Chapter 5
Liang Yanchun was, in fact, a very obedient person.
He had long since been crushed into meekness and compliance.
However frantically he had wanted to die again on those first two nights,
when faced once more with the punishing study schedule his mother had drawn up, he still fulfilled it very well.
He had been born to study.
Once his tutor’s morning lessons were over, only I remained to watch him in the afternoon.
I abandoned the severity of my previous life.
After he raced through his assignments, I quietly opened the hidden compartment I had made beneath his desk.
A small game board lay inside. We began to play, he seated and I standing.
I was terrible at it. Even the basic rules had been taught to me by Liang Yanchun.
Yet he enjoyed himself immensely.
Watching his eyes curve with happiness, like a child who had been given honey, I knew I had made the right choice.
The instant I was reborn, I had begun plotting a way out.
But however I calculated, the only road open to me was the one I had taken before.
I was a slave born into this household. Without my master’s special permission, I could never be freed or leave the manor.
And if I left Cloudrest Study, my parents and my brother, ravenous as wolves and tigers, would immediately pawn me off or sell me.
I could only shelter beneath the young lord. My fortunes depended on his.
Besides, he really was a good master, easy to manage.
Let him breathe a little and play with him, and he was delighted.
“Chunxu, Chunxu! Your turn!”
“Remember what we agreed. If you can’t last twenty moves against me, you have to go and catch bush crickets for me!”
His voice pulled me from my thoughts.
I had just lowered my eyes to the board when a sudden chill crept up my back.
Without betraying anything, I turned to refill the tea. A slight lift of my gaze revealed figures approaching through the bamboo grove.
“Put it away! Her Ladyship’s coming!”
I warned him under my breath and hurriedly pushed the board back inside.
Liang Yanchun picked up his brush and began practicing calligraphy.
I held the mint incense and worked a fan, looking every inch the devoted maid.
Everything was silent except for the soft rustle of wind in the bamboo.
The tea I had just poured was still as a mirror. It reflected the marchioness’s face outside the window, her eyes scrutinizing us.
I dared not turn around.
Liang Yanchun held his breath too. Even his writing hand began to tremble.
In that deathly silence, the mint incense in my hand burned out.
I spoke.
“My lord, your calligraphy time is up. It’s time to read policy essays.”
That was when the marchioness stepped out from behind us.
She picked up the sheet he had just written, studied it closely, and frowned.
“Yanchun, your mind is unsettled.”
He immediately shrank back a little and hurried to explain.
“I’m sorry, Mother. Perhaps… perhaps it’s a little hot today, so I… I…”
Before he finished, her knife-sharp gaze swept toward me.
I immediately dropped to my knees.
“It was my negligence. I forgot to fetch ice for my lord. Please punish me, my lady.”
She did not spare me another glance, merely looking at Matron Qin.
At a cough from the matron, I understood and followed her out.
For that tiny fault, another beating was unavoidable.
A strip of bamboo two fingers wide struck my calves. It hurt terribly, but it would never be allowed to interfere with my work.
I had suffered so many such beatings in my previous life that I should have been numb to them.
Yet now, as Matron Qin struck me, my thoughts suddenly grew confused.
I kept seeing the marchioness’s reflection in the tea, and belated fear spread through me.
For the first time, I understood a little of Liang Yanchun’s fear of his mother.
For the sake of his studies, Cloudrest Study had been built in a bamboo grove, with unobstructed windows on all four sides of the study.
They made it easy for the marchioness to look in whenever she pleased.
You never knew when a pair of eyes might appear silently behind you, watching.
Like a leopard hunting from the shadows, waiting for the slightest lapse before lunging out and closing its jaws around your throat!
How could anyone not be frightened?
Still, though I sympathized,
I did not sympathize all that much.
After all, if she discovered that I was leading him into games and play, she would at most reprimand him.
I, on the other hand, would probably lose my life.
The ten strokes of bamboo were soon over.
There was no time for rest. I returned to the study at once.
Under his mother’s gaze, Liang Yanchun read policy essays aloud.
“Louder. Straighten your back.”
“You’ve read that essay three times. Recite it for me.”
“Reciting isn’t enough. Tell me what you think of it.”
…
Only at dinnertime did the ordeal stop.
But his nightmare was not over.
His mother forced him to drink three bowls of fish-head soup with gastrodia and goji berries, supposedly to nourish his brain.
Even when he was nearly sick, he had to agree with her lectures.
She said:
“Don’t blame me for pushing you. This soup is very good for you. You dislike it only because you aren’t used to it. Have another two bowls, then, and you will be.”
He lowered his head.
“I know you mean well, Mother.”
She said:
“One mustn’t eat too quickly. It harms the spleen. Why are you rushing? Eating is like studying. If you try to take in too much too fast, you can’t absorb it properly. I can tell from the way you eat that you must study just as badly. You need to change. Do you understand?”
He nodded.
“I’ll remember your instruction.”
She continued:
“You must take at least three bites of every dish on this table, whether you like it or not. Just as in your studies, you must cover every branch of learning.”
Numbly, he picked up a piece of the fish he loathed.
“As you say, Mother.”
It was an unbearably oppressive meal.
Before, I had obeyed and served the marchioness.
Naturally, I had taken her side, believing she did everything for her son’s benefit. As long as I followed her instructions, she would reward me one day.
So I had never noticed the mind growing sicker and more frantic beneath his gentle compliance.
Now I had changed masters. With that shift in loyalty and position, I found myself unable to help aching for him. I no longer thought him precious.
He did live in luxury. But that luxury had become his chains.
After dinner, his mother stayed to supervise his studies until after nine that evening.
The instant her retreating figure vanished from Cloudrest Study, he collapsed into a chair and exhaled.
His face looked normal, but his lips had already turned rather pale.
I brought him the tea I had prepared.
He held my hand still.
“Not yet.”
“You were beaten today because I said something foolish.”
“Take this medicine. Rub it carefully into the bruises. They should be gone within two days.”
He placed an exquisite little pot of salve in my palm.
I recognized it. All-Healing Salve, something only the wealthy could afford. A little pot cost twenty taels of silver.
When my brother had tried to pledge me away, his asking price had been only fifteen.
This salve was worth more than my life.
My eyes grew a little red.
Seeing that, he actually looked guilty.
“Don’t cry, Chunxu. I promise I’ll be more careful from now on. I won’t let you be punished again.”
Inside his sixteen-year-old body lived a twenty-one-year-old soul, yet he remained as innocent and pure as a child.
His dark, jade-like eyes were utterly clear.
Looking at them, I felt a little guilty.
Originally, I had intended only to use him.
Of course, I also resented him for inexplicably setting himself on fire in our previous life and dragging me down with him.
But after opening our hearts to each other and spending time together, I had begun to want to help him in earnest.