Chapter 3

To anyone else, those words sounded like a blessing.

Only I knew they were naked mockery.

My parents had already agreed to the marriage with the marquis’s family. There was no room to turn back.

I closed my eyes for a moment.

Was I really going to suffer my sister’s fate from our last life?

Back then, all the women in the marquis’s household had been sent into exile in Lingnan.

In truth, however, I had secretly saved my sister.

She might be sensitive, suspicious, selfish, false, and endlessly calculating about her own interests.

But I couldn’t bear to stand by and watch her die.

So I went into the palace and begged His Majesty to spare her life.

I settled her in a quiet farmhouse, where she lived out her remaining years under a hidden identity, like an ordinary village woman.

His Majesty had been so willing to listen for one reason.

When he was still the crown prince, wandering among the common people, I had helped him.

An idea suddenly struck me.

If I remembered correctly, the crown prince should now be at the ruined temple where I gave out porridge.

My heart began to race.

I couldn’t wait another moment. I set off for the temple at once.

There were several ruined temples outside the city, crowded with beggars who never had enough to eat.

I often went there to distribute porridge, and had sent them clothes for the winter.

I had never dreamed the crown prince was hiding among them.

There were so many beggars, and I couldn’t make a public fuss. How was I to find him?

I looked at the temple, one corner of which had collapsed after recent rain, and came up with a plan.

“Let’s repair the temple. I’ll pay, but you’ll have to do the work.”

“Bring all the young men with sound hands and feet to me. I’ll see how many can work.”

Soon, the beggars’ leader brought over a dozen or so men.

I didn’t even have to search. At a glance, I spotted the quiet youth of sixteen or seventeen in the crowd.

Xiao Heng.

He was different from the others. His clothes were ragged and his face dirty.

Yet his back was straight and his eyes bright and alert.

One look told me he had been educated, taught proper manners, and raised amid nobility.

My eyes grew hot.

I had found him early—the wise ruler who had died young in our last life, leaving peace for the generations to come.

For nothing more than a few bowls of porridge, he had remembered my kindness all his life.

This time, if I protected him well,

he would not have to flee his pursuers, suffer a deadly poisoning, or endure hunger and exposure out in the world.

Perhaps he would live to a hundred, giving the people many more years of peace and prosperity.

I gave everyone a few instructions about repairing the temple.

Once the crowd dispersed, I went straight up to him.

“I need a servant. Would you like to come with me?”

Xiao Heng looked up in astonishment, staring at me in disbelief, as though afraid he had misheard.

After a long moment, his eyes reddened as he answered.

“I would.”