Chapter 5

I had first seen Shen Yi when I was eight.

I had accompanied my younger cousin to the palace to play with Princess Zhaoyang, who mocked me for reacting too slowly.

It had been a beautiful day.

Standing in the garden, I felt colder from head to foot than the pond beside me.

Their laughter brought the crown prince over. But he only frowned at me and told Princess Zhaoyang not to go too far.

Then a stone flew out of nowhere and landed in the pond.

The splash soaked Princess Zhaoyang and the other girls’ skirts.

The garden erupted into confusion.

No one paid any more attention to me.

When I turned to look outside, I caught only the back of a young man in blue disappearing around a corner.

A shaft of sunlight beyond the covered walkway fell on his head.

They said he was the third prince, Shen Yi, the most unruly of them all.

He had done all sorts of outrageous things.

But his birth mother had been the late empress, the emperor’s greatest love. That was the only reason the emperor let him off lightly, time after time.

The carriage was silent.

Instead of answering Shen Yi’s question, I looked up and asked cautiously, “May I go to Huguo Temple tomorrow?”

He seemed not to have expected that.

His long lashes trembled slightly. There was surprise and scrutiny in his eyes.

“Among ordinary people, a bride visits her mother-in-law after the wedding. I want to visit your mother.” My hands twisted the handkerchief in my lap. “Would that be against the rules?” I asked softly.

The late empress’s spirit tablet was kept at Huguo Temple.

Imperial ritual was strict. Offerings had to follow prescribed schedules and ceremonies.

Simply going there on my own initiative would indeed be improper.

After a long time, Shen Yi looked away from me.

“Very little of what I do is proper.”

That meant yes.

As soon as we returned, he told his attendant Yuxuan to arrange tomorrow’s visit to Huguo Temple.

I walked beside him for a little while before looking up in delighted surprise. “You’re coming too, Your Highness?”

He seemed to laugh once.

It was too dark for me to be sure.

I only heard his rather detached voice. “She’s my mother.”

I took a few more steps before realizing he seemed to be staking a claim.

Perhaps it was because he looked a little softer today.

Or perhaps I had never thought him as frightening as the rumors claimed.

I turned and blinked at him, smiling. “She’s mine now, too.”

The last light of day spilled in from beyond the courtyard.

It fell over both of us.

Our shadows stretched long at our feet, looking as though they leaned against each other.

I walked backward while Shen Yi followed, step by step.

He watched me for a while before saying, “I heard you were quiet by nature and seldom spoke.”

“You seem to have quite a ready tongue.”

In all my years, he was the first person to compliment me on that.

“His Highness is right.” Cuixi applied ointment to my wrist, looking pleased. “You talk to him far more than you talk to anyone else.”

I smiled at the ointment Yuxuan had made a special trip to bring me.

Then I looked toward the door, and my smile drooped.

Shen Yi still hadn’t returned to sleep in the room.

Everyone in his household had been carefully chosen and could be trusted not to gossip.

Even so, I found it rather discouraging that we hadn’t slept in the same room once in two days of marriage.

And it wasn’t something I could tell anyone outside the household.

So all I could do was kneel before the late empress’s spirit tablet and recount every grievance of the past two days.

When I finished, I bowed my head to the floor, rather indignantly. “Mother, if you care about me, please visit Shen Yi in a dream and teach him a lesson.”

Before I could get up, a soft laugh came from the doorway.

I turned to find Shen Yi leaning there with his arms folded.

Half of him stood in the sunlight outside; half was in the shadow within.

Like the smile on his face, there and not quite there.

It was enough to dazzle me.

“You sent me away so you could say that?” A barely perceptible note of teasing colored his voice.

I felt guilty. My face seemed to catch fire, and my ears burned along with it.

“I…” I was slow enough at the best of times. Now I could barely get my words out.

I glanced at the late empress’s tablet and brazened it out. “Mother says she’ll come and deal with you tonight.”

He paused, then came inside.

He knelt beside me and looked up at the tablet.

“Then I really must thank you.” His voice sounded lonely.

“Mother hasn’t come to see me in a long time.”