Chapter 5

Chapter 5

While I was gulping down lake water, I had already realized.

The illustrious Li Tai’a was never a brilliantly talented nobleman, but the sole daughter of the Langya Li Family.

No wonder that night, in her panic and fear, Zhirong had pinched me until I was black and blue.

After being hauled aboard the boat, I knelt on the deck, shivering uncontrollably.

A great cloak was draped over my head.

Just as I pulled it around me, I saw Li Tai’a lifting the teapot from the clay stove and filling a porcelain cup for me.

“This cup is to warm you up.”

Without a second thought, I took it and drained it in one gulp, but as soon as it hit my throat, I burst into choking coughs.

It was strong liquor in the cup.

She filled one for herself as well and half-sighed, “The lamb greedily feeds on water and grass, proud of its own plump beauty, yet how could it know it has brought upon itself a fatal calamity?”

I came from a peasant family.

In my youth, years of disaster and heavy taxes left our household with no means of survival.

A human trafficker, seeing how fair and tender my younger brother was, tried to forcibly buy him to present to Prince Shou.

That prince had a peculiar obsession: he loved to eat “lamb meat” stewed until the flesh fell off the bone, believing it would prolong his life.

My mother dragged my brother behind her and cried out to my father with a hoarse, desperate voice, “If you want to eat meat, eat mine! If you send him away, I won’t live either!”

I stepped forward and rolled up my tattered sleeves.

“I go up the mountain every day to chop wood and work in the fields. Though I’m tanned black, my flesh is firmer,” I said. “Take me instead.”

The trafficker pinched my trembling arm for a look, and the deal was sealed with silver.

I had played the hero, but in the end, fear and regret overwhelmed me. At the wagon, I clutched my mother’s sleeve tightly, hoping she might also say, “With Ah Wu gone, I won’t live either.”

And then snatch me into her arms.

But she only held my crying, struggling brother tight, turning her head away as if she dreaded looking at me even once more.

Later, the ship bearing tribute for Prince Shou passed through Hengzhou and was raided by the Governor, which is how I have survived until now.

I wiped the wine stain from the corner of my mouth. “So should I just wait for death?”

Li Tai’a smiled and shook her head. “That’s not what I meant.”

After that day, Yan Xuan wrote a fu poem for me, depicting my act of throwing myself into the water with boundless heroism.

Overnight, the poem became a sensation, making paper expensive in Luoyang.

The master’s evening banquets grew ever more bustling and popular.

Word came that the Xiongnu cavalry had trampled several more cities, but the bloody storm seemed unable to reach Hengzhou for the time being.

Outside the city walls, endless bloodshed; countless refugees and corpses from starvation.

Yet within the Governor’s Mansion, silk and bamboo music played on, as people gave themselves over to drink and pleasure, drowning in stupor from dawn to dusk.

Ordinary feasts, I no longer took part in.

Only the truly refined and illustrious figures of the age had the chance to catch a glimpse of my true face.

At last, even renowned scholars from the distant capital composed poems for me.

In their verses, they questioned the Governor: When would he release this White Crane back to the mountain forests?

One night, after three rounds of wine, the Governor smiled and asked, “Chunwu, ah Chunwu, if I were to adopt you as my foster daughter, wouldn’t that become a beautiful tale?”

For days on end, whenever I thought of this, my heart soared and I could burst into foolish laughter for half a day.

Zhirong grew spooked by my laughter and reached out to feel my forehead. “Are you ill?”

I said dreamily, “Once I’m freed from servitude, I’ll buy a big mansion. Then I’ll purchase seventeen or eighteen servants to wait on me day and night.”

I would have sumptuous delicacies at every meal, burn the purest silver charcoal in winter, and wear brocade without a single stray thread.

When I went out, I would ride in a sedan chair carried by four men, so that not even the soles of my shoes would touch a speck of dust.

From then on, no one in this world would dare call me by the lowly name Chunwu. Wherever I appeared, they would have to kneel trembling all over the ground.

And if anyone spoiled my mood, I could also-

Zhirong frowned. “Isn’t that just the same as we live now? People have hands and feet; what’s the point of making others do what you can do yourself, just to trample on them?”

I was speechless for a moment, and the look I gave her held a trace of pity.

This fool, this simpleton-she was exactly like her dead elder sister.

One must understand how exhilarating it is to have the power to grind others underfoot. Otherwise, why would everyone, from sages down to bandits, chase after it like starving dogs fighting over scraps?

She sighed. “Besides, will the master really be willing to let you go?”

I smiled faintly.

If he is not willing, he will become willing.

Releasing me now, to gain a reputation for magnanimity and boldness, is the most elegant thing under heaven.

He will do it.

Just as my grand spring-and-autumn dream was at its sweetest, a sudden commotion broke out in the rear courtyard.

The steward pushed the door open hurriedly and ordered Zhirong and me to dress and make ourselves up immediately.

The girl originally scheduled to accompany the banquet that night, before dark, had hung herself with three feet of white silk.

Prince Shou had arrived.