Chapter 5 - Nima’s Wives (2/2)
Second Madam Ji Jing began to vomit because of her pregnancy. After a while, the sickness gradually passed and she patted her breast and glanced at Nima with a look of coquetry. “Your son is naughty,” she softly complained.
Nima was spitting out bones while saying, “Stop dawdling and deliver the child quickly.”
Ci had an impulse to laugh but she held it back.
This man was kind of cute, casual and informal. There was a smear of oil in his beard but he didn’t wipe it. When he laughed, his two big front teeth were exposed.
Nima slept alone in his bedroom. Except for Nima’s three wives, there was more than twenty servants in the Nima Mansion. Some of them were cooks; some waited upon the master madams; some specialized in washing clothes; some were in charge of buying vegetables and meat… And there were two butlers helping Nima do business and collect rents. Many of the retainers came from Tibet. They followed Nima to the central plains, dazzled by the gaiety and splendour of the metropolis, and often had sex with maids. The maids, who got pregnant, took medicine to abort their pregnancies and gave birth to stillborn babies which looked like balls of blood. Nima once cut open a ball of blood but there was nothing in it. He kicked it and the ball stained with dust rolled away into a distance.
In Nima Mansion, Nima had absolute power like a king. He could sleep with whoever he liked but he didn’t like to keep women by his side after sex. So the servants often saw naked women with torn clothes in their hands walking up and down in the dead of night. Nima was more blissful than the emperor. China’s emperors had too many women and mostly lived short lives. The emperors of the Song Dynasty didn’t like to take exercise but Nima did. Every morning he got up early and practised martial arts by fighting with retainers. If they were beaten to death by Nima, the butlers would buy some new strong retainers. It was cheap to buy a servant in these troubled times because there were hungry men everywhere and lots of women wanted to be maids of the Nima Mansion.
Ju Juxian tactfully went back to her bedroom and fell asleep peacefully because of knowing that Nima had no desire to make love with her.
Ji Jing walked back to her bedroom with the help of her maid, Xiaoyan, and slept peacefully because she was pregnant and didn’t need to pander to Nima on the bed. Before she fell asleep, she patted her bulging belly and whispered, “Don’t let me down, my dear son. My fate is bound up with yours.”
Yang Zhen looked at Nima and asked, “Master, do you still want to hear me sing tonight?” Her soft voice was like a sweet melody.
Nima replied, “No. Take this maid to the backyard and arrange a single room for her.”
The girl seemed important to him.
Yang Zhen cast a glance at Ci and said, “Follow me.”
Nima turned to Ci and asked, “What’s your name?”
“Dong Ci.” Ci curtsied to Nima and followed Yang Zhen out of the drawing room.
Yang Zhen brought Ci to a room in which all goods for daily use were available. There were new clothes in the wardrobe and some cosmetics on the dressing table.
Yang Zhen removed a gilded phoenix-shaped hairpin from her bun and pinned it to Ci’s hair, and then said, “Take it easy and put your heart to serve Master. You can call me Sister Yang Zhen in private.”
Deeply moved by Yang Zhen’s words, Ci knelt down and expressed her gratitude.
A person who was simple and kind-hearted, was easily to be got at.
Yang Zhen helped Ci up. “I will teach you how to sing opera in the future.” She paused for a second and continued, “If Master asks you to serve him, remember not to wander around the yard when you come back.”
Ci nodded and watched Yang Zhen walking out of the room. ‘It seems that good person can be found everywhere. She is such a kind woman,’ Ci thought to herself.
However, she was an idiot, totally confused by the false kindness of Yang Zhen.