Chapter 4

I deliberately ate less. By the time we returned to the capital, I had grown so thin I looked more like a recovering invalid than my stepmother.

Even the Empress was startled when she summoned me.

I only smiled. “I have trained since childhood. I can bear it.”

Jinxin was no longer among the maids attending her.

“The girl is ill. I have allowed her a few days’ rest.”

The shears clicked. A rose in full bloom fell like a bird with a broken wing.

The Empress could not tolerate a maid who had served her for years secretly helping someone murder her.

Understandable.

I picked up the flower.

“I have a foolish little suggestion, Your Majesty. Perhaps it will amuse you.”

After leaving the palace, I continued to serve my stepmother.

I brought her medicine. She seemed not to see it, sighing and wiping her tears.

First she said how fortunate it was that my brother’s injury was not serious. Then she wished I had been there that day.

She never told me to set the bowl down.

She often tormented me in these small, concealed ways, but I knew today was different.

In my former life, on this very day, she had handed me her medicine.

My hands had barely healed. I could not hold the bowl.

Father entered just as I “dropped” the medicine she offered me.

He rushed forward and slapped me.

Even when she tearfully explained that my hand had merely slipped, he punished me with confinement to preserve his dignity.

I had not understood then. Later I realized she would not allow Father the smallest tenderness toward me.

She feared I might obstruct her own children’s future.

Now I held the bowl steadily in two undamaged hands. “Mother, let me hold it for you. Drink while it’s warm.”

Something flickered in her eyes. Reluctantly, she sat up.

“Huaiyu, you have suffered so much while I recover.”

Hearing footsteps outside, I immediately knelt.

“Mother, you took pity on me as a child and brought me into this household. It is only right that I serve you.

“Seeing you suffer, I only wish I could bear it in your place.”

“That’s more like it!”

Father’s voice boomed as he swept into the room.

He took her hand, then granted me the rare favor of a direct look.

“Huaiyu, I hear you’ve tended your mother carefully. Very dutiful.

“Your manners are beginning to resemble hers.”

Her cheeks tightened. A moment later, she forced a smile.

“It was Huaiyu’s own mother who gave birth to such a good child. I was merely fortunate enough to gain her as a daughter.”

Father frowned, just as expected.

“Why spoil a fine day by mentioning that sl—someone of no consequence?”

“I am slow-witted, Father. Mother deserves all the credit.”

I hurriedly changed the subject with a gentle smile.

He smiled back. “Now you look like a properly bred young lady!”

My stepmother looked as though she had swallowed a fly.

Father was not a woman. He neither needed nor intended to understand the twists of the women’s quarters.

I had served her for two full months. Everyone had seen it.

If she complained about me now, the pure, serene image she cultivated for him would crumble.

He waved a hand and picked up the bowl I had set on the table.

“You may go. Your mother and I have things to discuss.”

I withdrew.

With Father home, she finally spared me further attendance.

Now he fed her medicine and held her water. If I insisted on going, I would only be in their way.

That afternoon he sent the guards held in the woodshed to the torture room.

I practiced calligraphy for four hours, but still could not resist mentioning it during my evening respects.

“The guards did wrong, but perhaps, to pray for Mother and Brother’s recovery, we might show some mercy.”

Father had been smiling. His face darkened at once. He narrowed his eyes and studied me for a long time before sweeping out.

Early next morning, Nanny Xu stormed into my courtyard and threw down a book of scripture.

“His Lordship says that since attending Her Ladyship is inconvenient for you and you wish to pray for her and the heir, you can copy a few volumes properly.”

When I remained seated, the old hag grew sarcastic.

“Don’t blame me for speaking frankly. A woman who insists on outshining everyone, showing off before the master, and seeking a hollow reputation even at her mother and brother’s expense—what is she thinking?”

A hollow reputation?

Everyone in the Jingwu household knew that people sent to the torture room came out as mangled corpses.

Because the guards had refused to die for my stepmother, Father would make them suffer to the end.

My thoughts wandered. When I returned to the present, Nanny Xu was praising her.

“Respecting your husband and managing his home diligently, as Her Ladyship does—that is a woman’s proper path.

“Do not copy your birth mother’s frivolous, dissolute ways!”

Her smug expression brought back my former life.

By the time I married at twenty-one, the years with my ruined hands had worn away my spirit.

Xu Zhifang had newly passed the examinations. Apart from his grandmother having served our family, the match did not seem too degrading.

Only after marrying into the Xu family did I learn how much Nanny Xu hated my mother.

“The young master was at an age when his blood ran hot. That slut deliberately seduced him. She thought a baby would win her a place in the marquis’s household. Filthy creature!”

Whenever she spoke of the past, she cast a slanting, malicious look at me and sneered.

In her eyes, Father had merely been deceived by my mother in his youth. Those days should have been forgotten. But my mother had left me behind, a permanent blot on his “good name.”

Perhaps what she regretted most was failing to torment me to death before I had even been born.