Chapter 6

My eyes were red when we headed home.

My sister looked at me with concern.

“Did the Eighth Prince say something to upset you?”

I shook my head.

My voice was still thick from crying.

“No. He was very kind. Some spray from the waterfall got into my eyes.”

“Then we’ll roll an egg over them when we get home.”

She drew me into her arms.

My nose stung, and I nearly started crying again.

“Sister, why are you so good to me?”

She smiled and tapped my forehead.

“I’m your elder sister. Of course I should be good to you.”

At home, Mother tenderly rolled an egg over my eyes.

Its warmth eased the soreness.

“Don’t get so close to that waterfall next time. You liked playing beneath it when you were little too. The water got into your eyes, and they bothered you for days.”

Mother went on talking, but I could not remember any of it.

“Mother, why don’t I remember that?”

She tapped my forehead gently. “You went to the little mountain outside the city today, didn’t you?”

“I wondered why this seemed so familiar. It turns out we went through it once when we were children.”

My sister came through the doorway. Behind her, a maid carried a bouquet of gardenias.

I opened my eyes a sliver.

The gardenias surprised me.

“They aren’t in season. Where did you get them, Sister?”

She waved a hand.

“I’m not that capable. Apparently the Eighth Prince had some sort of greenhouse built a while ago. He sent these.”

I took the flowers from the maid.

Their delicate fragrance drifted up to me, and I could not keep the smile from my lips.

“Mother, how old was I when that happened? Why can’t I remember any of it?”

My sister stood on Mother’s other side with another egg in her hand.

“Eight or nine, perhaps? I remember you cried terribly that day. You came down with a high fever afterward.”

A faint image slowly emerged in my mind.

The figure in it gradually took on Xiao Shengjing’s face.

So we had met years ago?

“Madam, the Sixth Prince has sent a bouquet of gardenias and a bouquet of jasmine.”

The gatekeeper’s words made my heart falter.

The smile slipped from my face.

So Xiao Yichi had known all along that I liked gardenias.

As dusk fell, my sister and I ate in the main courtyard, then parted at its entrance.

When I pushed open my door, a dark figure dropped down.

My maid was about to cry out when someone struck her pressure points, immobilizing her.

Xiao Yichi’s face emerged.

“It’s me.”

I shook my head at the maid.

Then only the two of us remained in the room.

“What brings you here, Your Highness?”

“Song Yueying, there’s a limit to playing hard to get. Tell Mother tomorrow that your hand slipped and you chose the wrong man. I might still condescend to marry you.”

I frowned at him.

“Your Highness, how can the empress’s decree be changed on a whim?”

“Why can’t it? If you could change one, Mother’s can certainly be changed.”

He was referring to our previous life, when the Third Prince had requested that his eldest legitimate son with my sister be formally named his heir.

My nephew looked very much like her.

Xiao Yichi was fond of him too.

He often asked the Third Prince to bring the boy to the palace so he could teach him himself.

On the day of the boy’s investiture, Xiao Yichi had even used my name to raise the ceremonial honors from those of a prince’s heir to those of an imperial prince.

Our own eldest legitimate son, An’er, looked almost exactly like Xiao Yichi.

Xiao Yichi had held him a few times in the first months after his birth, while he still needed my father.

After he became emperor, father and son rarely even saw each other.

“You must be joking, Your Highness. The man I chose was the Eighth Prince.”