Chapter 7

On the night before Prince Chen departed for war, I sang the Purple Bamboo Song to him until dawn.

The longer I sang, the more bitter my heart became.

I felt like Brother A-Niu from our village. Too poor to eat, he had tied up his bundle and gone to the city to seek a living.

They said he finally found a master who treated his workers decently. He labored faithfully every day and earned the man’s regard.

He meant to serve him for life, only for a fire to burn the entire business to ashes.

With every hope destroyed, Brother A-Niu returned to the village in tears and went back to eating dirt.

I had never understood the sorrow on his face. Now I knew it was the anguish of a shattered dream.

Seeing tears blur my eyes, Prince Chen stopped what he was doing and brushed their corners with his callused thumb.

After a long silence, he sighed. “Do you hate parting from me so much? Shall I take you along?”

For one instant, I truly wanted to nod.

But swords had no eyes on a battlefield. Going would violate my life’s creed that a wretched life was better than a good death.

I wrapped my arms around his neck. “No. I would only distract you. Defeat the enemy with an easy heart. I will stay and care for Her Highness and your unborn heir.”

His marriage to the princess consort had been an alliance of interests.

But those interests were something he could never afford to lose.

He had always supported my efforts to befriend her and even warned me not to cross her deepest boundaries.

Favor was favor. He had never truly lost his reason.

Whether he won or lost, once he left, someone would see his residence as an even greater obstacle.

So as he nipped at my neck, he praised me for understanding him better than anyone.

By then, my thoughts had changed.

I wanted him to win.

My friendship with Xiao Yuru truly began only after we sent him to war.

Chuntao had told me that the great Xiao clan of Yulin originally disdained a prince whose mother’s family held little power.

But Xiao Yuru saw Prince Chen ride down the capital’s long avenue, and her maiden heart stirred.

The capital had long said, “One glimpse of Prince Chen ruins a woman for life.”

Countless young ladies made him the hero of their private dreams and swore to marry no one else.

The dignified and self-possessed eldest daughter of the Xiao family had once scoffed at them. One startling glimpse, however, placed her under the same curse.

If her clan insisted that she marry an imperial prince, it must be Prince Chen, Li Jinxuan.

For the first time, she made her own voice heard within the clan, and she was unyielding.

At that time, what Prince Chen lacked most was powerful support.

When such a formidable future father-in-law offered himself, the prince naturally responded with enthusiasm.

Yet all he could give Xiao Yuru was the respect and courtesy a husband owed his wife.

He gave those with all his strength. They were not what she wanted.

She lacked nothing but his love.

I lacked everything except his love.

Heaven had distributed its gifts blindly.

Once he left, the two of us relaxed around each other.

When she had no appetite, I devised one tempting dish after another.

When she could not sleep, I blended pear-and-aloes incense for her bed curtains.

When she refused to walk, I invented reasons to lure her outside and told village stories until she laughed.

At first, her laughter would sometimes stop abruptly. She would study me, lost in thought.

Later, all reserve disappeared.

In a letter to His Highness, she even wrote that she grew plumper every day entirely through Beauty Liu’s good work.

She asked me to add a short letter of my own for the frontier.

Then she stared at the little clumps of ink I had produced and did not know whether to laugh or cry.

I could not help it. His Highness had only just begun teaching me to copy characters.

And whenever a lesson began, he often dragged me away to do something else, leaving the table covered in spilled ink.

Even now, remembering those absurd scenes set my cheeks burning and my heart racing.

The princess consort shook her head and took it upon herself to teach me properly.

She claimed she had nothing else to do and could hardly let me remain incapable of writing a letter home.

She did not know that I already considered her my teacher. I watched her speech, conduct, calculations, and plans with careful attention.

To receive her personal instruction fulfilled everything I had hoped for. Naturally, I worked with all my heart.

Day and night lost their meaning. Often I forgot to sleep or eat.

I wanted to travel a thousand miles in a day.

Chuntao teased that at this rate, I must intend to sit the examinations and become a Hanlin scholar.

I was so absorbed in my book that I forgot to answer.

I did not know how far I might ultimately go.

But I remembered something someone once said: whatever road lay ahead, one must first place each step beneath one’s feet.