Chapter 499 - Public Reputation
She didn’t want to be pretty; she just wanted to be like an ordinary person. She didn’t want to wear a face veil whenever she went out. She didn’t want to worry about scaring little children with her face because the wind blew away said face veil!
Yu Wanqing was quite satisfied with this courtyard. It was secluded and serene, which made it a perfect place for her to recuperate. There weren’t many flowers and plants in the courtyard, and the courtyard was also decorated in a simple manner. Older Sister Yu said that this place was suitable for her to live, so she decided to live in this courtyard.
Yu Xiaocao prescribed her some medicinal cuisine that would help her recuperate her body. There was a small kitchen in the courtyard that her maids could use to brew medicine and make tisanes. Lady Yu loved her daughter, so she sent the cook that was most experienced with making medicinal cuisine over to her daughter. In addition to brewing medicine for her daughter, the cook could also make some foods to help recuperate her daughter’s body.
Because Yu Wanqing’s face injury was quite serious, Xiaocao increased the concentration of the mystic-stone water in her prescriptions. It was said that an extremely high concentration of the mystic-stone water could ‘bring the dead alive and knit together the bones that had been broken’. It was unnecessary to go into details of how powerful it was. Yu Wanqing’s face recovered very quickly, and the appearance of her face changed from day to day.
On the first day, her face was no longer itchy or painful. On the second day, the festering pus on her wounds began to close up, and a thin layer of scabs had faintly formed over the wounds. On the third day, eczema started to disappear and the red rash gradually faded. Her face was originally red and swollen, but now, the original color of her skin could be seen on some parts of her face. On the fourth day, the scabs on the festering wounds began to fall off, exposing the tender and delicate red skin underneath...
When Lady Yu finished handling the affairs of the estate in the mornings, she came to accompany her daughter in the afternoons. When she saw the miraculous changes on Yu Wanqing’s face, Lady Yu couldn’t help but burst into tears. She held Yu Xiaocao’s hand and thanked her incessantly. She told Xiaocao that it was all thanks to her that her daughter was now going to have a second chance in life and that she was the great benefactor of the Yu Family.
The left assistant minister of the Ministry of Appointments had taken office for less than a year. In the past, he used to be an outsider compared to the other high-ranking officials. Everyone in the capital knew that the left assistant minister had a daughter that was reaching maidenhood, but very few people had seen her. Otherwise, Xiaocao wouldn’t have been mistaken for her when she participated in the flower war banquet. The Yu Family always told other people that their daughter was unwell and was unable to have visitors.
However, the people who had a good relationship with Left Assistant Minister Yu knew about the skin condition of Yu Wanqing’s face. In addition to feeling sympathy for him, the other families wanted to enhance their relationship with the left assistant minister, so they would persuade their daughters to become closer with the left assistant minister’s daughter.
But after the sweet and delicate young ladies saw Yu Wanqing’s face, they started treating her like a malicious spirit. They refused to accompany her, let alone become her friend. Fortunately, these young ladies were not people who liked to kick others when others were down nor were they the type to gossip. As a result, Yu Wanqing’s story did not spread throughout the capital. Everyone thought that the left assistant minister’s daughter was weak and sickly. Of course, there were also some people that said behind their backs that Young Lady Yu was arrogant and looked down on other people, so she was unwilling to become friends with them.
Yu Wanqing went to ‘Blossoming Beauty’ to nurse the skin on her face and Lady Yu didn’t conceal the truth. When several madams politely asked about her daughter, Lady Yu told them about her daughter’s current situation. The madams were very curious about ‘Blossoming Beauty’ and wondered if it was as magical as Lady Yu had described it. Could it really restore a young lady’s appearance to normal even when many famous doctors were helpless and unable to cure Lady Yu’s daughter? As a result, many noble households in the capital began to silently pay attention to the beauty club’s movements.
Yu Wanqing lived in the ‘Blossoming Beauty’ beauty and health spa for a month. During that time, the eczema and the blisters on her face had practically all disappeared, leaving only the areas that originally had more severe wounds with a redder skin tone. The excess moisture inside her body was nearly gone due to medicinal meals, fire cupping , and gua sha treatments. Her immunity had increased, so her skin’s resistance to allergens also increased. If she avoided overexposure to her allergens, then her skin condition wouldn’t flare up again.
Originally, Yu Wanqing’s symptoms had improved significantly after twenty days of treatment. She could’ve gone home and nursed herself back to complete health. Yu Xiaocao provided her with anti-allergic flower tea to drink daily and skin care products that she needed to use daily. However, Yu Wanqing feared that she would not be able to properly take care of herself after returning home and, as a result of that, all their previous efforts would go to waste. So, she insisted that she wanted to live in the courtyard until her skin was completely cured.
It was just like she was being hospitalized because she did nothing every day. The cost of living in that courtyard was twenty taels a day. In addition to the skin care, body detoxification, and the medicinal meals, her daily cost of living exceeded five hundred taels of silver per day. When Yu Xiaocao said that her face could be cured, Lady Yu clenched her teeth and recharged fifty thousand taels at the spa and obtained a gold membership card.
Although Minister Yu was born from a humble family, Lady Yu’s maternal family was rich. When Lady Yu married him, Minister Yu had already passed the imperial palace examinations and had taken second place. Lady Yu’s maternal family was very pleased with the results, so the dowry they provided was very rich and generous. It was said that the procession of the dowry alone filled up five kilometers of the road. The dowry also consisted of thousands of acres of fertile fields in Jiangnan, dozens of prosperous shops in the capital, and two hundred thousand taels in banknotes.
At Lady Yu’s maternal home, her family only had two children: Lady Yu and Lady Yu’s older brother. Her brother was over ten years older than her, so she grew up spoiled by the family. Because she was her brother’s only sister, her brother also doted on her and spoiled her. Lady Yu was also good at making money and managing the estate’s finances, and under her care, the Yu Family prospered over the years. Now, the Yu Family was not lacking in money at all. This was also the reason why Lady Yu was able to fork out fifty thousand taels of silver in one sitting.
Every product and service in “Blossoming Beauty” had a price tag. People like them had to first recharge money first on their cards before they were able to buy products or receive services in ‘Blossoming Beauty’. Every customer had a record of their account status in the shop's record-keeping book. The record-keeping book had all the information, such as what the customer bought and how much they spent that day. It was all clearly recorded in an organized table.
When Lady Yu came to pick up her daughter to go home, there was only a little over twenty thousand taels left in her gold membership card. Over the month, the money was not only spent on Yu Wanqing’s skin condition, but Lady Yu also spent a large sum in the shop. For example, she bought medicinal tea for hair care, wrinkle-reducing products, and facial and shoulder physiotherapy that was by the spa portion of the shop.
Therefore, at the celebration party hosted for her daughter, the noble matrons at the party enviously said that her skin looked much healthier and she appeared younger! When these madams learned that Lady Yu had been receiving care from ‘Blossoming Beauty’, they all inquired about the price and effects of their products and services.
When they learned that the mother and daughter had nearly spent thirty thousand taels of silver in one month at the shop, many of them were disheartened. Not everyone was as rich as Lady Yu. Facial treatments and body physiotherapy treatments at the spa were incredibly expensive, but they could afford to buy a few skincare products to try out at home. Those who were more wealthy would also buy some herbal and flower teas to maintain their beauty from the inside out. Maintaining their beauty from the inside out was much more effective than just applying skin care products on the face. Even so, it would cost them at least two to three thousand taels a month!
Some of the madams who wanted to be cheap had invited professional doctors over who were experts on Chinese medicine to find out the ingredients in the flower and herbal tea. They managed to formulate part of the tea, but no matter how much they tried, the tea they made could not achieve the same effect that the tea from ‘Blossoming Beauty’ could attain. After using the products from ‘Blossoming Beauty’, the results could be seen within a month and the effects were remarkable. The self-made products had little effect, and some people even had side effects after taking it. When the news came out, the madams and young ladies did not dare to try alternative products.
Afterwards, ‘Blossoming Beauty’ received many new clients who had pimples and acne on their face. After all, it was normal for young ladies to have a few pimples and acne on their face during puberty. However, the noble young ladies of the capital all went to the spa to treat it as they feared that their faces would develop rashes just like Miss Yu.
Ever since Yu Wanqing’s face was cured, the kaffir lilies and other plants that caused her allergies had been completely cleared out of the residence. She started paying attention to her diet and skin care, and, as a result, she never developed an allergic reaction again. The left assistant minister’s daughter finally presented herself before everyone else in the capital.
Yu Wanqing had a petite and well-proportioned figure, an oval face, big eyes, a tall nose bridge, a small mouth, and skin as fair and delicate as a piece of white jade. She was a remarkably beautiful young lady. If people examined her appearance closely, then they would notice that her appearance was about 30% similar to Yu Xiaocao’s face. They were both beautiful ladies with small faces and large eyes.
Yu Wanqing became more and more confident and was no longer afraid of others knowing about the previous state of her face. During parties and celebrations hosted for young ladies, she would generously satisfy the other young ladies’ curiosity and tell them about the miserable state her face was previously in. After learning about the before and after of her face, the noble young maidens in the capital were even more convinced by the effectiveness of ‘Blossoming Beauty’s’ services and products.
The few noble young ladies that had seen her face before it was cured respected Yu Wanqing a lot more when they saw that she didn’t hesitate to talk about her past to others. Their attitude towards her became more friendly. The young ladies’ families were already close. Now that their daughters had become close friends, the families’ relationship became even closer.
Many people asked the young ladies who had seen Yu Wanqing’s face before to confirm her story. Looking at Yu Wanqing’s fair and soft skin and her rosy complexion, it was hard for them to believe that just over a month ago, her face would easily scare people to tears. After obtaining consent from Yu Wanqing, the noble young maidens who had seen her appearance before would describe Yu Wanqing’s previous appearance in detail to other curious young ladies. They did not exaggerate or lie while telling the story.
As a result, more and more people who knew Yu Wanqing’s backstory and the number of ladies who believed in the ‘Blossoming Beauty’ shop’s effectiveness also increased. The young ladies in the capital with several minor skin problems such as enlarged pores, rough skin, sallow complexion, acne, and pimples...all of their problems were solved after using the skin care products or the facial treatments from ‘Blossoming Beauty’. The reputation of ‘Blossoming Beauty’ grew rapidly.
The products in ‘Blossoming Beauty’ were selling out faster and faster, and business was booming. If the product was selling well, then she would have to expand the production of the product. This meant that the courtyard she bought in the capital for manufacturing skin care products was not large enough. Yu Xiaocao bought the entire back mountain and the large stretch of uncultivated land behind the Royal Prince Yang’s farmstead from him. She built a skin care product workshop and a flower and herbal tea workshop. The numerous courtyards were all connected together in a grand scope.
Originally, Zhu Junyang wanted to give the farmstead and everything along with it to Yu Xiaocao, but she rejected his offer. The relationship between the two was becoming more and more stable. Zhu Junyang would send some material goods, jewelry, and other toys as gifts to her from time to time. However, before their relationship was officially determined, Yu Xiaocao would drown in gossip from the busybodies in the capital if she accepted his farmstead.
[1] fire cupping - A form of alternative medicine in which a local suction is created on the skin with the application of heated cups.
[2] gua sha - A type of traditional treatment that involves lightly scraping the skin with an instrument, leaving behind red marks on the skin. It supposedly releases unhealthy bodily matter from blood stasis within sore, tired, stiff or injured muscle areas to stimulate new oxygenated blood flow to the areas, thus promoting metabolic cell repair, regeneration, healing and recovery.