Flower Stealing Master

Having listened to Taohong’s full account, Song Qingshu’s expression beneath the bed was a masterpiece of barely contained astonishment. ‘The way she describes all these relationships — it has an uncanny echo of Dream of the Red Chamber. Jia Sidao’s son wouldn’t happen to be called Jia Baoyu, would he?’

[G: Jia Baoyu 贾宝玉 is the male protagonist of Dream of the Red Chamber. Song Qingshu is putting two and two together — and since the four great clans of that novel are named Jia 贾, Shi 史, Wang 王, and Xue 薛, and those are precisely the four clans Taohong just described, the structural echo is unmistakable. The author is playing with it deliberately.]

Qi Fang, meanwhile, felt as though a great storm had broken inside her chest. “Everyone in Lin’an knows I am the Wan family’s daughter-in-law,” she said, unable to stop herself. “How could that simply be changed?”

A dangerous light kindled in Taohong’s eyes. “If my lady were to suffer an unfortunate accident and die, it could naturally be changed.”

“What do you mean by that!” Whatever restraint Qi Fang had left abandoned her. She flinched upward instinctively — and the moment she moved, a wave of dizziness crashed over her, and she collapsed back down against the bed against her will.

“What — what’s happening?” The colour drained from Qi Fang’s face. For a wild moment she thought her body still hadn’t recovered from what Song Qingshu had done to her earlier. But she dismissed that almost immediately, and snapped her head up to stare at Taohong. “You’ve poisoned me?”

Taohong drew a lit incense stick from her sleeve and waved it under Qi Fang’s nose with a pleased air. “My lady is a martial artist, after all. How could I dare move against you without some preparation?”

Qi Fang’s mind leapt to something else. “Earlier — when I was knocked unconscious — was that you as well?”

“Of course!” Taohong made no effort to hide her satisfaction. “To move against my lady, that great lump Xiong Da was in the way — I had to deal with him first. So I knocked you out, stripped your clothes off, and sent Sixi to lure Xiong Da in. That blockhead came crashing through the door and walked straight into the trap we’d laid. Heh — that big oaf is probably feeding the river turtles by now. Though I suppose he got to see my lady’s magnificent figure before he went, so one could say he didn’t die entirely in vain.”

“Taohong! How dare you — you’ve actually moved against the mistress of this house!” Qi Fang trembled with fury, and at the same time a strange bitterness washed over her as she reflected on how unpredictable life could be. She had once thought that having her body seen by an unfamiliar man was the most terrible thing imaginable — and then, not long after that, her virtue had been muddled away before she even understood what was happening. That had seemed the most terrible thing imaginable. And yet now she had a creeping premonition that what was about to come would be more terrible still.

“My lady, are you truly this naïve, or only pretending to be?” Taohong looked at her with something that resembled pity. “Surely you understand by now — without the Master and the Young Master’s instruction, I wouldn’t have the courage to lay a finger on you even if you gave me ten thousand borrowed guts.”

“What!” The words fell on Qi Fang like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. She went still, her lips moving soundlessly. “That can’t be. It can’t. Third Brother would never do this to me.”

She knew Wan Zhenshan’s nature well enough — cold and ruthless — and she could believe, even easily, that he might be capable of this. But her husband — she would not, could not accept that the man she shared a bed with would raise his hand against her.

Despite the divergences between them over the years, their marriage had by and large been warm and affectionate. She had only recently borne him a beloved little daughter. How could she accept that the man who lay beside her every night had turned against her like this?

“The Young Master did hesitate at first,” Taohong said with a cold smile. “But he made up his mind a couple of days ago. Otherwise, why do you think he agreed to leave you with only Xiong Da as a guard?”

“The other guards had other duties — that was the Minister’s arrangement.” Qi Fang clung desperately to the possibility.

“The Young Master knew perfectly well what the Minister intended, and still agreed to the arrangement. That alone proves he gave his silent consent,” Taohong answered. “And even if the Minister hadn’t reassigned the guards, the Young Master would have found another way. A girl who grew up in some rural backwater is rather less appealing, when you weigh her against the young misses of Lin’an’s great clans.”

“You’re lying. Third Brother is not that kind of man.” Qi Fang kept shaking her head, repeating the words like a machine. After one blow after another tonight, her mind had gone entirely blank.

“Third Brother’s methods can be ruthless sometimes, I know that. But after all these years as husband and wife — I don’t believe he would ever use them against me.”

“He would never use them against you?” Taohong gave a short, contemptuous laugh. “If he hadn’t used them against you, how would you ever have become Madam Wan in the first place?”

“What do you mean?” Qi Fang’s heart lurched. She pressed forward urgently.

“Weren’t you and that — what was his name — Di Yun — very close once upon a time?” Taohong said, with a smile that wasn’t quite a smile. “If the Young Master hadn’t appeared, the two of you would have married and had children together, wouldn’t you?”

Qi Fang’s face coloured. “Yes. I was close with my senior brother back then. Third Brother knew that perfectly well. But all of that is in the past — don’t imagine you can use it to drive a wedge between us.”

“The Young Master knew it perfectly well, certainly. It’s my lady who doesn’t know the full story.” The pity in Taohong’s voice was unmistakable.

“What exactly is going on? Stop playing these games!” Qi Fang glared at her.

“Very well. I’ll let you die knowing the truth.” Taohong smiled coldly, again and again. “My lady — do you still remember how that simple-minded senior brother of yours was thrown into prison?”

“He crept into your room in the middle of the night and tried to —” Qi Fang’s expression darkened. That incident had cast a long shadow over her heart. She and Di Yun had been in love; she had followed her father to Jiangling, full of wonder at everything new, but also quietly ashamed of herself in ways she could barely name. When she saw Taohong, dressed up brilliantly and radiantly, she had felt like a cinder-girl in comparison. So when she heard that Di Yun had crept into Taohong’s bedchamber in the night, she had believed it without question — she cared too deeply, was too sensitive by nature, and simply could not calm herself enough to reason it through.

But now, with Taohong raising the matter herself, and Song Qingshu’s earlier words echoing in the back of her mind, a realisation suddenly struck her. “It was you — you framed him!”

Taohong looked at her with naked scorn. “And that is precisely why my lady was never suited to be the mistress of a great household. You’ve only worked this out now? How do you expect to serve your husband’s ambitions, help him rise step by step, if this is how your mind works?”

Hearing Taohong’s words, Qi Fang’s first feeling was not anger but grief — a grief that cut to the bone. “So I truly did wrong my senior brother. When he saw that I didn’t believe him, he must have been utterly heartbroken…”

The image of Di Yun suffering alone in some lightless cell seized her heart in an invisible fist and squeezed until she could barely breathe. “You said just now — Third Brother — he…”

“My lady’s guess is correct.” Taohong watched Qi Fang’s anguish with a particular, sharp pleasure. ‘Why should this little country nobody get to transform herself into a phoenix, while I can’t even get a proper name?’ “It was all the Young Master’s arrangement. To win you, he had to eliminate Di Yun as a rival.”

“How could this be — how could this be…” Qi Fang crumpled onto the bed, whispering to herself over and over. Yet when she thought of her husband’s cold and ruthless nature, she had to admit it was entirely the sort of thing he could do.

“That boy was luckier than he deserved — he actually escaped from prison eventually, and came out with formidable martial arts besides. But a fool is a fool no matter how good his martial art gets,” Taohong said with a dismissive laugh. “His skills may have changed, but that head of his is as empty as it ever was. A little while back, he somehow tracked down news of my lady and came looking for you — and what happened? The Minister and the Young Master dealt with him effortlessly with the smallest of schemes.”

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