Chapter 2
I leaned against the carriage wall and closed my eyes.
Whenever I recalled Xie Linyuan’s parting words, my head began to pound.
I had saved the man, yet somehow I had still made an enemy of him.
An enemy indeed—and what a source of misery.
At last, I understood why everyone in my family had chosen to become villains.
Being good was simply too difficult.
It was thankless and infuriating…
Inside the carriage, my maid Xiaohuan gently massaged my hand.
“When we return home, Miss, this servant will soak your hand in warm milk, massage it thoroughly with rose oil brought as tribute from the Western Regions, and apply pearl powder from the Southern Sea…”
My eyelid twitched as I listened.
“Stop, stop. From today onward, we are doing away with all of that. We must economize in everything and avoid needless extravagance.”
Xiaohuan looked puzzled.
“But, Miss, haven’t you always treasured your skin above everything? If you don’t care for it properly, it will become rough.”
My smile looked more painful than tears.
“Rough is good. The rougher it is… the more secure I’ll feel. From now on, whenever Father or my sister gives me anything rare or precious, exchange it all for silver and save it. I have an important use for the money.”
Xiaohuan only half understood.
But seeing the gravity on my face, she did not dare ask more. She merely answered softly, “Yes, Miss. This servant will remember.”
I counted the days on my fingers.
The time had nearly come for my sister to start making trouble.
My eldest legitimate sister, Shen Ruyu, was born extraordinarily beautiful.
Only a few years after entering the palace, she was elevated to an imperial consort.
The late empress had died, leaving behind a single son, Xiao Jing.
As an act of imperial favor, the emperor placed him in my sister’s care.
My sister, however, was vicious.
She declared that the prince was old enough to experience the hardships of ordinary people and casually shipped him off to an estate outside the capital.
She even sent several eunuchs to supervise him. Every day, they made him recite The Peasant’s Toil, while every meal consisted of coarse tea and plain food.
Every few days, he was thrown into the fields to do farmwork as well.
The poor child was only twelve. Wind and sun had left his hands covered in calluses.
Xiao Jing suffered for no reason and carried the grudge for years.
Later, with the aid of his maternal uncle Xie Linyuan, he ascended the throne.
On the second day of his reign, he had Consort Dowager Shen killed with a cup of poisoned wine.
Carrying a cloth bundle, I entered a bookshop.
I found the shopkeeper and opened the bundle to reveal a stack of papers.
“Shopkeeper, please print these pictures as booklets for me. I need three thousand copies in all.”
Hearing that it was a large order, the shopkeeper did not dare neglect me.
He carefully leafed through the drawings.
“Miss,” he asked in confusion, “is this drawing of… a tree?”
I bristled.
Pointing at the inscription, I said, “It is obviously a man holding a hoe. Can’t you read the words beside it? It says Prince Jing Tilling the Fields.”
“And these large circles are…?”
“Blisters on his hands.”
The look on the shopkeeper’s face defied description.
“Miss, the… conception of your artwork is admirable, but the figure’s form and spirit are, well… Perhaps I could find a more skilled artist to redraw it according to your vision?”
I was skeptical.
“An ordinary person has never seen the prince. What if the likeness is poor?”
The shopkeeper thumped his chest in assurance. “I’ll find someone who has seen him.”
“No likeness, no payment.”
“It will look exactly like him. I guarantee it.”
While we spoke, a cool voice sounded behind me.
“Shopkeeper, has the Atlas of Mountains and Rivers I ordered arrived?”
The shopkeeper clearly knew him and hurriedly bowed. “Lord Xie, it has, it has. This humble one will fetch it for you at once.”
My scalp went numb.
I slowly turned around. Sure enough, Xie Linyuan stood at the bookshop entrance in a sky-blue informal robe.
Sunlight outlined his tall, slender figure from behind.
Why was he here?!
Xie Linyuan’s sharp gaze swept across my bloodless face.
The air froze in an instant.
The tips of his ears reddened. Perhaps he had remembered how I had purged the drug from his system that day.
There was anger in his gaze too.
“You?”
I raised a hand to cover my face. “Not me. It wasn’t me!”
He had been drugged that day and had not been fully conscious.
If I firmly refused to admit anything, surely he could not pin it on me… could he?
As we stood deadlocked, his gaze moved past my shoulder and landed on the counter.
He froze. “Hm?”
If I did not flee now, what better chance would I get?
I vanished like a shot.