Chapter 408 Plaque

Chapter 408: The Plaque

"Sir, sir, something terrible has happened." The patrol officer of Lin'an Prefecture led his men hurriedly into the inner hall, his voice carrying in before he even laid eyes on Prefect Xu Yun.

Ever since Meng Wan had entered the city, Xu Yun hadn't had a single good night's sleep. The thought that Song Tingzhou hadn't even arrived yet—and that once he did, sleep would become even more impossible—made his chest ache.

"What do you mean 'something terrible'? Are you hoping your own lord comes to harm?!" Xu Yun clutched his chest and snapped.

The patrol officer was caught off guard, stepped quickly over the threshold, and knelt on one knee. "Forgive me, my lord."

Xu Yun had no time to scold him, just wanting him to get to the point so his nerves could settle. "Cut the chatter—just tell me what happened."

After that little outburst, the patrol officer's panic had eased a bit. He reported rapidly: "My lord, yesterday you ordered us to keep a round-the-clock watch on that young lord from the capital. He went out today, and with his men, got into a heated confrontation with the Tang family at the west market."

"What!" Xu Yun shot up from his seat, his steps frantic, like he was walking on hot coals. "How did the dispute start? What's the situation now?"

The patrol officer had run back from the market after witnessing the scene. "The Tang family's old madam struck the young lord's servant twice. That young lord's a real piece of work—he had his men tie up the Tang folks one by one and beat them."

"So he's the one doing the beating? Good, good." Xu Yun patted his chest and settled back into his chair, relieved.

The patrol officer couldn't gauge Xu Yun's stance and ventured cautiously, "My lord, should we intervene or not?"

Xu Yun scoffed at his stupidity. "Intervene? Intervene with what? If Lord Meng gets hurt, you come tell me right away. Next time, if he's the one beating others, don't make a big deal out of it—pretend you didn't see a thing."

He couldn't give a damn about the Tangs or the Luos. As long as Song Tingzhou's husband was safe and sound, that was all that mattered. In Yangzhou, Cao Jinfang had his property seized over the one-tenth land redistribution; in Suzhou, Li Xiuwen was being escorted to the capital and would at the very least end up losing his head. Of the three most prosperous prefectures in the south, only Lin'an remained. He absolutely couldn't afford to slip up at this critical moment.

He wasn't done being Lin'an's prefect yet!

—

The crowd at the west market was growing, but nobody dared get close. They hung around in the nearby alleys, heads down, whispering behind their hands.

The sharp crack of slaps rang out one after another, mixed in with muffled, pained pleas for mercy. After a while, even the pleas fell silent.

Na Tuo stepped forward. "My lord, they've all passed out."

Meng Wan didn't bother looking at their misery. He walked a few steps forward, holding his fan up to his forehead to block the sun, and said casually, "Dump them at the Tang family's doorstep. Since they didn't take the full thousand slaps, what I said before doesn't count. Return this two taels of silver to them—let them see a doctor."

He wasn't stingy with money; he spent it freely and made it back just as easily. But no one had ever made easy money off him.

The onlookers felt a chill crawl down their spines. Na Tuo acknowledged the order and immediately directed his men to drag the battered, unconscious Tang folks—faces swollen and bruised—toward the Tang place like dead dogs.

Meng Wan turned and walked away. The murmuring crowd went dead silent, heads dropping. He paid them no mind, sending a servant to fetch a doctor to look at Zhifan's face before returning to the courtyard with Zhifan, Zhimao, and Chi Yu.

As the group left the market, the blazing sun stretched Meng Wan's lean shadow out long behind him. On a nearby teahouse balcony, a group of men in fancy silks watched his retreating figure, not a word spoken for a long while.

"I figured he was just some ordinary house consort, but he's got a vicious streak. He won't be easy to deal with."

"I told you—if Song Tingzhou dared bring him along, he couldn't be ordinary. Sigh..."

"Then we'll scrap the original plan and try something else."

"Zhan'er, have you asked your niece-in-law about Meng Wan's background?" A middle-aged man with a commanding voice addressed the youngest among them.

These men were the Luo family's current bigwigs. After the patriarch's death, the Luo clan had pulled their influence back to Lin'an, and they kept a low profile. While other big families had gone from furious to terrified over Song Tingzhou's land reforms, the Luos had just focused on keeping their heads down.

The Luo family couldn't survive another storm. Despite their many clansmen, the fates of the Lezheng family and the declining Wu clan served as warnings, and their disastrous mistake of backing the wrong prince had them walking on eggshells with every step.

Luo Zhan withdrew his gaze from the vanished figure, his eyes heavy with thought. "I asked Ling-niang the moment I got back from the capital. She did send her personal page boy off to marry into a village in Guyang County, Changping Prefecture. But that was over ten years ago—hard to say if this Meng Wan is really that Bai family's disgraced servant boy. She'd need to see him in person to confirm."

Luo Zhan had only brought it up to his new wife because Meng Wan's looks had caught his eye. At the time, the Luo family was at its peak, and the Bai family—respected civil officials—had been a good match for their daughter. But in the years that followed, the Bai family declined, and the Luos faced a life-or-death crisis, putting a strain on the couple's marriage.

When Luo Zhan returned from the capital and brought up his page boy, Bai Fuling had given him an icy glare, suspecting he still had a thing for that lowly servant who'd been sold off ages ago. Even after his explanation, she remained skeptical.

How could some lowly servant have climbed all the way up to being the husband of a second-rank official?

The others fell into contemplation at Luo Zhan's words. With Song Tingzhou gone, this was the perfect chance. Whether through alliance or coercion, if they could get Meng Wan in their pocket, everything would go smoothly once Song Tingzhou showed up in Lin'an. He could implement his new policies, and the Luos would fully cooperate—but they wanted nothing to do with any scheme to nab Prince Lian.

—

The Tang family was just a middle-tier clan in Lin'an—not even really a clan, honestly. They had a purchased title of Secretariat Director, but at heart they were still merchants. There were many Tangs in Lin'an, and this branch on Guangpu Lane shared a distant, third-cousin connection with Tang Jinshuang. Since her family's downfall, they'd long stopped associating, likely having forgotten the relation entirely.

The head of the Guangpu Lane Tangs was Tang Qi, a man who could hold onto what he had but couldn't seem to grow it. In his youth, he'd dabbled in various trades trying to grow the family fortune, almost bankrupting the family before finally settling down to sell tea.

Lin'an was most famous for its silk and tea, and most of the city's wealthy merchants had made their fortunes through these two commodities.

The land reform decree had hit the Tangs hard, but since the great families dared not speak out, the Tangs certainly wouldn't stick their necks out either. They'd stayed quiet, using a simple method: distributing their land among clan members and signing lease agreements with them, keeping the land effectively under their control.

Clumsy, but it worked. Tang Qi had been anxiously awaiting the governor's arrival. Either way, the blade would fall—better to get it over with quickly.

It was at this moment that Tang Qi learned his servants had provoked Meng Wan and been dumped at his doorstep.

"Father, who did this? How dare they act so lawlessly in our territory! Madam Tang was my wet nurse—this is a slap in my face!"

Seven or eight people lay unconscious in the courtyard, every one with swollen cheeks and blood at the corners of their mouths. Among them was the very Madam Tang who had been so arrogant that morning.

Tang Qi's son, Tang Dingkun, was twenty and hot-blooded. Seeing their servants bound, beaten, and dumped at their door as an insult, his face flushed with rage and he rolled up his sleeves, ready to charge out.

"Stop!" Tang Qi barked, his lips trembling. "Do you even know who you're going after? That's the husband of Governor Song from the capital! Never mind a few servants—even if you were the one beaten, we couldn't afford to offend him."

Tang Dingkun was jolted back to his senses by his father's shout but still grumbled defiantly, "But he can't just bully people like this! Beating them is one thing, but dumping them at our doorstep—that's trampling the Tang family's dignity!"

"Dignity?" Tang Qi thought dignity wasn't worth a damn. If you truly offended the governor's people, they could crush you with a single finger. Lin'an was close to Suzhou—the Gao and Deng family heads, worth a hundred Tangs, had been executed by Lord Song without a second thought. The rest made noise, but none of them had managed to do anything to him.

He pointed at the servants lying in the courtyard, his face pale despite the scorching heat, as if frozen in a blizzard. "This pack of fools offended the wrong people. We'll be lucky if you and I aren't dragged into it. You want dignity? You'll lose your life! Now come with me to apologize!"

Everyone had heard the news before Meng Wan's arrival, and with the prefect himself going out to welcome him in such grand fashion, anyone who hadn't known soon found out through their own inquiries.

Many were watching to see the Tangs make fools of themselves, or waiting to see how Meng Wan would react to them.

To everyone's surprise, Meng Wan had them shown in and even kindly asked the physician who'd just treated Zhifan's face to tend to the Tang servants Na Tuo's men had beaten.

Tang Qi brought out all the shrewdness of his youth, immediately saying they'd take the injured to a clinic instead, not wanting to impose on Meng Wan's residence.

"Second Master Tang needn't be so polite. They're just a bunch of crude brutes. I've already vented my anger—I don't hold it against you."

Meng Wan knelt casually on one knee before a massive golden nanmu plaque, using a full-sized calligraphy brush to write on the board. Cinnabar ink traced out three bold, vivid red characters—Qingxiao Residence.

The residence of Qingxiao Hermit—most wouldn't make that connection. Though his comics had spread through the south, Meng Wan hadn't made a point of publicizing his identity as "Qingxiao Hermit." Honestly, every identity he held was impressive enough; he didn't need this bit of fame.

Tang Qi hovered nervously nearby, barely daring to breathe. His son Tang Dingkun, however, stole glances at Meng Wan. Young and lacking restraint, he found himself staring, utterly transfixed.

Meng Wan finished writing and painted a border of auspicious clouds around the plaque. As he flicked his brush, an indescribable calm radiated from him.

He wore a light blue robe of airy fabric, and even his broad, sweeping movements seemed anything but crude—there was an ethereal grace to him. Sunlight streamed through the lattice windows, falling on the fingers gripping his brush—long, fair, with clearly defined knuckles. As his wrist turned, the cinnabar ink spread across the plaque with effortless control.

Tang Dingkun had never seen anyone with such beautiful hands—so pale that the joints showed a faint pink. He forgot his earlier anger entirely, staring dumbly.

They were in the main hall, doors and windows thrown open for cross-ventilation, revealing the small pond in the main courtyard where a few red and black fish swam lazily, carefree.

"Ah!" Tang Dingkun's scream came through, and Meng Wan's brush stopped mid-stroke. Fortunately, he had already lifted it, or he would have drawn a crooked line.

A shaft of sunlight cut straight into the hall. Meng Wan squinted and looked up, spotting Chi Yu crouched on the roof, peering down warily at Tang Dingkun through a gap in the tiles.

Through the narrow opening, Meng Wan vaguely saw him clutching half a green tile in his hand—the other half had just bonked the Tang family's young master on the head.

Meng Wan: "..."

He shot Chi Yu a glare, telling him to get his head back down, while pretending to be surprised: "What happened to Young Master Tang?"

Tang Qi crouched down, holding Tang Dingkun up, and sneakily tucked the half tile that had hit his son into his sleeve. With a phony smile, he said, "Nothing, nothing. He wasn't watching where he was going and tripped."

Meng Wan eyed Tang Dingkun's bleeding forehead and said, sounding worried, "That was pretty careless. I wonder if Doctor Wang's still here—if so, I could have someone fetch him back to check on Young Master Tang?"

Tang Qi, scared that sticking around any longer might get him killed, hastily replied, "No need to bother, Meng Fulang. I'll take my boy to the clinic right now."

Meng Wan handed his brush to Zhi Mao, who was standing by, and straightened his sleeves. "Then let me see you both out."

Tang Dingkun looked like he'd been knocked silly. He didn't say a word, blood dripping from his forehead, eyes glued to the roof.

Tang Qi dragged Tang Dingkun toward the door, saying, "Meng Fulang, no need to be so polite. It's just a short walk. The sun is strong outside—please don't see us off. Stay inside."

After the father and son had left, Meng Wan called Chi Yu down, half amused, half annoyed. "Fix the roof!"

"Oh." Chi Yu's skin, which had barely lightened in winter, was tanned again. He never seemed to get used to the northern weather—getting darker every year, especially in summer, so dark you could barely find him with the lights off.

Meng Wan had Na Tuo deliver the finished plaque to be carved by craftsmen, lacquered, and painted. It would be ready to hang in a few days.

"Who were those people who just came?" Fang Jinrong had woken up and spotted someone delivering fish to the courtyard. He hadn't even eaten, just sat on the porch feeding the fish.

Meng Wan snatched the shrimp meat from his hand. "There are only a few fish—feed them that much and you'll kill them." He sat on the stone bench across from Fang Jinrong, picking up a round fan from the table to cool himself. "Wealthy merchants from the city, here to curry favor."

"Folks in Lin'an are this eager to please? You just got here and they're already kissing up?" Fang Jinrong's fingertips still had a bit of fish food on them; he went to wash his hands and came back to talk to Meng Wan.

"Eager to please?" Meng Wan chuckled, waving the fan. "Soon enough, we'll see some who aren't."