The Marquis Is Innocent

Wei Shao remained silent. He stood, while she sat, he looked down at Xiao Qiao, but Xiao Qiao did not look at him with her eyes slightly averted. The two were separated by a table, but they both seemed to be caught up in their own thoughts. There was only dead silence in the room. Wei Shao even seemed to hear the sound of blood rushing through his chest and his heart pounding in response.

A night breeze saw a gap through a window in the corner, the candle flame swayed, and the shadow of Wei Shao cast into the opposite wall also swayed a few times. The house finally seems to be a trace of life. Wei Shao’s shoulders finally followed the shadow and moved, lifting his feet to walk towards her, Xiao Qiao had already stood up from the couch and raised her eyes and said in a warm voice: “It’s getting late. Let’s rest.”

She got off the couch, walked past Wei Shao as he watched, went to the door, opened it, and whispered to the servant to come in and serve Wei Shao into the bath.

……

Even in winter, when Wei Shao is out on his march, he bathes in cold water, especially now that it is summer.

The water drawn from the deep well in the back garden was already very cool and refreshing. Wei Shao closed his eyes and lifted the whole bucket and poured it down from the head, the water rushing down the top of his head, face, shoulders, the sound of the water splashing, his skin felt a refreshing coolness, but the blood flowing under the skin brought him that burning sensation as if it was constantly stabbing him but did not go down. And he felt a tightness in his chest, as if blocked by a piece of rag.

He felt bad, very bad.

He opened his eyes. His body was dripping wet. Water kept dripping down along the skin of his hair.

Wei Shao kind of wanted to call her in to help him wipe himself off. Recently every night when he bathed, she would come in and serve him, wiping his hair, his body, and sometimes even be intimate with him in the bath.

He opened his mouth, but finally did not call, and pulled a bath towel hanging quietly on a shelf, wiped haphazardly, put on a piece of clothing and went out, saw that she was not waiting for him on the bed, but rather, as she had just come here, standing aside, supposedly to wait for him to go up first.

Wei Shao hesitated, walked towards her and said, “Go to sleep, it’s late.”

Xiao Qiao smiled faintly and nodded. She went over and bolted the door and lowered the two curtains hanging in front of the bed.

Then the light in front of the bed dimmed.

Wei Shao was lying on his back on the bed. She blew out the lamp.

There was a slight rustling sound. Wei Shao turned his face and watched as she turned her back on him in the dimness and took off her clothes one by one, leaving her middle clothes on, and finally climbed into bed.

She went to sleep, and it was as if she fell asleep at once, without turning over one more time, breathing evenly.

……

Wei Shao experienced a lot of things this day. During the day, he rushed back to Yuyang from Zhuo County, met Wei Yan Qiao Ci outside the city in the evening, hosted a banquet for Qiao Ci, waited for her to come home, making out with her, got angry at her, went to the east room, and finally went around a lot, he finally came back again and lay back on this bed with her.

Wei Shao felt restless, but not because of the tiredness from the body. He was young, energetic as a male leopard in the late spring. He could travel for three days and nights without sleep and still appear in front of his soldiers the next day in high spirits.

What made him feel restless was the sense of insecurity that she brought him.

She is just a woman, he can lift her up with one arm, and her neck can’t withstand his fury, if she really angered him at all. When he came to the study and suddenly found that the box had been moved and had left stark scratches, his first thought was indeed her, and he could not control his anger. Because he had so clearly ordered her not to touch the box. And from the bottom of his heart, he really did not want her to touch it. He had set the rules, but she did not follow them. He felt offended by her ignorance.

If this was the army and she was his subordinate, she would have had her head cut off on the spot. But what Wei Shao did not understand was that she had clearly been at fault. Because she did ignore his orders to move something he did not want her to touch. But after such a tussle, why at this moment, he actually feels as if he did something wrong.

Especially, it seems he should not be so angry with her.

When he closes his eyes at this moment, he recalls her appearance when she was called over and questioned by himself. Her face, which was smiling a few moments ago, immediately lost its color, and looked at him with eyes that showed the kind of panic, shame and pleading remorse that he not failed to see.

Wei Shao was tormented by his own tangled emotions, and, from the heart, a feeling similar to frustration slowly emerged.

He went out in a rage, then calmed down and went to the east room, and from his mother’s reaction, he could easily tell that her self-defense was true: she had indeed touched the box, but had not made the foolish attempt to open it by picking the lock in such a way that would have angered him completely.

Frankly, he was actually a little relieved at the time. On his way back to the west house, he guessed she would be terrified after he went out in anger. He also figured that when he went in, he would not immediately reconcile with her, of course. Because she had indeed made a mistake and had not taken his words seriously. He will let her take the initiative to reflect on her mistake again, and promise that there will be no next time, and then tell her that he has helped her to find out what happened and to clear her name.

She will be grateful for his leniency and initiative to clear her name. And more importantly, with this necessary lesson, she will be convinced that she will not dare to do anything like this. In hindsight, although he was a little distressed by her frightened appearance, he did not want to give her the misconception that he would tolerate any of her behavior indefinitely.

This is similar to how he would deal with a general in the army who had violated military orders but still had to be keep in service. First the power, then the grace, the combination of grace and power, such a means of governing is always advantageous.

He came in, but saw her sitting on the couch, looking calm, and unlocked the lock in front of him in three or two clicks, and without his help, washed away the suspicion of lock-picking for herself.

……

In this era, in addition to the upper class, which accounts for a minority of the population, the remaining class can be educated to an extremely limited degree. The slightly more advanced mathematics was even more distant from the vast majority of people. Wei Shao was interested in arithmetic from an early age, and when his father, Wei Jing, learned of it, he had a set of two hundred and seventy-two jade chips made for him and placed in a pouch that the seven-year-old Wei Shao hung on his person and could take out and fiddle with whenever and wherever he wished. The nine-gong lock for the wooden box was also crafted by a locksmith in brass when he was ten years old, based on the “magic formula of the universe” contained in the Hexagram, which had aroused his great interest.

He never thought anyone could open the lock. At least in this house, there would not be a second person other than him.

He never expected that she would open the lock so easily in front of him.

The women of noble family origin, before marriage at home, from childhood, more or less will have received some cultural aspects of education, including simple counting, in order to be able to take the husband’s household management in the future, but in no way could learn to such a degree as the hexagram Luoshu, at least he had not heard of.

At that time, Wei Shao was shocked, but then he was faintly disappointed. He felt that although he had stepped into this door, he seemed to have received a rejection from her firmly.

……

Wei Shao could not sleep. He just clearly felt, although she repeatedly apologized to him, and still smiled at him, warm voice. But all of a sudden she seems to have changed back to the Qiao girl who had just come to his house.

He is not a fool, he can naturally feel it. He felt a little stuffy in his chest.

He didn’t like the way she looked at himself.

He closed his eyes and listened sideways to the sound of her breathing coming from the pillow. Finally, he couldn’t resist and reached over to her, tentatively resting his hand gently on her waist.

She seemed to have fallen asleep and did not respond.

Wei Shao’s arm reached over a little more until he slowly wrapped her waist completely around his arm, and then his body leaned toward her.

Xiao Qiao suddenly turned over and slept with her back to him, as if she had just turned over unintentionally in her sleep.

Wei Shao hesitated, and continued to press towards her back, finally receiving her completely into his chest, his lips to her ear, whispering: “I believe you now. The lock really wasn’t tampered with by you.”

He paused for a moment and saw no reaction from her. Then he tightened his arms, his palms began to move slowly along her waist, finally probing into her clothes, gently caressing her with tenderness, and his lips fell to the back of her neck, kissing along the back of her neck all the way to her shoulders, bringing her shirt down from her shoulders as his chin rubbed against her.

His breath grew hot, his nostrils fluttering onto her bare skin. When he tried to turn her over to face himself, Xiao Qiao suddenly raised her hand, grabbed his palm that was getting hot, and took it out of her clothes lapel.

“Husband, I am really tired tonight, can I sleep please?”

Xiao Qiao said as she opened her eyes in the dim tent. Her head did not turn back.

Her tone was still soft, but her voice sounded, indeed, low-spirited and weak.

Wei Shao’s hand, which she had removed, gave a slight pause. After a moment, he let go of her and turned outward.

……

The next morning, only the 5th hour, Wei Shao got up and left.

Xiao Qiao really didn’t know when he got up and left. She woke up as usual and saw that no one was around before she knew he was gone. Not long after she got up, while she was still dressing up, she suddenly heard a faint cry coming from the courtyard outside, as if something had happened.

Xiao Qiao did not go out to see. After a while, Old Lin came in and told her that the madam had found out that the person who dared to sneak into the Marquis’ study yesterday and break the lock to commit an act of misconduct was indeed the Old Sun she had watched. Just now, Old Jiang brought people over to take the old sun away. Old Sun woman even cried out, Jiang old woman on the spot told people to take mud stuffed her mouth, finally is dragged backwards feet to force drag away.

Old Lin described, eyes wide open, hands and feet, look very angry: “The lady is generous, she did not payback your kindness, but deceive our masters, how can do such a thing! There is no excuse for this!”

A footstep came from the doorway, Xiao Qiao raised her eyes and saw that Jiang old woman had come. The attitude is unusually respectful. Standing outside the door, she bowed towards Xiao Qiao and said: ” As you know, Madam knew what happened here, she was very angry and interrogated overnight, and the evil woman named Sun was found out early in the morning, and the woman confessed to it. Just now, the servant girl has tied her up, and she will be severely punished if she is brought there. Madam is very angry last night, did not sleep well all night, early in the morning and went to the north house to the old lady to plead guilty, came back to just lie down. Madam said, you do not need to go to her side in the next few days.”

Old Jiang returned the words and left. Xiao Qiao’s side cleaned up and went to the north house as usual.

Mrs. Zhu had come here early in the morning and had not left long ago. Mrs. Xu saw Xiao Qiao coming, her spirit looked a little weak, beckoned her to sit beside her, examined her face and said, “Just now your mother-in-law came to me, said that a box in Erlang’s study was broken by a subordinate, last night Erlang was furious and asked her to pursue responsibility, she disposed of the matter early in the morning, and the person was also found?”

Xiao Qiao said: “I am very grateful to my mother-in-law for catching the person who broke the lock so quickly. Fortunately, nothing happened this time, it was just a false alarm. I came over this morning to see my grandmother, but I also had something I wanted to discuss with her.”

“Go ahead.”

“There are many servants in the west house. I remember that when I first married here, there were only about ten of them, but later, thanks to my grandmother’s love, she sent some of them one after another, and some from my mother-in-law as well. There were many servants, but only served me and my husband. My husband is always away during the day, so I don’t need that many people. I see that there are only about ten people here at my grandmother’s house, even for cleaning the courtyard, my husband and I are young and young in age, so we should not have to spend so much. It’s just as well that something like this happened. I thought I could cut back on the number of people I didn’t need. On the one hand, to stop people from floating around, and on the other hand, to prevent people from having nothing to do and creating problems.”

Mrs. Xu nodded: “That’s right. We don’t care about one or two underlings who are lazy and idle, but if there is a problem like yesterday’s because of idleness, it is the housewife’s fault for not paying attention. It is rare that you don’t care about the arrangements. You don’t have to ask me about the affairs in your house.”

Xiao Qiao smiled, thanked Mrs. Xu, and sat with her for a few moments before leaving.