Chapter 6

I saved Mu Heng.

Our household physician came discreetly to treat him.

There was one difference from my previous life.

This time he had been poisoned as well as wounded.

The poison would slowly eat away at his body, gradually taking his sight.

As his wounds were dressed, Mu Heng knitted his brows and endured it without a word. Even at the worst of the pain, he gave only a muffled groan.

He was a man capable of great things. He knew how to endure.

Once the medicine had been applied, he smiled at me.

“Miss Shen, are you really not attending today’s consort-selection banquet? You and my brother the crown prince grew up together. Wouldn’t it be a pity to miss it?”

I slowly washed my fingers, wiping away his blood bit by bit.

Instead of answering, I asked him,

“Why were assassins after you? And why were you in the woods outside my home?”

Mu Heng’s expression grew grave.

“Struggles within the imperial family have always been like this. There’s little to say.”

He did not answer my second question.

I did not press him.

I sat beside his bed with a book.

When he wanted water, I handed it to him.

When he ate, I fed him.

For his medicine, I made a straw from a reed and let him sip through it. It was easier than feeding him spoonful by spoonful, and not quite so bitter.

He seemed surprised.

“Miss Shen, you’re a lady of a distinguished family. How are you so…”

So practiced? Was that what he meant?

I had cared for the deposed crown prince for ten years.

Back then, all my hopes had rested on him.

Only if he rose again could I leave that garden.

If he died, I would probably have only three choices: white silk, poisoned wine, or a dagger.

I was a coward. I wanted to live.

I was ambitious too. I wanted my family to live as well.

That cowardly ambition taught me so many things I had never known: tilling fields and growing vegetables, raising chickens and ducks, cutting clothes and stitching shoes.

Suffering made people grow quickly—or fall quickly. No one was exempt.

“When will your people come for you?” I asked coolly.

His lips formed the faintest pout. “Could you let me stay a few more days?” he pleaded softly.

I paused, realizing with a pang of grief:

the Mu Heng before me was different from the Mu Heng of many years later.

The Mu Heng I had saved was different from the Mu Heng who hated me.

Frustration tightened in my chest.

The frustration of suddenly not knowing whom to hate.

I lifted the curtain and went outside for air.

Faintly, I heard his voice. “Sister Shen, if it bothers you, I’ll leave now.”

“Be quiet. Don’t call me sister.”

He fell silent.

I was irritable, and terribly sad.

All afternoon I read quietly while he slept. Sometimes he hissed in pain. I did not get up to look at him. I pretended not to hear.

Toward evening, Mother returned.

She brought news that infuriated her: at the banquet, Crown Prince Mu Zheng had publicly chosen Song Qianyi as his crown princess.

The empress was angry.

Everyone was astonished.

Only Mu Zheng remained resolute.

Tears in her eyes, Mother said, “When did they become involved? How could they do this? One grew up with you, the other is your own cousin. How could they?”

She trembled with rage.

She had actually gone that day to apologize to the empress.

Perhaps she had still clung to a faint hope that she had misjudged the crown prince and Song Qianyi.

But everything that happened shattered that hope.

Some people had even mocked her for her cleverness.

“Every girl the crown prince likes comes from your household. Your own daughter or your niece—they’re all your family. Why do you look so upset?”

Mother was humiliated and angry, but more than anything, she grieved for me.

Let her cry if she needed to.

After the tears, there would be good days ahead.

“Mother, finding out before the wedding can only be a good thing.”

I leaned gently against her and stroked her back.

In my previous life, Song Qianyi had hidden it well.

Later she won Mu Heng’s favor and was to marry him.

I thought it was because I had sent her to save him and he felt grateful. I had been truly happy for her.

Mother had been happy too. She prepared a lavish dowry and wrote to the Song family, pressuring them into returning every bit of the property they had seized from my aunt and uncle.

But afterward, those very things became Song Qianyi’s reasons for forgiving the Songs.

“Haven’t my uncle and aunt already returned the money they took?”

“I no longer hold it against them. Why should you?”

“My surname is Song, not Shen.”

“Everything I have today, I earned myself.”

Those were Song Qianyi’s words.

In my previous life, I had never managed to escape the ruined garden. I hoped she would prove capable of getting out in this one.