Chapter 316 Muquan Manor (Part 2)

Chapter 316: Muquan Manor (Part 2)

Dong Da forced a smile and left, and once out the door, he ran down the mountain like a madman.

Chi Yu shaded his eyes with his hand and watched as Dong Da went down the mountain, ran home, saddled his hidden horses, and galloped off with his son, nephew, and a whole crowd of relatives, kicking up dust along the way.

"Husband, they ran off in a hurry—do you think they won't come back?" Chi Yu went inside to report to Meng Wan.

Meng Wan handed the ledger to Huang Ye and told him to put it away safely. "Don't worry, he won't run. You know why he's so wealthy yet still works as a tenant farmer? There's far more profit to be made from the manor than there is slaving away in the fields."

Chi Yu scratched his head, not quite getting it. If his husband said he wouldn't run, then he wouldn't run.

"I used to just hear my father-in-law talk about how capable you are, but today I finally saw it for myself." Lan Niang lifted the curtain and came in with Zheng Shushen, her eyes full of admiration.

Zheng Shushen's gaze held respect. He had always thought that a young gentleman like himself would stay at home studying etiquette, marry and defer to his husband, and live out his life that way. He never imagined there could be someone as formidable as Meng Wan—it completely turned his worldview upside down.

"This is nothing," Meng Wan said, making room for them to sit on the couch. He then instructed Chi Yu, "Keep an eye on the manor and see if you can find anyone who can read and write. Dong Da probably doesn't have the guts to kill anyone, but you never know what a cornered dog might do."

"Yes, husband, I'm off." Chi Yu was restless staying put—he was always eager to get out and do something.

"Wait." Meng Wan called him back.

Chi Yu pulled back his long leg and turned around, waiting for orders.

Meng Wan picked up the tea Huang Ye had just refilled—his favorite Eight Treasure Tea. "Didn't you bring two people here last time?"

"What two people?" Chi Yu looked utterly confused.

Meng Wan was surprised. Chi Yu, such an honest lad, had learned to act now? And he was pretty good at it.

With outsiders present, Meng Wan didn't press further and just waved his hand. "Never mind, go on."

It wasn't until Chi Yu had run down the mountain that it hit him—the two people his husband mentioned, weren't those the ones the master had sent to the manor?

Oh well, his husband hadn't pressed the matter, so Chi Yu felt a twinge of guilt.

The afternoon passed pleasantly with another soak in the hot springs and a delicious meal, and another day came to an end.

They had planned to head back on the fourth day, but before they were even fully awake, someone was pounding on the door. Meng Wan groggily heard Huang Ye answer it.

"Brother Qiu Ying? Are you here for Zheng Shushen?"

"Yes, yes. Please, brother, go wake my master. Old Master Zheng and Old Madam Zheng have arrived from Jiangnan—they came in the middle of the night. When they found my master wasn't home, they flew into a rage. My master sent me to fetch my lord home at once!"

Meng Wan bolted upright in bed, and the moment he opened his eyes, he saw Zheng Shushen already scrambling out of bed in a panic.

"Brother-in-law, don't worry. If your parents are angry when you get back, just tell them I insisted on dragging you here." Meng Wan hurriedly pulled on his clothes as well.

Zheng Shushen pressed him back down. "What nonsense are you talking? We're not children sneaking off to play—why would you take the fall? It's still early, go back to sleep. Now that my parents are here, A Yan and the others can finally start their studies in peace."

Even in such a rush, he still found time to calmly reassure Meng Wan.

Huang Ye helped Shishu pack Zheng Shushen's luggage while Meng Wan and Lan Niang wrapped themselves in thick cloaks and saw the master and servant off as they descended the mountain with Qiu Ying.

The Wu family's carriage faded into the twilight, and Qiu Ying, riding on horseback, seemed to wave back at them.

Meng Wan remembered him as a crybaby who used to weep at the drop of a hat—now he was managing an entire household.

It was around 5:15 in the morning, and the cold was biting. The fire in the stove had gone out, so Huang Ye got up to add more charcoal.

Neither Meng Wan nor Lan Niang could get back to sleep, so they wrapped themselves in quilts and chatted on the warm brick bed.

"Great families, scholarly households—I used to envy being born into that kind of family so much, but now I don't think it's all that special," Lan Niang sighed.

"Being born into a prominent family has its own burdens—never wanting for anything growing up, but then having to marry according to your parents' wishes." Meng Wan paused, then added, "But poor families can't make their own choices either. Forget marriage—even putting food on the table is a struggle. Their parents trade them away for a few sacks of grain."

Lan Niang agreed. Her family had been tenants on the imperial manor before, but at least they'd never gone hungry, and her parents and brothers had doted on her. Aside from some friction during her betrothal to Chai Jun, she'd actually lived a fairly happy and carefree life. "You're right. If you're sold to a decent household like ours, you're lucky. But some families mistreat their servants so badly that they die without a trace."

She pulled the quilt over her head and whispered to Meng Wan, "In the first lunar month, I received an invitation to Countess Huai'en's residence. I overheard some other ladies gossiping that a palace maid had died."

After the Lunar New Year's Day banquet, nearly every noble household in the capital knew that Meng Wan had held his own against Consort Nie's aggression in the imperial palace without backing down, and they'd also heard that he and Countess Huai'en were on bad terms.

Last month, the Huai'en household had welcomed a new baby boy, and all the powerful families in the capital were notified—except the Song family. Whatever anyone else thought, Meng Wan was glad to be spared the trouble.

He pulled his quilt tighter, mimicking Lan Niang. "Isn't a palace maid dying as simple as crushing an ant?"

Lan Niang lowered her voice even further. "Not this time. It caused a big uproar. They say... they say she was raped and humiliated by a eunuch and then hanged herself right outside the imperial study."

That was a lot to take in. Meng Wan was stunned for a long moment. "But how could a eunuch... and there are guards posted outside the imperial study in rotating shifts—how could a maid just die right there in front of everyone?"

Lan Niang was bursting to share the gossip. Unfortunately, Zheng Shushen was too careful and reserved to ever discuss such matters behind people's backs, so Lan Niang hadn't dared bring it up around him. Now she could finally cut loose.

"Exactly! The things they were saying were downright bizarre. Some even claimed it was some kind of sorcery, and the emperor sent the Qianlong Guard out of the palace to search for people with special abilities!"

Meng Wan immediately thought of one person. His eyes gleamed. "People with special abilities, huh..."

The two chatted until the sky grew light. Huang Ye simmered red date and rice porridge on the stove and boiled a pot of tea eggs—a recipe he'd learned from the cook at the Zhu household. It was a Shengjing-style boiled egg, made with tea leaves, salt, Sichuan peppercorns, and star anise, with a flavor all its own.

The first time Meng Wan had seen them on his own dining table, he'd assumed Luo Jining had come up with the idea. He later learned that this style of boiled egg had been around in Shengjing for ages, and any household with a little money to spare ate them.

After breakfast, Lan Niang went back to catch up on sleep, but Meng Wan couldn't sleep. He took his men down the mountain and headed straight for Dong Da's house.

It was easy to find—the biggest courtyard right next to the grain-drying ground. When Meng Wan arrived, Dong Da's wife was hovering by the door, glancing around nervously like she was up to something.

Meng Wan naturally knew what she was afraid of. He deliberately walked past her door, drawing out a gasp like a startled goose from her, then pretended not to notice and moved on, giving them some breathing room.

So they still haven't found all the cattle?

He'd give them half a day, then.

Meng Wan strolled through the village, thinking about having the tenants plant half with rice and half with wheat this year, and planting more fruit trees and vegetables on the hills. He'd pay them extra for the labor.

The farmers in the manors outside the capital actually fell into two categories. The first were tenant farmers—they rented the master's land and handed over sixty or seventy percent of the harvest to the master, keeping only thirty or forty percent for themselves.

Some masters were kind enough to let tenants set aside their seed from the harvest first, before paying their share.

Others were harsher, including the seed in the harvest share. If tenants couldn't set aside seed for the next season, they had to "borrow" from the master or buy on credit from outside.

But either way, these tenants were renting the master's land—they were still free commoners.

The second category was called tenant-bondservants, also known as manor bondservants.

These were of lowly status, bound for generations as servants to the master. Besides paying rent, they also had to provide labor services. It was a miserable existence—they lived worse than ordinary servants.

Muquan Manor had only tenant farmers, not a single bondservant. So while the villagers were deferential toward Meng Wan, they weren't exactly terrified of him.

There were even curious children who, braving the bitter cold in tattered straw sandals that left their ankles purple with frostbite, ran out to see what the fuss was about.

Meng Wan sighed helplessly and called one of the children over. He pulled a packet of dried fruit and candied preserves from his snack bag and handed it over. "Take this home and eat it. Don't freeze out here."

The child's eyes lit up with surprise and delight. He rubbed his hands together and glanced around furtively, like a thief. Seeing several people looking his way, his eyes darted around before he snatched the oil-paper package from Meng Wan's hand and took off running, as if a ghost was chasing him.

"Fulang, are your hands okay?" Huang Ye hurried over to check on him. The kid had moved so fast that he was afraid Meng Wan's hand might have gotten scratched.

Meng Wan held out his hands, palms up, for him to see. His slender, jade-like fingers were only slightly red, with no other marks.

Huang Ye instantly relaxed. But the moment he spoke, the kid who'd been running suddenly stopped, turned around, and stared at him blankly.

Meng Wan asked, curious, "Huang Ye, do you know this child?"

The kid's hair was a tangled mess, like straw, and his face was covered in dirt. Maybe because he was so skinny, his Adam's apple stuck out. Going by his height, he looked about eleven or twelve.

"I don't think I've seen him before, have I?" Huang Ye thought to himself. He hadn't been in Shengjing long; the only people he knew were Hu Niu and Shi Shu, and he hadn't met anyone else.

Hearing that, the light in the kid's eyes dimmed, and he looked embarrassed and dejected.

"Don't... help... save me..."

Everyone, including Meng Wan, heard a faint cry for help. Chi Yu appeared out of nowhere and asked, "Fulang, should we go check it out?"

This was their own estate, so Meng Wan couldn't let anything happen on it. "Go, quick."

Chi Yu was trained in martial arts, quick on his feet and sharp-eared. He quickly picked a direction and took off, with Meng Wan and the others right behind him.

The skinny kid looked up in the direction Huang Ye had gone, clutched the dried fruit in his hand, and silently followed.

It was a typical tenant farmer's place—a thatched cottage with a wicker fence. A young man with a bruised and swollen face was tied up by the door, unable to move. The door was wide open, and two old folks sat on the ground crying their eyes out.

Inside, seven or eight men in ragged padded jackets were sprawled all over the place, two of them with their pants halfway down.

Chi Yu couldn't have had time to tie anyone up even if he'd moved fast. The young man outside must've been tied up by those thugs inside. What had happened was obvious.

When Meng Wan walked in, he gave one of the men blocking his way a hard kick, earning a weak groan—proof that Chi Yu had already worked them over pretty good in that short time.

"Huang Ye, go untie that man outside." Huang Ye had just crouched down when a thin, wiry figure appeared next to him.

"I... I'll do it." The kid lowered his head and said in a hoarse voice.

Huang Ye was surprised—that was the raspy voice of a boy going through puberty.

Before Huang Ye could say no, the kid quickly untied the rope binding the young man.

The young man seemed dazed and muttered blankly, "A Li... thanks."

The sound of his parents crying inside finally snapped him out of it. He scrambled to his feet and rushed into the house.

Chi Yu stood helplessly by the edge of the kang, with Meng Wan beside him. The old quilt on the bed had been thrown into a mess. A sixteen or seventeen-year-old xiao ge'er had most of his clothes torn off, revealing pale skin, with several bruise-colored fingerprints on his shoulder.

Chi Yu had gotten there in time to stop those brutes on the floor from violating him, but the boy was still scared out of his mind, eyes wide and bloodshot, tears and snot all over his face, still sobbing uncontrollably.

The young man stood by the bed, his face a mix of pain and relief. "Yu Ge'er, you... you okay?"

Yu Ge'er looked up at the fulang in front of him—handsome, not overly decorated, but dressed in fine clothes—and quickly figured out the situation.

Suppressing his fear, he climbed off the kang, knelt in front of Meng Wan, and kowtowed hard. "Fulang, spare me! This servant is already married and would never dare have any improper thoughts. Please, Fulang, spare my life!"

Everyone was confused by his strange reaction.

Meng Wan quickly realized the misunderstanding. Pulling his cloak tighter, he said in a firmer tone, "Go up and put your clothes on properly."

Yu Ge'er obeyed without question. He climbed back onto the kang, fastened his belt, and knelt there helplessly, waiting for Meng Wan's orders.

Meng Wan pointed at the young man. "You go tie up those men on the floor and gag them good. Your husband came through today unharmed, and you and your parents know it. If word gets out later, it'll be because your own family couldn't keep their mouths shut."

The young man hesitated, not sure whether to comply, but Yu Ge'er urged him from the kang. "Dong Mu, whatever the fulang tells you to do, just do it!"

Meng Wan gave a wry smile. "What, no more kowtowing and begging for mercy now?"

"This servant was being presumptuous. Thank you, Meng Fulang, for your help." In that brief moment, Yu Ge'er had gone through a huge swing of fortune. He was smart enough to realize that Meng Wan had been hiding at home since arriving at the estate, not daring to show his face, only sending word through his husband.

He'd assumed those ruffians were hired by Meng Wan out of spite to humiliate him. But it was clear now that the person who'd saved him was one of Meng Fulang's men. He'd been narrow-minded and misread the intent.

Meng Wan told Tao Shi to round up a few men to escort the thugs to the Shuntian Prefecture. These good-for-nothings—no land, no family, squatting in that thatched hut on relatives' charity—should've been kicked out of the estate a long time ago.