Episode 162

Going by boat meant that Song Caitang and Guan Wan had to be on the ship for more than ten days, and the ship had to dock every two to three days for supplies. The ship moved along pretty slowly, but it was comfortable.

As long as one did not get seasick and the food was good, it was fun to take a boat.

Song Caitang asked for all sorts of food to help Guan Wan take her mind off home and to give her something to look forward to. And as she had hoped, keeping Guan Wan occupied really helped. Guan Wan dominated the little kitchen on board and tried all sorts of dishes and combinations of ingredients. She had a lot of fun.

Song Caitang sat in her room and read by the window. She was either immersed in the world of the book she was reading, or she was enjoying the scenery outside. It was a relaxing time for her.

They spent the day happily doing what they liked, and at night, they would lean against each other and admire the moon and the stars.

There would be warm tea and snacks on the table and the fresh smell of the river in their nostrils as they chatted casually. The topic could be something small or something serious, about home or about the city, and sometimes they even shared ghost stories… they surprisingly shared a lot of interests.

As the days passed, Guan Wan began to look at Song Caitang like her cousin was her idol. As though she was constantly saying, “Wow, you’re amazing! You know everything!”

Song Caitang also began to realize that Guan Wan had been well taught by Guan Qing and their grandmother. Perhaps the younger girl didn’t have the talent for doing business and didn’t have any career ambitions, but she was a clever yet kind and pure girl who had her own understanding of the things around her, which made her both unique and adorable.

Having each other on the trip made them feel less lonely. The sadness they felt in the beginning had begun to fade, and perhaps, it had completely disappeared.

And once Guan Wan had gotten over her initial fun in the kitchen, she slowly grew an interest in exploring the ship.

This was a ship that belonged to the Green Gang, and Guan Qing had arranged for one of her trade caravans to take the same route to the capital, so they could all help to keep a lookout for the two young ladies.

The trade caravan were all men, so it was hard for them to get too close. As long as Song Caitang and Guan Wan were not hurt, they did not go near the girls. They didn’t want the girls to feel uncomfortable, so they would just ask if they needed anything once or twice a day.

Guan Wan grew up seeing how busy the family business made Guan Qing, so she knew that the trade caravan had a much more serious and noble mission than her. She wanted to have fun, but she knew she should not trouble the trade caravan. So, she put on a mili¹ and just ran around with her maid.

As for the members of the Green Gang…

Their own leader had been embarrassed by Guan Qing before, so they didn’t dare to do anything.

They could only pray hard that nothing happened to Guan Wan while she had fun and just watched over her from afar.

The ship was huge and the Guan’s trade caravan wasn’t the only one on board. There were many other passengers on board too. Besides cooking meals, she would roam the ship and tell Song Caitang about everything she had seen and heard at night.

Some were difficult children who threw tantrums all day, or a very shy young lady, or an auntie whose expression could scare someone to death, and one more…

One more very quiet, young man who hated talking. He was very skinny, and was skinny to the point he was ugly. Only his eyes were especially bright.

“He’s so skinny, I can see his bones! But he sticks out in the crowd, and seems… how do I describe this… He seems really lonely. Yeah, lonely! He looks like he’s been badly bullied before, but refuses to admit defeat. There’s something obstinate about him.”

“I figured that he had never eaten properly all his life, since he’s so skinny, so I gave him some of my snacks. Guess what happened?”

Guan Wan smiled proudly and said, “My cooking can overcome all things! He was very wary at first and didn’t want to accept the snacks, but when he got a whiff of the food, his nose twitched a couple of times and he couldn’t resist it. He finished the entire box!”

“Before this, he never looked at me even when I talked to him, as though he hadn’t heard me at all. But after he finished that entire box, he stared at me like a puppy that had been abandoned by the roadside… I’m sure he’s not eaten properly for a really long time… Poor thing… I’ll bring him more food tomorrow…”

After that, Guan Wan would mention this man to her at every meal.

Song Caitang began to get curious and left her cabin to look for this guy several times, but she never saw the young man that Guan Wan talked about so much. The young man who was supposedly so skinny he was ugly, the young man who looked lonely yet stubborn.

On the sixth day of the trip, the ship docked for supplies.

They had reached the city of Shouyan. It was a bustling, developed and large city.

They had completed almost half the journey and some of the passengers were feeling tired. They had arrived at a big city too, so a lot of the passengers wanted to get off the ship for a while. All of a sudden, everyone on the ship was talking about getting down.

Their conversations were filled with where to shop, what to buy, what good food to try…

And when food was mentioned, Guan Wan became interested too. She tugged at Song Caitang’s sleeve, “Cousin, why don’t we get off the ship and walk around too?”

“You want to walk around?” Song Caitang put the book she was reading face down on the table.

She had been cooped up in the boat for several days and while she didn’t feel awful, she agreed that it was good for them to take a walk, so she was pretty interested in getting off the ship too.

Since both of them were actually interested in taking a walk, there was no need to persuade each other.

Guan Wan shouted for her head maid, Xiaolan, and told her to ask when the ship was leaving so that they could get back in time. Then she instructed Qingqiao, “Quickly get us dressed in suitable clothes!”

They got ready and were about to get off the ship when a member of the trade caravan noticed them while sorting out some goods on the ship. He hesitated for a moment, but called out to them anyway, “Perhaps you ladies would like to put on a mili?”

Guan Wan turned to look at Song Caitang for her opinion.

“I hope you don’t find me a busybody, but you’d be walking around on the streets and Shouyan is a big city. Even if you didn’t do anything to cause trouble, some people might give you trouble instead…”

The man talking to them was wearing the Guan’s trade caravan uniform. He was very tanned and had rugged features. He seemed to realize that he had crossed the line, so he scratched his head and bowed as he apologized, “I’m sorry, I just noticed that everyone else was wearing one, so I thought I should mention it. I hope you don’t hold it against me.”

After that, he ran off and did not care if the girl put on a mili or not.

The two cousins thought about it for a while. They didn’t like something blocking their view, but it was true that they were in a foreign place and it was best to stay out of trouble as much as possible.

And it didn’t help that Guan Wan was so pretty…

Song Caitang got Qingqiao to head back and bring two milis out.

Once the veils were down, everything became a little blurry, but not unclear. Guan Wan played a bit with the veil and was quite happy. “The view isn’t that badly obscured, and it’s really pretty too!”

As Song Caitang and Guan Wan wore their milis and walked away from the ship, a man with shifty eyes, messy hair and clothes, and a mouthful of large, yellow teeth walked out from the shadows of the boat.

If Song Caitang and Qingqiao were here, they would have recognized him. This was the man they had saved on the streets the last time, the good for nothing who lived off extorting money from others – Mao San.

Mao San sniggered as he saw the two girls walk away.

Song Caitang, your day has finally come!

Song Caitang and Guan Wan had a lot of fun just walking around. They were very far from Luanze, so the customs, the trends and the fashion here was different from what they were used to. To the locals, this was just part of their everyday lives, but it was something novel to the girls.

Guan Wan picked up a whole pile of things for eating, playing, or using. There were things for their grandmother, things for Guan Qing, and others for their own use in the capital. She split the things into various categories and was very organized.

But while she was very organized, the servants could only carry so much.

Guan Wan began to instruct the servants, “Bring these back to the ship and come back later.”

Initially, the servants would make round trips. But after some time, they walked too far from the boat and it was too tiring for the servants to keep making round trips, so they eventually started telling the servants to bring the things back and just stay on the ship to rest.

And so… the number of people with them slowly dwindled.

Eventually, they were left with their own head maids.

Xiaolan and Qingqiao looked at each other. They both disapproved of leaving their employers alone.

One persuaded Guan Wan, “Young Mistress, if I return to the ship, who will help you to carry anything you buy after that? I’d better stay here with you. I can carry a lot, don’t worry.”

The other persuaded Song Caitang, “Young Mistress, I think we should move around together. I’m worried that something bad might happen if it’s just you and Third Young Mistress… I mean, touchwood! Touchwood! Of course nothing bad would happen to you… I shouldn’t have said that…”

Song Caitang smiled. “See? You just said that nothing bad would happen to me. So why are you worried?”

Guan Wan also insisted that Xiaolan returned to the ship. “If you’re really worried, then take the things back to the ship and come back again. We’ll just be walking around here and we won’t go anywhere else.”

And with that, they managed to convince the two maids to head back to the ship.

Guan Wan cupped her face and grinned at Song Caitang. “Sometimes, it’s really annoying to have the maids around.”

In that moment, Song Caitang understood the dilemma the rich young mistresses in storybooks often faced.

It was convenient and comfortable to have someone to wait on you all the time, but there were also times when it felt suffocating.

Everyone needed time by themselves to relax.

Before it was time for the ship to leave, Qingqiao and Xiaolan returned with two young ladies wearing milis.

One was a little tall, the other a little short, but they both carried themselves with the elegance of a daughter from a well-to-do family.

The man in charge of the Green Gang members onboard noticed them and greeted them, “Aha! Our two young mistresses have returned! Did you have fun?”

The two ladies didn’t say anything. Qingqiao nodded slightly and replied, “Thanks for asking. They had fun.”

Then, all four of them entered their cabins.

The man in charge noticed that the round faced maid seemed a little wooden today and wasn’t as perky as she normally was. Then again, she might have been scolded by her employer…

He shook his head slightly and chuckled, and didn’t think too much of it.

When he returned to his own cabin, Mao San approached him and offered the man a cigarette. “What time is the ship leaving?”

“Not yet,” the man remained expressionless.

“But the two young mistresses have returned…”

The man raised an eyebrow. “Why are you in such a hurry?”

“Well, that…” Mao San scratched his head and said, “I’ve agreed to marry this girl who’s at the next city we’re docking at, and I’ve never seen her before, so…”

The man merely chuckled and did not say anything.

Mao San offered some pieces of silver, “It’s a win-win situation for us…”

The man pushed the silver back to Mao San.

Mao San tried something else, “Shouyan is the Night Sanctum’s territory, and I heard they have a feud with the Green Gang?” He observed the man’s expression, then gulped and said, “The Night Sanctum is an unreasonable gang and are always unkind to those they don’t like. Damaging the boat or injuring people is nothing to them. You’re the guy in charge and I’m sure you’d be able to handle them, but… If the boat is damaged, the Green Gang has enough money to get a new one. But if something happens to the ladies…”

He glanced toward Song Caitang and Guan Wan’s cabins, then dropped his voice to a whisper, “I think it’ll be terrible if we wait any longer. Our leader clearly treats that businesswoman in Luanze differently…”

The man’s gaze dimmed slightly, but he did not move.

“Or perhaps the ladies are also wondering why the ship isn’t moving,” Mao San began to get a little antsy. “Everything’s in place and everyone’s back already, so why do we bother to leave only at the time we previously agreed on? If we leave now, we’d save everyone time.”

The man snuffed the cigarette out, then said slowly, “I’ll get someone to ask the ladies.”

It wasn’t convenient for him to speak to the two ladies, so he went to talk to the Guan’s trade caravan. The trade caravan sent someone to knock on their door.

“The captain would like to set sail earlier than previously agreed, is that alright with the two young mistresses?”

A few moments later, Qingqiao opened the door and nodded woodenly at the man at the door. “Young Mistress says we can set sail now.”

The man at the door could only see the pretty skirt hems of the two young ladies since the door wasn’t fully opened. He bowed and said, “I will inform the captain then.”

The ship started preparing to leave. It couldn’t just leave like that, since they had to do one final check before setting sail, so that took some time.

Mao San suddenly came running over and said anxiously to the man in charge, “Someone from the authorities is headed to the port to check the ships!”

The one thing that the Green Gang hated most was running into government officials during their trips.

They hadn’t flouted any laws, but if an official wanted to check their boat, they would end up getting delayed instead.

The man took a quick glance, then gave the order, “We can set sail now!”

He was taking care of the ship, so he was certain it was going to be alright.

The ship quickly left the dock and caused large waves in the water.

Nobody on the boat knew that after they had left the dock, an identical ship docked at the same place a few minutes later.

After the two maids returned to the ship, Song Caitang and Guan Wan did not run into any danger. They continued walking around and had a lot of fun.

When it was about time to leave, they felt bad about having fun all by themselves and turned to head back.

Thankfully, Guan Wan was good with directions, unlike Song Caitang. She could at least remember how to go back the same way they came.

But they ran into a few crowds on their way back, so they had to stand and wait by the side to let the crowd pass because they didn’t want to get stuck in the crowd.

It started getting late.

Guan Wan ended up having to pick up her skirt and dragged Song Caitang along to run back to the port. “I hope we’re not late!”

“No, we’re not,” Song Caitang assured her. “They won’t leave without us.”

And when she saw the familiar ship ahead, she smiled and said, “See? I told you they wouldn’t leave without us.”

Guan Wan patted her chest and breathed a sigh of relief. “Let’s get onto the boat quickly!”

The evening sun added a golden glow to the river’s surface. The gentle waves were cool and calm.

It was almost nighttime and everything was quiet.

A little too quiet.

Song Caitang and Guan Wan boarded the ship.