Chapter 7

Chapter 7

I suppose I must have fallen ill a long time ago.

Back then, the sickness was in my heart. To save myself, I began to cultivate my character, treating myself with ever-increasing severity.

Time and again, I recited to myself:

“A husband is one’s heaven.

Heaven cannot be escaped; a husband cannot be left.

If one’s actions defy the gods, Heaven shall punish them; if one’s conduct lacks propriety, the husband shall despise them.

Be respectful and obedient; be cautious and humble; yield and comply.

To win the favor of this one man is to fulfill one’s purpose forever; to lose it is to meet one’s end.”

I must have been going mad. I was so desperate to win Cheng Wenting’s heart.

I was no longer the ignorant Xie Shuran I once was; I looked back on the tears I shed on my wedding night with nothing but regret.

For a common mortal, it is not just the heart that gradually awakens.

I had long since forgotten the pain and fear of my first experience with intimacy. Now, in the dead of night, my heart felt empty-and so did my body.

I found myself thinking of the small courtyard where I once lived with the Xie Family, of the private chambers that were mine alone. I remembered the evening breeze scattering fallen petals, and the pale clouds drifting past a sparse moon.

I would rest my chin in my hands by the window, gazing at the moon, and catch a whiff of delicate fragrance when I lowered my head.

Beneath that windowsill sat a cluster of lotus buds about to bloom, a tender, watery shade of rose.

From beneath the emerald-green lotus leaves, a clean, handsome face suddenly appeared.

The youth was full of vitality, his brows like distant spring mountains. He flashed a toothy grin at me, looking like a transcendent being amidst the green lotuses.

“Ah Yuan, look,” he said. “I picked these lotuses from a wild pond. Are they beautiful?”

The thirteen-year-old Xie Shuran looked at the flowers on the windowsill with pleasant surprise, yet her words were sharp: “Liang Zhi, you’ve snuck into the inner quarters again. If my father finds out, he’ll beat you to death.”

Amusement flickered in the boy’s bright eyes as he made a show of handing the bundle of lotuses to the girl inside the window.

“I only came to give you these. I’m leaving now. Don’t worry, I won’t be caught.”

Liang Zhi was a poor relative who had come to our home for shelter.

If one traced the lineage, my grandfather was likely his distant grand-uncle.

Large, wealthy families can never avoid distant, impoverished relatives turning up at their doorstep. Liang Zhi was an orphan. After both his parents died, he traveled a thousand miles to seek refuge with the Xie Family. To maintain his reputation for generosity, my father would never have dreamed of turning him away.

And so, Liang Zhi eventually became a groom in our household.

I remember him as a youth; he was already sturdily built and often wore a small set of black robes. When the weather turned hot, he would roll up his sleeves, revealing two strong, solid arms.

He loved to smile. At first, like many of the servants in the manor, he respectfully called me Fourth Miss.

Then came a certain Lantern Festival. The women of the Xie Family had been invited by the Chancellor’s Wife to climb the city gate tower and view the lanterns. Unexpectedly, a riot broke out in the city. I was separated from my mother and the others, nearly killed by a stray arrow from the thugs.

It was Liang Zhi who grabbed me, running for our lives and hiding me inside a chicken coop.

It was a harrowing night. The coop reeked to high heaven, and I ended up vomiting all over him.

From that point on, having faced life and death together, a deep friendship was forged between us.