Marriage of the Di Daughter Chapter 2.1: Jiang Li
The wind blew through the window and slammed it open, making a loud noise. A servant girl reached out to close the window. Inside the room, a greenish cow statue made of copper was filled with a huge ice block, which was contained in its belly.
In summer, days were always hot in Yanjing. Ice blocks could only be obtained from cellars located hundreds of li1 away. A small block of ice already cost twelve silver taels2, not to mention this kind of huge compact block of ice. Moreover, there were four of these green copper cow statues, one in each corner of the room.
The inside of the room gave out a cool and refreshing feeling. A beautiful lady was sitting before a small table while supporting her chin, lazily looking through the account book in front of her. Beside her was a 13-14 years-old dainty young girl, who was eating frozen fruit yoghurt sprinkled with rock sugar on top. At the same time, she was flipping through a small mountain of invitations with the other hand. Two servant girls quietly stood behind, gently fanning her.
“Such a downpour …,” the dainty girl was lost in thought while watching the rain outside of the window.
The beautiful woman glanced at her and said, “Don’t eat so much, later in the evening when your father comes back, you won’t be able to eat anymore.” She then ordered the servant girl on her right, “Ruyi, take the fruit yoghurt away. Also, this cup of tea has cooled down, bring me some warm fragrant tea.”
Although the girl was somewhat unhappy, she couldn’t retort. Ruyi set the fan down and took the yoghurt away. As she was about to leave the room, a mama3 entered from outside, wearing plain cotton clothes. Although seeing Ruyi, she didn’t greet her as she hurried straight towards the madam4.1. It was evident that there was a pressing matter to report.
After pausing for a moment Ruyi left the room, carrying the frozen fruit yoghurt and cold tea. The sound of conversation could be faintly heard behind her.
“…. it said, it’s not a light illness… after learning of third miss’s marriage from Head Nun Jing An, she was really unruly and caused a ruckus.”
“Her health is definitely not good, sick to the point where she can’t even get out of bed…”
“The doctor said, she wouldn’t be able to endure past this summer. Why don’t we inform the master5…?”
In a moment, the room became silent. The madam’s mild voice started: “The master is recently busy handling official business. He doesn’t need to be disturbed with these trivial matters. As soon as he has a bit of free time, I will personally tell him.”
Immediately after, a young girl’s tender and charming voice sounded: “Who cares about her, she herself didn’t take a proper look at her own identity. Trying to obtain what’s beyond her standing, how dare she?
“Don’t mention this,” the madam switched the topic, “I heard the top scorer’s wife died of illness a few days ago, tomorrow we have to go and offer our condolences.” Her voice was filled with sympathy, “Her age was still young, how could she suddenly die of illness? Truly a pitiful person ah.”
Truly a pitiful person ah! Ruyi’s heart felt the same as she advanced without stopping towards the kitchen while carrying the silver tray.
The madam inside the room was the current Chief Assistant6 Jiang Yuanbai’s second wife4.2, Ji Shuran. The young girl was the Chief Assistant’s official daughter, Ji Shuran’s biological daughter. Jiang family’s third young miss, Jiang You Yao.
Regarding who they were talking about, the one who “wouldn’t be able to endure past this summer” should be the Jiang family’s second young miss, Jiang Li.
The Jiang family’s second young miss, Jiang Li, was sent off to the temple to study due to a mistake she made five years ago. Over the past five years, the Jiang family seemed to have forgotten this person. Nowadays, Ji Shuran was considered the only main wife in the Jiang family; and Jiang You Yao as well was considered the Jiang family’s only official daughter. As for the Chief Assistant’s first wife’s official daughter, she was currently suffering without being able to enjoy the summertime. But in the whole household, there wasn’t even a single person who was aware of it.
Nonetheless, even if they were aware, nothing would change.
Ruyi sighed deeply in her heart, looking at the cold tea she was carrying. What could be done? The first madam had passed away, and the second Jiang young miss already had a smeared reputation.
The ways of the world were precisely like that; when people were apart, the feelings would grow cold7.
✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧
On the top of Mount Qingcheng was He Lin Temple, a renowned Buddhist temple.
Although the mountain road was rugged, the mountaintop was covered with deep and dignified greenery, with bamboo trees forming a lush and dense forest. Unexpectedly, the scenery was exceptionally good. Above all, the master of the temple was renowned far and near. It was said that praying at He Lin Temple was extremely effective and the predictions were accurate. Hence, many people did not hesitate to travel great distances8 to come and pray at the temple.
Not far from He Lin Temple, there was a Buddhist nunnery. Compared to the continuous stream of worshippers coming to He Lin Temple, the nunnery seemed deserted, with practically not a soul in sight.
In the quiet night, the falling rain caused the wind blowing thought the mountain to be even colder. A wooden shed with only one room was built next to the nunnery. From inside, the continuous sobbing of a young girl could be heard.
“Miss….. Miss, what can be done…..”
As soon as Xue Fang Fei opened her eyes, she felt that it was noisy. She exerted a great deal of effort to move her fingers, thinking that her body must have been sinking to its death. She moved again, and suddenly understanding dawned on her. It really wasn’t her body sinking to death, but rather there was a heavy quilt placed on top of her body.
Sometimes this is exasperating because a Chinese kanji can have way more meaning than an English word. Specially adjectives… an English adjective describes you a single quality of the noun, but in Chinese, they can describe 2 qualities at the same time. And then you have 2 of these Chinese adjectives meaning 4 English adjectives accompanying the same noun, which is just unfeasible orz.
That Madam Ji is such a hypocrite, saying she pities XFF who died young when she wants an even younger girl to die, doing all kind of tricks behind the scenes to achieve it.
Footnotes:
1: Li (里): traditional Chinese unit of distance, equivalent to 500 m/1640 ft.
2: Taels (两) are a traditional Chinese unit of weight equivalent to 50 g, and it was also used as currency system in some dynasties, using silver (银两) and gold taels as money.
3: Momo (嬷嬷) is an old female servant, you might have also seen it translated as granny.
4.1: Furen (夫人) is the wife of the master, the lady in charge of the household. It usually is the official or main wife, unless it’s a c-novel where then a concubine would steal the role after ditching the main wife. 4.2: In this case, JSR is the second main wife (继室) of JYB, which means she married him as the official wife after the death of his first official wife. Since the first Madam/Furen died, she is now the Madam/Furen of the household.
5: Laoye (老爷), lord, the master of the household.
6: Senior Grand Secretary or Chief Assistant (首輔, shoufu) – The most senior Grand Secretary out of the six Grand Secretaries. We will probably use Chief Assistant since it’s more user-friendly for both you and us.
7: 人走茶凉呢: The idea here is that when you are hosting people, you offer them warm tea. However, when this person leaves and the tea is left undrunk, the tea will cool down. Thus, when someone leaves a place or area, their presence or their effect in other people will wane, the relationship and association with that place will slowly dissipate. My thanks to Harusame (SpringRainTranslations) and Minodayz (MerakiTranslations) for their help with this sentence.
8:跋山涉水 – idiom, lit. to travel over land and water.
You can also find a compilation of idioms in the Glossary, and the pinyin terms and cultural notes in the Ancient China & Pinyin Glossary.
Names and places:
Ruyi (如意) – meaning good fortune. Jing An Shi (静安师) – Jing meaning calm, An meaning safe/ healthy. Shi is a title for a master, in this case since she is the master of the nunnery we translated it as Head Nun. Jiang Yuanbai (姜元柏), surname Jiang means ginger, the name means first/original cedar. Ji Shuran (季淑然), Ji is the last month of a season, Shuran means upright, warm and virtuous. Jiang You Yao (姜幼瑶), name means young jade/gem. Jiang Li (姜梨). Li means pear. Mount Qingcheng (青城), meaning green town/city Helin Temple (鹤林) – forest crane.
You can also find all the names and their meanings in the Character List.
