her sleeve and had absolutely no intention of showing off in such a setting.
She should still find a way to slip away at the first opportunity.
As she was thinking, someone announced at the intersection: “The Prince arrives!”
She glanced sideways quietly and saw a group coming from afar. The Du Family Father and Son, usually so arrogant, were now walking on either side, fawning to the extreme.
The man in the middle wore a purple robe, moving unhurriedly; even from afar, he exuded an air of unparalleled arrogance.
This was naturally that Prince Jingyang, whose loyalties were hard to discern.
As they drew nearer, Yue Tang casually picked up a peanut and coolly cast her gaze over.
With this glance, she directly met Prince Jingyang’s face without any obstruction.
Immediately after, the peanut in her hand dropped with a clatter onto the table in front of Xu He!
Xu He was looking eagerly in the direction Prince Jingyang was coming from, his body already half-stretched out, his heart pounding nonstop.
Suddenly seeing the peanut rolling with clicks, he couldn’t help but grit his teeth and grumble: “Country bumpkin! Sit properly quick, don’t cause me trouble!”
Yue Tang half-opened her mouth and looked at this “current husband” once, then shifted her gaze back to the “ex-husband” at the head seat.
Then she grabbed that wayward peanut, clamped it between her teeth, and crunched it to pieces!
I know everyone’s waiting, I’ve done my best to speed up the pace, but today’s plot can only go this far—after all, they’re here to get business done, squeezing more wouldn’t look right (σ≧▽≦)σ. Also, routine monthly ticket plea for the first three days of the month— if you have tickets, please help build some heat \(ω)/
