We are introduced to Gu Yue and Gu Shan, Xie shi’s daughters. Xie shi favours Gu Yue over Gu Shan (and certainly over everyone else) to the point of being overly biased. Gu Shan is clever and reasonable; she seems like a reasonable person who is stuck in the wrong team. She is also so used to Xie shi’s partiality that it doesn’t stand out anymore. We are also introduced to Gu Cheng, Xie shi’s elder son who studies well, and Gu Gong, the reckless younger son of Xie shi.
Tao Hong rages that she couldn’t become Gu Cheng’s concubine and dies. Li pozi is sent out of the mansion. As she starts recovering, Gu Jiu’s sisters visit her. Gu Yue tries to provoke her but Gu Jiu pretends to cry at the drop of the hat, twisting her words and digging pits for her at every turn, suffering no loss. Gu Shan tries and fails to save her elder sister.
Gu Jiu recovers well enough to start paying respects to Xie shi again. Xie shi tries to give Gu Ting a beautiful maid who Gu Jiu snatches. Maternal cousins from the Xie (Xie shi‘s brother and nephew – Xie Xian) and Su (Su Zheng) families visit, bringing greater changes to the mansion.
We are introduced to Gu Yu (who plays a greater role a few hundred chapters later), a clan brother. Gu Jiu requests him to arrange Cousin Su’s yard next to Cousin Xie’s. She also recognises Jiang Yan’s – the beautiful maid – ambitious spirit and decides to give her a chance to ‘rise’ in the future. (And rise, she does.)
Su Zheng, Gu Ting and Gu Jiu have a conversation. Though Gu Ting is a musclehead, Gu Jiu and Su Zheng understand each other well without saying too much. They realise the Xie family has an agenda for dropping by.
They also find that Su Zheng was robbed on the way to the capital – he also has to write the imperial examination the next year – and he is now destitute. The Gu siblings are also poor.
The Xie brother and sister converse.
Leave a Reply