For five years, I brought meals to the scholar next door.
When he passed the imperial examinations as Tanhua, he did not come back to marry me.
Others laughed at me for being foolish. Though it hurt, I still waved it off and pretended to be carefree.
Then, one year, Mother was beaten half to death by the principal wife. Clinging to what little old affection remained, I cast aside my dignity and went to beg him.
I begged him to find a way to invite Doctor Dong, the most renowned physician in Shangjing City, to come take a look at her, and to help me obtain some good medicine for my mother.
The scholar advised me with a troubled expression, “It isn’t that I won’t help you. It’s just… how could I possibly interfere in your father’s inner household? I know Mother has been wronged, but as a concubine, how could she never suffer a beating?”
Years later, the scholar was implicated by others and demoted, and came to beg at my door.
By then, I was already Lady Jun, a First-rank Imperial Mandate Lady, not someone ordinary people could meet at will.
People of the time had a saying: Better to offend Lord Zichen than to offend Lady Jun.
I idly picked at the gold foil on my nail guard and said slowly,
“It isn’t that I won’t help you. It’s just… I am only a woman of the inner quarters. How could I possibly have any say in affairs of court? Besides, as an official and a subject, how could one never suffer a grievance?”
