Ch. 37: Outsider

"Madam, your face…" a close maid whispered. Madam Chu, the Duchess of Gao, and mother of one of the girls kneeling on her mother-in-law's floor smoothed out her face.

A calming incense at odds with the harried message she had heard from her daughter's maid had sent her rushing from Huiyun Courtyard. Her steps were swift, remnants of her days growing up in a military family while they were posted at the border, that only the quickest of maids could keep up.

Nonetheless, her steps had been measured and even. When she had swept into Old Madam Ning's a few minutes prior with a majestic presence, it gave Lady Ning a sense of foreboding she hadn't felt in a long time and for Ning Caiyue, a sense of glee.

The woman who was her mother in this world did not love her as much as she loved her eldest daughter, Ning Cailing, and her son, the heir to the title of the Duke of Gao. This was something Ning Caiyue understood well. But as she wasn't the woman's true daughter, she didn't mind very much. As long as Madam Chu gave Ning Caiyue face and defended her during such instances, it was enough. She knew that she was being sent to the palace because Madam Chu didn't want Ning Cailing to suffer. That was also fine as it aligned with her interests, which were currently in jeopardy.

"Mother," Ning Caiyue called tearfully from where she knelt. She wasn't making a scene like Ning Caixin, whose belligerence had already angered Old Madam Ning in the brief time all 3 girls had been kneeling. Instead, it was weak and pitiful, like a lost pet.

"Yue'er," her mother replied with a tone of reassurance. Madam Chu went to sit down at the highest seat to Old Madam Ning's left after greeting her elderly mother-in-law, establishing dominance over the room through her rank and prestige. Shen Meifeng could feel the woman's piercing eyes settle upon her even though her own eyes were trained on the floor.

"Are you here to interfere?" Old Madam Ning asked.

"I wouldn't dare, Mother," the First Madam respectfully replied. Old Madam Ning nodded.

"Good." The sole word made Madam Chu bristle, but she managed to keep her ire to herself. It seemed that she was justified to be wary of her long-lost sister-in-law and her fox-like daughter. Ever since they had returned, she had not slept properly at night. She knew what sort of family she had married into, understood better than most the cruelty that was within their bones even as they humbly set up porridge stations in poor neighborhoods for a good reputation and maintained their prestige amongst other noble clans.

"What has happened? 4th Miss has just recovered from an illness. If she is forced to kneel for too long, it will toss her delicate body and she will no longer be able to be filial to you, Mother," Madam Chu calmly inquired.

This did not arouse any pity in Old Madam Ning, who looked at the 3 kneeling girls without any fluctuating emotions in her eyes. She stabbed out the crux of the matter with a few short words, taking a sip of tea as she allowed everyone in the room to digest it.

"They have forgotten which last name they bear," the old woman said in a solemn tone.

Ning Caiyue shivered behind the handkerchief she was dabbing at her eyes with. Ning Caixin sucked in a breath as if she were about to protest, but one look from her mother, the Third Madam, forced her to release it. Even her softspoken and tenderhearted mother thought she was at fault. She was a precocious girl, Ning Caixin, and accustomed to getting her way in most regards unless she was competing against the beloved Ning Cailing. It was rare that she had to swallow her words, making this a situation she would remember for years to come.

It wasn't just the kneeling girls who were frightened by Old Madam Ning's words. Lady Ning felt her heart tremble when she heard what her mother said, remembering an occasion many years before when the steward at the front gate had said the same to her when she had begged to return home. She knew without a doubt that her mother's deliberate words had also been for herself. The once formidable Pushan Nun now found herself teetering between her heartless mother and a feral daughter.

Ning Caiyue was the first to respond. Letting out a weak cough, she quickly admitted fault. "Grandmother, we were wrong. We shouldn't have been so curious about our younger cousin's childhood outside the capital. As girls who grew up in the boudoir we are able to eat well and dress well because of our family. We shouldn't be so curious about outsiders," she concluded.

Her words were woven with truth and lie, weaving a tapestry that very clearly left Lady Ning and Shen Meifeng out of the image. Madam Chu nodded at her daughter's words, finding no fault in what she had said. However, Lady Ning did not take kindly to being told she wasn't part of the family, even though in her heart she had long known this to be true.

Lady Ning's heart bled as she tearfully asked her mother, "So in Mother's eyes, we are outsiders?"

Old Madam Ning replied, not to her, but to Ning Caixin, Ning Caiyue, the still dripping Shen Meifeng.

"You are all my granddaughters. You all represent our clan." She heaved a long sigh and her most faithful attendant, Ruan Momo, walked to her side. She had the same austere look as Old Madam Ning, a calm lake that hid great depth beneath it.

"Old Madam Ning it is time for your medicine," she calmly interjected. It signalled to everyone in the greeting hall that the situation, brief as it had been, was over. But before anyone to let out a sigh of relief, Old Madam Ning cast one more glance across the room.

"You all need to learn to get along. Spend the night kneeling at our ancestral shrine, perhaps that will teach you that the character Ning cannot be written in two strokes."

"Old Madam!" Madam Chu chirped, rising from her chair and using the wrong address for her mother-in-law in her haste.

Old Madam Ning waved her away with a hand, one delicately adorned with an emerald ring that winked in the muted lighting of Yinxue Garden.

"I'm tired. I'm going to rest," she announced. This sealed the First Madam's lips, as demanding anything else of her mother-in-law at this time would result in her being deemed unfilial in the eyes of others.

"Sending off, Mother," the First Madam respectfully said through gritted teeth along with the Third Madam, bowing with everyone else in the room as Old Madam Ning slowly ambled out of Yixin Courtyard's main hall with the help of Ruan Momo.

Madam Chu's anger had nearly gotten the better of her, a flaw from her youth that her own mother had tried and failed to educate out of her before she was married. Her mother was right to fear for her, as sometimes that rage would blind her from certain nuances, nuances that the Third Madam had already noticed from where she sat at the very end of the row of chairs.

Third Madam, much like the Second Madam, was a meek woman who hardly made noise in the rear yard, having ceded all household management to First Madam very early on after she realized she could not keep up with the firecracker that she had for a sister-in-law. But what could she do? Her husband was born from a concubine of the previous master. He was destined to forever be overshadowed by the 2 legitimate sons the Old Madam had birthed. And although the Old Madam had always been fair to her twin daughters, Third Madam had long understood that she couldn't overstep, otherwise there would be a price to pay. Her husband's mediocre career and her lack of a son were evidence of that.

While she smiled demurely and gathered up her daughter to make sure she ate before she knelt, Ruan Momo's voice sounded behind her.

"They will all go to the temple directly from here." Old Madam's words came out of the old maid's mouth.

"This is too-! Yes, Ruan Momo," First Madam sputtered, barely catching herself. Ruan Momo enjoyed much of Old Madam Ning's prestige and everyone in the house had to give her face, even the Lord Duke himself.

In this way, Ning Caixin, Ning Caiyue, and the nearly dry Shen Meifeng all found themselves kneeling in the dreary space full of tablets bearing the character 'Ning'. Candles flickered, tempers flared.

"This is nonsense! It is all your fault!" Ning Caixin scolded fiercely, releasing the bad breath that had been pent up in her chest when she had faced her grandmother. "Grandmother must know that too otherwise she wouldn't have made you kneel with us," she further gloated.

Within the less-than-roomy space, Ning Caiyue knelt the furthest away from the drafty entrance, citing her physical weakness when they'd first entered. Ning Caixin was in the middle, and Shen Meifeng was on the outside. But it was as if Ning Caixin was not there as Shen Meifeng's gaze moved past Ning Caixin to fixate on Ning Caiyue.

The transmigrated girl could see the question that hung in Shen Meifeng's dark eyes.

"Is there something happening in the capital soon?" Shen Meifeng inquired.

"Hmph! You really are from the countryside. Who doesn't know that there will be a palace draft soon?" Ning Caixin barked. Ning Caiyue winced at Ning Caixin's words, even as Shen Meifeng tapped her chin in thought.

It seemed to Ning Caiyue that her insidious cousin from afar hadn't known either why Old Madam Ning had allowed them to stay. But regardless, she didn't want to encourage the girl to think she would have a chance.

Ning Caiyue cleared her throat. "My good cousin," she said in a soft, watery voice that seemed to hold only the best of intentions. "The draft is a nationwide event where every unmarried girl from an official household enters the palace and is rigorously inspected and tested to meet the highest standard in etiquette and skill. You must be able to follow the three obediences and four virtues and understand the four books for women. Many of the official's daughters who will enter have been preparing their entire lives and most of them will not be able to enter."