Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The current Empress Dowager came from the Pei Clan.

When she was still a young girl, she had once received kindness and care from the grandmother of the Marquis Pei Household.

Thus, when Marquis Pei suddenly died of illness and the Pei Clan was left struggling to hold itself up alone, the Empress Dowager issued an imperial decree, granting the only princess in the palace in marriage to Pei Pingjin.

Though I was the First Princess of the Great Yong Imperial Clan, cherished by the Late Emperor as the apple of his eye, my reputation was hardly a good one.

Cruel. Heartless, even to kin.

For power, for money, for fame, for profit.

I had practically joined hands with the Current Emperor and cut a bloody path through the entire former court and inner palace.

Even the blood cousin and aunt of the childhood sweetheart I had once loved-one had his head severed by my order and hung from the city wall, while the other was strangled with three feet of white silk in the rear palace.

A love divided by human lives was never destined for a good end.

He rode for the distant borderlands, while I remained alone to guard the imperial city.

From then on, mountains and rivers lay between us. In life or death, we would scarcely meet again.

It so happened that when the new emperor ascended the throne, foreign envoys came to court.

The Crown Prince of Eastern Liao proposed using three cities as the bride price to marry me, a woman everyone called venomous as a snake and scorpion.

If I refused, I would be accused of lacking righteousness toward my country.

If I went, I would be a lamb entering a tiger’s den, with only the slimmest chance of survival.

Just as I was caught between a rock and a hard place, the Empress Dowager extended an olive branch to me.

A mutually beneficial marriage in name only-Pei Pingjin was willing, and I did not refuse.

After the wedding, I continued living in the Princess’s Residence on the grounds that I was used to it.

Pei Pingjin, meanwhile, used the excuse of attending to his ailing grandmother and moved back into the Yongning Marquis Estate.

He and I became the most famous nominal couple in the capital.

He remained his willful Lord Heir, and I remained my all-powerful Grand Princess.

We lived in separate residences and did not interfere with each other.

In fact, in the circles of fame and power, we even lent each other respectability and complemented one another quite well.

Until that reckless little cousin of his came to the capital.

She was a young girl so reckless she bordered on rude.

Three months ago, pastries from Jiangnan had become all the rage in the capital.

I put in quite a bit of effort to find a pastry chef from Jiangnan, intending to keep him in the Princess’s Residence to refine his skills, then send him into the palace to coax that greedy mouth of the Empress.

But the moment the pastry chef entered the capital, someone snatched him out from under me.

It was none other than the Prince Consort’s cousin, Lu Qingshuang.

Pouting, she used the Prince Consort’s name to stop the man and take him to the Yongning Marquis Estate.

“When hiring a craftsman, naturally the highest bidder wins. You cannot bow and scrape in an act of flattery just because she is a princess and ruin the rules of the trade, can you?”

“Besides, if the pastries are so good that the princess can eat them, then why can’t my aunt, her proper mother-in-law, eat them too?”

At first, Pei Pingjin still knew this was improper. In a flurry, he grabbed the pastry chef by the hand and was about to bring him to the Princess’s Residence to apologize to me.

But Lu Qingshuang planted her hands on her hips, blocked them in the courtyard, and scolded him to his face.

“Cousin, it’s because you never established your authority as a husband that she dares climb over your head and turn the Marquis’s Estate into the laughingstock of the capital, a family that lives off a woman.”

“Stop indulging her, and she’ll naturally learn how good you are.”

“You’re not going! I’m your cousin-would I ever harm you?”

Pei Pingjin was persuaded.

My pastry chef was kept in the Marquis’s Estate.

After all, we were husband and wife in name, and the Marquis’s Estate had suffered some criticism and grievances because of me.

It was only a matter of satisfying one’s appetite. Yielding once would not hurt.

But once there was a first time, there was a second.

Pei Pingjin had promised me that he would find the finest piece of uncut jade in the mines and make it a gift for the child in the Empress’s belly.

That unparalleled piece of raw jade was the color of mutton-fat, lustrous and almost alive with spirit.

Ling Yun had only taken one look at it before she praised it endlessly to me.

Thinking of that piece of jade, I let go of my displeasure over the pastry chef.

But the next month, that piece of jade was split into three.

The best part became the translucent bangle on Lu Qingshuang’s wrist.

The core cut from its center was divided into two pieces.

One became the jade pendant at Lu Qingshuang’s waist.

The other became the jade ornament on Lu Qingshuang’s necklace.

She lifted her chin and flaunted the jade all over herself at the banquet in the Marquis’s Estate.

Every word she said was aimed at me.

“The Empress Dowager praised me for being charming. Though jade is a bit old-fashioned, once it was split into three pieces and worn on me, it actually looks rather playful.”

I leaned back in my armchair and took in every ounce of her smugness.

If I still could not see the deliberate provocation in her eyes at that moment, then all my years surviving in the rear palace would have been for nothing.

My disdainful chuckle fell into her eyes and became a forced smile.

So she pushed further, lifting her wine cup and calling out to me from afar.

“Your Highness is truly wise. Knowing your own elegance is subdued, you don’t borrow jade ornaments to weigh yourself down, lest you look even more old-fashioned.”

Pei Pingjin’s expression changed drastically. He hurriedly apologized to me.

“My cousin is young and ignorant. She speaks without thinking and means no offense. I beg Your Highness to forgive her.”

I picked up my wine cup, my smile perfectly composed.

“The little girl is ignorant. Is the Prince Consort ignorant too?”

With a single sentence, the entire hall fell silent.

I continued, “I spent a full thirty thousand taels of silver on that piece of jade, and now it has been broken up and put on her body. Who is paying for it?”