My Cold-Hearted Wife Chapter 37

As the young master of a marquis’s household, Xie Xuanying had attended countless grand and intimate banquets alike: birthday feasts for Grand Secretaries, wedding celebrations at dukes’ estates, hundred-day celebrations for the children of younger relatives, private family dinners hosted by teachers and friends, and even more imperial banquets than he could count. But this was, without a doubt, the most absurd meal he had ever eaten.

Although, from Centurion Wu’s perspective, there was really nothing unusual about it.

Just think about it. When he and Centurion Wang invited the officials of the capital to a banquet, the feast cost three taels of silver, which was the most lavish spread available at the county’s finest restaurant. Chicken, duck, fish, meat, sea cucumber, abalone – everything one could ask for was there.

The wine went without saying: only the finest Jinhua wine. And there was no need to mention the company either. He and Centurion Wang were the highest-ranking officials present, so they had certainly given their guests enough respect.

So what was wrong with bringing in a popular courtesan to sing a few songs and pour them some wine?

It wasn’t as though he had any bad intentions!

Xiang Jie’er was the most sought-after courtesan in the county. Ordinary constables and clerks could at most touch her hand; they could not even steal a kiss. Only men like him or the county magistrate were privileged enough to taste her charms.

But Xie Xuanying saw things completely differently.

He had only just taken his seat, chopsticks barely in hand, when a woman in a red blouse walked in. At first, he assumed she was a maid. He did not particularly approve of having a maid attend to male guests, but it was hardly unusual, so he held his tongue.

Then the woman came right up against him. “My lord.”

Xiang Jie’er had expected to be serving some big, burly brute. Who could have imagined that when she looked up, she would find a man hundreds of times more beautiful than she was herself? She froze on the spot.

Being stunned did not stop her from instinctively breaking into a smile and letting out a meaningless little hum. It was her usual way of handling such situations. At the same time, her mind was racing as she assessed the circumstances. From his clothes alone, even if the fabric had been bought in Jiangnan, it could not have been cheap. He was clearly a wealthy young master. That Wu fellow certainly had not lied to her – the man really was a person of means.

“Greetings, Young Master.”

Xiang Jie’er had another thought. He was certainly handsome, but he was still so young. Perhaps he had never even experienced a woman before. If she served him well tonight and managed to make a few dozen taels of silver, she could redeem her indenture and marry.

The thought made her eyes light up. She brought out every ounce of her skill, lowering herself into a coy curtsey. “Please, my lord, take pity on…”

She had not even finished speaking when a young servant stepped sideways in front of her and seized her firmly by the arm. “Miss, please conduct yourself with dignity.”

Xiang Jie’er wore her hair in the style of an unmarried young woman, so Xie Xuanying assumed she was Centurion Wu’s adopted daughter. He was willing to spare her some dignity and merely frowned as he reprimanded her.

Centurion Wu was delighted. Laughing, he said, “What miss? She’s the most popular courtesan we have here, Xiang Jie’er. Why don’t you greet our lord properly?”

Centurion Wang was slower on the uptake, so he could only put on a pained expression and repeat the words like a subordinate echoing his superior. “This is a distinguished guest from the capital. Be careful and attend to him properly.”

“Yes. Greetings, my lord.”

Xiang Jie’er tilted her body coquettishly, turning her face toward him with a seductive smile, her graceful figure accentuated by every movement.

Xie Xuanying’s expression changed drastically. In an instant, he drew his sword.

The cold, gleaming tip pointed straight at the woman’s slender neck. A slight thrust forward would be enough to end her life. Xiang Jie’er realized this too, and her face immediately went deathly pale as her whole body began to tremble.

“My lord…”

Her legs gave way, and she collapsed miserably to the floor, tears of terror streaming down her face. “Please spare me, my lord.”

With her tears came the complete disappearance of the vulgar coquettishness expected of a prostitute, revealing her natural voice instead – young and girlish, no more than fifteen. In a respectable household, she might not even have been married yet.

Xie Xuanying closed his eyes for a moment, forcing down his anger. He would not vent his fury on a helpless young woman. “Get out.”

As though granted a royal pardon, Xiang Jie’er gathered up her skirts and fled, all the while praying fervently in her heart: Thank heaven and earth, thank the Buddha and Guanyin Bodhisattva. I swear I’ll abstain from meat for three days, and burn incense and bow in prayer every day.

Centurion Wu was not nearly so lucky.

Seeing how utterly Xie Xuanying refused to humor him, he could not help feeling resentful. He forced a smile. “My lord… Ah!”

A shrill, agonized scream made Centurion Wang shudder. When he looked closely, he saw a trickle of blood running down the blade, while Centurion Wu’s severed hand lay on the floor, its fingers still curled and twitching.

“M-my lord?” Centurion Wang was dumbfounded, and hurriedly dropped to his knees as well.

“Did you think I wouldn’t dare kill you?” Xie Xuanying sneered. “You insulted me by bringing a prostitute before me. I’d like to see who would dare step forward to defend you.”

Centurion Wu was a man who instinctively bullied the weak and feared the strong. When Xie Xuanying had treated him courteously, he had taken it to mean that Xie Xuanying could not do without him, and had consequently started throwing his weight around. But the moment Xie Xuanying lost his temper and chopped off one of his hands without a word, all that bravado vanished. His knees had practically turned to jelly.

“My lord, spare me.” Centurion Wu clutched his severed wrist and begged for mercy, repeatedly knocking his head against the floor. “I didn’t mean any disrespect. I-I deserve death a thousand times over.”

Xie Xuanying could no longer be bothered to maintain this pointless pretense of cordiality. He said coolly, “Since you can no longer hold a blade, you needn’t accompany me tomorrow. Centurion Wang.”

“Here.” Centurion Wang’s voice trembled.

“Can your hand hold a sword?” He lowered his eyes to the cowering centurion. “Can you kill pirates?”

Centurion Wang hardly dared say no. Besides, he had long been displeased with Centurion Wu. Now that he had been given a chance to trample him underfoot, he could hardly have wished for more.

“Of course.” His speech suddenly became much more decisive. “I will do everything in his power to see this matter through for you, my lord.”

“Very good.”

Shing.

His sword slid smoothly back into its sheath.

Xie Xuanying strode out of the banquet hall.

Night deepened. Cheng Danruo watched Yan Hongzhi take his medicine, then went to the guest rooms to check on the wounded. Only after making sure that none of their conditions had deteriorated did she hand things over to Nanny Zhang and return to her room to rest.

After a hurried wash and wipe-down, she lay on the inn’s wooden plank bed, but sleep eluded her for a while.

She had never expected that, after all these years, she would kill someone again.

By her count, the pirate who had died at her hands yesterday was already the fourth person she had killed.

The first time had been when she was eight, the second when she was ten, and this time, she was fifteen.

Once, she had stubbornly believed that a doctor’s knife was meant to save lives and heal the wounded. How could it possibly be used to kill? But after travelling back to ancient times, she had come to understand: when a knife was pointed at a patient, it saved a life; when it was pointed at an enemy, it saved her own.

In ancient times, human life was cheap, especially in wartime. If she did not kill, others would kill her.

She remembered that day clearly. She had been riding in a donkey cart with her mother, on their way to visit her maternal grandfather’s family. Then they encountered some Oirat soldiers on the road.

There were only two of them, and she had no idea where they had come from. The moment they saw the bolts of cloth and sacks of flour loaded onto the donkey cart as gifts for her mother’s family, they immediately made their move.

Her mother clung tightly to her, trying to bargain with them. “Take everything. Just let us live.”

But the Oirats said, “Kill the men. Take the women.”

Life was harsh in the northern lands, and they needed to seize women to bear children. As long as a woman could give birth, they wanted her. The same went for children. It did not matter who their parents were; if they came across a child, they would simply take them. Raise them long enough, and they became part of their own family.

Cheng Danruo’s father was a physician, and the family was relatively well-off. Her maternal grandfather was a tongsheng, while her mother had never worked the fields and was a frail woman who could scarcely defend herself.

Fortunately, the man driving the cart was her younger maternal uncle. Her eldest uncle was studying, her second uncle worked the land, so he had instead apprenticed himself to a martial arts master. He was quite skilled and strong, and he drew his blade to resist.

Outnumbered two to one, he soon found himself at a disadvantage.

Cheng Danruo had been completely dazed at the time, her mind filled with visions of the miserable life that awaited her if they were captured. There was no doubt that her mother would be treated as nothing more than a breeding machine, while she herself, having herded sheep and slept alongside them as a child, would be given away or forced to sleep with her master once she grew older. She would bear children from the age of thirteen or fourteen until menopause.

Of course, there was an even greater possibility that she would freeze to death in a heavy snowstorm, or be abused by someone with particular tastes until her intestines ruptured and her belly was torn open.

Even the lives of women in ancient times that were considered reasonably good would be unacceptable to a modern person, let alone a life that, even by the standards of ancient women, was worse than that of a dog or a pig.

She had been terrified. She did not know how she had moved her hand. By the time she came back to herself, the blade had already severed the other person’s artery.

See? All those anatomy lessons had paid off. Even killing someone, she had done it cleanly.

But as a consequence, she suffered nightmares for half a year, unable to forgive herself for killing someone despite having dedicated herself to saving lives.

Then, two years later, another war broke out.

After witnessing the brutality of war with her own eyes, she finally forgave herself.

Cheng Danruo turned over, temporarily putting her memories of the past aside, and thought again of the pirates this time.

Although she was not particularly well versed in history, she had heard of the great wokou raids during the Jiajing reign. Judging by the timing, this seemed to be around the middle of the sixteenth century.

But this situation now… what exactly was going on?

Li Zitun Centurion Office.

Xie Xuanying had only slept lightly. Before dawn, Li Bowu reported that the night scouts had returned. He immediately got up and personally questioned them about the situation.

Three night scouts had been sent out to gather information this time. Liu Haiping was familiar with matters concerning the pirates; a short, skinny man who looked like a monkey knew the local terrain well; and another man was skilled at surveillance. The three had therefore been sent out together.

Only two had returned. The one skilled at surveillance had remained behind.

The skinny man was timid by nature. Faced with a nobleman, he was too frightened to speak, so he let Liu Haiping speak on his behalf.

“We have already discovered the whereabouts of the bandit

Xie Xuanying frowned.

Their ships had been moored at Yanghe Port (present-day Xinyang Port), while the fishing village they had been looking for was called Xiyu Village, situated to the west of the Yang River.

“According to this young brother here,” Liu Haiping said, remembering to give the skinny fellow his due, “Dongyu and Xiyu Villages may lie on opposite banks, but they’re as close as brothers, their fortunes bound together. Three years ago, many people from Dongyu Village went out to sea to fish, only to be caught in a storm. Many were killed or injured. For reasons no one knows, those who survived eventually became pirates.

“To protect their lives, and tempted by the promise of wealth, the villagers began working together. The women and children stayed ashore, fishing and mending nets, while the able-bodied men ostensibly went out to fish but actually took part in the raids. By now, they’re half pirates themselves.

“But Chen One-Eye is a brutal man. He always suspected that they were keeping their families ashore because they weren’t truly loyal to him, and he was constantly on his guard. Black Abacus persuaded the people of Dongyu Village to break with Chen One-Eye. The two sides fought among themselves, and quite a few were killed or wounded. Even with the easterners joining their ranks, they were still short of men, so they turned their attention to Xiyu Village.”

The scattered beads were finally being strung together one by one. Xie Xuanying listened, nodding inwardly. He could not help thinking that if the situation was already this complicated along the coast of Jiangsu and Zhejiang alone, then coastal defense was far more complicated than he had imagined.

Liu Haiping continued. “Last night, fighting broke out between the two villages. Dongyu Village took the women and children of Xiyu Village hostage and demanded that the villagers join them. Xiyu Village was no match for them and had no choice but to agree. They also gave away the information that your lordship’s ships were moored here. That was what gave Black Abacus the idea of stealing the sand ship and setting himself up independently.”

At last, Xie Xuanying understood the whole chain of events.

The bloodstains had been left by chance, but they had also served as bait, allowing them to turn the tables and lure the pirates into the woods. And now, with the able-bodied men from both villages combined, their numbers were far from insignificant.

After pondering for a moment, he asked, “If I let Xiyu Village off for informing on us, are you confident you can persuade them to abandon the darkness and turn to the light?”

Liu Haiping looked at the skinny fellow. “Hard to say. They’re brother villages, bound together like flesh and bone. If you only kill the leaders, though, it might be worth a try.”

The short man spoke with a heavy accent. Fortunately, Xie Xuanying had a teacher from Zhejiang and understood some Jiangnan dialects, so he was able to make out the meaning with some difficulty.

“Very well.” Xie Xuanying curled his lips into a cold smile. “As long as you can bring me the heads of their leaders, I will let bygones be bygones.”

The skinny fellow shuffled his feet, grinding them against the ground several times before finally saying, “Then I’ll give it a try.”

Dongyu Village, the village headman’s house.

“You said you only wanted us to pass along a message. Why do you now want us to go to the county seat as well?” the son of Xiyu Village’s headman protested. “No. Absolutely not.”

Black Abacus was a middle-aged man who wore a square scholar’s cap. He sat in a chair, his face dark and somber.

“This isn’t a question of whether you think it should be done or not.” Having studied for several years, Black Abacus spoke in an unhurried, measured tone. “We’ve already offended a powerful man. If we don’t take this opportunity to make a big move, muddy the waters in Huai’an, and force the imperial court to intervene, we’ll all be in deep trouble.”