Chapter 3

Chapter 3

In August, the osmanthus bloomed in the capital, filling the entire city with its faint, sweet fragrance.

On the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Empress Dowager’s palace sent over mooncakes, melons, and fruits.

Families with keen ears and eyes caught the scent of something shifting, and gradually, people began coming to Wanjing Hutong to pay visits.

I advised my parents-in-law to shut the doors and refuse all guests.

My father-in-law was a spoiled second-generation wastrel. He had obtained his noble title through his elder female cousin and had never held office in his life. My mother-in-law was the daughter of an old aristocratic family, confined all her life to the inner residence.

Over the past six or seven years, I had planned and advised for the Song Family time and again, and the Empress Dowager had praised me more than once. My parents-in-law had always placed complete faith in my words.

Since we kept the doors closed and stayed home, my parents-in-law were fine, but the younger ones could not bear the boredom.

Third Brother wanted to go hunting.

My mother-in-law asked me what I thought.

I said, “Min Mountain in the western suburbs is my uncle’s property. He enjoys hunting in his spare time and keeps some pheasants and wild rabbits on the mountain. If you all want to go, I’ll let him know.”

My uncle was a classic playboy. He had no ambition and spent money like water, but he was very good to his nephews and nieces.

I sent a young servant to inform him, and sure enough, my uncle agreed.

On the twenty-seventh of August, the Song Family set out on horseback. I sat in a carriage with my two unmarried sisters-in-law and went along to watch.

To my surprise, Song Yaochuan was willing to go as well.

The previous night, I had casually asked out of politeness, “Would you like to come have some fun too?”

He nodded without the slightest hesitation. “All right.”

Perhaps he wanted to relax as well.

Min Mountain was relatively flat, less than two hundred meters at its highest point, and the entire mountain could be ridden across for hunting.

My uncle’s men had released fifty wild rabbits, fifty pheasants, and two deer in advance.

My two sisters-in-law played at the farmstead at the foot of the mountain, picking osmanthus flowers and lotus seedpods with the tenant farmers’ children. I mounted a horse, took a light bow, and went hunting as well.

Song Yaochuan asked, “Are you skilled at riding and archery?”

Third Brother answered for me. “Sister-in-law is excellent at polo.”

I said, “It’s just a pastime. Something for amusement.”

Song Yaochuan said nothing.

He kept following me.

The mountain breeze was gentle and a little cool, lightly brushing through my hair. It was indescribably pleasant.

“Father and Mother told me a great deal about you,” Song Yaochuan suddenly said.

I said, “Mother praised me, didn’t she?”

“To the skies,” he said. “If not for you, the Song Family would have been swept into the struggles between the great clans twice over these past years.”

“I only did what I could,” I said.

He still seemed somewhat puzzled. “Why didn’t you leave?”

I smiled. “Once you recover, resume your post, and the Song Family’s title is restored, I’ll leave.”

The golden light of autumn sifted through the treetops, casting mottled rings of brightness across his face.

His expression stilled for a moment.

After a long while, he said, “You actually believe I can clear my name?”

“I do. Those who have been wronged will one day be proven innocent,” I said.

My tone was certain, leaving no room for doubt.

Song Yaochuan smiled.

He was handsome. His dark complexion added a ruggedness to his features, making him look unyielding and steadfast.

“Good,” he said. “Then I believe it too, Wang Heng.”

He called me by my name.

A deer suddenly sprinted past. He took down the bow slung across his back and loosed an arrow with casual ease. A crisp whistle cut through the forest, and the young deer fell behind a tree not far away.

“Even shooting with your left hand, you’re that accurate,” I said.

He said, “I’ve practiced archery since childhood. I can use either hand.”

He lifted his face slightly and looked toward the sky.

A distant bird was small against the heavens, like a wild goose flying south.

He nocked a long arrow and aimed at the sky with great focus for a moment before releasing it.

A dark shape fell.

He smiled. “We’ve got game.”

Then he rode off to retrieve it.

I wandered in place and shot a mountain hare, telling the young servant following behind me to pick it up.

At that moment, Song Yaochuan returned.

He handed the game to me. “It’s already dead, but it’s fresh. This is what I owe you.”

He passed me a plump wild goose.

Of the Six Rites of marriage, the betrothal gift is presented with a wild goose.

I accepted it, then after a long moment, lifted my eyes to ask him, “Do you remember ever sending me a letter?”

He froze slightly. “There were letters home every six months. Which one do you mean?”

Hearing that, I gave a faint smile and said nothing more. I handed the wild goose to a servant boy to carry.

Song Yaochuan followed behind me and explained, “I never wrote those family letters myself. The army clerks wrote them.”

I nodded. “I see.”

The one I had received had been written in a slightly careless hand, the strokes strong and forceful. It had been penned by him personally.

Perhaps there had been too many upheavals before and after that letter. Perhaps to him, that letter had been nothing more than a trivial matter he had never taken to heart, and so he had forgotten.

On the day of the hunt, everyone had a wonderful time.

Only, on our way back to the city, we ran into the Crown Prince.

The Crown Prince had left the city in plain clothes, as if he were out for a spring outing.

Song Yaochuan and I, along with the others, got down from the carriage to pay our respects.

The Crown Prince’s face was fair as jade, his smile gentle. “You went hunting?”

Everyone answered yes.

Then the Crown Prince looked at me. “Cheng’er, your sleeve is torn.”

I looked down and saw that the left sleeve of my dress had been snagged and ripped by a branch.

I had not noticed. Song Yaochuan, who had been with me the whole time, had not seen it. The maids and servant boys following the carriage, as well as my younger brothers- and sisters-in-law, had not noticed either.

Only the Crown Prince had, with his keen eyes.

“Thank you for reminding me, Your Highness,” I said.

The Crown Prince turned his horse and rode away.

That evening, Song Yaochuan and I ate dinner at Ruzhu Hall. He brought up the Crown Prince.

He said, “Isn’t His Highness a little too refined?”

I could not help laughing.

“What?”

“You were away from the capital for six years, so you don’t know what the Crown Prince is capable of. He is elegant on the outside and ruthless within, the sort who repays the smallest slight,” I said.

I told him only one small incident: back when the Crown Prince was choosing a consort, he had chosen my cousin, only for the Zhou family to interfere.

The emperor bestowed the Zhou family’s daughter on the Crown Prince in marriage.

Less than two years later, the Zhou family collapsed, the Crown Princess died of illness, and the Crown Prince toppled that powerful clan bit by bit.

“So he can be vicious too,” Song Yaochuan said with a smile, his expression easing.

The first day of the ninth month was my birthday.

My maiden family sent generous gifts. The Empress Dowager also sent gifts. The Crown Prince sent twenty bolts of the finest silk for me to have clothes made.

My parents-in-law both had gifts for me.

Even the senior maids in my courtyard had made me a pair of shoes.

Only Song Yaochuan had not prepared anything.

His third younger brother reminded him.

That evening, he did not eat dinner and left Ruzhu Hall.

When I was about to go to bed, he finally returned, carrying a small palace lantern in his hand.

The lantern was painted with a portrait of a beauty, exquisite and lovely. Inside, it glowed bright and dazzling, for it held more than a thousand fireflies.

At the beginning of the ninth month, fireflies were hard to find. He truly had put his heart into it.

My managing mama looked at me hard, as if she wanted to speak.

I stopped her.

I reached out to take it and thanked him softly.

Song Yaochuan smiled. “From now on, every year, I will spend your birthday with you.”

I smiled too.

The palace lantern was hung beneath the eaves. A moment later, I released the fireflies, to do a little good and accumulate some merit.

My mother-in-law heard about what had happened at Ruzhu Hall and called me over to ask me.

“Cheng’er, what are you thinking?”

I handed her that letter.

After my mother-in-law finished reading it, her hands trembled slightly.

She asked me, “Is there any room to turn this around?”

I gently shook my head.

My mother-in-law looked at me in silence, a thin sheen of tears rising in her eyes.

She loved me, like a second mother. A mother could never bear to make things difficult for her daughter, so she said nothing. She only held my hand gently.

And so, amid my waiting, the New Year arrived.

The Song Family had been “exiled” to Wanjing Hutong, but the year’s end was not difficult to get through.

On the contrary, with far fewer social obligations, it was easy and carefree.

And that spring of the new year, Song Yaochuan and I were in the middle of a “cold war.”