The Story of Yanxi Palace, Chapter 24: Amman

   The Story of Yanxi Palace《延禧攻略》Yanxi Gonglue

   The Story of Yanxi Palace, Chapter 24: Amman

   “Cough, cough ...” In the night, Fang Gu tossed and turned for a moment and called out in a hoarse voice, “Bingqing, pour me a bowl of water!”

   No one responded for half a day.

   “Yujia!” Fang Gugu shouted again, “Pour me a bowl of water!”

   Still no response.

   The two palace maids who used to always serve her, who didn't even need her to shout, who would scramble to bring her tea at the slightest cough, have now disappeared together without a trace.

   “You two ungrateful creatures, you have wasted my trust in you!” Fang Gugu scolded me for a long time but tears streamed down from the corners of her eyes and she said, “Now, now you won't even give me a sip of water ...”

   Before the words were out of her mouth, a tea bowl was brought to her lips.

   The water was cold and there was no tea in it but Fang Gugu had been thirsty all night and didn't care that much anymore; she grabbed the bowl of tea and gulped it down.

   “Have you had enough?”

   “One more ... No!” This is not the voice of Bingqing and Yujia! Fang Gugu snapped her head up and was met with a face as clear as a lotus, even though she was not powdered, she still had all the beauty on earth.

   “When you've had enough, answer a few questions for me.” She said with a light smile on her face.

   “Wei! Ying! Luo!” Fang Gugu said, word for word, “How dare you show up in front of me!”

   “If I don't come, I'm afraid you won't even be able to get a sip of water.” Wei Yingluo said with a sigh, “Poor thing, in another six months you would have been able to leave the palace according to the law but now that you have been expelled, not only will you lose your pension but I am afraid that even your family will not dare to take you in.”

   Fang Gu couldn't help but blacken her eyes at the thought of her miserable end and her lips trembled as she said: “Why did you do this to me and your belly, what's wrong with that belly of yours ...”

   She tossed and turned but could not find an answer and would not have dared to drag Wu Shulai over if she had not decided that Wei Yingluo was pregnant.

   “Oh, you said that.” Wei Yingluo laughed softly and brushed her fingers across her still somewhat swollen stomach, saying in a soft tone as if she were talking about something on someone else, “I got some kaolin clay for making ceramics from an artisan the other day and a small amount of it is not life threatening but it will quickly bloat my belly. I pretended but twice and you took the bait, impatient to dispose of me ...”

   Fang Gugu heard a chill run through her body.

   It says that if you take a small amount, there's no risk to your life but that's dirt after all, it's not like there's never been a case of Guanyin dirt eating someone to death, who knows what will happen if you eat this stuff?”

   A man who is so hard on himself will only be harder on his enemies.

   “As to why you say ...” Wei Yingluo flipped her fingers and a delicate plum blossom lasso dangled from her fingertips and said, “Do you still recognize this lasso?”

   Fang Gugu looked at it and said: “This, isn't this the loincloth I lost some time ago, you thief ...”

   “You're the thief!” Wei Yingluo yanked her hair and forced her to look up at herself, her old disguise now torn away, revealing to Fang Gugu a face so real that it was terrifying ... The face of the Avenger said, “Look at my face and see carefully who I am!”

   “You are Wei Yingluo, no, no, you are ...” Fang Gugu looked at the face in front of her in horror and said, “You are ... Wei Yingning!”

   Wei Yingluo has always felt a little strange.

   If Jinxiu was jealous of her, why did Fang Gugu get involved?

   It was not until she found the plum blossom lace she had left behind ... It was only when Wei Yingluo stayed up all night before her sister went to the palace and typed the plum blossom lace to her by hand that an answer gradually emerged.

   “Say!” Wei Yingluo pulled Fang Gugu's hair viciously, with a fierce look as if she were an evil spirit that had risen from hell with a heart of gold and said, “Tell me everything about Wei Yingning! Or I will go to Manager Wu now and reveal your usual harshness to the court maids and then you will not be treated like a purified palace!”

   “No, no, I'll tell you, I'll tell you everything ...” Fang Gugu said with tears in her eyes, “When I heard your name before, I thought it sounded familiar but when I thought about it, Wei Yingning changed her name as soon as she entered the palace and people used to call her Amman ...”

   Perhaps it was providential that Wei Yingning was in the hands of Fang Gugu when she entered the palace.

   Both sisters even do the same thing, getting up at dawn and embroidering different patterns on Fang Gugu's dress paddles.

   “Then she made a scandal and I caught her in the act and I, I threatened her with the matter and made her give me all her possessions around her and her bodily silver, for safekeeping.” Fang Gugu pointed to the corner of the wall and said, “No, it's under that board.”

   Wei Yingning threw her away and quickly pried open the board, pulling out a blue cloth bundle of old color from underneath it.

   “After all these years, the money ... I spent it as well.” Fang Gugu shrank herself inside the corner of the bed, clasped her hands around her knees and shivered, saying, “Don't you denounce me, I'll find a way to pay you back when I'm out of the palace.”

   Wei Yingluo was not interested in money, she looked at the old clothes in her hands, which still seemed to have the warmth of her sister's body on them and she took them into her arms as if she were holding her sister...

   “You claim that my sister has made a scandal.” She turned her back to Fang Gugu and said in a low voice, “What exactly was the scandal?”

   “It's not just stealing men ...” Fang Gugu said.

   “Nonsense!” Wei Yingluo snapped back and said in a stern voice, “My sister is not that kind of person!”

   Fang Gugu's shoulders shrank a little and said, “No, ask Zhang Momo if you don't believe me.”

   Wei Yingluo frowned and said, “Zhang Momo knows about this too?”

   Fang Gugu gave her a strange look instead and said, “Why do you think she takes such good care of you? It's because your sister is her most valued embroiderer. If you want to ask about Amman, you shouldn't ask me, you should go to her ...

   Before she could finish her sentence, the room was gone, leaving two doors that had been violently pulled open and were still creaking.

   The residence of Zhang Momo at the Palace Maids.

   On the table are two tea bowls, which have been sitting for some time and are no longer boiling but are just the right temperature to be eaten. Zhang Momo is sitting at the side of one of the bowls, her eyes closed as if she is waiting for a guest.

   Knock, knock, knock.

   “The door is unlocked, come in.” Zhang Momo slowly opened her eyes and said, “Sit down and drink your tea first.”

   Wei Yingluo stood panting in the doorway, she had run all the way here, so much so that her throat felt like it was on fire and a cup of tea was poured down her throat before she finally had the strength to speak again.

   “Momo...” She put down her tea and stared at Zhang Momo, who was refilling her cup in front of her and said, “Wei Yingning is my sister.”

   As the tea filled the cup again, the emerald green leaves swirling in the cup, giving off a fresh tea aroma, Zhang Momo said slowly, “Told you not to mention the name, it's taboo.”

   Wei Yingluo stared at the tea she handed over for a long time before asking softly, “You already knew, you knew everything but why ... didn't tell me anything?”

   “What do you want me to say to you?” Zhang Momo said, “That Amman had done something wrong and I was disappointed in her?”

   “Everyone says my sister has done wrong but what has she done so wrong that she has to take her life for it?” Wei Yingluo pushed away the tealight in front of her and flung herself onto Zhang Momo's lap, raising her little palm sized face and looking at her tearfully, like a little granddaughter who has been wronged and keeps shaking her grandmother's hand, saying, “Momo, Momo, please tell me, please!”

   Zhang Momo couldn't resist her, so she sighed heavily and said: “Someone told Manager Wu that she had stayed out all night and must have been having an affair with someone else. Manager Wu found her dirty underwear in the wigwam of the Royal Gardens ...”

   “Sister has always been clean, she would never do such a thing!” Wei Yingluo listened but didn't believe a word of it, saying “she must have been wrongly accused!”

   “I wish too that she had been wronged.” Zhang Momo looked pityingly at the little girl crouched on her knee and said, “But she said to me herself that no one forced her, that she volunteered.”

   Wei Yingluo's eyes went black for a moment and she felt that heaven and earth were spinning around and with every word Zhang Momo said, an additional gap opened under her feet and countless hands reached out from inside the ground to pull her into the gap.

   “There was nothing to be done but to follow the rules of the palace and beat her to death with a stick.” Zhang Momo stroked her hair and said comfortingly, “It was also her fate that she should not be killed, Her Highness Empress Dowager was ill for a while and did not want to see blood in the palace, so she was caned 50 times and expelled from the Forbidden City, she is now ... How is she getting on?”

   “... She's dead.” Wei Yingluo couldn't stop crying out and said, “Everyone said she hanged herself because she was ashamed of herself but I went to check the wound and there were green finger marks on her neck, she was strangled alive!”

   Zhang Momo was taken aback and jerked Wei Yingluo by the shoulders and said, “Strangled?”

   Wei Yingluo nodded as she cried, tears falling down her cheeks in a steady stream of movement.

   “This is not right, this is not right ...” Zhang Momo has travelled more than the average person has eaten, so she immediately found out what was going on and said, “'If she really did have sex with someone of her own free will, how could she be silenced? I'm afraid there's something else going on here...”

   “Yes, that's why I entered the palace...” Wei Yingluo wiped the tears from her face and said, “I can't let my sister die so unaccountably, I must find out the truth and give her justice! Momo, please help me and help her too!”

   “How do you want me to help you?” Zhang Momo said with an air of helplessness, “It's been so many years and there's no clue ...”

   A clue?

   Wei Yingluo thought about it and suddenly took out a jade pendant from her pocket and said, “Momo, take a look at this jade pendant.”

   It was one of Wei Yingning's few remaining relics, hidden under a plank of wood because Fang Gugu was greedy for money and had not been searched.

   Zhang Momo took the jade pendant and took a look at it, her brows immediately furrowed.

   Wei Yingluo had been staring at her face closely, so naturally she did not let go of the change in her expression at this moment and was immediately moved in her heart, asking with three parts excitements and seven parts anticipations, “Momo, do you know this jade pendant?”

   Zhang Momo shook her head and said, “Fuca Insignia.”

   It was a Manchu phrase that Wei Yingluo did not understand and had to wait for Zhang Momo to explain it to her.

   “I don't know this jade pendant but I recognize the name on it.” Zhang Momo looked up slowly, looked at Wei Yingluo with complicated eyes and said, “Fuca insignia, the owner of this jade pendant is--His Majesty's brother-in-law, his wife's brother, the Imperial Royal Guard, Fucha Fuheng.”

  

   The Story of Yanxi Palace《延禧攻略》CHAPTERS