Chapter 87 – Invitation
Li Duan was in dire straits.
Because of the painting, both he and Lin Jue seldom left the house during this period, even the family’s new year’s gifts were all handled by Madam Lin. However, a few families insisted that he as the eldest son should go in person to pay respects, while the progress of disassembling the painting was not going well.
With considerable difficulty, they found out that there was a skilled master in Hangzhou, Master Qian, but he had already moved away to somewhere unknown. He then asked his father to help him and they invited a master from Rizhao. However, perhaps because the master’s skills were inadequate or that they were unlucky, but after the painting was separated into the original three layers, a small section of the middle layer was destroyed.
If it was any other map, it would be fine. But this was a nautical chart. Even with just a small section, it could mean the difference between life and death during the actual navigation. Without it, safe passage was not guaranteed.
Seeing that it was soon to be the Spring Festival, the Peng family sent someone with the New Year’s gifts.
Although the person who came was only a small, insignificant steward of the Peng family, when he arrived, it was done in secret and the gifts were all very ordinary items. Through the words of the steward, he could sense their urgency, and thinking further over it, it could even imply that “if your Li family cannot do it, others would be more than willing to take your place”.
The Peng family was getting impatient, and rightly so.
It has already been more than half a year since their family initiated the request to handle this matter.
After the Spring Festival was over, they needed to send the painting to the Peng family.
If they were unable to send the nautical chart to the Peng family by then, their family’s ability will be called into question.
However, they still had to find another skilled master to repair the damaged section, not mentioning how they had to further restore the painting and then send it to the Peng family.
Looking for someone to repair it has now become a major challenge.
Lin Jue was still here, and looking at the way things were going, if he continues to delay, he will not be able to return to Fujian before the Spring Festival. This matter of the nautical chart was also turning out to be much more complicated than he thought, and he could not help but get a little impatient.
“Why don’t we send this painting as a New Year’s gift to the Peng family before the New Year?” He suggested to Li Duan, “Besides, we got the painting that they wanted, and as for this tiny damaged area…… the fleet belongs to the Peng family, they probably have a way of knowing how to go around it. We can’t possibly arrange a ship and test it out right? We are joining this business on the back of the Peng family. They being the major player, even if we suffered losses, it will be them who gets the brunt of it.”
This was a little too despicable.
By doing this, the Li family’s usefulness will also diminish in the eyes of the Peng family.
Working with those tigers and wolves, you have to be more ruthless than them in order to get a foothold and obtain their respect.
Li Duan frowned deeply.
Lin Jue asked “Why don’t you just go ahead and send the New Year’s gift? Staring at the painting every day, we can’t do anything either. Think of it as taking a break.”
It was the only way.
Li Duan originally wanted to ask the Pei family first, but thinking of Pei Yan’s attitude toward their family, his heart wavered, and he decided to find Governor Tang first.
After all, Governor Tang was the main authority in Lin’an, to first respect external authorities and then honour the domestic parties was a good approach as well.
Li Duan pondered for a moment and went to visit Governor Tang.
Meanwhile, The Tang governor was quietly conversing with his trusted advisor in the study. He asked “Did you see clearly, was it really the Wu family of Huzhou?”
“It really was the Wu family of Huzhou.” When the advisor mentioned the Wu family, his voice turned into a hushed whisper, “And the one who came is also the Eldest Master of the Wu family, the patriarch.”
Governor Tang scratched his head.
The governor of Huzhou, was his fellow in the same year. Both of them became Governors in areas of relatively close proximity, and were of the same rank. Therefore they had more things in common and often came across each other in various dealings. Others perhaps would not know, but he heard the governor of Huzhou say that the Wu family’s ancestors started with grain transportation. After the daughter of the Wu family married into the Jiang family, their status rose at once. Previously, the Wu family were bandits, but have white-washed themselves from that line of work within three generations. However, murder and arson for them was still commonplace. The governor of Huzhou helped to clean up their dirty messes several times before.
The Wu family was a serious threat.
How could they have dealings with Pei Yan?
He asked, “Do you think I should go to the Pei family to give my New Year’s greetings to Pei Xiaguang?”
Governor Tang didn’t care much for PeiYan. Compared with Grand Elder Pei who passed away, PeiYan simply did not regard him as the governor at all. Thus, he would belittle him and call him “PeiYan” or “Old Third Pei” behind his back. But now that he knows that he has dealings with Huzhou’s Wu family, he didn’t dare to call him “Pei Yan” or “Old Third Pei” anymore.
Since his advisor was his most trusted confidant, he knew Governor Tang extremely well. He replied, “You must go to pay respects to Third Master Pei! Long ago, when Minister Zuo was an official in Zhejiang, he often said to be a good governor, you had to have amicable relationships with the local families. Even such a capable and formidable person like Minister Zuo made such a remark, ordinary officials like us, would naturally have to follow his example.”
When Governor Tang heard what he wanted to hear, he nodded his head in agreement and said, “Then it’s better to go earlier, lest Pei Xia Guang think I am an arrogant person. In fact, I’m the most benevolent official towards the people!”
Just as he said these words, an attendant came in and said that Li Duan had arrived with the New Year’s gifts. Although he was a little annoyed that Li Duan had disrupted his plans, the Li family was always generous with their New Year’s gifts, so he was still quite happy to meet with Li Duan.
Governor Tang exchanged a few pleasantries with Li Duan before quickly sending him away. Li Duan felt that Governor Tang was not as warm as he normally was.
He found it strange, and so once he was out of the main gate, he stopped the carriage at the corner and lifted the curtain to watch. After waiting a while, he saw governor Tang with his advisor heading off for little plum lane.
Li Duan’s heart ran cold.
Although Pei yan was only older than him by 3 or 4 years, but the distance between them is a huge chasm, others wouldn’t even mention them in the same sentence, and will always treat him as Pei Yan’s junior. In the end, it was only because the Pei family was more powerful than his.
This time, he had to find a way align himself with the Peng Family.
Li Duan sent someone to keep an eye on the Tang governor.
An hour later, he was told that the Tang governor did not get to meet Pei Yan at all, but instead was attended to by Pei Man to have some tea before sending the Tang governor away.
Li Duan looked at the square field of bamboo from the window in his study. He was filled with mixed emotions and did not know how exactly he felt about it.
PeiYan did not deliberately avoid Governor Tang, just that Governor Tang’s arrival come at an inopportune time.
The Yu family’s lacquerware store would re-open on the twelfth, and the Yu family came to send an invite to the Pei family.
Of course, Yu Bo and Yu Yuan did not think that Pei would really bother with attending such a thing, nor did they dare to think that the invite would reach Pei Yan’s desk. They only hoped that the Pei family would send an attendant to send some congratulatory cards for the opening of the store, and that their family could display it in those prominent places in the store, so that the merchants would know that the store was favoured by the Pei family. Who knew that after Yu Bo and Yu Yuan delivered the invitation to the stewards of the various families, just as they went out the door, they ran into Hu Xing.
These days, Hu Xing was really living a comfortable life.
All the New Year gifts the Pei family received, came from leading prestigious families in Jiangnan, and the people who delivered the gifts were all either Patriarchs of their respective families or those who possessed considerable authority. Most of the New Year gifts were specifically for the Third Master himself, and the rest were for the Pei family.
This clearly showed that these people sent those gifts to the Pei family, did it for Third Master, as they had a personal relationship with the Third Master.
In the beginning, he refused to listen to the original head steward’s words and obediently respected the Grand Elder’s decision. That turned out to be the best choice he made.
Therefore, when he saw Yu Bo and his son, he immediately thought of Yu Wen and his daughter, as well as the beast door ring which was placed on the bookshelf when he went to Third Master’s private study to ask for instructions.
Hu Xing, through his own careful and diligent observation over this period of time, felt that the third master was a little eccentric. For example, newly tailored clothes, although he clearly likes it, but he would keep it for at least ten days to half a month before taking it out to wear, and may even keep it for the next season. For this newly received gift to immediately appear in his private study, and even taking it along with him wherever he went, clearly showed how satisfied Pei Yan was with the Yu family’s gift.
Since he was serving Third Master, and the Yu family was favoured by the Third Master, he naturally had to show respect and honour to the Yu family as well.
“Isn’t this the Yu family eldest master?” He went up and bowed, with a concerned and affectionate smile, “Why have you came? Why didn’t you instruct the attendant to inform me? You’re being too polite!”
Yu Bo and Yu Yuan were both a bit dumbfounded.
This Pei family’s chief steward Hu often accompanied Imperial Physician Yang when checking on Madam Chen. Therefore, if chief steward Hu and the Yu family had a friendship, it should be with Yu Wen, since when have they become so close with Hu Xing? Especially Yu Bo, who had only just returned from his trip, was perplexed. Previously when he had something to ask of the Pei family, he had to try all sorts of ways to meet just any steward, not mentioning one of the chief stewards like Hu Xing.
He glanced at Yu Yuan.
Yu Yuan was also puzzled, but he knew a little more than his father and was able to think of a possible explanation.
He reminded his father in a lowered voice saying “It’s uncle”. He smiled and went up to Hu Xing and returned the bow. He explained his reasons for coming over and politely added that Hu Xing should also go over and join in the excitement when the time comes.
Hu Xing immediately agreed. He spoke with the Yu family for a while, and took it upon himself to ask them to wait and said, “I’ll go now and quickly ask third master before you go, so you don’t have to make this trip for nothing.”
Yu Bo and Yu Yuan were astonished by his words.
However, Hu Xing didn’t say anything else, as he smiled and went to the main hall and asked for the Yu Family’s invite and headed over to Pei Yan. His smiling eyes turned to slits as he greeted Pei Yan who was practicing his calligraphy. He presented the invitation to Pei Yan, and respectfully said: “The Yu family’s lacquerware store is about to be re-opened. The Eldest Master Yu and Young Master Yu have come to send you the invitation. “
The Yu family?
Pei Yan’s mind flashed to the face of Lady Yu who used the Pei family’s name to scare Lu Xin, and then thought of the beast door ring that was only worth two taels of silver.
He said coldly, “Do I need to tell you how to do your job? Surely, it should follow the family’s customary practice.”
The Pei family’s usual custom was to have the steward in charge of this matter to wrap two taels of silver and send it in a red envelope.
However, according to Grand Elder Pei, close neighbors were better than distant relatives. Since the Pei family settled in Lin’an city, they had to have friendly relationships with the noble families and the locals. In addition to the red envelope, he would also ask a few words of concern when those families sent him an invitation, and if it was a family he was closer with, he would personally come to the opening himself.
The Yu family was clearly very important and he had to follow Grand Elder Pei’s customary practice!
If he hadn’t called out to the Yu family, how could the Yu family know about Pei Yan’s decision?
Hu Xing silently applauded himself for his own ingenuity.
“Good! I’ll inform Eldest Master Yu.” He quickly left.
Pei Yan felt that there was something wrong with his response, but an attendant came to say that Tao Qing had rushed over from Guangzhou, so he didn’t think much about it and went to see Tao Qing.
Chapter 87 – Invitation
Li Duan was in dire straits.
Because of the painting, both he and Lin Jue seldom left the house during this period, even the family’s new year’s gifts were all handled by Madam Lin. However, a few families insisted that he as the eldest son should go in person to pay respects, while the progress of disassembling the painting was not going well.
With considerable difficulty, they found out that there was a skilled master in Hangzhou, Master Qian, but he had already moved away to somewhere unknown. He then asked his father to help him and they invited a master from Rizhao. However, perhaps because the master’s skills were inadequate or that they were unlucky, but after the painting was separated into the original three layers, a small section of the middle layer was destroyed.
If it was any other map, it would be fine. But this was a nautical chart. Even with just a small section, it could mean the difference between life and death during the actual navigation. Without it, safe passage was not guaranteed.
Seeing that it was soon to be the Spring Festival, the Peng family sent someone with the New Year’s gifts.
Although the person who came was only a small, insignificant steward of the Peng family, when he arrived, it was done in secret and the gifts were all very ordinary items. Through the words of the steward, he could sense their urgency, and thinking further over it, it could even imply that “if your Li family cannot do it, others would be more than willing to take your place”.
The Peng family was getting impatient, and rightly so.
It has already been more than half a year since their family initiated the request to handle this matter.
After the Spring Festival was over, they needed to send the painting to the Peng family.
If they were unable to send the nautical chart to the Peng family by then, their family’s ability will be called into question.
However, they still had to find another skilled master to repair the damaged section, not mentioning how they had to further restore the painting and then send it to the Peng family.
Looking for someone to repair it has now become a major challenge.
Lin Jue was still here, and looking at the way things were going, if he continues to delay, he will not be able to return to Fujian before the Spring Festival. This matter of the nautical chart was also turning out to be much more complicated than he thought, and he could not help but get a little impatient.
“Why don’t we send this painting as a New Year’s gift to the Peng family before the New Year?” He suggested to Li Duan, “Besides, we got the painting that they wanted, and as for this tiny damaged area…… the fleet belongs to the Peng family, they probably have a way of knowing how to go around it. We can’t possibly arrange a ship and test it out right? We are joining this business on the back of the Peng family. They being the major player, even if we suffered losses, it will be them who gets the brunt of it.”
This was a little too despicable.
By doing this, the Li family’s usefulness will also diminish in the eyes of the Peng family.
Working with those tigers and wolves, you have to be more ruthless than them in order to get a foothold and obtain their respect.
Li Duan frowned deeply.
Lin Jue asked “Why don’t you just go ahead and send the New Year’s gift? Staring at the painting every day, we can’t do anything either. Think of it as taking a break.”
It was the only way.
Li Duan originally wanted to ask the Pei family first, but thinking of Pei Yan’s attitude toward their family, his heart wavered, and he decided to find Governor Tang first.
After all, Governor Tang was the main authority in Lin’an, to first respect external authorities and then honour the domestic parties was a good approach as well.
Li Duan pondered for a moment and went to visit Governor Tang.
Meanwhile, The Tang governor was quietly conversing with his trusted advisor in the study. He asked “Did you see clearly, was it really the Wu family of Huzhou?”
“It really was the Wu family of Huzhou.” When the advisor mentioned the Wu family, his voice turned into a hushed whisper, “And the one who came is also the Eldest Master of the Wu family, the patriarch.”
Governor Tang scratched his head.
The governor of Huzhou, was his fellow in the same year. Both of them became Governors in areas of relatively close proximity, and were of the same rank. Therefore they had more things in common and often came across each other in various dealings. Others perhaps would not know, but he heard the governor of Huzhou say that the Wu family’s ancestors started with grain transportation. After the daughter of the Wu family married into the Jiang family, their status rose at once. Previously, the Wu family were bandits, but have white-washed themselves from that line of work within three generations. However, murder and arson for them was still commonplace. The governor of Huzhou helped to clean up their dirty messes several times before.
The Wu family was a serious threat.
How could they have dealings with Pei Yan?
He asked, “Do you think I should go to the Pei family to give my New Year’s greetings to Pei Xiaguang?”
Governor Tang didn’t care much for PeiYan. Compared with Grand Elder Pei who passed away, PeiYan simply did not regard him as the governor at all. Thus, he would belittle him and call him “PeiYan” or “Old Third Pei” behind his back. But now that he knows that he has dealings with Huzhou’s Wu family, he didn’t dare to call him “Pei Yan” or “Old Third Pei” anymore.
Since his advisor was his most trusted confidant, he knew Governor Tang extremely well. He replied, “You must go to pay respects to Third Master Pei! Long ago, when Minister Zuo was an official in Zhejiang, he often said to be a good governor, you had to have amicable relationships with the local families. Even such a capable and formidable person like Minister Zuo made such a remark, ordinary officials like us, would naturally have to follow his example.”
When Governor Tang heard what he wanted to hear, he nodded his head in agreement and said, “Then it’s better to go earlier, lest Pei Xia Guang think I am an arrogant person. In fact, I’m the most benevolent official towards the people!”
Just as he said these words, an attendant came in and said that Li Duan had arrived with the New Year’s gifts. Although he was a little annoyed that Li Duan had disrupted his plans, the Li family was always generous with their New Year’s gifts, so he was still quite happy to meet with Li Duan.
Governor Tang exchanged a few pleasantries with Li Duan before quickly sending him away. Li Duan felt that Governor Tang was not as warm as he normally was.
He found it strange, and so once he was out of the main gate, he stopped the carriage at the corner and lifted the curtain to watch. After waiting a while, he saw governor Tang with his advisor heading off for little plum lane.
Li Duan’s heart ran cold.
Although Pei yan was only older than him by 3 or 4 years, but the distance between them is a huge chasm, others wouldn’t even mention them in the same sentence, and will always treat him as Pei Yan’s junior. In the end, it was only because the Pei family was more powerful than his.
This time, he had to find a way align himself with the Peng Family.
Li Duan sent someone to keep an eye on the Tang governor.
An hour later, he was told that the Tang governor did not get to meet Pei Yan at all, but instead was attended to by Pei Man to have some tea before sending the Tang governor away.
Li Duan looked at the square field of bamboo from the window in his study. He was filled with mixed emotions and did not know how exactly he felt about it.
PeiYan did not deliberately avoid Governor Tang, just that Governor Tang’s arrival come at an inopportune time.
The Yu family’s lacquerware store would re-open on the twelfth, and the Yu family came to send an invite to the Pei family.
Of course, Yu Bo and Yu Yuan did not think that Pei would really bother with attending such a thing, nor did they dare to think that the invite would reach Pei Yan’s desk. They only hoped that the Pei family would send an attendant to send some congratulatory cards for the opening of the store, and that their family could display it in those prominent places in the store, so that the merchants would know that the store was favoured by the Pei family. Who knew that after Yu Bo and Yu Yuan delivered the invitation to the stewards of the various families, just as they went out the door, they ran into Hu Xing.
These days, Hu Xing was really living a comfortable life.
All the New Year gifts the Pei family received, came from leading prestigious families in Jiangnan, and the people who delivered the gifts were all either Patriarchs of their respective families or those who possessed considerable authority. Most of the New Year gifts were specifically for the Third Master himself, and the rest were for the Pei family.
This clearly showed that these people sent those gifts to the Pei family, did it for Third Master, as they had a personal relationship with the Third Master.
In the beginning, he refused to listen to the original head steward’s words and obediently respected the Grand Elder’s decision. That turned out to be the best choice he made.
Therefore, when he saw Yu Bo and his son, he immediately thought of Yu Wen and his daughter, as well as the beast door ring which was placed on the bookshelf when he went to Third Master’s private study to ask for instructions.
Hu Xing, through his own careful and diligent observation over this period of time, felt that the third master was a little eccentric. For example, newly tailored clothes, although he clearly likes it, but he would keep it for at least ten days to half a month before taking it out to wear, and may even keep it for the next season. For this newly received gift to immediately appear in his private study, and even taking it along with him wherever he went, clearly showed how satisfied Pei Yan was with the Yu family’s gift.
Since he was serving Third Master, and the Yu family was favoured by the Third Master, he naturally had to show respect and honour to the Yu family as well.
“Isn’t this the Yu family eldest master?” He went up and bowed, with a concerned and affectionate smile, “Why have you came? Why didn’t you instruct the attendant to inform me? You’re being too polite!”
Yu Bo and Yu Yuan were both a bit dumbfounded.
This Pei family’s chief steward Hu often accompanied Imperial Physician Yang when checking on Madam Chen. Therefore, if chief steward Hu and the Yu family had a friendship, it should be with Yu Wen, since when have they become so close with Hu Xing? Especially Yu Bo, who had only just returned from his trip, was perplexed. Previously when he had something to ask of the Pei family, he had to try all sorts of ways to meet just any steward, not mentioning one of the chief stewards like Hu Xing.
He glanced at Yu Yuan.
Yu Yuan was also puzzled, but he knew a little more than his father and was able to think of a possible explanation.
He reminded his father in a lowered voice saying “It’s uncle”. He smiled and went up to Hu Xing and returned the bow. He explained his reasons for coming over and politely added that Hu Xing should also go over and join in the excitement when the time comes.
Hu Xing immediately agreed. He spoke with the Yu family for a while, and took it upon himself to ask them to wait and said, “I’ll go now and quickly ask third master before you go, so you don’t have to make this trip for nothing.”
Yu Bo and Yu Yuan were astonished by his words.
However, Hu Xing didn’t say anything else, as he smiled and went to the main hall and asked for the Yu Family’s invite and headed over to Pei Yan. His smiling eyes turned to slits as he greeted Pei Yan who was practicing his calligraphy. He presented the invitation to Pei Yan, and respectfully said: “The Yu family’s lacquerware store is about to be re-opened. The Eldest Master Yu and Young Master Yu have come to send you the invitation. “
The Yu family?
Pei Yan’s mind flashed to the face of Lady Yu who used the Pei family’s name to scare Lu Xin, and then thought of the beast door ring that was only worth two taels of silver.
He said coldly, “Do I need to tell you how to do your job? Surely, it should follow the family’s customary practice.”
The Pei family’s usual custom was to have the steward in charge of this matter to wrap two taels of silver and send it in a red envelope.
However, according to Grand Elder Pei, close neighbors were better than distant relatives. Since the Pei family settled in Lin’an city, they had to have friendly relationships with the noble families and the locals. In addition to the red envelope, he would also ask a few words of concern when those families sent him an invitation, and if it was a family he was closer with, he would personally come to the opening himself.
The Yu family was clearly very important and he had to follow Grand Elder Pei’s customary practice!
If he hadn’t called out to the Yu family, how could the Yu family know about Pei Yan’s decision?
Hu Xing silently applauded himself for his own ingenuity.
“Good! I’ll inform Eldest Master Yu.” He quickly left.
Pei Yan felt that there was something wrong with his response, but an attendant came to say that Tao Qing had rushed over from Guangzhou, so he didn’t think much about it and went to see Tao Qing.
