Chapter 273: Merperson’s Grave

Chapter 273: The Merperson Tomb

"Thank you, Miss Shen, for your rescue. Otherwise, Xiaoyu and I would have had to squeeze in with others." Meng Wan politely bowed.

Miss Shen was very kind and didn't ignore Meng Wan because of his servant status. "It was nothing. It's your younger brother who is so eye-catching that I remembered him at once. By the way, which household's page are you?"

Meng Wan smiled slightly. "My master is Second Master Tang of Lin'an Prefecture."

"The Tang family?" Miss Shen thought for a moment, and probably not having heard of them, her smile faded.

"From your accent, miss, I'd say you're from the Suzhou area. Your soft Suzhou dialect is very pleasant to hear." Meng Wan was unfazed by her indifference—as long as he got the information he wanted, that was fine.

Miss Shen's baby-fat cheeks flushed slightly. Being praised by a stranger was always nice. She thought this page was really good at chatting.

"I am indeed from Suzhou Prefecture. Our Shen family is a well-known local noble clan, and our ancestors once held the rank of fifth-rank official." Miss Shen's voice rose a little, but because she was naturally soft-spoken, even a slightly louder tone was not harsh; instead, it was like being wrapped in cotton, soft and warm.

Since Meng Wan could gather information, he didn't mind playing along. "So you're Miss Shen of Suzhou Prefecture? I've heard my master mention the Shen family before!"

Miss Shen could see that the pages and maids she had invited in the courtyard were eavesdropping on their conversation. Feeling she had achieved her goal, she replied absent-mindedly, "What did Second Master Tang say about the Shen family?"

Meng Wan started with compliments: "My master said that the Shen family's Suzhou embroidery is renowned worldwide. The embroiderers in your cloth shop have a rich variety of stitching techniques, with a delicate and gentle beauty. Your family almost became imperial merchants. Unfortunately, you lost to the Zhong family..."

As he spoke, Meng Wan realized he had misspoken and abruptly stopped. When he looked up, Miss Shen's expression was indeed unnatural, as if she was holding back her anger.

However, just because she held back didn't mean others could too. In an era where servants were completely dependent on their masters and family honor outweighed personal pride, some loyal servants could not bear to see their master belittled.

"What do you know? If my master hadn't fallen ill years ago, the Shen family would have definitely become imperial merchants!" One of Miss Shen's maids stepped forward to speak. She was one of the two maids who had brought pastries to Meng Wan earlier.

Meng Wan looked surprised. "I saw Lord Shen in the prime of his life, healthy and strong. How could he have fallen ill? And from what you say, little sister, it sounds quite serious?"

Miss Shen grew wary and scolded the maid, "Tingyu!"

The maid bit her lip. "Forgive me, miss. I'll go tidy the room now."

Meng Wan lowered his head nervously. "Please, Miss Shen, don't blame me. It was all my loose tongue."

"It's nothing." Miss Shen had lost patience with Meng Wan and turned to leave.

"Miss Shen," Meng Wan called out. With an impatient expression, he added, "My master has brought a divine physician from a lineage of medical families. His ancestors were doctors for three generations. If Lord Shen needs, I can ask him to come and take a look at him."

Miss Shen froze for a moment, clearly not expecting Meng Wan to say such a thing.

Meng Wan smiled gently, with absolute conviction. "You must be very concerned about Lord Shen's illness, Miss Shen. Filial piety comes first. You are so dutiful. My master always says he wishes he had a caring daughter like you." Surely your father, mother, and husband would value your character, wouldn't they?

To stand out and find a good match on this trip, just sucking up and waiting for suitors wasn't the best move. Instead, you should show off your strengths in front of everyone, take the lead, and get what you want.

Miss Shen was not foolish; she understood in a flash. Smiling, she took Meng Wan's hand and smoothly slid the crystal-clear jade bracelet from her wrist onto his.

"Wan Geer? I heard your master calling you that on the boat. Is the divine physician the Tang family brought really that miraculous?"

Meng Wan was both flattered and flustered. "Miss Shen, what are you doing? I was just speaking offhand. But... the divine physician my master invited is indeed very skilled."

"If I were to invite him, could I really succeed? And what would be the compensation?" Though young, Miss Shen was not so impulsive as to act on Meng Wan's words without first asking for details.

Meng Wan admired the jade bracelet on his wrist. Having accepted her gift, he dared not lie. "We can talk about payment. But this divine physician has a strange temperament. For simple ailments, he won't treat them even if you offer a thousand gold pieces, saying they're beneath him. But if he encounters a rare and strange illness, he gets interested and might not even charge."

Miss Shen's eyes lit up. "It's a strange disease, a strange disease! Ahem..."

Seeing the other maidservants in the courtyard keep glancing at her and Meng Wan, she suddenly regretted inviting so many servants from other households to her yard just to curry favor.

Miss Shen pulled Meng Wan into her main room. "Wan Geer, come inside with me to talk. I brought some Tianchi tea from Suzhou—fragrant, crisp, and sweet with a lingering finish. Let me share a cup or two with you."

So Meng Wan spent the afternoon at Miss Shen's, having tea and making idle conversation. But he didn't get to drink a single sip of tea, though he certainly didn't miss the opportunity to extract information.

Next to the platform, there was also a kitchen, a very large one, bustling as they prepared the evening meal. Of course, the meals for the honored guests were different from those for the servants.

Once the guests' dishes were all served one by one, it was finally time for the servants to eat.

Regardless of gender, all the servants gathered outside the kitchen to line up for their meals. After getting their food, there were long tables and benches outside the kitchen where everyone sat mixed together, with no particular rules.

Beside the main kitchen were several small kitchens where ingredients could be used for free. In case the island's food didn't suit the wealthy merchants' tastes, they could send their own servants to cook there instead. And quite a few people did so.

Whether Xia Yuan would use them or not, Meng Wan certainly wasn't going to eat anything from Gia Ba Island. In the afternoon, while extracting information from Miss Shen, he had sent Chi Yu to hunt some wild game.

Being assigned to do this kind of work made Chi Yu much happier than cleaning. Like a dog let out for a walk, he dashed off.

So now, Meng Wan had two skinned rabbits, a pheasant, and half a pouch of bamboo worms.

"Why didn't you clean the pheasant too?" Meng Wan asked.

Chi Yu answered honestly, "I don't know how."

Meng Wan wasn't surprised. He skillfully cleaned the game, and at that moment Chu Ci came over to help him.

"No, you just sit over at the table and wait to eat. Make your expression a bit colder—think about the look your father Song wears when he's working. Imitate it." Meng Wan shooed him to the table and started cooking himself, while Chi Yu helped him with the firewood.

On the boat, all they had was rice porridge or lotus root starch. The smell of meat made Meng Wan's mouth water too.

He wasn't very good at cooking rabbit—even after removing the organs, sinews, and skin, there was still a faint gamey smell. But the braised pheasant was tender and fragrant.

Their table, laden with generous meat dishes, was far better than the servants' meals made from scraps. More importantly, they could trust the food they cooked themselves. With the situation on Gia Ba Island still unclear, Meng Wan couldn't trust anyone.

As the three of them ate, Meng Wan told Chu Ci about Lord Shen's condition. "Xiao Ci, in your opinion, what kind of illness would cause him to lose consciousness and become violent during episodes?"

Conditions like epilepsy, wind-stroke, or phlegm blocking the heart could all cause madness. Without having seen the patient's behavior during an episode in person, and since he was only asking on behalf of someone else, Chu Ci couldn't say for sure.

"It's fine. We'll find out sooner or later. Be alert on your side tonight—the men's quarters might be more unusual than ours." Meng Wan instructed Chu Ci.

Chu Ci nodded firmly.

After eating and drinking to their hearts' content, they returned. Meng Wan pinched the strand of hair he had tucked in the door crack.

Good. No one had come in.

Then he pushed open the small window.

Fine. No one had stepped through there either.

Then Meng Wan started feeling around the room, inspecting every corner. Chi Yu turned his head to watch him, curious about what he was doing.

But he opened his mouth to ask, then decided against it. Even if his master explained it, he probably wouldn't understand anyway.

After suffering through so many days on the boat, Meng Wan had hoped to get a good night's sleep. But Chi Yu's snoring was thunderous, and he tossed and turned, unable to sleep.

Listening carefully, he could even hear faint complaints from the neighbors in the rooms on either side. It seemed Chi Yu's snoring really carried.

Meng Wan got out of bed, poured himself a glass of water, and leaned by the bedside in the dark, silently pondering. No one knew how long had passed before he finally felt sleepy, his head slowly sliding onto the pillow.

In a daze, the sound of Chi Yu's snoring faded into the background, while another mysterious sound seemed to drift over from afar—melancholy and melodious, seeping into his ears one note at a time.

The next morning, Meng Wan was awakened by Chi Yu. Suppressing his morning grumpiness, he got dressed, while Chi Yu was already full of energy.

"Fulang, the clothes they gave me are too small. Can I wear my own?" Chi Yu tugged at the tight sleeves, feeling like it was even hard to lift his arms.

Meng Wan pulled on black trousers, hopped a couple of times, and found everything comfortable. "Just go ask them for a set of men's servant clothes, right? The clothes we brought are all heavy, and I almost died of heat yesterday."

"Oh." Chi Yu thought it was too much trouble—clothes were clothes, and he wasn't particularly afraid of heat.

Meng Wan ignored him. When they were called to assemble, he found that several maids and a xiaoge from the same courtyard were urgently altering Chi Yu's clothes.

Meng Wan: "..."

Speechless. Why hadn't he noticed Chi Yu had such charm back in Xiwu Prefecture? Had he been in the wrong lane all along?

Because of Chi Yu's clothing delay, they ended up at the back of the line.

There were no serious tasks today; the main activity was accompanying their respective masters to enjoy the scenery on the island.

Meng Wan sidled up to Xia Yuan. "Master, did you find out anything yesterday? When can we leave Cat Ba Island?"

Xia Yuan spoke to him from the sedan chair. "Yesterday, besides resting, there were no other arrangements. But those stewards mentioned that after we attend the Pearl-Collecting Festival in two days, boats will start running to and from the island everywhere."

"Two days? That's not too bad." With so many influential merchants on the island, all of impressive wealth and from more than one country, if Annam really wanted to rob them all, it would surely offend the kings of various nations. As long as they stayed steady, they should be able to get through safely.

Xia Yuan was riding in his own sedan chair and felt a bit sorry seeing an official's husband trudging along like this. "Meng Fulang, would you like me to call a sedan chair for you?"

"Thank you for your kindness, Master. As a page, to avoid arousing suspicion, it's better to keep a low profile." Meng Wan didn't mind at all and instead reminded Xia Yuan not to break character.

After descending the mountain, they came across a strikingly eye-catching sedan chair at the front. First, because it was huge, and second, because it was incredibly beautiful.

Before Meng Wan even saw the sedan chair, he heard gasps all around him. He shifted to the side to look and saw a sedan chair with a bamboo-and-wood frame, painted bright red, being lifted up.

The sedan chair had a golden hexagonal canopy, with six tassels falling down, each made of strings of full, lustrous pearls and shells that shimmered with rainbow colors under the sunlight.

Even the seat inside the sedan chair was shaped like a pale pink clam shell, so lifelike that Meng Wan suspected it was an actual shell salvaged from the sea floor.

This pearl-and-shell-covered sedan chair was already eye-catching enough, but the woman sitting in it, dressed in cool attire, was even more stunning.

From a distance, he could see her short top that bared her shoulders, and the dazzling red long skirt below.

Meng Wan saw Miss Shen's sedan chair up ahead and squeezed forward with Chi Yu. Up close, he could see the mysterious woman's facial features. She had deep-set eyes, dark blue irises, curly black hair, and overall yellowish skin.

From her face, it was hard to tell her age. She could be twenty, or she could be forty—neither would seem off. Because her blue eyes seemed to have weathered the years, losing their sparkle; even when she smiled, it was heavy.

She stood steady in the sedan chair, first speaking in Annamese, then in fluent Yu language: "Welcome, distinguished guests, to our Cat Ba Island. Many friends have met me before, and many new friends need an introduction."

"I am Isabel, the Island Lord of Cat Ba."

Meng Wan felt like clapping down below. Great, impressive. When he got back to Xiwu Prefecture, he'd get one of those for himself too.

Isabel spoke pleasantly and was sexy, making her a very competent tour guide.

Exactly—a tour guide.

In Meng Wan's view, though she had presence and flair, she seemed like a mere facade, not like someone who could attract wealthy foreign merchants to flock to the island. More like a figurehead sent out to charm.

Isabel, the Island Lord, led the long procession starting from the foot of the mountain, heading deeper into the hidden forest.

Along the way, Miss Shen called Meng Wan over. "Wan Geer, the divine physician by Master Tang's side seems quite young. Can he really..."

Meng Wan smiled. "Miss Shen, if you're unsure about recommending him to Lord Shen, why not try taking his pulse yourself first?"

Miss Shen's eyes flickered, thinking Meng Wan made sense. "Alright, once we arrive, bring him to me. Tingyu will let you in."

Meng Wan bowed. "Yes."

After entering the woods, the path narrowed. Too many servants would be cumbersome, so each master dismissed many of them. Meng Wan, Chi Yu, and Chu Ci, of course, stayed.

The group passed through a natural rock tunnel, and then suddenly the view opened up. Behind the tunnel was a shallow blue lake, several acres wide, as vast as a square pond.

The lakeshore was paved with colorful stones and shells. Inside the lake were various coral reefs and small fish darting among them.

Surrounding the lake were dark green tall rocks, while above was a clear blue sky. Sunlight shone straight down to the lake bottom, making it look like an ethereal celestial pool.

If Meng Wan hadn't come to the island with a purpose, he would have thought it was a perfect vacation spot.

Isabel's red-painted lips curved slightly. "Welcome, everyone, to the Mermaid Tomb."