Chapter 27: Tea Whisking

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Chapter 27: Whisked Tea

Qian Xianglan sighed again. “After carrying on like that for several years, he grew more and more brazen, behaving like a shameless scoundrel. He is still in the prime of his strength, and on top of that, he is a licentiate scholar. Your uncle and aunt and I could never outargue him, and we certainly could not overpower him. In the end, we had no choice but to let it go. Everything in the household has been decided by him ever since.”

“Cousin, did you never think of resisting?” Yun Jiao asked, her brows drawn sharply upward and her beautiful eyes wide with indignation.

What kind of sense did that make? Was this not simply a cuckoo occupying a magpie’s nest?

Her maternal grandfather and eldest uncle had worked so hard to build up the family estate. How could they just let it fall into the hands of a man like that?

“Resist?” Qian Xianglan gave a bitter, desolate smile. “Easier said than done. The children are grown now, and he has only become more tyrannical. He curses me at the slightest provocation, and if anything fails to please him, he beats and kicks me. What could I do?

“Even if I were willing to cast aside my own dignity, I still had to think of the children.

“We women cannot be masters of our own lives. Everything is fate. We can only accept it.”

Yun Jiao lowered her eyes, her heart aching. Accept fate? Were women meant to accept their fate simply because they were women? Why should that be? Was a woman somehow at fault from the moment she was born?

“Yun Jiao, remember this: you must not go to his study. I shall return first. If I linger too long, who knows what sort of trouble he may cause again.” Qian Xianglan sighed, gathered up her sorrow, and rose with an expressionless face before leaving.

Yun Jiao sat down beside her maternal grandmother’s bed. Gazing at the old woman’s haggard, aged face, she secretly clenched her teeth.

Accept her fate? Never.

She cared little about the other matters. She could even pretend that what had happened to her had never happened at all; after all, that beast had never truly touched her. But for her grandmother’s broken leg, she would certainly make that beast pay twice over.

After settling her grandmother and leaving Nanny Li to care for her, Yun Jiao returned to her own room.

Jianjia, Muxin, and the dandelion Qin Nanfeng had sent earlier all entered with her.

Yun Jiao casually reclined in a rattan chair. Jianjia and Muxin stood on either side of her as the three of them studied the dandelion.

The girl kept her eyes lowered and her manner was exceedingly deferential.

“Your name is Dandelion?” Yun Jiao asked in a clear voice.

“Yes.” The girl nodded.

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“Change it,” Yun Jiao said coolly. “Only the male servants in my household have three-character names.”

The girl lowered her head and remained silent. Taking that as tacit agreement, Yun Jiao continued, “What is your real name? Where are you from? How did you come to know Young Master Qin?”

“My surname is Huang, and my name is Huang Liandi,” she replied softly. “I am from the outskirts of Laizhou. My family originally fled here from the north. There are my parents and a younger brother in our household.

“My younger brother has suffered from a congenital deficiency since childhood. Ever since he was weaned, he has had to take medicinal decoctions. It is a wealthy person’s illness, one that can be managed with nourishing supplements, but my family could not afford such things. His condition would improve for a time, then worsen again.

“A few days ago, when the weather turned cold, his illness flared up once more. My parents had already sold everything in the household that could be sold to pay for his treatment. When we truly had no other recourse, I could not bear to stand by and watch. With nowhere else to turn, I went to the street and sold myself into service, hoping to bring back enough money to help him through the crisis.

“Before leaving, I bathed, burned incense, and prayed that I might meet a good master. The Bodhisattva must have heard my prayer, for I happened to meet Young Master Qin on the street, and he brought me here.”

Yun Jiao nodded slightly. “Did Young Master Qin have you sign an indenture and register you as a servant?”

Huang Liandi hesitated, then shook her head. “No.”

“Then are you willing to follow me?” Yun Jiao asked.

“Of course.”

“Since you are willing to follow me, you will still need to sign a contract.” Yun Jiao smiled gently. “First, once you sign an indenture, I can give you some additional money. Second, with the contract as proof, you will be able to collect your monthly allowance.”

Huang Liandi hesitated.

Seeing the doubt in her heart, Yun Jiao explained, “Do not worry. There are two kinds of indentures: permanent and temporary. A permanent contract is exactly what its name suggests—once signed, you remain a servant for life. A temporary contract is easier to understand: you willingly sell your service for a set number of years, and once the term expires, you may leave.”

“Really?” Huang Liandi’s eyes immediately brightened.

Yun Jiao nodded and explained the different monthly allowances attached to the two types of contracts.

In the end, Huang Liandi chose to sign a five-year indenture.

The matter was thus settled.

Using her surname, Yun Jiao gave her the name Huang Ju and assigned her as a second-class maid. She instructed Jianjia to teach her the household rules whenever she had free time. From then on, the girl remained at Yun Jiao’s side.

Though Madam Ding was quite displeased by the arrangement—for it went against her original intention of making things difficult for Yun Jiao—this girl had been sent by Qin Nanfeng and brought in openly before her. Since she had said nothing at the time, it was awkward for her to object afterward. After all, he was the son of a court official and the nephew of Zhao Zhongyong. Some courtesy had to be extended.

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After Yun Jiao agreed to go to Shen Changdong’s study, Shen Changdong began dropping by the residence of Old Madam Qian whenever he had nothing else to do. Even when he had nothing to say, he would find some excuse to speak with Yun Jiao.

Yun Jiao never went to his study, but neither did she glare at him angrily. Whenever he came each day, she no longer wore the cold expression she had shown him before. Instead, she behaved entirely out of character, serving him wine and tea herself and treating him with great courtesy.

Shen Changdong assumed she had finally come to her senses and accepted all her attentions with a smile.

As for the fact that Yun Jiao still had not visited his study after several days, he took it as nothing more than a young woman’s shyness. A few days of hesitation were perfectly natural. Since she was already his for the taking, there was no need to hurry. Drinking wine and tea in the meantime had its own pleasures.

He was immensely pleased with himself. In private, he often marveled that a daughter raised in a great household—even a concubine-born daughter—was far more refined than the daughters of farmers and merchants.

In secret, Yun Jiao instructed Gu Yousi to purchase several mace of senna leaves from an apothecary on the street. That evening, she found a spare moment in her room, dried the leaves over the brazier, and stuffed them inside a tea cake.

Early the following morning, Shen Changdong indeed entered Old Madam Qian’s room as usual. For the past few days, he had been beaming from ear to ear, and he had even become much kinder to the servants in the household.

He had also arranged Old Madam Qian’s meals with great care, providing fresh seasonal vegetables that were easy to digest. They were incomparably better than the greasy meat dishes served before.

Because of Shen Changdong, Madam Ding no longer dared come and cause trouble before Yun Jiao. Even Yun Jiao’s food, clothing, and daily necessities had become the finest in the Qian household.

Shen Changdong reasoned that since Yun Jiao had become obedient, he ought to show some sincerity of his own.

When he entered the room, Yun Jiao was preparing whisked tea, with Jianjia assisting her.

The brown tea cake was placed into a tea mill and ground into the finest powder. It was then passed through a fine sieve, leaving only the most delicate tea dust.

The black-glazed tea bowl was warmed first in hot water. It had to be a black-glazed bowl, whose thick walls retained heat and made it especially suitable for whisking tea.

The tea powder was then sprinkled into the bowl. Water was slowly poured in from a ewer, the stream so fine that it resembled a dragonfly lightly touching the surface of a pond. That was why the method was called whisking tea.

Though it appeared simple, the process was in fact extraordinarily exacting. The proportions of tea powder and water had to be measured with exquisite precision. Whether one could produce a fine bowl of tea depended greatly on getting that balance right.

End of Chapter