Chapter 6
It was true.
Ten years ago, during a hunt outside the capital, my horse had gone wild and bolted out of the hunting grounds. Mounted bandits had carried me off, and he had saved my life.
At the time, the bandits thought I was an ordinary official’s daughter and intended to hold me for ransom.
Wealthy households, after all, would pay to hush things up for the sake of their women’s reputations.
They had not expected me to be the Princess Royal.
Once they learned my identity, they knew there would be no quiet settlement.
To avoid the consequences, they set fire to the thatched hut, intending to burn me alive.
But I survived.
The thick smoke only damaged my eyes.
Before I lost consciousness, I dimly saw someone rush inside.
Afterward, everyone said it had been Pei Yanli who saved me.
Because of that debt, and because the marchioness wished to make a match of us,
Father had naturally bestowed our engagement once I came of age.
But…
“Pei Yanli, were you really the one who saved me?”
With a sharp crash,
I smashed the wine cup in my hand at his feet.
I had intended to leave him some dignity, considering how long we had known each other.
If he did not want it, so be it.
“The smoke may have blinded me, but it didn’t make me deaf.”
“If not for the bond between your forefather and mine, who founded this realm together, I’d have exposed you long ago.”
My voice was very soft.
I rose, walked over, and stopped before him with a faint smile.
“Had you left that matter alone, I could have let it pass. Seeing you storm in here on a woman’s behalf, I might even have respected your courage. But you had to bring it up…”
“What? Did you think I was blind in more ways than one? Or that I’d tolerated your antics all this time because I had feelings for you?”
He clearly had not expected me to know the truth of that year, much less to have no romantic feelings for him at all.
Pei Yanli’s face grew pale.
But I was not finished.
I pretended to remember something.
“Oh, yes. You said there’s nothing between you and Meng Wantang?”
“But on the sixteenth day of the first month last year, you held hands while visiting White Horse Temple. At last year’s Qixi Festival, you kissed in a dark corner of Osmanthus Lane.”
“If that’s innocent, what would you consider improper?”
He had not expected me to know so much.
His face went from livid to pale and back again.
His fists clenched, but he could not get a word out.
He could only stare at my smiling face.
“Pei Yanli, nothing good ever comes out of that mouth of yours. Think before you speak.”
“Otherwise, I really will suspect you’re trying to make me die laughing.”
I had never lost a battle of words.
Pei Yanli had arrived full of fury.
He left with his face mottled red and pale, unable to utter a word.
Only when he was well away did my fourth sister emerge from the side room.
She was still shelling the sunflower seeds she had not finished.
Curious as she looked, she did not ask many questions.
Only the most important one.
“Sis, how did you know he’d kissed that concubine’s daughter?”
I sat down to drink without looking up.
“I guessed.”
She did not believe me. In fact, she looked as though disaster had struck.
“A guess that accurate? Impossible! Has someone else been writing to you besides me?”
“Who?”
“Oh, heavens! Have you found another little sister out there? Am I not your one and only baby sister anymore?”
She put on an aggrieved expression.
Then she rubbed her head affectionately back and forth against my shoulder.
“I object! I do not approve of this relationship!”
It was true.
Over those three years, someone besides her had been writing to me.
Six letters in three years.
Apart from the situation in the capital, the largest part of every letter concerned the intimacy between Pei Yanli and Meng Wantang.
To this day, however, I did not know the writer’s name.
I did not know how to explain that to my fourth sister.
Recognizing that she was clowning around to ease the mood rather than seriously questioning me, I did not point it out.
I merely pushed her head away with one finger.
And ruthlessly shattered her claim. “Don’t forget, I have four younger sisters besides you. The youngest is a year and a half old…”
She seemed to fall to pieces.
Then she seemed to put herself back together.
She pitifully wiped away nonexistent tears and began cracking sunflower seeds again.
“Oh, Sis, those young noblemen who gossiped about you yesterday were beaten up at home this morning, for no apparent reason.”
“Miss Li and Miss Wang too. Snakes suddenly infested their perfectly ordinary bedchambers. I hear they’ve been crying all day.”
“Who do you suppose was kind enough to do it? Some gallant stranger who couldn’t stand injustice…?”
As she speculated,
a figure flashed through my mind.
Too quickly for me to catch it.
I gave it no thought, lifting the apricot-blossom wine for another small sip.
“Whether it was some gallant stranger, who knows?”