Chapter 6
Once my leg healed, Shen Wanrou summoned me to her side.
Serving her closely meant I would inevitably encounter Su Chi.
When he learned she intended to take me as his concubine, he showed no particular emotion. “I leave everything to my wife,” he said lightly.
Blushing, she nestled into his arms. “I know how much my lord loves children. Of course I won’t behave like some petty woman, thinking only of myself.”
As I served them, I sensed something wrong.
I had grown up in Rouge House and seen men and women of every kind.
Yet in her eyes, I could find no sincere love for Su Chi. It seemed more like—
A show of intimacy between two people whose hearts were far apart.
Between attending her, I used all the gold, silver and nourishing gifts she gave me to buy goodwill.
Know yourself and your opponent, and you need never fear a battle. The inner household was no different.
Having just settled in Xicheng, Su Chi spent several consecutive days with the army, too busy to return home.
At night, I slipped into the dispensary and pressed a silver hairpin into the hands of the nanny brewing the medicine. “Please give me a chance. Madam is always vexed when she takes her medicine. I’d like to put in an appearance.”
The nanny snorted, then accepted it with a smile. “You’re certainly attentive. No wonder madam favors you.”
Shen Wanrou was ordinarily courteous to me, making her true intentions hard to discover.
Now she was speaking privately with Nanny Xu in the inner room.
Rubbing her back, Nanny Xu asked in puzzlement, “Your health recovered long ago, miss. Why keep drinking that bitter medicine to maintain this act, and find a concubine to share his favor?”
Shen Wanrou rubbed her brow. “After so many years in my father’s household, can you still not see how things stand? I took that arrow for him because he had such a future. Now he’s full of ambition, and rebellion is inevitable.
“If he succeeds, all will be well. But if he loses, do you think I could return to my father’s house alive with a rebel’s child?”
She sighed. “I’m only a piece my father used to make a marriage alliance. But I must consider myself too. Taking Feng Xuan as his concubine is merely a temporary way to keep Su Chi content.”
The hands holding the medicine trembled.
The emperor was old and foolish, surrounded by treacherous favorites without knowing it, needlessly suspicious of loyal ministers and capable generals.
Everyone hoped the marquis would rise against him.
Hidden in Xicheng was the hardened army Su Chi had trained.
If he succeeded, Shen Wanrou would be the next empress.
I was merely the sacrifice in their contest.
Of what followed, only one sentence registered. “Love is useless. Only power matters.”
A subtle change came over me.
If Shen Wanrou was using me to divert Su Chi’s attention, why could I not use the marquis’s power to seize a chance to change my fate?
To live, I had to climb.
If every road led to death, I would choose the one thickest with thorns, yet holding the greatest chance of life.