The Nine Dragon Jade Cup was originally a favorite of Emperor Kangxi (1654-1722, 3rd Qing Emperor). After the death of Emperor Kangxi, the Nine Dragon Cup was buried with Kangxi in the Jingling Mausoleum.

During the Republic of China period, the bandit Guan Laoqi from Ji County split open the coffin of the emperor, scattered the remains, and stole the Nine Dragon Jade Cup.

At that time, Chu Wan’s great-grandfather got the news and used some skill to get the Nine Dragon Jade Cup from Guan Laoqi. This legend was all over the world at that time. Everyone coveted this treasure. Someone spread the word in Liulichang that an American tycoon offered 2.6 million silver dollars and was willing to buy this treasure.

However, her great-grandfather knew that this was a national treasure, so he naturally couldn’t bear to see the Nine Dragon Jade Cup drift overseas. He also knew that it would be a crime if he was found to possess such a treasure. Even if he had a fortune, he was afraid that he would not be able to keep the Nine Dragon Jade Cup. So after playing with it for a few days, he handed it over to the Nationalist government.

Unexpectedly, after it was handed over, the Nine Dragon Jade Cup disappeared before the Liberation.

There were many different opinions at the time, but there was a rumor in the underworld that her great-grandfather had been so skilled that he used the trick of replacing one thing with another. That, it was said, he gave a fake one to the Nationalist government and kept the real one for himself.

This incident brought endless disasters to the Chu family. Later, her great-grandfather’s two children were somehow involved in the Citibank robbery in Dongjiaomin Lane. It was rumored that the thieves coveted the Nine Dragon Cup.

Her great-grandfather had two sons and one daughter in his life. His eldest son died at the hands of the Japanese, and his second son and youngest daughter equally suffered misfortune. He was left completely desperate and heartbroken. He spent all his family’s wealth and brought his only remaining young grandson to Yongling Village, where he lived almost completely isolated from the world.

In the following decades, the world changed dramatically, but he never left the village again.

Her great-grandfather never mentioned the Nine Dragon Jade Cup to Chu Wan, nor did he even mention her second grandfather and great-aunt whom she had never met, but Chu Wan knew that Great-grandfather would never be able to let it go for the rest of his life.

So that year, when Chu Wan heard the news that the Nine Dragon Jade Cup appeared at a foreign auction, she spent a huge amount of money and finally got the Nine Dragon Jade Cup in her hands.

Who would have thought that such an accident would happen at the critical moment?

Chu Wan closed her eyes, and what appeared before her eyes was still the Nine Dragon Jade Cup as it was about to fall. It fell before her eyes as if in slow motion, fell to the ground, and shattered into pieces with a resounding ‘crash’.

Amidst the flying jade debris, she seemed to see the appearance of the world as it withered.

The mountain road was rugged and the ox cart was bumpy. Chu Wan sat weakly in the haystack on the ox cart, took a deep breath of the dry and cold air, closed her eyes, and then opened them again.

She looked at the clear and pure blue sky and the winding mountain range of the Ming Tombs, trying to relieve herself from the heartache of the broken jade.

“Wanwan, when do you and your partner plan to get married?” Grandpa Hu, who was driving the cart, turned around and asked.

Chu Wan was in a daze for a while after hearing this. She tried hard to recall and finally remembered the situation she was facing.

The person Grandpa Hu was talking about was her educated youth boyfriend, Su Yanjing.

Su Yanjing’s family originally lived in the Qianmen compound. There were several children in the family and they were extremely poor. At that time, the street office were mobilizing people to go to the countryside, where they would be given resettlement fees and quilts. Su Yanjing couldn’t find a job, and his family wanted to take advantage of the resettlement fees, so they let him go.

He was lucky that he was not assigned to Inner Mongolia or Xinjiang, nor to other far provinces. Instead, he was settled in a rural area on the outskirts of Beijing, which was their village.

A few years ago, the educated youth were supposed to return to the city, but Su Yanjing’s family had many children at home, so his return was put on hold due to some procedural issues, and he never was able to go back.

Su Yanjing was fair-skinned, handsome, and good-looking. In the words of later years, he was ‘cool’.

Besides being handsome, he was also good at talking and coaxing girls.

Chu Wan had followed her great-grandfather’s instructions and went out to shovel the land before she finished high school. She was very young and wandered around, almost all over the country. No one could say how much hardship and suffering she had endured during her time outside.

When she finally returned to Yongling Village, she saw the gentle and beautiful Su Yanjing, and her heart was captured at once.

At that time, she felt that Su Yanjing’s smile was very warm, making her feel like she had found home.

She told her great-grandfather that she wanted to date and didn’t want to go out. Her great-grandfather agreed, and she started dating Su Yanjing.

Now, when she thought back on the past, she felt that she was somewhat taken advantage of.

When Su Yanjing was dating her, he loved eating the eggs laid by her chickens and her frozen persimmons. Later, he wanted to go to college and go to the city to attend a training course organized by the Beijing Federation of Trade Unions, but he had no living expenses. It was Chu Wan who helped him scrape together the money and even sold the chickens at home.

Just like that, he broke up with her just one month after he was admitted to university.

Thinking of this, Chu Wan wrapped herself tightly in her patched, blue, cotton-padded jacket and finally replied, “Grandpa Hu, it’s too early to get married!”

When Grandpa Hu heard this, he glanced at Chu Wan and said, “Actually, if you think it’s appropriate, you should get married sooner rather than later. You’re not young anymore. You’re already nineteen!”

“Grandpa, I’m still young. The marriage law that was just introduced a few years ago requires women to be 20 years old to get married. I’m still short of that age!”

“Why should we care about the marriage law? You can just have a wedding banquet and get the certificate when the time comes.”

Chu Wan listened and knew that Grandpa Hu had good intentions. In recent years, many educated youth had returned to the city. Su Yanjing missed the opportunity and was left behind, and had never been able to go back. But in fact, his heart was not rooted in the countryside at all, and he was always thinking about returning to the city.

In Grandpa Hu’s simple thinking, he probably thought that if she and Su Yanjing had a wedding, they would be considered married and she could tie him down.

But the idea of tying a man down was unreliable, and anyway, she didn’t feel like she needed to tie anyone down.

As for Su Yanjing, she was still young and just wanted someone to date. When it came to Lu Jianshi, it was a marriage arranged by the previous generation, which was considered forming a connection between the two families.

Thinking of this, she looked down at the bamboo basket beside her. The handle of the basket was polished to a shine, and a tuft of chicken feathers could be seen stuck to the sides. Inside was a small piece of pork and a small bag of white flour.

It seemed that she went to the market today, sold the eggs she had saved, and exchanged the eggs for meat and fruit.

There was no need to think about it. She was dating Su Yanjing and was particularly kind to him. She was definitely going to cook the pork belly for him to eat and also give him some fruit to eat.

She looked at this scene and felt helpless about her past self.

At this moment, she has returned to the age of 19. She cannot go back to the time when the Nine Dragon Jade Cup was broken and cut Lu Jianshi into pieces to vent her anger, nor could she directly kill Seventh Aunt, Sun Xueya.

So now, she has to let Su Yanjing know that she was not a pushover and that he should get as far away from her as possible.

Just as she was lost in her thoughts, Grandpa Hu uttered a practiced cry, “Whoa!”

This was a downhill road. Grandpa Hu pulled the reins and the old ox made a ‘whooshing’ sound from its nose.

Chu Wan raised her eyes and looked towards the foot of the mountain not far away.

They have arrived at Yongling Village.

Yongling Village was a village built near the Yongling Mausoleum of Emperor Shizong Zhu Houzhao, one of the Thirteen Tombs.

Not long after Chuwan got married in her previous life, her great-grandfather passed away and was buried at the foot of the Ming Tombs Mountain.

Chu Wan actually had no attachment to the village where she grew up, so she just passed by when she came to visit the graves.

She vaguely remembered that Yongling Village was later developed for tourism, and that the government also invested in it. It has since been renovated and looked very presentable.

Now, at the time when she returned, she could see that the ancient village was still lying lonely at the foot of the Ming Tombs, quiet and desolate, just like what she remembered vaguely from her childhood.

She felt like she was walking into a dream.

In that dream, her great-grandfather, who was so old that he could no longer straighten his back, would be holding a cane and standing in front of the threshold of the dilapidated house. 

He would open his toothless mouth and say with a smile, “Wanwan is back.”

Pearls And Jade Beside Me In The 80s translated by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com

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T/N: Emperor Kangxi was the third emperor of the Qing dynasty (1636-1912) and reigned for 61 years, the longest reigning Chinese emperor and one of the longest in world history. His long reign ushered an era of stability and prosperity, which naturally lent emphasis to arts and culture. Jade and porcelain from his time will be mentioned through out the story.

The Kangxi two-dragon jade cup (photo above) was sold on auction in 2007 for 9600GBP. In current prices, that’s 16,500 GBP (22,000 USD).

‘Shoveling the land’. From context it means not only digging the ground for buried treasure (not the pirate chest kind; pottery, jade, porcelain, sculpture etc.) but also going around far-flung, rural areas to find valuable pieces that had been hidden away or overlooked by families.

In the span of 2-3 generations, a 400-year dynasty fell, there was chaos of civil war, invasion by Japan, foreign forces marched in, the government fled to Taiwan, Communist party rose to power and declared the old culture anathema to the new order. So many ‘pearls and jade’ got lost, looted, brought away, destroyed, buried, confiscated, forgotten. Some priceless relics were being used as pig troughs by farmers who didn’t know any better.

If you’re enjoying my translations, do consider buying me ko-fi and get access to advance chapters as reward. Thank you for your support! ☺️
Chapter 3.1 — An Eye for Choosing a Man
Chapter 3.2 — An Eye for Choosing a Man
Chapter 4 — The Origin of the Marriage Agreement
Chapter 5.1 — Thick Skin is a Must
Chapter 5.2 — Thick Skin is a Must
Chapter 6.1 — He Gave Her Pocket Money
Chapter 6.2 — He Gave Her Pocket Money
Chapter 6.3 — He Gave Her Pocket Money
Chapter 7.1 — There Must be Compatibility Between Husband and Wife
Chapter 7.2 — There Must be Compatibility Between Husband and Wife
Chapter 8 — The Beauty of Line Carving
Chapter 9 — In My Eyes, This Is 200 Yuan