I Am This Type of Woman

64

Ban Hua didn't expect to hear such rumour when she was out for a bowl of noodles. To think that Xie Wanyu had ridiculed her as a husband-curse for losing her engagements three times, perhaps Xie Wanyu never expected there was a day when she would also become the target of wild speculation.

To hear her grandmother dragged into this, Ban Hua frowned.

That person at the next table spoke dramatically with the others adding flavours from time to time. They said there was an inauspicious omen in the sky at the time Xie Wanyu was born, her bazi was too harsh that the previous Zhongping couple were harmed to death by her, as evidenced by how they died of illness one after another in the three years after her birth.

* 生辰八字 = Bazi / Four Pillars of Destiny. Chinese astrological concept that a person's destiny or fate can be divined by their birth year, month, day, and hour.

Three years was not three days, how were their deaths related to Xie Wanyu? Ban Hua felt the logic was strange and full of holes, but all of those jeering people agreed as one to just ignore the holes.

"Two esteemed guests, your noodles are here."

To make the noodles free of oil, they couldn't use the original soup base. The cook had gone to a lot of trouble to produce two bowls of fragrant and flavourful clear vegetable noodle soup.

Ban Hua tasted it, the flavour could not be said great but it was not less than the kitchen in her residence either. She understood soup base was most important for noodle soup, the flavour would be ruined by half without the meat-based broth.

Rong Xia noticed it as well, he said, "Apologies, I wanted to invite you out to eat something, but I don't expect the taste isn't good if the soup base is changed."

"No, this noodle is very supple." Ban Hua shook her head, "The cook must have spent a lot of efforts."

Rong Xia smiled, "This noodle shop's soup and noodle is a famous specialty, heard this is a century old shop that moved from Xuezhou to the Capital."

"Xuezhou?" Ban Hua felt that place sound familiar, but that was the extent of it. She didn't even know if Xuezhou was on the west, south, north, or east direction.

"Yes. Xuezhou produced wheat in abundance, many Xuezhou people are good at making noodles. Their noodle-making skill that have been passing down for hundred years naturally was more authentic than our Capital's here." Rong Xia saw Ban Hua liked the shop's side dishes, he let Du Jiu called the shop attendant to bring two more plates.

"That's why a woman whose bazi is bad, who curses her husband and her family, should just go to a nunnery, instead of living at home to harm others." The person who was gossiping about Xie Wanyu had been buoyed up by his mates that it went over his head, daring to say those things without a thought of Xie family's eminence in the Capital,

Ban Hua flung her chopsticks to the table, unhooked the whip on her belt, stood up and pulled open the partition to the next table.

At the next table sat several twenty or thirty years old men dressed as scholars. Their robes were starched and not new, a few bowls of clear noodle soup were on the table but no side dishes.

Ban Hua sneered, "I thought it's some great and important officials spouting arrogant words, turns out just a few poor and bitter scholars talking big. As learned people, you should understand what manner is, what virtue is. As the ancient said 'a gentleman doesn't conceal others' merits or expose others' flaws'. You are jesting about a woman, showing neither scholarly talent nor human decency. No wonder you can sit here whining, instead of assisting His Majesty with his worries or solving commoners' problems."