Chapter 6

Chapter 6

By the time He Qian’s corpse was hauled out of the deep well in the Cold Palace, it had already become bloated and pale from the water.

Since the deceased was, after all, the head supervisor of the Cold Palace, the Emperor dispatched the Memorial Drafting Eunuch, Xue Daoran, to conduct a thorough investigation.

The person who killed He Qian was me. I had taken advantage of a moment when he was alone at night to cover his mouth from behind and shove a tree branch I’d picked up into his throat.

I had sharpened the end of the branch long ago. I had envisioned the act in my mind a thousand times, and when the moment came, the killing was even swifter than I had imagined.

To prevent excessive blood flow, I didn’t pull the branch out. I left it lodged in He Qian’s throat and dragged him into the well.

When I returned, there was blood on my clothes. Pei Yunchuan thought I had been injured somewhere, but I wouldn’t say a word. After he checked me over carefully, he found only two scrapes on my hands; even so, he spent a long time fretting over me while applying medicine.

It was a good thing Pei Yunchuan was a fool; he was easily kept in the dark by me.

But I was too young then. Though I was ruthless, I was not yet thorough in my considerations.

If one were to grab any palace servant in the Cold Palace and ask, most would know about the sordid history between Pei Yunchuan and He Qian.

Thus, it was only natural for Xue Daoran to trace the matter back to Pei Yunchuan.

Not to mention, he also discovered me in Pei Yunchuan’s room, dressed in the uniform of a eunuch.

In years past, Xue Daoran had been the son of a disgraced official. He was well-educated and actually quite scholarly, but after he was sent into the palace as punishment for his family’s crimes, his spirit had been gradually ground down. He could only spend his life submitting to fate.

A man like him was bound to be much smarter than an uneducated simpleton like Pei Yunchuan. Having spent over half his life in the palace, he had long since become a cunning fox.

He saw that I bore a resemblance to the late Consort Song, and he ultimately realized something.

However, he did not immediately have us seized.

Instead, he demanded my palace registry from Pei Yunchuan. Seeing Pei Yunchuan kneeling on the ground, stammering and unable to speak, Xue Daoran understood. He realized that while this servant appeared cowardly, his audacity was greater than the heavens.

He did not explicitly state my identity. Instead, he gave Pei Yunchuan an opportunity: “This child will undoubtedly be a source of trouble in the future. I am giving you a chance now-find an opportunity to kill her.

“I will pin all the blame on her. In exchange, I will give you a ladder to climb in this palace. If you handle this task well, you can still rise through the ranks.”

Pei Yunchuan had never taken a life. Though he was capable of playing small tricks, he was not someone who would ever harm another. Hearing these words, he was first so terrified that he prostrated himself on the ground, trembling violently. Yet, his response was incredibly firm:

“This servant has no worldly knowledge and is used to staying in the Cold Palace. I only have this child for company. I cannot kill her. I beg Eunuch Xue to spare her. This servant will work like an ox or a horse to repay Eunuch Xue in the future, but I would never dare to ask for anything else.”

I was standing outside the window at the time, hearing everything.

As a servant, Pei Yunchuan was always making choices. I was not actually a towering tree that could provide him with shelter; he had countless opportunities to abandon me and save himself.

Yet he insisted on clutching onto me-a sapling that could wither at any moment. When others offered an olive branch, he simply played dumb or acted blind. He was a truly foolish servant.

I burst inside without hesitation and performed a respectful Palace Salute to Xue Daoran. I opened my mouth and said, “I killed He Qian.”

“What nonsense are you talking about? Is this the kind of thing you can just admit to?” That was the first time Pei Yunchuan ever showed anger toward me. He grabbed my collar tightly, his voice suddenly rising in pitch.

I acted as if I hadn’t heard him, kneeling directly before Xue Daoran. “Eunuch Xue, for you to tell Pei Yunchuan to kill me, you must have guessed my identity.

“I know I was once the Emperor’s daughter. The Emperor views me as a palace scandal; he would rather I die a violent death than let me live. The events of that year never spread, and the palace servants who knew have already been put to death.

“But Eunuch Xue, do not forget that my mother’s clan still possesses influence. I have never broken contact with them over the years. If I die, someone in this palace will immediately send word. Eunuch Xue, you wouldn’t even be able to save the life of that female attendant in the Bureau of Palace Affairs.”

Everyone knew that Lin Yan, a female attendant of Fengyuan Palace, was involved in a companionate pairing with Xue Daoran. She was Eunuch Xue’s Achilles’ heel.

I held a hand full of excellent bargaining chips.

And the words Xue Daoran had initially spoken to Pei Yunchuan were merely a test. After all, he was an educated man who knew how to weigh the consequences.
Even though Pei Yunchuan was full of a servant’s servility, timid, and afraid of trouble-clearly someone of no great use or ambition-Xue Daoran simply knew that Pei Yunchuan was the same kind of person as himself.

That day, Pei Yunchuan didn’t snap out of it until after Xue Daoran had left. His whole body went limp and he slumped to the ground, staring blankly at me. It was a long time before he finally asked, “Ah Rou, you’re the Emperor’s daughter. How could the Emperor refuse to acknowledge his own child? That’s his own flesh and blood. If I had a child…”

He got halfway through but couldn’t go on. He pursed his lips and abruptly fell silent.

He was a eunuch; he would never have a child of his own.

I simply walked over to him, knelt down, and gently wrapped my arms around him. “Yes, he can’t even compare to you. Only you know how to cherish me.”

Pei Yunchuan seemed to come back to his senses then, a delayed sadness washing over him. He asked, “What exactly is going on?”

Things had reached this point; there was no way to keep the secret any longer.

I had no desire to hide it from Pei Yunchuan anymore, so I told him everything.

“Pei Yunchuan, I am not the Emperor’s biological daughter. I’m a bastard child born from my mother’s illicit affair with someone else.

“When the truth came out later, the Emperor couldn’t tolerate us. He would never let the world know that his concubine had an affair and that the bastard she gave birth to lived with dignity in the palace as a princess for years. It was a slap in the face to the imperial family-a slap in his face.

“My mother’s family is indeed a great noble clan, and my current uncle was sent away by the Emperor to serve as the regional inspector of Liangzhou. Regarding what happened back then, the Emperor only dared to fake it as if my mother and I had died of illness one after the other.

“The Song Family doesn’t know I’m still alive. What I said just now was only to bluff Xue Daoran. From the very beginning, only you wanted me. I lied to you. I actually have no way of becoming a princess again, and I can’t even give you a better life.”

My voice was very low. It seemed my conscience had finally surfaced, and I did feel a few sparks of debt toward Pei Yunchuan.

Upon learning the truth, Pei Yunchuan was naturally both shocked and furious. He had spent so much effort raising me all these years, carefully protecting me like a precious treasure, never letting me suffer a bit of hardship.

He had thought that one day I would fly up to the branches like a phoenix, and he could be the dog or chicken that ascends to heaven along with me, following behind to enjoy a few years of power and luxury.

And yet, the phoenix he had picked up was nothing more than a common little sparrow with mottled feathers.

His mouth twitched, and he burst into tears from the sheer grievance of it all. He turned around and shoved me away.

I was actually uncertain of what would happen. After all, Pei Yunchuan was a small-time figure who sought profit and avoided harm. He had no grand ambitions. If there wasn’t some other calculation involved, it would be absolutely impossible for him to be so wholeheartedly good to another person.

Now that I was of no use to Pei Yunchuan, he might just stop caring about me.

I stood outside the door like a fool, hesitating for a long time. My mind went through a thousand turns before I finally made a decision: if he didn’t want me anymore, I had my own ways to threaten him.

And so, I stood outside in a daze for several hours, until the sun set and the moon rose. I could still hear occasional sobs coming from inside, and my heart actually began to ache in sympathy.

I was just about to knock and beg Pei Yunchuan to stop crying-it wasn’t worth ruining his eyes over a cold-blooded creature like me.

But at that moment, Pei Yunchuan suddenly threw the door open. He looked at me with bloodshot eyes and suddenly barked, “Are you stupid? I push you out and you just stand there in the cold wind? Don’t you know how to knock? Get in here!”

He was still fuming. Even after I came inside, he continued to sob while adding charcoal to the brazier. He reached out to touch my ice-cold hands and didn’t forget to tuck them into his own sleeves to warm them.

“Ah Rou, I’ve raised you for so many years. I truly care for you. But from now on, don’t hide things from me anymore.

“You killed He Qian without telling me, and you never breathed a word about your identity. If you keep acting like this, how am I supposed to protect you in the future?” Pei Yunchuan lowered his head and muttered to himself.

It was this very servant who had protected me like a treasure for so many years. At this moment, even though he knew I no longer had any other value, his crying wasn’t for anything else-he was just hurt because I had lied to him.