Chapter 1

Chapter 1

After spending six years at Xiping Marquis Manor as a living widow, I received a gift from my husband.

It was a letter, tucked inside a brocade box.

I liked it very much. The day I received it, I felt as though heaven and earth had opened wide before me.

But good times never lasted. The very next day, news came that something had happened to him.

My husband, Song Yaochuan, the Heir of Xiping Marquis and a subordinate third-rank General Anyuan, had carried on an illicit affair with the Princess of the Northern Di and was suspected of treason.

There was no conclusive evidence, but His Majesty was furious. The Song Family was stripped of its official posts and noble title.

My father-in-law had some influence at court, and he was also the younger cousin of the current Empress Dowager. They had grown up together in their grandparents’ household, and their bond was as close as that of siblings.

Many officials pleaded on my husband’s behalf, and the Empress Dowager also sent people to mediate.

In the end, Xiping Marquis Manor was only stripped of its title and not raided. The imperial residence that had been bestowed upon us was taken back.

We were ordered to move out of the marquis manor within three days.

The main courtyard was in complete chaos.

My father-in-law was so enraged that he fell ill and lay in a daze. My mother-in-law was packing trunks and dismissing unnecessary servants.

When I went to the main courtyard, my mother-in-law asked me, “Cheng’er, have you finished packing?”

“I have,” I replied.

My parents-in-law treated me like their own daughter, so I had never been overly guarded around them. I sat beside my father-in-law’s sickbed and gave him acupuncture.

After leaving the needles in for two quarters of an hour, my father-in-law slowly woke and spat out a mouthful of thick phlegm.

Tears streamed down his aged face. “That unfilial wretch. I should have beaten him to death!”

“Father, please take care of yourself. There are many days ahead,” I urged him. “The whole family, old and young, is depending on you.”

I had four younger brothers-in-law and two unmarried sisters-in-law.

The family still needed my father-in-law to hold it together.

Once he had caught his breath, my father-in-law had his second son help him up and went to the outer courtyard to arrange the move.

We moved from the spacious, luxurious marquis manor at the Foot of the Imperial City to the cramped Wanjing Hutong.

The residence was passable, but it was far from the grandeur of the marquis manor. I was given a small courtyard on the western side, the quietest and most elegant corner of the place.

It was called Ruzhu Hall.

Half a month later, my husband was brought home.

When I saw him again, he was in an utterly wretched state. His whole body was covered in wounds, and the injury to his right hand was especially severe. It was nearly crippled. His trusted men had carried him back.

My father-in-law cursed him furiously. My mother-in-law looked at him coldly. My younger brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law all hid far away.

“Find a courtyard in the rear compound and let him recover there,” my father-in-law said.

I said, “That won’t do. Send him to the palace first. Let His Majesty see him.”

My father-in-law hesitated. He feared inviting trouble.

The emperor’s will was difficult to predict. If he was provoked, the consequences would be hard to imagine.

But I was insistent. “Even if His Majesty punishes us further, once he has vented his anger, we will have a chance to rise again. Otherwise, we will spend the rest of our lives in Wanjing Hutong.”

My mother-in-law always supported me. “Send that unfilial wretch to Nanyang Gate. Even if His Majesty refuses to see him, let the officials coming and going see what state he is in.”

He had lost a battle and returned in disgrace.

He had become famous as a young general, and now one of his hands was ruined.

He was listless, his eyes unfocused, like a living corpse.

With nothing but suspicion and no solid proof that he had colluded with the Northern Di, was sealing the fate of the Song Family not a little too harsh?

The Song Family carried my husband to Nanyang Gate. My parents-in-law, my two adult brothers-in-law, and I all went there and knelt outside the gate.

His Majesty refused to see us and had the senior eunuch at his side deliver a harsh rebuke.

I did not leave.

Because I insisted, my parents-in-law stayed and knelt with me.

When the officials leaving court saw us, they murmured among themselves and took a wide berth around us.

Not one person dared step forward and say a word to us.

That night was bitterly cold, cold enough to freeze dripping water. My husband lay on a straw mat, his face gradually turning blue. He was freezing too, but he seemed unaware of it, motionless as ever.

At the third watch, a small side gate of the palace opened.

Dressed in splendid robes, the Crown Prince came out with a young eunuch holding a lantern for him and said to us, “Go home. When the Empress Dowager heard that you were still kneeling here, she wept bitterly.”

The emperor had been angered, the Empress Dowager had cried, and the Crown Prince had come out in person.

At that point, I decided to quit while I was ahead. I helped my mother-in-law to her feet and had my two younger brothers-in-law carry my half-crippled husband, intending to go home.

But the Crown Prince called me back.

He said, “Cheng’er, stop making trouble. Serve your parents-in-law properly.”

He was my older cousin. My mother was a younger cousin of a maternal aunt of his birth mother, Empress Renzhao.

I answered yes, curtsied, and withdrew.

He called after me again. “Cheng’er?”

I stopped and looked back. His face was hidden in the shadow beneath the eaves of Nanyang Gate, impossible to make out. He was tall and slender, and the palace lantern in the young eunuch’s hand did not reach his face.

“The night is cold. Hurry home,” he reminded me.

I curtsied once more and took my leave.

Wanjing Hutong, where we lived, was still cramped after all. My two underage brothers-in-law were squeezed into one courtyard, and my two younger sisters-in-law into an even smaller one.

With no spare courtyard to free up, I agreed to place Song Yaochuan in the west wing of Ruzhu Hall to recuperate.

After that, the entire capital was talking about the Song Family, while Song Yaochuan remained a living corpse, neither eating, drinking, nor moving.

My parents-in-law cursed him and blamed him, yet they were so heartsick they could neither eat nor sleep.

I questioned the trusted aide who had followed him.

“The General had a beloved concubine. She followed him for more than five years, went to the battlefield with him, earned military merit, was resourceful and versed in the art of war, and even miscarried twice. She was not a spy. She was not the Princess of the Northern Di,” the aide said.

The moment he finished, he regretted his slip of the tongue and glanced at me nervously.

I understood then. Song Yaochuan had spent six years suppressing unrest in the Northern Frontier without returning not only because the Northern Di were difficult to handle, but also because he had made a home there.

“But the imperial court has determined that she is the Princess of the Northern Di,” I said.

The aide grew agitated and insisted that was absolutely impossible.

“Then why did this crushing defeat happen?” I asked him.

The aide, his deputy general, said, “There was a spy among our own ranks. He stole the defense map.”

“Have you found the spy?”

“No.”

In this defeat, an army of three hundred thousand lost more than half its men and two cities. Only after the imperial court replaced the commander at the front did the situation stabilize and the lost towns get retaken.

Song Yaochuan was a sinner.

Perhaps his countless victories on the battlefield had made him arrogant, leading to such a terrible oversight.

The court had not beheaded him, nor had it executed the entire Song Family along with me. The imperial family had shown truly boundless grace.

On the ninth day of Song Yaochuan playing dead, I had him thrown into the courtyard.

It was the depths of winter, the twelfth lunar month. Icicles under the eaves hung like a bead curtain, and the courtyard was bitterly cold.

I personally splashed a ladle of cold water over him.

At last, he moved.

“Sun Bin was crippled, yet devised brilliant stratagems one after another. Zichang was mutilated, yet produced a masterpiece for all historians. You have only ruined your right hand. The rest of you is still intact. If you don’t freeze to death in the courtyard tonight, then tomorrow morning you will get yourself in order and train up your left hand,” I said.

Song Yaochuan froze in the courtyard for an entire night.

The next day, he developed a high fever.

His mood was no longer indifferent, but furious.

I gave him a Purple Snow Pill to bring down the fever.

After venting his emotions, he cleaned himself up, changed into fresh clothes, and went to kneel and kowtow before his parents.

He admitted his wrongs.

He had brought misery upon the soldiers who had followed him for years, upon the people of the border cities, and upon the Song Family.

My parents-in-law did not scold him again. They only said, “If you have been wronged, then stand up and take your revenge. Don’t die like a coward and leave the Song Family cursed through the ages.”

As for Song Yaochuan’s right hand, I began treating it again with acupuncture to restore blood flow.

I invited Li Gengtian, the finest short-blade instructor, to teach him to wield a blade with his left hand.

And so the days went on.

By the time his right hand could hold chopsticks, it was already the third month of the following year, when spring had warmed and flowers were in bloom.

He asked me, “Your name is Su Cheng, isn’t it?”

I smiled.

“No.”