Daji: ... Men and women should not touch, men and women seven years old should not sit together... Forget it, they never followed those rules anyway.
Daji pretended not to see and turned to feed the horses.
Bai Shan found a handkerchief somewhere and offered it to Manbao, asking, "Do you want me to fetch water for you to wash your face?"
Manbao also felt that her crying face was ugly, so she nodded.
Bai Shan ran out and brought back a basin of warm water for her, watching her wash her face before dragging a chair to sit opposite her, and asked, "What happened?"
Manbao turned away and ignored him.
Bai Shan sat beside her and waited for her, neither leaving nor pressing further.
After calming down a bit, Manbao pulled out the longevity lock from her neckline and recounted everything from when she met County Magistrate Tang earlier that day to the words she saw just now.
Bai Shan turned the longevity lock around her neck and straightforwardly extended his hand, "Let me take a look."
Manbao took it off and showed it to him.
Bai Shan looked over it, examining carefully against the light, finding something engraved inside, but with his eyesight, he couldn’t make it out clearly.
Bai Shan thought for a moment, then lit a candle to take a closer look. He struggled to see and finally made out a "Zhou" character vaguely. He closed his sore eyes, flipped it over, and continued to look. After a long time, he saw another character, but it was very blurry and darkened into a blob, unrecognizable, but he was sure it was not the "Zhou" character.
Bai Shan put down the longevity lock, looked at Manbao, and hesitated, "So, is your mother’s surname Xia? But your mother loves you very much."
It didn’t seem like you were not her biological child, and Bai Shan, although he seldom saw, empathized and did not think that the main wife would treat a concubine’s child well.
Bai Shan paused here, and cautiously asked, "Can your father afford a concubine?"
Angered, she grabbed a pillow from the bed and smacked him with it, "How can you be so foolish? Could my family afford such a fine longevity lock? So, it definitely wasn’t given by my dad, I, I might not be my dad’s biological daughter."
"But there is still a ’Zhou’ character inside."
Manbao then remembered this point. She had been too preoccupied with her sadness until now. Blinking, she asked, "So, does my dad also have the surname Zhou?"
Bai Shan: "How can you be so sure you are not his biological child? What if this longevity lock was something your parents picked up on the road and gave to you to wear?"
Manbao thought for a moment, shook her head, and said, "If it were picked up, my mother would never have put it around my neck, she would have definitely sold it for money early on. Even if she kept it, when my Fourth Brother lost money gambling and we couldn’t come up with the extra money, I wanted to pledge the longevity lock, but my mother didn’t agree."
Manbao caressed the longevity lock and said, "When I was younger, every night before going to sleep, mother would touch the longevity lock on my neck. Once, I found it too heavy, took it off, and carelessly placed it aside, then couldn’t find it. My mother got so anxious she spanked me; it was the first time I remember being hit."
"And," Manbao quietly glanced outside before whispering to Bai Shan, "From when I was little, my brothers always said I was particularly smart, like my dad, but..."
Manbao didn’t finish her sentence, but Bai Shan understood.
Because Old Zhou simply couldn’t be described as smart.
Manbao said, "I always felt I was like my mother, but my brothers always said I resembled dad..."
Previously, Manbao wouldn’t take such comments to heart because she felt there was no difference between being like her mother and like her dad, but thinking about it now, the difference was too great.
Because her dad was definitely not smart, so why did her brothers insist so much that she resembled her dad?
Manbao’s tears streamed down as she cried, "I might not actually be my dad’s daughter..."
Bai Shan was also stunned, seeing her cry so sadly for the first time, he could only stuff the handkerchief back into her hand.
Manbao, wiping her tears, cried uncontrollably. Bai Shan could only awkwardly comfort her by saying, "Maybe you’re overthinking it, your parents are still your parents, right?"
"But tell me, where did this longevity lock around my neck come from? It couldn’t possibly be that my dad actually stole it from somewhere, right? To give a stolen longevity lock to his own daughter, how bold would my dad have to be?"
Bai Shan nodded too, "Moreover, your dad isn’t that courageous."
"Exactly, my dad has always been timid."
Bai Shan then looked outside. He heard Zhou Silang and Zhou Lijun returning and, lowering his voice, asked, "Should we ask your Fourth Brother?"
After thinking it over, Manbao shook her head, "He definitely won’t tell me."
"We could have Daji scare him."
"My Fourth Brother’s hand just healed. Let’s not scare him," Manbao said disappointedly, "Furthermore, I feel like even if you scare him, he still won’t tell."
Manbao said, "I’m so clever, yet my family has kept this from me for so long; how could he possibly tell me just because I ask?"
Bai Shan felt worried for her and asked, "So, what should we do?"
Manbao, trying to muster her spirits, said, "Right now, let’s not fuss about whether I’m truly my parents’ child. The case that County Magistrate Tang is investigating is more pressing. I don’t even know which case my dad is involved in; I asked County Magistrate Tang, and he simply wouldn’t tell me."
Bai Shan stood up and said, "We can ask Fourth Brother Zhou about this. If he’s willing to talk, we might be able to piece together your origins."
Manbao’s eyes sparkled as she nodded, "That’s exactly what I was thinking, but how do we ask him? We can’t just repeat exactly what County Magistrate Tang and I talked about to Fourth Brother, can we?"
Bai Shan rolled his eyes and said, "Don’t worry, I’ll talk to him. Just wait here."
Manbao looked at Bai Shan and nodded.
Seeing that her mood had stabilized, Bai Shan chuckled, "Feeling better? Your Fourth Brother and your cousin have come back. Go wash the tears off your face so they don’t notice."
Manbao nodded. Just as she stood up, Zhou Lijun pushed the door open. Hearing voices from the other room, he peeked in and, seeing Bai Shan inside his cousin’s inner chamber, was a bit startled.
Noticing her red and swollen eyes, Zhou Lijun immediately walked around the screen and approached, "Cousin, Young Master Shan, have you been fighting again?"
Zhou Lijun didn’t believe it, "Then why is my cousin crying?"
Manbao looked at Bai Shan.
Bai Shan: "... Fine, if you say so."
Zhou Lijun immediately said, "Young Master Shan, you’re both grown up; why are you still fighting? Besides, you’re a boy, you’re stronger, and look, you’ve made my cousin cry."
Bai Shan opened his mouth as if to object, thought better of it, and fell silent, looking thoughtfully at Manbao.
Manbao, sitting in the chair, nervously swung her legs. After Zhou Lijun had rattled on for a while, she finally said, "We weren’t fighting, just arguing, at most."
Bai Shan noncommittally nodded and asked, "Where’s Fourth Brother Zhou?"
Bai Shan then walked outside, saying, "I’m going to talk to Fourth Brother Zhou."
Zhou Lijun watched him go, puzzled, then turned to Manbao and said, "That’s weird. He made you cry and isn’t avoiding Fourth Uncle but instead goes straight to him?"
Manbao stared out the window and didn’t speak.
Zhou Lijun, feeling today’s cousin was particularly quiet, couldn’t help but step forward again and gently asked, "Cousin, what’s the matter?"