Chapter 7
That evening,
the crown prince brought Song Qianyi home.
She held an exquisite palace lantern.
Her clothes and jewelry had all been replaced. The dangling ornament in her hair swayed gently, making her look delicate and lovely.
The crown prince had arrived.
Our whole family had to change clothes and receive him.
Song Qianyi stood at the door, her doe-like eyes anxious and shy.
“Aunt. Cousin.”
The crown prince motioned for Mother to rise before turning to me. “Ah Ning…”
“Please observe the proprieties, Your Highness,” I interrupted.
Ah Ning?
He had no right to call me Ah Ning.
No right at all.
Apparently startled by my anger, he grew a little angry himself, then let out a long sigh.
“The heart cannot be commanded.”
“I know. That’s why I ask you to observe the proprieties. If you address me so intimately, my cousin might misunderstand. Isn’t that so, Qianyi?”
Song Qianyi’s lips paled.
“Cousin, I didn’t mean that. I… I’m sorry. If you want to punish someone, punish me.”
She made as if to kneel.
Mu Zheng hastily stopped her, gathering her into his arms and glaring at me.
His partiality could not have been clearer.
I remembered those ten years in the ruined garden.
When I first began tilling the soil and planting vegetables, I knew nothing. My fingers were covered in blisters.
But he was sunk in his own misery and never saw them.
Instead, the guards, seeing how long it took me to turn one patch of soil, would quietly till it at night. Sometimes they casually tossed in a packet of seeds. Sometimes, as I passed, they whispered that it was time to fertilize.
I had known nothing.
At first insects terrified me. In time, I could face them without blinking.
He never saw any of it.
But Song Qianyi’s hurt feelings—those he saw.
I gave a derisive laugh.
“Your Highness, I’ve seen how deeply you love my cousin. May I go to bed now? I’m still ill. I can’t withstand all this commotion.”
“You’re ill?”
Mu Zheng looked surprised.
Song Qianyi bit her lip.
Just then, a little head peered through the doorway, quietly watching me.
A servant followed behind her, holding her sleeve at the threshold. Glancing between the crown prince and Song Qianyi, he did not dare let her enter.
Delight stirred in me. I beckoned. “Come in!”
The girl was only six or seven, too young to read people’s expressions.
She came in timidly and said,
“Hello, Sister.”
I bent down and happily touched her little face.
It was my Liansheng’s face.
“You’re Liansheng?”
She nodded lightly, not understanding.
I gathered her into my arms, lifted her, and kissed her little cheek.
Then I regretted it. It was sticky and not very clean.
At this age, Liansheng was a child her parents valued little.
She spent her days scrambling about in the fields. She was grubby and featherlight, scarcely a weight in my arms.
“How wonderful,” I said. “I’ve been looking for a little girl named Liansheng to be my sister.”
I remembered secretly crying at night in my previous life, making almost no sound beyond a faint sniffle.
Liansheng had heard.
She lit a lamp and sat quietly beside my bed.
“My lady, I know how you suffer.”
“I was sold into the palace at ten. I was beaten many times.”
“But I know the matron who taught me did it for my sake.”
“Those who couldn’t take the beatings died long ago.”
“I endured them, and became a maid in your palace.”
“I know Heaven has treated you badly. If you’d been born in the mud like me, you wouldn’t think it so filthy.”
“But you’ve soared in the sky. Falling must hurt terribly.”
“Still, it can’t be helped. An eagle doesn’t want its wings broken either.”
“All it can do is learn to live on the ground like a chicken, and keep going.”
“If you want to cry, cry aloud. I’ll keep the lamp lit for you.”
I’ll keep the lamp lit for you…
Later, she had cried out against the injustice done to me.
“My lady was only sixteen when they shut her in that ruined garden. What did she ever do wrong?”
My tears fell.
My Liansheng did not know that her name would change. It was written with the character for “birth” now; after she entered the palace, her teaching matron would replace it with the character for the sheng reed instrument, keeping the pronunciation the same.
“A different character, the same name. Keep something to hold on to.”
“People need something to hold on to if they’re to keep living.”
She had told me that softly.
She knew few characters and had read few books.
But she wanted me to live.
Even after I died, she did not resent me. She followed me into death, protesting the injustice.
So, Liansheng, let us go home together.