Chapter 4
I had meant to take him as another servant, or perhaps a steward.
Anything was better than watching someone with that face suffer endless humiliation before my eyes.
But Father was old and muddleheaded, unable to resist the Noble Consort and her son’s whispers.
The next day, he sent Pei Jie to my residence along with an edict granting us marriage.
A condemned slave for a princess renowned for her victories.
Everyone knew it was an insult from the crown prince and his mother.
Pei Jie knew it too.
He lifted his robe and knelt before me, silently submitting to whatever I chose to do with him.
Rain and snow fell heavily that day. The cold had blanched that face I could not bear to forget.
I no longer wanted to fight it.
Holding a jade-ribbed umbrella, I walked up to him.
“Five years of war have made my heart colder than a blade. If you cannot behave and know your place, understand this: I do not divorce husbands. I bury them.”
His eyes, lifeless as a dry well, flickered. He raised his head.
“Very well.”
On the strength of those two words, he spent three years as my husband, our courtesy to each other unfailing.
With a blade worn blunt in my hand, I upheld my lost love’s family, protected his siblings, and secretly plotted to seize the throne.
Cradling a zither with broken strings, he built his former love a new grave, saved her kin, and quietly bided his time for his own designs.
I cared nothing for other people’s opinions.
He cared nothing for their ridicule.
We were partners who understood each other to the bone.
The court’s open attacks and hidden intrigues—we faced them together.
The crown prince’s secret attempts on our lives—we struck back every time.
During the most dangerous of those attacks, he ignored every warning and rode out alone to lure away our pursuers. An arrow pierced his left shoulder.
I called him reckless and stupid.
But he lowered his long lashes over his dark eyes.
“I cannot always be useless, always depend on Your Highness. You gave me my life. I should do something for you with it.”
At that moment,
I thought that life was long, and having someone to walk beside me might be good.
Then he traveled a thousand li south to mourn his former love’s father, who had died of illness.
On his return to the capital, his horse stumbled and he fell into a fathomless, icy pool. Feng Jinwu, supposedly an immortal in the Heavenly Lord’s service, saved him.
Afterward, she asked him to repay her for saving his life.
And on Father’s birthday, she descended from the sky.
Claiming to represent the Immortal Lord, she brought a hundred birds to celebrate the birthday of the wise earthly ruler. Father was delighted.
Feng Jinwu declared that she was the Immortal Lord’s phoenix mount, come down to the mortal world to undergo three lifetimes of trials in love.
Her destined love was none other than my husband, Pei Jie.
Taking advantage of Father’s pleasure, she asked him to grant our divorce so that Pei Jie could marry her.
As the hall fell silent, she lifted her head arrogantly and looked at me.
“Helping me, Princess, would earn you merit too. Surely you aren’t so small-minded that you’d offend the Immortal Lord just to fight me over a man? Heaven might punish you.”
The one who firmly opposed her then was neither Father nor any minister.
It was Pei Jie, resolute once his astonishment had passed.
“I can repay the debt of my life with my death.”
“But in this life, my heart is immovable. I acknowledge no one but Her Highness.”
Pei Jie refused. The ministers said nothing. Father, too, withheld his consent.
Before I had even drawn my blade, her wish had come to nothing.
She did not hate Pei Jie for taking up with her and casting her aside. She hated me for ‘stealing her love.’
Afterward, she stopped me outside the palace gates.
“When I rescued him beneath the cliffs, we became lovers. Three days of passion, without pause. Do you know why? Because my face looks just like his old love’s.”
“You may have him, but you’ll never have his heart. Sooner or later, he’ll be mine.”
I lifted my eyes to Pei Jie as he walked out. With some interest, I asked,
“Is that so?”
He went pale and instinctively stepped between Feng Jinwu and me.
“My heart has never changed. I desire no one else.”
Crack!
He had barely finished speaking when my maid’s sharp slap struck Feng Jinwu’s face.
“Slandering a court official is a grave crime. Thirty strokes of the rod!”
Feng Jinwu clutched her swelling cheek and ground her teeth.
“You lowly mortal servant! You dare strike me? I’ll—”
Crack!
That slap was mine.
I used seven-tenths of my strength. She fell sprawling and spat out blood.
I had only begun to take a step toward her when—
“Your Highness!”
Pei Jie blocked my path.
“She saved my life.”
“Oh,” I said.
“For disrespecting a princess, ten public slaps as a warning to others.”
Pei Jie’s breath caught.
“After all,” I added mockingly, “she is my husband’s… savior.”
Feng Jinwu’s curses could not keep pace with the guard’s hand.
“What right do you—”
Crack!
One slap.
“Don’t think I won’t—”
Crack!
Two.
“I’m a phoenix—”
Crack!
Three.
“You—”
Crack!
Four.
It took five full slaps
to knock every last arrogant word out of her.
The guard had been a soldier.
Three punches from him could kill an ox.
That should tell you the strength behind his blows.
When his final slap fell, Feng Jinwu spat out a mouthful of bloody, broken teeth and passed out from the pain.
Pei Jie kept his head lowered throughout.
He seemed neither to see nor to hear.
Only I saw the veins bulging on the fists clenched beneath his sleeves.