Perfect Encounter - Chapter 7.1
PROOFREAD BY AFREANA
Chapter 7
After a while, Big Long said: ”There are neither witnesses nor physical evidence to prove that your words are true. You say the granary will be burned, but the granary is fine. You say that Xu Matchmaker is suspicious, but Xu Matchmaker does not behave abnormally.”
An Ruochen gritted her teeth: ”What will it take for the General to believe me?”
“I heard that Qian Pei came to your house a few days ago. What did he say to your father?”
He was still suspicious of their An family. If that’s the case, then her every move is like a spy. An Ruochen pondered and replied, “I didn’t hear the details, but my father called me when I was enjoying the flowers and tea in the plum garden. Master Qian stayed at my house for half a day and then left. I heard it was to discuss the store’s opening. Last time, the general honored my father. He earned enough face and became an important person in the city. He wanted to strike while the iron was hot to open the store quickly and earn a lot of money. When they discussed the matter, my brother, An Ronggui, and my second mother, Mrs. Tan, were both on the sidelines, with maids and servants also present, waiting for them. Master Qian has another residence in Zhonglan City and will stay there for a while. If the general wants to ask whether there is anything suspicious about them, I don’t know. I only know that my father is a man of profit and Master Qian is a man of lust, and they made no secret of this when they met.”
“The price of jade is getting higher. My father thought it could be a profitable line of business and has been trying to find a way to make it happen. The entire Pingnan County knows Master Qian has the most access to South Qin. My second mother’s family is from Fu’an County, so she asked them for a way to introduce my father to Master Qian. My father sent gifts and two maids, but Master Qian never relented. Later, Master Qian said if the two families could be closer, he would be at ease to help my father with the arrangements. My father agreed to marry me to Master Qian as a second wife.”
“Then he hired Xu Matchmaker to arrange the marriage?”
“Yes.” An Ruochen looked at Big Long and suddenly felt the General was willing to trust her. Otherwise, he would not have talked to her this much. “General.” She said bravely, “If I can help the General find out some information, can the General help me leave home?”
“I have already answered this, no.”
An Ruochen bit her lip and said again, “If the General wants to catch the big fish, you definitely need helpers. General is worried that if the government intervenes, it will scare the culprit and break off the Xu Matchmaker connection. I am the best candidate to do this job. However, since I am willing to risk my life for the General, naturally, I have to ask for a reward.”
“Miss An, if you want to negotiate about bargaining chips, there are some things you have to understand. First of all, you do not have the status to make demands from me. If you threaten me with military matters, I can punish you. Secondly, your hands are empty and you can only rely on verbal efforts, without any advantage. In addition, under the current circumstances, how do you think I can trust you? As I said earlier, I did not find any suspicious things at Xu Matchmaker’s place, and the granary was not put in danger, while I caught you running away from home. You reported this information in desperation. If I suspect you lied to keep the matter of running away from being exposed, it will be reasonable and justified. You’ve been thinking about the law and regulations for some days, but you’ve come to ask me to help you escape. Think about it, doesn’t this look like a trap?”
“A trap?”
“I am a military general. I am here to guard the border, but instead I am to interfere in other people’s family affairs, robbing people’s daughters and snatching other people’s fiancées. If this matter got exposed, the lightest punishment I would have to face would be a loss of rank, while the heaviest punishment would be imprisonment. If I promised to help you, I would have fallen right into your hands.”
An Ruochen said, “I absolutely won’t think that way.”
“You just blackmailed me, remember?”
An Ruochen’s mouth opened wide, dumbfounded.
Big Long looked at her and said: “Also, have you ever thought about how you’re going to obtain information from Xu Matchmaker? That matchmaker is used to seeing different expressions as she goes to different families. Her ability to read people’s faces is good. She has secured many marriages of big families, officials, and common people, and traveled all over the city. She must be very good at everything. She could ask about the family’s circumstances and history. Find out a lot of things. This is why she can be a spy and take the opportunity to control some girls through marriage proposals. She is stronger than you in her ability to spy. You live in a deep boudoir. How many people have you met and how many things have you gone through? How can you deal with her?”
An Ruochen couldn’t say anything. She looked at Big Long, confused.
“Stand up. The money was originally yours, take it. Think about what I said.”
An Ruochen didn’t know what else to do for a while. She thanked Big Long and walked out with knitted brows.
“By the way, there is one more thing.”
An Ruochen stopped in her tracks.
“When you are on the run, do you always have to bind your chest? Do you think it’s convenient?”
“!!!” Isn’t this talk out of line? General!
“This way, others can see your intentions from the change in your body shape.”
“……” So him staring at the places he shouldn’t from time to time, was it because he was studying her intentions? An Ruochen’s face turned red, but she couldn’t be angry.
“If you want to be successful, you can’t only want to be convenient.” Big Long finished and waved his hand, “You can go.”
An Ruochen gritted her teeth and walked outside to find her second sister. Halfway through, her facial temperature and mind calmed down a lot. Then she reacted, eh, just now the general said all those things, was he instructing her?
An Ruochen and her second sister went back home. On the way, An Ruoxi was still in the midst of the excitement, pulling An Ruochen’s hand all the way and talking endlessly. From the moment they stepped into the Purple Cloud House until they left, what they saw and who they met, and what they said, in An Ruoxi’s opinion, were all friendly and beautiful.
An Ruochen was distracted while quietly looking outside the carriage curtain. The general sent someone to monitor the Xu Matchmaker. He must have sent someone to monitor her as well. There was nothing unusual on the way, but when they neared home, she found something. There was a candy seller at the street corner and a tea stall outside the side door to the An residence.
Could it be them? An Ruochen was not sure. She took a few more looks and paid close attention.
Over the next few days, An Ruochen struggled to figure out Big Long’s mind. He questioned her but did not arrest her, put on a cold face but talked a lot. What exactly is his meaning? If she was useful to him, would he help her?
An Ruochen tried to go in and out of the residence, sometimes purposely going in the direction of Xu Matchmaker’s place or towards Ping Hu East Lane, and she found a customer at the tea stall following her. She did not see him when she was going out, but she saw him sitting in the tea stall drinking tea yesterday. When she was almost at Ping Hu East Lane, she saw this man looking at a store sign not far from her. She pulled her maid and pretended to enter a store, then saw the man walk past the store and stop again not far in front.
An Ruochen was sure she was indeed being watched and there should be more than one person. But it was someone sent by the general, so she didn’t panic. It’s good they are watching her movements, so they can tell the General that she is innocent. Even the Xu Matchmaker did not show any abnormalities in her behavior, so she certainly could not.
An Ruochen found another opportunity to chat with Lu Daniang when the latter came to deliver vegetables, to confirm whether she managed to explain everything to the house’s owner in Ping Hu East Lane.
“Don’t worry. I met him yesterday and talked about it again. He said you can rest assured that this is not a big deal. No one has actually started to live in the house, and who would know someone had paid for it? But, two days ago, someone came to ask about the house and said they wanted to rent it, but since the house has been deserted for too long, the person was afraid of bad luck. They asked who had rented the house before. Old Chen stayed alert and answered that no one had rented it, explaining that it was cleaned from time to time, and it looked nice, not deserted. The man then left, saying he would think about it. Old Chen also complained he didn’t know who was messing with the house, but the lock was broken, and he had to pay for it again.”
An Ruochen secretly thought someone must have come to check the house after she left that day. This thought made her a bit scared, she would have been caught in the act if she left half a step later.
Lu Daniang wanted to say goodbye but suddenly remembered: “By the way, Miss, I didn’t think it through earlier and didn’t inquire about the condition of the empty house next door. Yesterday, I heard from Old Chen that another person had come to ask who the owner of the house next door was and said he wanted to rent it. Old Chen knew it was the old house of Xu Matchmaker, but later she had enough money and moved to a bigger house. She has never taken care of that dilapidated house and did not intend to rent it out. If you’re worried about the Xu Matchmaker coming in and out of there and that’s why you no longer want to rent the house, please forgive me, it’s my negligence.”
An Ruochen thanked her politely and said it was just her friend who had changed her mind and it had nothing to do with the neighboring house. Lu Daniang nodded her head after hearing this and said goodbye.
An Ruochen was sure Lu Daniang knew she was lying but did not expose it and was still willing to help her. An Ruochen sighed in her heart. She guessed that out of the two groups inquiring about the houses one should be Xu Matchmaker’s group, and the other may be the government’s people. Maybe after she told the general the address of the rented house, he sent someone to check it out. But the fact that the adjacent house is the old house of Xu Matchmaker, is not suspicious by itself. If she has a nice house but secretly rents a small old house, you can say there’s something to question her about, but now that the house turned out to be originally her’s, one could not say that there is anything wrong.
An Ruochen was worried and wondered what could be done to keep the Xu Matchmaker from being suspicious on the one hand and to pry information from her on the other.