Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Pei Yunchuan and I have been intertwined since the Previous Dynasty.

He was castrated and entered the palace at the age of six.

Because of his delicate features and sharp wit, he was originally slated to study at the Palace School for Eunuchs.

However, he caught the eye of He Qian, the head eunuch of the Cold Palace, and was taken away to serve there instead.

He Qian was a caustic, mean-spirited old man. Under his thumb, Pei Yunchuan’s life was a cycle of slapped faces and forced kneeling.

From a young age, Pei Yunchuan was obsessed with climbing the social ladder.

Yet, after seven full years in the palace serving a group of women abandoned by the Emperor, combined with He Qian’s constant harassment, he had gained nothing for his efforts.

At thirteen, the boy spent his days brooding over petty schemes and nursing grudges. But due to He Qian’s suppression, he could do little more than play minor tricks behind people’s backs, unable to truly retaliate.

Back then, the young Eunuch Pei was a classic bully-cowardly toward the strong but cruel to the weak. Whenever he was mistreated or suffered, he liked to take his frustrations out on others.

And so, the first time Pei Yunchuan went looking for a scapegoat, he found me.

At the time, I was still the Sixth Princess of the imperial court. I wasn’t called Song Jirou then; I shared my father the Emperor’s surname, and my name was Bai Yunyi.

I was the youngest daughter of Consort Song. After Consort Song was sent to the Cold Palace, our lives became quite difficult.

One rainy day, dressed in palace robes, I quietly entered the Cold Palace. Pei Yunchuan mistook me for a lost little palace maid.

I was eight years old then, a tiny thing.

Pei Yunchuan was returning from his shift when he was caught in the downpour without an umbrella. Seeing a random little maid who looked like an easy target, he snatched my paper umbrella away. He didn’t forget to bark a reprimand at the unknown child as he did so.

I didn’t cry when Pei Yunchuan bullied me. I simply grabbed a corner of his sleeve and wouldn’t let him leave.

I asked him which hall Consort Song lived in. He grew impatient, grabbed me by the back of my collar, and dumped me under a side corridor.

“I’m borrowing your umbrella today. You probably can’t find your way back anyway, so just hide under this corridor for the night. Don’t go blaming me if you get soaked and catch a cold.”

Though Pei Yunchuan loved to bully people back then, he still had a shred of a conscience. Seeing me staring at him without blinking, refusing to let him go, his heart softened slightly. He sighed at his bad luck.

Glancing at the torrential rain outside, he eventually went through the trouble of carrying me into an empty duty room to let me rest for the night.

The next day, the rain cleared and the sun emerged. What was carried out of the palace was the purple-faced corpse of Consort Song. Behind her, a palace servant led me out-my face entirely void of expression.

Only then did Pei Yunchuan realize that the person he had offended the night before was actually a high-born lady. Paralyzed with fear, he pressed his head low and prostrated himself on the ground like the other eunuchs and palace maids.

Consort Song had been strangled. Pei Yunchuan didn’t know by whom; he only knew that I had likely wanted to see her one last time, but he had physically blocked my way.

The supervisor eunuch by the Emperor’s side told me to identify the culprit. I remained silent, my dark eyes fixed unblinkingly on Pei Yunchuan.

In this palace, a master needs no reason to kill a servant.

Pei Yunchuan didn’t think I had seen the killer, but with a courtyard full of palace servants kneeling in the Cold Palace, a scapegoat would inevitably be dragged out to take the fall. He was both terrified and regretful, and just as he was about to beg for mercy, I reached out and pointed directly at the person beside him.

The eunuch standing next to Pei Yunchuan was sentenced to be beaten to death. He was dragged away, wailing and screaming.

As I prepared to leave, I walked up to Pei Yunchuan on my own. A flicker of a smile suddenly touched my dark eyes. I reached out, tilted his chin up, and leaned in to whisper in his ear:

“Eunuch, you stole an umbrella from me, and now you owe me a life. You’ll have to pay it all back later.”

Pei Yunchuan was speechless. Having just brushed past death, his usually silver tongue failed him. After a long silence, he replied foolishly, “This servant obeys.”

I let out a soft laugh and didn’t look at him again as the palace servants led me away.

Pei Yunchuan thought that by staying in the Cold Palace, he would never have anything to do with me again. That lasted until a month later, in the dead of winter.

Passing by the lotus pond, Pei Yunchuan saw me struggling to crawl out of the water.

My body was shivering violently. I only had enough strength to glance at him before I fainted.

I was nearly dead then. It was Pei Yunchuan who took me back, brewed ginger soup for me, and personally held me in his arms to warm me up until I truly came back to life.

It was also then that Pei Yunchuan said to me, “Once your Little Highness is better, I will take you to see the Emperor. When that time comes, your Little Highness must remember my kindness.”

Pei Yunchuan was indeed a petty man. When he didn’t know my identity, he played the villain and stole my umbrella; once he knew, he used the fact that he saved me to claim credit.

The next day, news of the death of the Sixth Princess, Bai Yunyi, spread throughout the palace.

There are always many shameful secrets in this palace that can never see the light of day. Before Pei Yunchuan could figure out what was happening, I gripped his sleeve with a pale face and said:

“Eunuch Pei, I am a dead person now. They threw me into the lotus pond because they wanted me dead.”

Seeing that Pei Yunchuan didn’t speak, I stood up and wrapped my arms around his neck. My voice lost its initial coldness, turning so soft it was almost drowning:

“You have to take care of me. You can’t let anyone else know who I am. Right now, I’ve just been framed and fallen on hard times. Once I find the right opportunity to reclaim my status as a princess, I will give you the life of wealth and honor you desire.”

I was gambling. I was gambling on that tiny spark of kindness in a servant who had stolen my umbrella but feared I would freeze, throwing me into a duty room to escape the rain.

Pei Yunchuan wanted to climb, and he was naturally greedy. Hearing my words, he actually fell to his knees. It was as if he could see an end to his wretched life. With a choked voice, he said, “Since your Highness is giving me this chance, I will surely protect your Highness well.”

Pei Yunchuan clung to that absurd dream-that when I regained my status as a princess, he would rise along with me. He treated me like a precious treasure and protected me for many years.