Make Way (1)
That was the end of the year, so many officials returned to the capital, Beijing, to report their duties, and Zhu Jia was one of them. He was promoted as the privy council’s deputy envoy, so he and his family decided to move to the capital. The Zhu family’s daughter, Zhu Yuqing, had also reached the age of marriage, so they wanted to find young talent from the capital.
Actually, Zhu Yuqing didn’t understand the difference between her father’s new official position and the previous one. But after her father was appointed to the new position, her parents were happy, and her father’s colleagues also came to celebrate. So she thought that it must be very important.
Mrs. Zhu kept talking along the way: “It is not easy for military attaches to be promoted, and they are suppressed everywhere. This time, your father was transferred back to the capital. I haven’t come back for many years, I don’t know how much Beijing has changed.”
Mrs. Zhu had talked about what happened in the capital back then, how to be cautious in words and deeds after entering the capital, and how to be dignified and demure again and again on the way. However, Zhu Yuqing was very annoyed after hearing the same thing and said, “Mother, you have been repeating the same words all the way, I know that the capital city is different from Yazhou, and we have to be careful. We can’t afford to offend high-ranking families, so I know how to behave.”
After hearing her daughter’s words, Madam Zhu sighed: “Daughter, you don’t understand. The situation in the capital is not like back then, now intellectuals are dominating the capital more than military generals, so military people don’t have as much power as in the past. Your father has been stationed in the southwest for many years. Your elder brother also died on the battlefield. When your father was transferred to the Privy Council, the first thing everyone did was guard against him. Forget it, these words can’t be said, you just need to remember to put away your frizzy habits. People in the capital pay attention to famous ladies, so you can’t show your teeth when smiling, you can’t jump up and down like you used to do. If you can marry into a good family in Beijing, I can rest…..”
Zue Yuqing pouted secretly when her mother nagged. After listening to those same words again and again, she felt that her ears were going to fall off. So, even though her mother had forbidden her to look outside, she could not help but lift the curtain a bit and peeked at the scene on the street to clear her mind.
Tall and beautiful restaurants rose from the ground, vendors sold all kinds of novel things along the street, and women dressed in bright clothes were in groups, dressed as big families, but there were no slaves behind them, laughing and walking through the streets. Zhu Yuqing couldn’t take her eyes off it. It turned out that this was the capital.
The bustling and noisy capital, with almost no night in my mother’s mouth, turned out to be like this.
Actually, Mrs. Zhu saw her daughter’s little action, but she didn’t intend to stop her as she felt bad about her daughter who grew up in the border town. So she pretended not to see it. Suddenly, their carriage stopped moving.
Mrs. Zhu frowned, lifted the curtain and asked the maid outside the car, “What’s the matter?”
The maid went to the front and asked a few questions, then ran back and said, “Ma’am, it seems that a carriage came in from the side and took the cart in front of us. Road is blocked.”
When Mrs. Zhu listened to the maid, she became very unhappy. They were travelling for a long time and she was very tired, so she was in a hurry to go back and rest. But now such an incident happened, she could not help complaining. “This is the problem in the capital, there are noble people everywhere. Which family daughter is in that carriage?”
“Mother, what should we do?” Zhu Yuqing asked.
“What else can we do? Someone has to make way.” Mrs. Zhu said, “Your father is the new deputy privy envoy, wearing official uniforms, and our family’s guards are all family generals brought back from the border. Although there are many noble people in the capital, those young masters and young ladies have never seen blood. No matter how domineering they are, they will not dare to stop us.”
Zhu Yuqing sighed and still opened the curtain and looked at the excitement outside. She saw a person coming down from the opposite carriage. That person was probably sent by his master.
“Don’t block our young master’s way! Move your carriage back to make way. Our young master is the direct young master of the Pingzhang family, don’t disturb our young master’s interest!” He said.
After the servant finished shouting, the people around were shocked. Mrs. Zhu took a deep breath: “It turned out to be Pingzhangshi’s son. The capital is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon[1]. I also felt that the deputy envoy of the Privy Council already has a high rank, but I didn’t expect that we would meet the young master of the Pingzhangshi family so soon.”
Zhu Yuqing: “Mother, who is Pingzhangshi?”
1. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – The phrase ‘Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon’ (Wuo hu zhan long) is a Chinese idiom in which the words ‘Tiger’ and ‘Dragon’ directly refer to people with special hidden talents. ↵