Story of Yanxi Palace, Chapter 22: Rumors

   The rumors were not only spreading among the palace maids—they were also circulating among the guards.

They had even reached the ears of Fucha Fuheng.

“Qingxi and a palace maid?” Fucha Fuheng frowned, sensing that something was off about the matter.

He knew Qingxi’s character well: cautious and prudent, never doing anything out of line. When the guards were off duty, it was common for them to indulge in wine, women, and song. Sometimes even Fucha Fuheng couldn’t refuse and had to accompany his subordinates to drink flower wine—but in all those times, he had never once seen Qingxi among them.

For a man like that to be rumored to have seduced a palace maid? Fucha Fuheng couldn’t help shaking his head. “Who has Qingxi offended, that someone would spread such a rumor to harm him?”

The guard who had come to report the gossip hurriedly said, “No one’s framing him—I saw it with my own eyes.”

Fucha Fuheng frowned. “What exactly did you see?”

“A few days ago, while we were patrolling the Imperial Garden, a very proper-looking little palace maid passed by and quietly slipped something to Qingxi.” The guard chuckled with a slyness to the face. “I wasn’t the only one who saw it—several others did too.”

Since there were eyewitnesses, it probably wasn’t something fabricated out of thin air.

But one-sided accounts can mislead. Fucha Fuheng had no intention of believing only one version of events. He questioned the man carefully—especially about the little palace maid’s appearance and attire—then finally stood up. “All right. I’ll go ask Qingxi myself.”

When he arrived at the guards’ quarters, it happened to be Qingxi’s rest time. Several colleagues were teasing him nearby, and the topic was precisely the palace maid affair. Fucha Fuheng’s heart stirred. He withdrew the foot he had just stepped forward with, concealed himself behind the door, and quietly listened.

“Hey, Qingxi—you’ve got game! Snagging such a pretty little palace maid without making a sound!” One guard slung an arm around Qingxi’s shoulders, winking exaggeratedly.

“You had your head down the whole time—how do you even know she’s pretty?” another disagreed. “Maybe when she looks up, her beard’s thicker than yours.”

“Get lost—don’t be sour grapes just because you can’t have her,” the first guard shot back. “Any girl selected to enter the palace—how many of them aren’t good-looking? The ugly ones don’t even make it through the Forbidden City gates! Besides, a girl in the bloom of sixteen or seventeen—just tidy her up a little, and how could she not be beautiful? Right, Qingxi?”

Qingxi was squeezed in the middle by them, his face full of embarrassment. He could only reply stiffly, “The ancestors’ rules do not permit us to have improper relations with palace maids. As for me and her…”

“Hey, I thought you were going to say something serious!” One of the guards burst into loud laughter and clapped him on the shoulder. “This kind of thing—as long as no one reports it, the officials won’t investigate. Palace maids will be released sooner or later anyway. If you like her, just take her as a concubine later! That’s taking a ‘nafu qi hei’ (Manchu: concubine), not marrying a ‘sarigan’ (Manchu: wife). What’s there to be afraid of!”

Fucha Fuheng could listen no longer. He stepped out from behind the door, his voice cold and stern: “Qingxi!”

The teasing laughter in the room instantly died. Everyone, including Qingxi, hurriedly stood up. “Lord Fucha…”

Fucha Fuheng walked up to Qingxi and looked at this man—who had always been known for his upright and clean conduct—with a pained and disappointed expression. Slowly he said, “Palace maids and guards are forbidden from private exchanges. This is palace regulation. You should have known it from the very first day you entered the palace!”

Qingxi bowed his head under the rebuke.

Fucha Fuheng took a deep breath and extended his hand. “Hand it over.”

When Qingxi remained motionless for a long moment, he repeated more forcefully, “Hand over whatever that palace maid gave you!”

Qingxi looked at him with a complicated expression for a while, then let out a faint sigh. He reached into his robes, took out an object, and placed it in the open palm extended toward him.

Everyone had assumed it would be an embroidered handkerchief with a lady’s name, or perhaps a sword tassel stained with lipstick, or even a precious lock of hair cut from her temple—symbolizing “binding our hair together as husband and wife, never to part until our heads turn white.”

But when eyes turned to look, what they saw was… a stone.

A perfectly ordinary, grayish-white stone, the kind one could pick up anywhere in the Imperial Garden, with nothing special about it at all.

One of the guards who knew Qingxi well wanted to help him out. Seeing this, he laughed and said, “Giving a stone means ‘my heart is as firm as stone’—oh dear, so you’ve been rejected? Hahaha!”

It had to be said that Qingxi was well-liked. As soon as he laughed, the others joined in. Laughter filled the guard station; everyone seemed eager to treat the whole thing as a joke and let it pass.

“Silence!” Fucha Fuheng said coldly.

The laughter stopped at once. Everyone cautiously studied Fucha Fuheng’s expression. This made him feel almost amused inside—did they really think he was the kind of person who would indiscriminately start beating people with a board the moment he walked in?

…Yes. He was exactly that kind of person.

“Everyone will recite the Guard Regulations one hundred times!” Fucha Fuheng ordered, hands clasped behind his back. “Anyone who cannot recite them perfectly will not eat dinner!”

“Ah? Lord Fucha!”

“No, please…”

“Mercy!”

Wails of misery filled the guard station, but Fucha Fuheng remained unmoved.

This was all for their own good. If he let the matter slide lightly, they would develop a false sense of security and might one day actually commit some real disgraceful act.

A hundred recitations were a moderate punishment—and a reminder to everyone.

After leaving the guard station, Fucha Fuheng couldn’t help but open his palm again on the way back. He gazed at the small stone in his hand and murmured, “And that palace maid… who exactly is she? And what does this thing mean? Could it really be ‘my heart is as firm as stone’?”

The commotion in the guard station wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t small either. When no one was deliberately trying to conceal it, it naturally couldn’t escape the eyes of those who were paying attention.

“Auntie! Auntie!” Jinxiu knocked on Aunt Fang’s door, her face full of excitement. “I found out who that guard is!”

“Oh?” Aunt Fang sat up on the bed. “Who?”

“His name is Qijia—Qingxi. I heard the two of them not only exchanged private gifts, but also swapped love tokens…” Jinxiu embellished and dramatized the events in the guard station, then added, “I also found out that he’s on duty every five days, guarding the Qianqing Gate. Today must be the day they secretly arranged to meet!”

“The people in the Imperial Guard quarters already know about those two. It’s basically a done deal now,” Aunt Fang said with a cold laugh. “You keep a close eye on her for me. I reckon it won’t be many more days before those two are going to cause a major incident!”

Jinxiu didn’t need Aunt Fang to tell her—she was already watching Wei Yingluo like a hawk.

Yet no matter how closely she watched, she never once caught Wei Yingluo in the act of meeting a man privately. Several times Aunt Fang pressed her for a report, and all she could offer were faint traces and suspicious clues.

But weren’t those faint traces enough to prove something?

“Ugh!” In the palace maids’ dining hall, the food had just been served when Wei Yingluo suddenly covered her mouth and rushed toward the doorway, retching violently.

Jixiang quickly brought the dish of vegetables up to her nose, sniffing at it like a small animal for a long while before asking in confusion, “It doesn’t smell spoiled… Sister Yingluo, do you just not like fish?”

Today’s meal was excellent—there was both fish and meat. Especially the bowl of fish soup each person received: the broth was milky white, the fish flesh had almost melted into it, the bones softened by long simmering so they could be swallowed whole. It was incredibly fresh and fragrant, lingering on the lips and teeth.

Palace maids rarely got to eat meat, but fish was even rarer—not because fish was more expensive, but because eating too much could leave a fishy taste in the mouth, which might displease their masters.

Everyone treasured this rare chance—everyone except Wei Yingluo.

“…Mm, I don’t really like fish,” Wei Yingluo replied, turning back with a strained smile at Jixiang. “You can have mine.”

Jixiang was delighted. “Sure, sure! Then I’ll give you my green beans.”

Just as they were exchanging plates, a voice suddenly cut in from the side: “Is your stomach upset? My sister-in-law was like that when she was pregnant—everything she ate made her want to throw up.”

Wei Yingluo’s face froze. She turned toward the speaker and said, “Last time Noble Consort Hui bestowed quite a few lotus-root-flour dumplings. I ate too many by accident and my stomach hasn’t been right since. It’s nothing serious.”

Jinxiu smiled but said nothing. Inside, however, she scoffed—

Lotus-root-flour dumplings? That was three months ago, old news. Even if they were hard to digest, they couldn’t possibly still be causing trouble now!

Could it really be…?

Jinxiu’s gaze drifted casually across Wei Yingluo’s abdomen.

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