Chapter 41
The next morning, just as I woke up, Yin Jiuyi’s concubine Fuluo came to see me at the door.
During leisure time, she had once taught me to play the pipa, so there was some acquaintance between us.
“Your Highness, the Princess Consort and the others have not yet awakened, so I could only come to you.” She was crying, tears streaming down her face, her handkerchief already soaked.
“What’s the matter?”
“Yanyan did not return last night. This morning, I searched every corner of the Prince’s Mansion, but there was no sign of her.”
Yanyan was another of Yin Jiuyi’s concubines, living in the same Courtyard as Fuluo.
“Did she leave the mansion yesterday? What did her Maids say? Don’t panic. Go find Commander Li and have him look around the Prince’s Mansion.”
“I was anxious and only searched by myself. I’ll go right away.” She wiped her tears and was helped away by a Maid.
I had just finished washing up when a guard arrived, hesitating: “Your Highness, she has been found. In… in the Prince’s room. You’d better go see. The Prince is not well right now.”
The guard’s expression was so strange that all kinds of thoughts flooded my mind, my heart leaping to my throat, an inexplicable tension washing over me.
Lifting my skirt, I hurried over, almost stumbling into the snow in my panic.
At the entrance to the Courtyard, a stretcher covered with a white cloth just happened to pass by me.
“Your Highness.” The guards carrying the stretcher stopped, bowing their heads in greeting.
Just then, a hand painted with bright purple nail polish suddenly drooped down, hanging from the edge of the stretcher. A stream of blood dripped swiftly from the palm, splattering onto the snow and blooming into clusters of red plum blossoms.
The scene sent chills down my spine, my heart felt as if it would leap from my chest, and a warm, suffocating air clogged my throat.
The guards quickly carried the stretcher away.
I stood in place, patting my chest rapidly, trying hard to calm myself.
The composure I had just gathered collapsed in an instant when I glimpsed a pair of pale feet on the distant stretcher.
I moved to the wall, clutching it and gasping for breath. That was unmistakably Yanyan’s corpse.
Inside the door, Lu Yurong’s sharp roar sounded: “Speak, how did she get in last night?”
Yin Jiuyi’s servant Suzheng was kneeling on the ground, stammering: “Princess Consort, have mercy. I truly do not know.”
“The Prince has always treated you well. How dare you? You were on night duty last night-how did she sneak in?” Lu Yurong’s fist pounded the table with a thunderous sound.
Fang Henyu pressed down Lu Yurong’s hand, looked up at Suzheng kneeling below: “Suzheng, you’ve been with the Prince for years, haven’t you? I hear you have younger siblings at home, and your whole family depends on your monthly wages, don’t they?”
“Your Highness, please spare my family. It was my greed, my lapse in judgment. The Prince has always treated Li Yan well, and she’s beautiful. I thought, I thought…” He kowtowed hard: “I know I was wrong, Princess Consort, please spare me.”
Lu Yurong snorted coldly, her tone as sharp as a knife: “How much did she promise you, that you could betray your master so completely and forget his kindness?”
Suzheng’s head hung lower and lower, finally pressed to the floor, and he squeezed out the words with difficulty: “Fifty taels.”
Fury flashed in Lu Yurong’s eyes as she said angrily, “Last winter, when your mother was ill, the Prince gave you thirty taels. Now, for a mere fifty taels, you betray the Prince! Look at the clothes you wear-they’re far better than most. Yet you’re still not satisfied!”
Fang Henyu glanced at Lu Yurong, then turned to Suzheng: “A servant who betrays his master can never stay in the Prince’s Mansion. Go to the accounts room, collect your fifty taels, and leave. This is the last dignity the Prince’s Mansion can give you.”
Lu Yurong and Fang Henyu began to question Fuluo again. I hurried inside.
The room was in chaos. I stepped over the shards of a broken vase and rumpled bedding, then over a blood-dripping sword. At the bedside, a person sat quietly.
“Don’t come closer. I killed someone.” He turned to look at me, expressionless. “She deserved to die.”
When my eyes landed on the bloodstain on the bedsheet, it was as if I’d been struck by lightning-my whole body was paralyzed. My vague suspicions were confirmed; I stood rooted, speechless.
Yanyan, relying on her beauty, had schemed her way onto his bed, only to be cut down by his sword-dead on the spot.
My mind went blank; for a moment, I lost the ability to think, and overwhelming panic surged over me.
Back then, I had used the same method to climb onto Yin Jiuqing’s bed.
Yin Jiuyi killed Yanyan. He, who had always been so gentle, actually killed someone-he must truly detest such women.
If he ever found out that I was the same, he would never treat me well again, and I would return to the life of being despised by everyone.
I didn’t know how I walked out of Yin Jiuyi’s room. As soon as I came out, I heard Lu Yurong’s furious rebuke: “The Prince saved her out of kindness, and how did she repay him? Ungrateful and insatiable. It was only handing the kitchen accounts over to Zhuzhu to manage, and yet she harbored such resentment. Cousin should never have saved her all those years ago-she should consider her own status, whether she’s worthy or not.”
Fang Henyu’s voice sounded: “There’s no need to be so harsh-”
It felt as if a gaping hole had been torn in my heart, the wind whistling through, and my body growing colder by the inch.
My status, my conduct-only now did I suddenly realize how shameful a thing I had done.
The bloodstained purple nail polish and the pale feet alternated in my mind, my steps grew unsteady, and in the moment I lost consciousness, my body toppled into the snow.