This was just an ordinary story of an orphan girl being bullied by her clansmen.

“If a stranger you meet on the road reaches out to you, they are very likely a kind person who just pities you and asks for nothing in return, but some clansmen reach out to you not because of kindness or kinship but for greater benefits.” The Marchioness of Jingyun shook her head as she said this. “When I was young, I contracted smallpox, and to them I was a dead person. Without any benefit, they would naturally drive me out immediately.”

It sounded extremely ridiculous that the legitimate daughter of the dignified Zheng family of Xingyang could not even enter the Zheng family’s residence. But Lin Fei knew it was not ridiculous. On the contrary, such things happened almost every few days.

Underneath the brocade robes were unseen lice.

“At that time, I was homeless and had a high fever. My old servant had no choice but to try to find an inn for me to stay in, but which inn would accept a smallpox patient?” Lady Jingyun shook her head and said, “I tried to rent a house, but even if I offered enough money, I couldn’t find one. I found out that the Zheng family had spread the news that I had smallpox, so everyone in the city knew that there was a Miss Zheng with smallpox looking for a place to stay, and they wouldn’t let us in.”

“It was deep winter then, and we were homeless, with nowhere to go.” Lady Jingyun’s usually calm and composed face darkened. Though many years had passed, the scene was still vividly etched in her mind, unforgettable. “When we were utterly desperate, it was…”

A smile appeared on Lady Jingyun’s face as she looked at the two inconspicuous carriages appearing at the end of the official road. Her previously somber expression softened. “It was Lady Lu, a nun at the Ganhuai Nunnery who had kept her hair intact, who took me in, brought me a doctor, and personally cared for me tirelessly.”

She was indeed a young lady from the Zheng family of Xingyang, but at that time, her condition was incredibly dire; she looked like she wouldn’t survive. Even if she did, the Zheng family was a treacherous place; who would dare interfere? This was evident from the way everyone in the city avoided her. Adversity reveals true character. Lady Lu had saved her without expecting anything in return; she simply felt pity for the young girl suffering from smallpox, who was likely to die.

Lady Jingyun had mentioned these things before, so Lin Fei had heard of them as well. However, since he was here today… Looking at the carriage appearing at the end of the official road, Lin Fei subconsciously narrowed his eyes: “What exactly is the situation of that Lady Lu? How could she have started practicing Buddhism at such a young age?”

“It’s always those dirty family matters.” Lady Jingyun shook her head, turned to look at Lin Fei beside her, who was scrutinizing the two approaching carriages, and said, “Don’t scrutinize her so much…”

Her second son was good in every way, but perhaps because he had spent too much time in the Dali Temple, he looked at everything with a scrutinizing gaze.

This kind of gaze had frightened many people around him.

The Marchioness of Jingyun said, “Madam Lu is more than ten years older than me. How old is she now? Her past affairs have nothing to do with the case. As for why she went to a nunnery with her hair still intact, the reason is that she was a píngqī back then. She gave birth to a daughter first, which displeased the first wife. Unable to withstand the first wife’s methods, she voluntarily went to a nunnery to practice Buddhism with her hair still intact.”

He was well aware of such infighting in the inner quarters. Lin Fei nodded and then asked Madam Hou, “Why would she, of all people, become someone else’s píngqī²?”

Although the Lin family did not have the custom of having multiple wives and concubines, it didn’t mean that others didn’t. It wasn’t just powerful and noble families; even wealthy families among the common people often had multiple wives and concubines. But he was a man, and it was precisely because he was a man that he knew that the so-called multiple wives and concubines were unfair to women. In this world, there was probably no woman who would willingly become someone’s concubine or secondary wife.

“How would she be the one doing it?” The Marchioness shook her head and said, “The man Madam Lu married was her biǎogē. Back then, after her parents both passed away, the young Madam Lu was brought by an old servant to her biǎogē’s family to be cared for. When she reached marriageable age, she married her biǎogē as a píngqī.”

Before she could continue further, Lin Fei said, “Then this Madam Lu must have been an orphan carrying a fortune worth ten thousand taels.”

Upon hearing this, Madam Hou was momentarily speechless. She moved her lips, seemingly wanting to ask something, but seeing her second son’s thoughtful expression, she sighed helplessly, saying, “I knew I couldn’t hide it from you!”

Lin Fei gave an “Mm” and nodded indifferently. “Not strange at all! If they truly were kind-hearted people willing to take in an orphaned girl, they would not have let her marry someone else as qièshì or píngqī¹. Any elder who has gone through marriage themselves would know perfectly well what those so-called ‘qièshì’ and ‘píngqī’ arrangements really mean. Since they knowingly pushed her into a pit of fire, it’s obvious they were never kind-hearted people to begin with.”

Such a person taking in an orphan must have ulterior motives. What was the most likely reason a person would scheme against an orphan? The wealth left by her parents was undoubtedly the most probable motive.

“Then, looking at how they kept Madam Lu in the family under the guise of ‘strengthening ties between relatives’, it was obvious they had set their sights on that vast fortune,” Lin Fei said. “If I’m not mistaken, for Madam Lu to have properly ended up marrying her biǎogē as a píngqī, something must have happened in between. Otherwise, she would never have suddenly been lowered beneath others and made a píngqī.”

The Marchioness of Jingyun grew increasingly helpless as she listened. After Lin Fei’s voice finally fell, she finally spoke with a sigh, “You… there’s really nothing that can be hidden from you.”

That was the downside of talking to your second son; often, you’ve only just begun, and he’s already guessed everything that’s to come.

“When Madam Lu reached marriageable age, she accidentally fell into the water. In full view of everyone, she was rescued by her biǎogē, and so she married that ‘lifesaving benefactor’ biǎogē as a píngqī. At this point, the Marchioness rolled her eyes. “That fall into the water was no accident at all. She had been pushed in. Though she clearly knew the drowning incident was these people’s scheme, she had no way to defend herself. Yet that jiùjiu and jiùmǔ still put on the airs of benefactors, saying that even letting her become a píngqī was done for the sake of family ties and all that, hoping she would understand gratitude and repay kindness…”

The more the Marchioness spoke, the angrier she became. “But suffering this silent loss still wasn’t the end of it. Outsiders all kept praising that jiùjiu and jiùmǔ as great, benevolent people, saying how they had cared for an orphan girl for so many years and all that…

“The truth was that they had squeezed her dry, both her person and her wealth, yet that still wasn’t enough. They even managed to earn a good reputation in the eyes of outsiders. Not a word was mentioned about her fortune. Just the rent from her shops alone was enough not only to support one Madam Lu, but even her jiùjiu and jiùmǔ’s entire family. Caring for her? It was clearly the other way around — they were feeding off her blood while living comfortable lives themselves.

“But these people were so used to putting on an act in front of outsiders that if she showed even the slightest dissatisfaction, she would be called arrogant and greedily insatiable. Truly shameless to the extreme!”

“Later, she gave birth to a daughter and intended to live a quiet life behind closed doors, but the first wife was jealous, so she simply ran away and became a nun, no longer concerning herself with the affairs of her jiùjiu and jiùmǔ’s household.” The Marchioness said, looking at the carriage approaching, “Ah Fei, don’t overthink it. There’s no case here.”

Lin Fei moved her lips, saying, “Then her jiùjiu and jiùmǔ…”

“Who cares about these things?” The Marchioness rolled her eyes and walked towards the carriage parked by the roadside.

(End of Chapter)

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Footnote

1. The difference between qièshì and píngqī is quite important in historical Chinese marriage customs: Qièshì (妾室) = concubine
   • Lower status than the official wife.
   • Children were usually considered inferior in status to the main wife’s children.
   • The husband could not legally elevate her above the principal wife easily.
   • She had fewer rights and less authority in the household.
2. Píngqī (平妻) = “equal wife”
   • Literally means “equal wife,” but in practice it was often a problematic arrangement.
   • A man already had a principal wife, yet took another woman in a semi-wife status instead of as a normal concubine.
   • In many periods, orthodox Confucian society did not fully recognize píngqī as truly equal to the original wife.
   • It often created household conflict because the second woman occupied an ambiguous position: above a concubine, but not fully accepted as the legitimate first wife.