Chapter 4
Chapter 4
The next day, Xie Zhixing gathered up our remains and buried us beneath the mulberry tree in the courtyard.
The mulberry tree had been burned down to withered branches, charred black and jutting at crooked angles.
By the time he returned to the capital, he had once again become that gentle, jade-like gentleman. He pretended he had never been to that little mountain village. Pretended he accepted the explanation that his wife had been chased by roaming bandits all the way to the street corner. Pretended he did not know that the woman who had died so violently in the street was someone else entirely.
He buried that woman in my place, held a grand funeral in the estate, and then displayed the grief, coldness, and disgust one ought to show for a wife who had died in disgrace.
Few people mentioned the little mountain village outside the capital that had been slaughtered by roaming bandits. In the end, the dead were only a group of insignificant commoners. Only one minor, peripheral official was in charge of investigating the matter, and progress was painfully slow.
That was, until Commandery Princess Lin’an heard of it. Filled with righteous indignation, she picked up her red-tasseled spear and went to His Majesty to volunteer for the task, saying she wanted to seek justice for the innocent people who had died.
His Majesty was immensely proud that his young niece possessed such a sense of justice. He made an exception and granted her request, even assigning several capable military officers to lead troops alongside her.
For the imperial army to wipe out a small band of local outlaws was a simple matter to begin with, not to mention that those men practically threw themselves beneath the Commandery Princess’s red-tasseled spear. The Commandery Princess took the bandit leader’s head and returned to the capital with her troops. Along the way, court officials and commoners alike praised her.
They said Commandery Princess Lin’an truly was different from ordinary young ladies raised in the inner chambers-valiant and dashing, worthy of being called Shengjing’s foremost beauty.
The Commandery Princess gained a fine reputation and a great pile of rewards. Her first reaction was to look toward Xie Zhixing among the ranks of civil officials. As she had hoped, she saw admiration and interest in the eyes of the man she loved, and she grew all the more smug.
After court was dismissed, she even went out of her way to find Xie Zhixing. “Lord Xie, I exterminated those roaming bandits. In a way, I avenged that wife of yours. Shouldn’t you thank me properly?”
She asked Xie Zhixing to treat her to a meal at a restaurant. For the first time, Xie Zhixing did not ignore her outright. He agreed, and the Commandery Princess was overjoyed.
From then on, the two of them slowly began to interact. The way Xie Zhixing looked at her grew gentler and gentler. Sometimes, when he watched her fool around, he would even smile with indulgent affection. And whenever his deceased wife was mentioned, he became increasingly cold.
At last, during a banquet at the Grand Princess’s Residence, when His Majesty once again tentatively brought up arranging their marriage, Xie Zhixing lowered his head under both their gazes and took a sip of clear tea.
His raven-feather lashes cast shadows over his dark eyes. With a faint smile on his lips, he answered in a warm voice,
“All right.”