Chapter 6

Only moments earlier, Pei Ruoxue had looked lost and pitiful, like a homeless cur. Now she calmly ordered me to dismiss my servants.

Once we were alone, she said, “You have been married for five years without having a child. Don’t you find that strange?”

I was baffled. “No. Why would I?”

That clearly wasn’t the answer she had expected.

After a startled pause, she asked, “You truly know?”

What did my having children have to do with her?

What sort of place did she think the southern frontier was? We were desperately poor and at war every day. One of my aunts had died with her unborn child during a military retreat.

Have a baby there? She might as well wish me dead.

Ran Ling was the one taking medicine to prevent it.

I grew impatient. “Whatever you want to say, say it plainly.”

Pei Ruoxue studied me for a long moment before collecting her thoughts.

“His legitimate eldest son must be born to a daughter of a powerful aristocratic house. Only then will he have their support and be able to take the throne.”

I said nothing.

“Even if you think I’m trying to sow discord between you, Little Sister Lingyun, you should still listen.”

I remained silent because Mother had taught me that when I couldn’t work out what someone wanted, it was better to close my mouth than expose my ignorance. Silence made a person appear unfathomable.

“Don’t forget how Noble Consort Qiao died,” Pei Ruoxue said.

Ran Ling’s birth mother had died horribly. It was shocking enough that the empress had hung her corpse from the city wall, but she had gone on to exterminate three branches of the Qiao clan.

Pei Ruoxue stared deeply into my eyes. “Empress Jiang may appear powerful, but the aristocratic houses have always known which way the wind is blowing. He need only nod, and they will put him on the throne at once. He could avenge the late noble consort. Tell me, Little Sister Lingyun—would he truly give up that chance?”

Understanding dawned on me. “You have a point.”

Ran Ling himself had called Empress Jiang a puppet.

Pei Ruoxue grew excited. “Then you—”

Fortunately, Mother had already prepared me for this question.

People in the capital possess worse character than Ran Ling. Memorize this sentence.

I merely raised my eyes.

“Are you finished? If you are, please leave.”

That did not mean my heart was perfectly still. Perhaps my cultivation simply wasn’t deep enough.

I knew Ran Ling’s feelings for Pei Ruoxue had never been the same as his feelings for me.

He was only seventeen when they eloped. Persecuted until his family was ruined and he had nowhere to go, he fled three thousand miles south with the woman he loved. When pursuers caught up to them, he even used his own body to shield her from a sword.

Anyone who saw them together back then could tell how deeply he loved her.

Unfortunately, though their love survived an elopement and pursuit across half the realm, it could not survive the southern borderlands.

The capital’s delicate flower could not take root there, especially when there seemed to be no hope for the future.

“Are we supposed to spend our whole lives trapped in this savage wasteland, surrounded by barbarians and brutes?” Pei Ruoxue had cried.

Eventually, her family came to collect her, and Ran Ling personally sent her away.

He fell gravely ill afterward. From then on, he followed my father from campaign to campaign as if he had severed himself from all love.

And me?

I married him three years after he parted from Pei Ruoxue. I was the lawful wife he welcomed with full rites and ceremony.

But when our marriage was being discussed, Mother had asked for my consent.

“This man will never betray you. But your alliance will come first and your marriage second. Can you accept that?”

I said I could. Of course I could.

At the time, all I could think about was how the imperial court was bleeding the southern frontier to death and leaving my family without a path to survival.

To put it bluntly, what Ran Ling and Pei Ruoxue had shared was true love. What he and I had was a political marriage.

Now the woman he had loved, the regret of his youth, had returned—and with her came a shortcut to the throne.

Could he truly keep his promise?