I Am This Type of Woman

46

"The end of the world is not boundless, only memory is eternal....."

After reading the poem, Du Jiu eyed Count Rong with an odd expression, these lines ...... were quite interesting.

Rong Xia had a genuine painting by Zhao Bicong at the residence, so he was able to instantly recognise this one as genuine. Moreover, this really was that legendary final work of Zhao Bicong's.

Autumn moonlight at the mountains mourns the soul of the flower, lonely longings dwell without form.

The painting manifested loneliness and longing, the longing to welcome death, the longing to be reunited with the dead wife. For the elderly and frail Zhao Bicong, death was the best place for him to return to.

However, was it the dead wife or the return to his spirited youth that he longed for?

"Master Count," Du Jiu saw Rong Xia stared at the painting not letting go, he tried to bring him back by asking in lowered voice, "If it was not Ban-shizi who sent it, is it..... Ban-junzhu?"

An unwed man and an unmarried woman, a precious gift casually exchanged between them. The poem on the painting was ambiguous, could it be that Ban-junzhu had special feelings to Master Count, otherwise how would she be willing to send this big gift?

He believed Ban-junzhu was very influential in her family, otherwise which young lady was able to send precious gift to a man who lacked relatives or background?

"Doesn't matter who sent it." Rong Xia put the scroll back into the tube. "You have done a good job on the previous matter."

"Master, shuxia remembers something." Du Jiu suddenly said, "Some time ago, a woman with a child stopped Marquis Jingting's carriage, she said they were from Xue County and her husband had been wrongly convicted of a crime."

* 属下 = This Subordinate

"Marquis Jingting's carriage?" Rong Xia placed the painting tube into the shelves, said with a smile-but-not-smiling face, "Why didn't she go to the Court of Judicature or Ministry of Justice instead of stopping a marquis' carriage?"

* 大理寺 Court of Judicature and Revision, the central government agency in charge of reviewing judicial proceedings at all administrative levels and singling out the cases for a retrial by court officials or the emperor himself.

Du Jiu shook his head, "Shuxia doesn't know. But Marquis Jingting ignored them, he just said he had no power at the Court so he couldn't help."

Frankly, when Du Jiu heard what the Marquis said, he felt Ban family's way of thinking was different from other people.

The father had no qualm in calling himself powerless, the son liked to bury treasures in the mountain in his spare time, the daughter sent a man priceless gifts that money couldn't buy. This family's conducts were the actual example of unusual deadbeats.

Other families' deadbeats played with women, gambled, or bullied people. This family was well-clothed and well-fed, but the dignified marquis was so much under his wife's thumb that he had no concubines or tongfangs at all. The Shizi was a good-for-nothing wastrel, but he was never seen molesting commoner women or visiting gambling houses. He and his guards went to the market everyday for cricket fights or cock fights, but he interfered when he saw commoner women getting bullied. The only person he ever harassed was the Second Son of Xie family, but as the two families were in feud, it couldn't be called bullying.

On the surface this family had a bad and unfavourable image, but to look closely, the money they squandered was their own ancestors'. They were not proper, but had never done anything bad to others either. Comparing them to people who were gentlemanly on the outside but bloody inside, this family had much better characters.