Chapter 5

“This servant will brew a fresh pot.” I reached for the cup in Mingyue’s hand, but she tilted it and spilled the scalding tea over the back of mine.

I glanced at her. My back was to the young miss, so she did not notice anything amiss. Without changing my expression, I quietly cleaned everything away and withdrew.

By the time I returned to the inner chamber with fresh tea, Mingyue had left. “Your Highness, has Jieyu Zhou gone?”

The young miss nodded faintly and sighed. “She has changed so much. She is no longer the Mingyue I knew.”

“That is true of everyone. As our circumstances change, we slowly become different people.” I set the tea on the table. When the young miss cocked her head to one side, I knew her headache had returned, so I went to fetch several medicinal pills.

“I always treated her as a younger sister. And yet this is what she has become.” The young miss swallowed the medicine.

It was precisely that attitude that gave lowborn girls a dangerous illusion: that they were half a young lady of a noble house themselves, and that, given the chance, they should pay any price to climb across the gulf between classes.

Not only Mingyue. I was the same. My resentment, greed, and ambition were not a whit less than hers.

Because the young miss had been generous, I had learned to read and study. I had touched things that should have remained beyond my reach for an entire lifetime.

Mingyue and I had both gambled our lives.

“If I had another chance to choose, I think I would still choose Mingyue over you.” After taking her medicine, the young miss turned her back to me and lay down on her side.

“Naturally.” A bitter smile touched my lips. When nothing else is known, beauty is the soundest choice.

“If I regret that choice now, how am I to face all these years?” She spoke as though trying to comfort herself.

I did not answer. I merely drew the door closed behind me.

From beginning to end, I played the loyal servant in my young miss’s shadow, without color or light of my own.

No one noticed me. No one cared about me. And because of that, I escaped into the boundless heavens and their endless calculations.

Outside the door, I took out the notebook I carried with me. I closed my eyes over an unfinished problem and sank into my own world.

Something touched my shoulder. When I opened my eyes, Mingyue had returned. She motioned for me to follow her.

“You are of age this year, aren’t you? Leave the palace.” Her tone was half command.

“If Her Highness agrees, then naturally I will go.” I closed my notebook. With no one else present, I did not bow to my sister.

“I truly do not understand you. You are still studying those things. What use are they?” Mingyue glanced at the notebook in my hand and snorted.

I answered honestly, “None at all. I simply like them.”

If my work ever did prove useful, it would benefit generations yet unborn. It would have little to do with me.

“Once you leave the palace, I will arrange a good marriage for you,” Mingyue said.

I had never given such matters much thought. All I managed was a dry, “Thank you.”

Though Mingyue and I were sisters, our tempers and dispositions were too different for us to be close. After those few words, silence settled between us completely.

Mingyue waved irritably to show that she was leaving. She had gone some distance before the thought struck me, belatedly, and I hurried after her.

“What?” Mingyue turned around.

“Congratulations,” I said.

Her eyes slowly reddened. Perhaps she wondered what I meant: her release from bondage, her life of brocade and fine food, or her ascent to a place among the emperor’s women?