Chapter 5
Behind me, the Crown Prince was jumping with rage.
Inside, Father’s expression barely changed.
“The Crown Prince has no sense of proportion. Must you behave outrageously as well?”
He dismissed the Crown Prince and the attendants, then handed me the memorials he had already marked.
I was not surprised to find denunciations of my arrogance and complaints about my slapping the heir to the Marquis of Huai’an at the banquet.
“These censors are so well informed and indignant about little squabbles, yet when it comes to the arms-embezzlement case three years ago, they see and hear nothing.”
“How interesting.”
I tossed the memorials aside and handed Father the notebook I had brought.
His face darkened with every page he turned.
By the end, he was furious.
“They… they really dared!”
“What wouldn’t they dare?”
I picked up a cup, poured myself some tea, and held it as I took small sips.
“Four years ago, the Xirong army attacked without warning. The Chunyang garrison was slaughtered overnight, the city fell, and not one of its people survived.”
“These same ministers wrote in their memorials that the attack had been sudden and our army had no time to respond.”
“No time to respond? What a joke.”
“It was simply an excuse for their embezzlement. Armed with a heap of scrap metal, our soldiers might as well have fought barehanded. How could they withstand the Xirong’s well-armed elite troops?”
My health really was poor.
But recuperating in Jiangnan these past three years had been a pretense.
Secretly investigating the defeat at Chunyang had been my true purpose.
I had volunteered for the task.
And Father had sanctioned it.
No one would be on guard against a sickly woman who made such a spectacle of herself.
The Chunyang case was tangled and far-reaching.
The Qi family, the Crown Prince’s maternal relations, and several ministers at court were all involved.
The others could wait.
They could be dealt with gradually.
“How many disgraceful things have the Qi family done over the years, relying on the Crown Prince’s position?”
“The imperial in-laws abuse their power, blinded by greed. And the Crown Prince is so easily swayed, so incapable of knowing what matters, acting on every whim. Does Father truly intend to entrust Great Yuan to him?”
Father understood all of it.
Yet he still hesitated.
He was no fool.
But he was indecisive, forever weighing one consideration against another.
Especially since the Qi were not only the Crown Prince’s maternal family, but his own as well.
Too many people were implicated. Mishandling the ministers involved could shake the court and damage its foundations.
Deposing the heir to the throne was graver still.
So when he said, “Let me consider this,”
I was not surprised.
I merely asked for leave to break off my engagement to Pei Yanli, then left the palace.
Father might be muddleheaded on the great matters of state.
But he was perfectly decisive about small ones.
I had barely left before the decree ending our engagement was delivered to the Marquis of Huai’an’s residence.
When Pei Yanli arrived with the decree clenched in his hand, I was drinking apricot-blossom wine that my fourth sister had brewed herself.
She spotted Pei Yanli approaching.
“You two talk. I shouldn’t pry. I won’t listen,” she said.
Then she turned and went into the side room, separated from us by a single wall.
Pei Yanli was completely unaware.
He entered and said coldly, “Your Highness, we need to talk.”
Yesterday, I had slapped him.
Today, his expression was calm.
He had recovered his old cold indifference.
I was still in a fairly good mood.
Letting his rudeness pass, I lifted my chin.
“About what?”
He tossed the decree toward me and frowned. “Why must you take things so far? Do you have any idea what people are saying after the scene you caused today?”
Unconcerned, I pushed the decree aside.
“What else would they say? That I’m arrogant, overbearing, and have no manners.”
“They certainly wouldn’t say you secretly fell for Meng Wantang while you were betrothed to me, would they?”
At the mention of Meng Wantang, his composure finally shifted.
“I know you believed those street rumors before returning to the capital, but there is nothing improper between Miss Meng and me. We have never crossed any boundaries. There is no need for suspicion or jealousy.”
He paused.
Apparently choosing his words, he softened his tone too.
The very picture of reasonableness.
“She’s a concubine’s daughter. Her father’s wife dumped her on an estate and made her suffer for more than ten years. After the fuss you caused today, the Meng family intends to send her back.”
“She is a living person with feelings. Pressing her like this… aren’t you driving her into a corner?”
I was driving her into a corner?
I almost laughed.
“I never mentioned her once at the palace gates today. Why her father’s wife sends her to the estate is the Meng family’s business. What does it have to do with me?”
“For that matter, what does the Meng family’s business have to do with you?”
“You insist the two of you have never crossed any boundaries, yet she hasn’t even come crying to me, and here you are defending her.”
I had never been one to spare anyone’s feelings.
I did not know which remark angered him.
His fists suddenly clenched, and a thin flush of anger rose in his face.
“Yesterday you slandered her and me at the banquet. Today you broke off our engagement.”
“Rumors are already spreading everywhere. Aren’t you making such a public fuss precisely to give them substance and put the two of us at the center of a scandal?”
His eyes filled with disappointment.
“Lu Shijin, if I’d known this was the sort of person you were, I should never have saved you when those bandits abducted you during the hunt!”