A Single Tie Of Long Hair Seals A Lifelong Commitment - Chapter 15.1

The noise lasted until late at night. The lights in several guest rooms were extinguished, but the lamp in Chen Yuanqing’s study was lit and burned all night long.

Yan Baizhang was followed by a sickly-looking youth, dressed in thin clothing.

The boy timidly surveyed the imposing mansion and the handsome Marquis who claimed to be his father. He wanted to get closer to the charcoal basin for warmth but was deterred by the Marquis’s commanding presence.

His upper and lower teeth chattered audibly. It was only when Madam He arrived that she noticed the child’s lips were already blue with cold. Seeing his small stature, she had someone fetch a winter coat from Chen Liangyu’s gender-neutral collection for him to wear for the time being.

Yan Baizhang lamented, “I followed the clues and searched all the way to Cangnan, but I didn’t expect Cangnan to be a place where ‘white bones were exposed in the wild.’ Everyone who was still alive had fled. I then followed the trail of the refugees back, tracking them to the foot of Yanzhishan outside Shangyong City, where I finally found the second young master.”

Madam He, realizing the two men were discussing important matters, led the youth away to be settled in the secondary residence.

Yan Baizhang gazed for a moment in the direction where the Chen family was resting, an uncontainable fury in his eyes. “Marquis, Cangnan this time… I’m afraid…”

Chen Yuanqing tilted his head back, closing his eyes, a look of profound sorrow on his face.

“The Chen clan members,” Yan Baizhang looked intently at Chen Yuanqing, “Marquis, make your decision soon!”

Chen Yuanqing regained his composure, opened his bright eyes, and slapped the desk with his palm, leaving an imprint. “The living are guilty of excess crimes; the dead deserve their demise!”

The next day, the thick frost and fog that had accumulated overnight were sliced into spectacular beams of light by the morning sun. Chen Liangyu finished her court duties, went to the Sixteen Guards Yamen to assign tasks, and then hurried home.

It was already the end of the year. The palace had bestowed a New Year’s Eve banquet, and all capital officials were preparing to attend. The Crown Prince had sent the Eastern Palace honor guard early to escort Xie Wenjun to the palace.

This year would not be peaceful.

Chen Liangyu rode swiftly through the streets back to the Xuanping Marquis Residence, feeling a strange sense of anomaly. After a quick search, she saw that the long-closed gate of the secondary residence was open. Upon entering, she saw an unfamiliar youth sitting alone in the courtyard, wearing her long robe.

Her face immediately turned cold.

“Who are you? Why are you wearing my clothes?”

Last night, her mother had suddenly sent someone to Liangyuan to fetch clothes, specifically instructing them to take new clothes she hadn’t worn. She had wondered about the urgency, but now they were on an outside male.

“Your… clothes?” The youth was startled. He looked down at the robe and then at Chen Liangyu. Although the person in front of him had a high ponytail fastened simply with a jade hairpin, radiating heroism, she was clearly a beautiful girl.

Chen Liangyu assumed he was someone from the group that came from Cangnan last night. “Take it off.”

The youth’s face flushed crimson. He fumbled nervously to undo the buttons as Chen Liangyu requested.

Just as she was about to have the clothes worn by an outside male removed and burned, she heard a sound like a clap of thunder behind her.

“Do not be rude to your second elder brother!”

Chen Liangyu’s body stiffened. Just a moment ago, she was aggressive and authoritarian, but now she was like a sparrow seeing a vulture, immediately losing her fire.

“Uncle Yan.” She saluted and stood waiting respectfully on the side.

Yan Baizhang and Chen Linjun entered. They were followed by maids and servants carrying household items and starting to set things up.

What is going on!

Chen Liangyu was dizzy for a moment. She was also curious about the youth who had unbuttoned two clasps of his robe. Second Elder Brother? Whose second elder brother? Where did this second elder brother come from? She had never heard that her parents had a long-lost second son.

The youth lowered his head, timid and submissive. His hands, chapped and frostbitten, remained still in the cold wind.

To describe him as sallow and thin was an understatement; emaciated was closer to the truth. The long robe, which would have fit her well, looked baggy on the youth, letting half a robe-full of wind pass through.

This physique, where was the spirit of a general’s child?

“Greet him!” Uncle Yan spoke to her again.

Before she could figure out the situation, Chen Liangyu was forcibly made to bow and perform a salute. “Second… Elder Brother.”

“Go do your own things. You are not needed here.”

She was thus expelled from her own house.

Chen Liangyu leaned against the corridor, lost in thought. She truly couldn’t connect that youth with her blood relatives.

After a long time, Chen Linjun came, and the confusion was resolved.

It turned out to be a romantic entanglement from Chen Yuanqing’s youth. He had redeemed a respectable girl who had just been sold to a brothel but never brought her into the residence, keeping her outside. During the succession crisis, Shangyong fell into chaos, and the mistress, while pregnant, was lost among the refugees. She later gave birth to the child and passed away, and the child was taken away, his whereabouts unknown.

Madam He pitied the child. As soon as he was found, she recognized him and registered him as the Marquis Residence’s legitimate second son.

The return was sudden, catching Chen Yuanqing, his wife, and Yan Baizhang off guard. In truth, they hadn’t held out much hope. For over a decade, they had dispatched countless people and searched numerous times, all to no avail.

How could they search? A child they had never met. They probably wouldn’t recognize him even if they saw him.

When the fighting in the North ceased, Yan Baizhang found time, insisted on going personally, and actually brought the person back. It was truly unexpected; they hadn’t even had time to commission a winter coat, which Madam He rushed to buy that morning before sending it over.

“How did Father suddenly acquire an outside son? I don’t think his features resemble Father’s, or yours, or mine.”

Chen Linjun said, “Perhaps he resembles his birth mother.”

“Fine, setting aside whether he looks like him or not, no one has seen him since birth. How can Uncle Yan assert that he is Father’s flesh and blood? He is wasted away, just skin and bones. If he squatted in a tree, he could pass for kin with a monkey.”

Chen Linjun was slightly choked by her half-realistic, half-petulant description. He corrected her, “A gentleman does not speak ill of others behind their back! I have not met that mistress either. If you have doubts, go ask Uncle Yan for an explanation.”

Chen Liangyu swung her long, firm legs, the sole of her boot scraping the ground, grumbling, “If Uncle Yan says so, then so be it.”

A shoe edge peeked out from the side of a corridor pillar. It was the extremely thin youth, clutching a bundle of cloth, his robe neatly folded. “Your… clothes.”

How can this person walk without a sound!

“It’s not necessary.” Like a villain caught gossiping by the person concerned, Chen Liangyu looked at the pitiful, sickly state of the boy and felt a touch of compassion. She no longer had the heart to ask for the clothes back. “It was originally military wear. A man can wear it too.”

She didn’t dare to linger, adding, “I haven’t worn this one,” before hurrying away.

At Shen hour (around 3-5 PM), the Imperial Banquet began.

In the Chongzheng Hall, the tables were draped with yellow silk, furnished with gold and silver utensils. On the Danchi (Imperial Steps), the seats were covered with blue silk and set with bronze utensils.

The Palace Administration and the Ministry of Rites were busy working non-stop.

Chen Liangyu accompanied her father and elder brother to the banquet by carriage. The carriage stopped at the Taihe Gate, where princes and high-ranking officials had already gathered to await the feast. The purple and crimson court robes rustled as they moved. As soon as Chen Yuanqing appeared, he was immediately pulled aside for consultation. Needless to say, the conversation revolved around Cangnan.

Chen Liangyu and Chen Linjun traveled by carriage to the Zhonghe Gate. The hundreds of officials gathered in small groups, discussing poetry and philosophy.

Chen Liangyu looked around. In this territory belonging to men, she felt like an ‘anomaly,’ completely out of place.

She had shattered the absolute barrier that men controlled in society, breaking through this conventional, timeless boundary. But to those looking from the other side of the barrier and boundary, she was like a festering wound on a healthy body.

Some were resistant, viewing her as a sharp thorn in their flesh, not merely refusing to welcome her but eager to dig her out and cast her aside. Others were indifferent, quietly waiting for this interlude, this farce, to end, so that the old order could be restored.

Yet, perhaps her presence here was just the beginning of the wall’s collapse.

Chen Linjun dragged her forward with difficulty, trying to find a quieter place to wait. Just as salvation seemed within reach, Chen Linjun unexpectedly bumped into someone.

“Ouch.”

The person was clearly a civil official, unable to withstand such a solid bump from Chen Linjun. His foot twisted, and he staggered back a few steps.

Chen Linjun quickly let go of Chen Liangyu and reached out to support the man, having to jog two and a half steps forward to finally steady him.

“My apologies, Brother.”

The man stood firm and looked up. He was a delicate-looking scholar, wearing a blue official robe, who momentarily resembled someone familiar.

Chen Linjun looked up and recognized him. The man in blue saluted. “Linjun, why have you come to the Zhonghe Gate? You should be waiting over there.”

To facilitate the marshaling of the Rites officials, officials of different ranks waited in different places. The highest-ranking, naturally, were at the Taihe Gate.