Well, that... the three-watch, six-thousand-word update has been changed to two watches, still six thousand words.
And while I'm at it, let me explain Aunt Xue's age in the book. Assuming she married at sixteen and gave birth at seventeen, Xue Pan was seventeen when he first appeared in this book, making Aunt Xue thirty-four. Three and a half years later, she would be thirty-eight at most, thirty-seven at least—not pushing fifty, as some people seem to think.
Chou Zheng, two in the morning.
YiHong Courtyard's main hall bedroom.
Feeling that Xiren had fallen deeply asleep beside him, Jia Baoyu carefully eased his arm free from her embrace. He rose on tiptoe, not bothering to dress properly. After pulling on his boots and throwing a cloak over himself, he quietly slipped out of the bedroom.
Worried about waking the young maid on night duty, he did not dare light a lantern and instead felt his way through the darkness toward the Front Yard.
Fortunately, he knew this route well. Though he stumbled a few times along the way, he ultimately reached the Front Yard without mishap.
Unlike the Grand View Garden, which had already sunk into silence, many of the Front Yard's courtyards remained brightly lit.
Using the light, Jia Baoyu barely made out the location of the woodshed and quickened his pace toward it.
Yet when he reached the vicinity of the woodshed and stared at its pitch-black gate, he seemed to have been struck by a freezing spell. Several times he strained to force himself forward, but his feet seemed rooted to the ground, impossible to pull free.
After repeating this several times, Jia Baoyu's face was impossible to read—whether with shame or anger, none could say. Suddenly, he slammed a fist into his own thigh, grimaced in