Surviving in the General's Mansion - Chapter 98

Wang Wenshan stepped down from the carriage and looked around.

After so many years, he had finally returned to the capital.

“This street was never so wide before! Oh! That old oil seller is still in the same place!”

“The capital has grown much more prosperous… Wife, look! Someone is even selling wine from the south!”

Madam Wang gave him a shove.

“Enough, enough. Hurry home. You can come back out and look at all these changes once we’re settled.

“The entire household is waiting for you!”

Wang Wenshan laughed and stepped into his family’s old residence.

The servants were unpacking everything in orderly fashion.

Although this was an old residence, they had left some people behind when they moved away years ago.

After the household received word of their return, the entire property had been cleaned. With a little unpacking, it would be ready to inhabit.

“Put this here. Good heavens, that belongs in the storeroom!” Madam Wang called, directing the servants from the side.

“Ah, Wanxin, come sit down!

“Let the servants handle those things. If they put something in the wrong place, they can move it again.”

Madam Wang spat dismissively at him.

“Move it again? These things have already jolted all the way here. How many more times do you think they can be moved?

“Hurry inside and rest. Stop standing here getting in the way.”

With that, she rushed back outside to supervise the unloading.

Wang Wenshan shook his head and returned to his bedchamber.

Lying in the house where he had slept so many years ago filled him with emotion.

The last time he slept here must have been ten years earlier.

But the exhaustion of the journey did not leave him much time for reflection.

When he opened his eyes again, the sky was already darkening.

His wife Wanxin sat on a stool nearby, arranging her dressing table.

Seeing him wake, she said, “Husband certainly knows how to sleep. It is nearly the hour of the rooster, and only now do you wake! We’ll be having dinner soon.

“This wife has been busy all afternoon!”

Despite her words, she still handed him a cup of hot tea.

“The mansion is mostly in order now. I’ll have the servants purchase whatever is missing over the next two days.

“The fifteenth day of the lunar month is in two days. How about holding our housewarming banquet then?”

Wang Wenshan accepted the cup and took a sip to clear his head before replying, “You decide.”

“I knew that was what you would say!”

Lady Wang took the cup and set it on the table, then sat beside Wang Wenshan.

“Then tell me, should we invite Mingxu?”

Wang Wenshan’s expression visibly dimmed.

“Xu’er… Do you think he still blames me?”

Lady Wang answered, “You are his own maternal uncle! Could he hold a grudge against you for the rest of his life?”

“But back then…”

Lady Wang immediately interrupted.

“What about back then? Those villains attacked the Wang Family itself! What could we have done? Stayed behind and allowed ourselves to be implicated?

“Jingniang gave her life to protect the late Emperor’s wife and children. Our Wang Family and the Marquis of Northern Pacification’s Mansion were thorns in those people’s eyes!

“Besides, both our elders were still alive. If we did not flee, what were we supposed to wait for?”

“Lower your voice!”

When Wang Wenshan heard her mention the late Emperor, he hurriedly reached out to cover her mouth.

Lady Wang slapped his hand away and said fearlessly, “What are you afraid of? This is our own residence!

“I hold the indenture contracts of every servant here. Who would dare spread this outside? Do they no longer value their lives?”

Wang Wenshan lowered his hand and stared dejectedly at the rafters.

“But if we had stayed to look after Mingxu, he might not have gone to the frontier at only ten years old…

“Perhaps my brother-in-law…”

“Perhaps, perhaps! Why are you still dwelling on possibilities?

“If we had stayed, perhaps we would be dead! We might even have died before Cang Er!

“You are a scholar who cannot carry a load on your shoulders or lift one with your hands. What could you have done?

“You finally qualified as a provincial graduate, but in those chaotic times, you never even became an official. Whom could you possibly have protected?”

Madam Wang could not bear to see him like this. Her eyes reddened with anger.

“Of course we must invite Mingxu!

“Not only will we invite Mingxu, but I will send invitations to every family we knew in those days.

“If the Dongfang Family had not become the imperial family, I would send an invitation to them too!

“We did nothing wrong. Why shouldn’t we invite them?

“I want everyone to see that the once illustrious and wealthy Wang Family has returned!”

Seeing her like this, Wang Wenshan fell silent.

He did not know what he felt now.

Back then, the Cang Family and Dongfang Family had allied against the First Prince in the struggle for the throne.

The other ministers’ households had suffered little, yet members of the Cang and Dongfang families had died or been maimed.

At first, Wang Wenshan had clung to a little hope.

If the Dongfang Family truly succeeded, then through the Marquis of Northern Pacification’s Mansion, perhaps the Wang Family could claim merit for backing the future emperor.

But that very connection brought retaliation against the Wang Family. His wife lost the child she had carried for only two months.

The physician said she might never conceive again.

From that day onward, Wang Wenshan felt he had wronged his wife.

Then his younger sister died too. He became afraid. He feared that if they failed to earn merit for backing the future emperor, his entire family might be executed as rebels.

So he ran.

He ran when his nephew and Cang Er needed him most.

Afraid his father and mother would refuse to leave, he had even purchased an expensive sleeping drug that caused little harm, knocked them unconscious, and carried them away.

But once his parents reached the south, they grieved over their daughter and worried about their grandson and son-in-law. Anxiety made them ill, and within a few years, both passed away.

When they left, no one imagined the Dongfang Family—its members dead or wounded—would somehow truly succeed and place an Emperor on the throne.

While the late Emperor lived, Wang Wenshan feared punishment for fleeing and never dared return.

Now a new Emperor had ascended, and he heard Mingxu had established himself at court and become the renowned General of the Northern Pacification. Only then did he begin to feel safe.

Using the relocation of his parents’ graves as a pretext, he returned to the capital.

When he fled, Dongfang Wei had still been a child and had barely interacted with him. Surely the Emperor would not settle old accounts with him.

But Cang Er had died in battle, and Mingxu was now the sole remaining heir of the Cang Family.

Wang Wenshan felt both relieved and uneasy.

His nephew alone probably could not do anything to him. But if Mingxu truly still resented him, then given his nephew’s current position at court, Wang Wenshan’s attempt to seek office again with only the rank of provincial graduate…

Seeing his expression, Lady Wang grew frustrated by his spinelessness.

“You haven’t even seen him yet. Why think so much?

“He is your nephew. You had no choice but to leave him then. Now that you have returned, could he truly fail in his filial duty?

“We are his only relatives now. If he does not help you, whom will he help?”

She fetched his outer robe and draped it over him.

“I hear that enormous General’s Mansion still has no mistress!

“The child has not settled down even now!

“If he becomes stubborn, you, as his uncle, must educate him properly.

“Won’t he still need the Wang Family’s help with everything in the future?

“He may be young now, but once he grows older, can he truly continue alone forever?

“…”

The two discussed the matter for quite some time.

Madam Wang instructed Wang Wenshan to write the invitations, then hurried to the kitchen to check on dinner.