Chapter 49: Returning to the Alliance Head Residence (1/2)
After thinking about it, Tang Doudou scratched her head in vexation and said helplessly, “Forget it, you wouldn’t understand.”
Qing Yin gave an ‘en’ in reply, then said: “In any case, Li gongzi, you don’t have anyone by your side to serve you, so why don’t you just keep Qing Yin?”
Tang Doudou felt that Qing Yin wouldn’t be able to understand right now even if she were to explain human rights. After all, she had been imbued with the thinking of this era since she was little. Even though she didn’t seem like those extremely humble and submissive yes-man maids from other families, the idea of respecting the master was a very deep rooted ideology which couldn’t be changed with only a couple spoken sentences.
In any case, since Baili Yu has already allowed Qing Yin to follow her, wouldn’t it be better to just gradually influence and change her?
But before this, she must find a chance to clear up their relationship and clearly explain to her that they were impossible. Perhaps it was better to just directly tell her about her female identity. But this also required an opportunity.
This wasn’t the right time to do so anyhow, so let’s hold off for now.
Let’s first deal with the matter regarding Bai Feiyun before thinking further.
Tang Doudou had obtained the Alliance Head Command Tablet so she was now heading to the Alliance Head Residence to find out the specifics of the situation before returning to meet up with Bai Lianhua in four hours.
When Tang Doudou explained her plans to Qing Yin, she saw the latter wasn’t surprised that Bai Lianhua was coming along. After some consideration, Qing Yin suggested, “Gongzi can just ask Young Master Jun for help to save Bai gongzi.”
“Jun Xin?” Tang Doudou hastily shook her head, “No way, that guy would completely wreck things, we can’t bring him along.”
Qing Yin spoke with a helpless tone, “Young Master Jun is very capable, he’s not like gongzi’s impression of him at all. At the very least, gongzi wouldn’t have to worry about your own safety with him around.”
“Forget it, my Eight Characters (of birthtime, more info here) clash with his, just encountering him annoys me. Not to mention, what we’re doing is exchanging for a hostage and negotiating. Let’s just shelf things like using force for now. This Alliance Head is a civilized person!” Tang Doudou patted her chest. She then rubbed her nose, “Let’s go and take a look at the situation in the Alliance Head Residence before discussing more.”
As she said that, she had Qing Yin lead her out of this garden which she’d been staying in for this past week or so.
After walking out of the enormous front entrance, an indescribable feeling surfaced as she looked at the old-fashioned, calm, bluestone-paved street outside.
Turning back to look at the garden behind her, she only just realized that the seemingly exquisite and gentle garden she saw from the inside actually had such an unusual grandeur when viewed from outside. As she stood in front of the entrance, she felt extremely insignificant.
Tang Doudou smacked her lips as her gaze moved upwards. She still didn’t know what this garden was called after having been here for this long!
But she immediately discovered that she couldn’t understand the words on the rectangle sign above the garden doors at all. So she asked Qing Yin: “Qing Yin ah, what’s this garden called?”
“Plum Garden.”
“Aren’t there three words written? How could it be Plum Garden?” Not to mention she had already stayed there for a week and hadn’t seen even a petal of a plum blossom, so how did that name fit at all?
Qing Yin saw her surprised expression and of course knew what she was thinking. “Plum Garden is an alternate name, what’s written on the sign is ‘Serene Transient Life’*.”
The name of the garden is 清浮生, which I searched up and the closest saying I got to the title was 浮生清梦(roughly transient life, serene dream) which means that the fleeting hollow life felt like a serene dream. The term 浮生in google is elaborated as ‘such that life seemed like a meaningless transient existence, such that death seems to be its cessation.’ Very beautiful and profound, my vocab doesn’t do it justice.
“There is a sea of plums at the back mountain of the garden. Thus, it also became known as Plum Garden.”
“You’re saying that this garden still has a back mountain? There’s also a sea of plums there? My crap, then isn’t this garden really really big?”
Da fudge, how big was this garden?
Qing Yin proudly said: “That’s only natural. Who in this world doesn’t know that Master’s Plum Garden is number one in the country? Not only does the back mountain have an endlessly extending sea of plums, but there’s a peach garden, a sea of cherry-apples, a lotus flower pond…and even more marvels of the world gathered here. The two buildings that gongzi went to earlier were areas in between the four buildings of wind, flower, snow and moon(common poetry subjects). Perhaps it doesn’t look that special from gongzi’s point of view, but in reality, these things were all carefully selected for quality.”
She paused for a moment and looked at Tang Doudou’s blank eyes, then said: “Maybe gongzi should just let this servant take you around for a look some other day.”
The moment Tang Doudou heard this, she hastily waved dismissively and said: “Forget it, let’s deal with the proper business first!”
Hell, there’s no way she wanted to come back to this lousy place, there was no need to even mention having the interest to take a look around.
Also, da fudge! The damned fox seriously had a level of boldness that can just rush to the skies, so much so that it splashed her whole face(like it was rubbed in her face).
In the past, she had already heard Qing Yin talk about how this Plum Garden was actually just one area amongst all his estates, but just based on this title of being the number one garden in the country was enough to guess how valuable it was. There was no need to even mention what Qing Yin said about those various seas of flowers and other marvels at all. Da fudge, this was the ancient era. These places were all being taken care of through manpower. Just the cost of keeping all these people was a great expense.
It was already beyond Tang Doudou’s power to fathom Baili Yu’s family property. The more she thought about it, the more she regret. Why didn’t she just bite him to death with that one chomp earlier?
Qing Yin said that the Alliance Head Residence was right next door to the Plum Garden, but Qing Yin found a carriage from somewhere and invited Tang Doudou to get on after they left the Plum Garden.
Tang Doudou was originally puzzled, but recalling what Qing Yin said earlier, she decisively climbed into the carriage. Hell, what Qing Yin called next door probably wasn’t the ‘next door’ she knew. This distance probably wasn’t small in any way.
As expected, the carriage leisurely moved for about an hour. Just as Tang Doudou was almost rocked to sleep, Qing Yin lightly shook her awake, “Gongzi, we’ve arrived at the Alliance Head Residence.”
Tang Doudou opened her hazy eyes and gazed at Qing Yin’s veiled face in a dazed manner. Only then did her head clear up, “We’ve arrived?”
“Does gongzi have an understanding of the Alliance Head Residence’s current situation?” Qing Yin hastily pulled her to a stop after seeing that Tang Doudou was about the head down the carriage the moment she climbed up.
“What situation?” Tang Doudou had just woken up and her head was still pretty muddled. Adding on the fact that she really wasn’t clear on what situation the Alliance Head Residence would have, she thought it could only be the matter regarding Elder Yu. She proceeded to say, “Are you talking about Elder Yu and the rest? Bai Feiyun mentioned a bit to me before. What about it?”
Qing Yin cast a glance at her. She was silent for a bit before finally saying, “It’s a bit too late to give a detailed explanation now. How about this, you can just look at my expression as a guide after we enter.”
“Expression?” Tang Doudou swept a glance at Qing Yin’s hazy veiled face and thought dejectedly, how am I supposed to see like this?
Qing Yin also realized this problem. Her face turned slightly red, and she spoke in a small voice: “Gongzi, wait a moment.”
As she said so, she bowed her head and lowered her pupils. Her soft jade fingers reached behind and removed the veil.