Chapter 3

After Zhao Zisong was taken away for treatment, Madam Ren made the choice for me.

From then on, I was to live quietly with Li Mang and the child.

In short, the wife-leasing arrangement would be treated as though it had never happened.

Madam Ren also said that if I found the Chancellor’s Residence too confining, then after I gave birth, she would let me move elsewhere with Li Mang.

Distracted, I nodded to everything.

The next day was bright and clear. She took me to see the house.

Ren Suihuan came along. She was the clingy sort.

The place was large and airy. The kitchen alone was bigger than the main room of my old home. I had nothing to complain about.

When we passed the pond in the courtyard, I lingered behind, wondering whether I might put a few fry in it. By the time I caught up, Madam Ren was tapping Ren Suihuan on the nose.

“Before we brought your sister home, you threw such a tantrum,” she said gently. “Now that she is really here, why are you suddenly willing to come out with her?”

Ren Suihuan squirmed. “Mother, don’t tease me.”

After a pause, she added, “I just think Suixi’s life has been so terribly pitiful.”

Ren Suixi, who possessed a noble name without a noble fate, was no threat to Ren Suihuan, who truly had the life of a cherished young lady.

After we saw the house, Ren Suihuan spotted a street vendor selling pear-syrup candy and said she wanted some.

Madam Ren went with her to buy it while I waited nearby.

At a candied-hawthorn stall not far away, a man dropped his purse without noticing.

I went over and picked it up.

Only then did he realize it was missing.

He turned around. He appeared to be in his forties or fifties, with a commanding, dignified air.

“Many thanks, many thanks.” Noticing my pregnancy and how awkward it was for me to bend, he looked rather alarmed. “Whose wife are you? Why are you here alone?”

“Your daughter.”

Madam Ren’s voice came suddenly from behind me.

She stepped forward and reproached him. “You have spent all these days in the palace. Now that you’re finally out, why didn’t you hurry home?”

The chancellor accepted two skewers of candied hawthorn from the vendor. He said the children liked sweets, so he had stopped on a whim.

Then he gave one skewer to me and one to Ren Suihuan.

I used to sell candied hawthorn and had grown tired of the stuff, so I ate mine slowly.

When my teeth began to ache from the sourness, I remembered how I used to push the last few berries into Zhao Zisong’s hand. Now I did not know whom to give them to, so I finished them all myself.

When we returned to the Chancellor’s Residence, Ren Suihuan hopped down from the carriage and handed her half-eaten skewer to a servant to throw away.

Just then, the steward waiting at the gate came forward. “Young Master Xu is here.”

“Xu Linghuai?” Ren Suihuan’s eyes lit up, and she immediately started to run inside.

Madam Ren caught her. “You haven’t married him yet. Don’t be so eager.”

I understood then. He was Ren Suihuan’s betrothed.