Chapter 148

Chapter 148

[Isn’t the Villain Tempting? Not Really – 18]

After seeing Bai Lu off, Tan Yan began handling the many affairs of Prince Su’s residence. Before anything else, however, his gaze inevitably settled upon Zhou Shuhui, whose terrified face resembled that of a bird startled by the mere twang of a bowstring.

“Your father and I once met briefly. I never imagined…”

He sighed and did not finish. “Your mother is now in the capital. I will have someone escort you back to the Zhou Family. Miss Zhou, take care of yourself.”

Unable to see, Zhou Shuhui knew only that the speaker was a middle-aged man. Anxiety filled her, and she did not know whether she should trust him.

Then footsteps approached, and the voice of a middle-aged matron spoke beside her. “Miss Zhou, since you cannot see, I will guide you by the sleeve. I will warn you whenever there is a threshold ahead.”

With that, the woman gently took hold of her sleeve and led her toward the courtyard gate.

Hearing a woman’s voice eased Zhou Shuhui’s fear somewhat. When she felt the gentle pull upon her sleeve, she hesitated for several moments, then followed.

Prince Su’s faction had fallen, and Yu Sixian was dead. She was a blind woman with no one to depend upon. What choice did she have but to obey them?

She had opposed Bai Lu countless times in secret over the years, but she still trusted Bai Lu’s character. Following someone Bai Lu had entrusted with her care was better than wandering alone as a blind young woman in the prime of her youth.

As the matron led her outside, the pungent stench of blood flooded Zhou Shuhui’s lungs. She recalled the sounds of slaughter in the courtyard and the conversation between Bai Lu and Yu Sixian. Though she could not see the scene around her, she could imagine its brutality.

The thought of Yu Sixian made her heart clench instinctively, followed by a bitter wave of self-mockery.

She had chosen every step of this road. Had she not brought her present ruin upon herself?

Zhou Shuhui sank into silence. Following the matron’s warnings, she descended a set of stairs, turned into a corridor, crossed several thresholds, and finally climbed into a carriage bound for the capital.

Farewell, Jingzhou.

…

After several days of continuous travel, Zhou Shuhui finally reached the capital.

The matron knew nothing of Zhou Shuhui’s past exploits. During their journey, she saw only a gentle, quiet young woman whose eyes had been blinded. Whenever her gaze passed over the white cloth covering eyes that should have been clear and bright, pity softened her voice.

“Miss Zhou, we have arrived.”

The closer one came to home, the more fear displaced longing. Zhou Shuhui pressed her lips together and asked uneasily, “Are we at the Zhou residence?”

The matron answered. A gatekeeper approached them and asked who they were. Shock and disbelief crossed his face. He asked them to wait outside, then hurried in to report.

Before long, the gates opened. Several servants emerged around a pretty girl of twelve or thirteen. She was Zhou Shuyao, the younger daughter of Father Zhou and Madam Zhou.

“Sister?!”

Zhou Shuyao hurried forward, delighted. But the moment she saw the white silk covering Zhou Shuhui’s eyes, her steps froze and anguish filled her face.

After a brief pause, she moved closer and took Zhou Shuhui’s hand. Tears streamed down her smiling face. “It is me, Shuyao. Sister, all that matters is that you are home. Mother and I have missed you so much all these years!”

Zhou Shuhui was overwhelmed with emotion as well.

When she left home, she remembered her little sister as a girl of only five or six. Now she held Shuyao’s hand and reached up to feel her face. She realized in a daze that the child had grown into a graceful young lady, while she herself…

The sisters had been separated for years. By the time they met again, the world had changed beyond recognition.

Remembering her folly and all the pain she had caused her family, Zhou Shuhui drowned in remorse. Her lips moved several times. She managed to say, “Shuyao,” but could speak no further.

Zhou Shuyao clung to her hand. She also invited the matrons who had escorted her sister to enter the residence and rest, but the woman firmly declined. “Our task is complete, so we must return and report. We would not dare trouble your honorable household.”

Zhou Shuyao hurriedly thanked them and glanced at the maid beside her. The maid presented a purse prepared before they came outside. The matron tried to refuse, but when she could not, she accepted with repeated thanks.

Since Zhou Shuhui could not see, Zhou Shuyao held her hand and guided her toward the inner residence. Their flesh and blood had been separated for years. Shuyao described everything that had happened to the Zhou Family, weeping as she spoke. “Grandmother passed away in the second year after you left. Mother cried so much that her eyes are no longer very good. Fortunately, Second Uncle and Second Aunt are kind. They understand how difficult life is for a widow and her children, and our cousins treat Mother and me well. There is also…”

She grew shy and lowered her voice. “I am engaged. He is the second son of a family that has been friends with ours for generations, and he is gentle and honorable. In a few years, once he earns scholarly honors, the two families will arrange the wedding.”

Zhou Shuhui had run away on her own, encountered Yu Sixian, and presumptuously imagined herself one of his people. In the end, she had been blinded and discarded. How was that anything but the consequence of her own actions?

She mocked herself inwardly. You should count yourself fortunate. If Bai Lu had not struck in time and killed Yu Sixian, if He Kanglin had not marched upon Jingzhou and destroyed Prince Su’s faction, you would already have been sent to the army camp. You would be living a life lower than the filthiest mud!

Together with her sister, Zhou Shuhui entered the inner residence to see the mother from whom she had been separated for seven years.

Seven years and repeated tragedies had erased Madam Zhou’s former beauty. Frost touched both her temples. Her face was thin, her body frail as paper. Most striking of all, her eyes were no longer bright. A mist seemed to veil them, obscuring the spirit within.

Zhou Shuhui could not see any of this. Led into the inner room by her sister, she dropped to her knees without a word.

When Madam Zhou heard that her eldest daughter had returned, joy had filled her heart, and she hurried eagerly to meet her. But one look sent tears pouring down her face. “Shuhui, your eyes…”
What use was there in asking now?

It would only hurt her child more.

Madam Zhou did not pursue the matter. She pulled her daughter into her arms and wept. “All that matters is that you are home. All that matters is that you are home!”

Held by her mother, Zhou Shuhui breathed in that familiar, comforting scent. When she remembered all her folly over the years, grief surged through her. She hugged her mother in return and began to sob.

Her eyes were ruined, but her sense of touch remained. When her palm brushed Madam Zhou’s hair, she found it dry and brittle, a thin handful lying limply beneath her fingers. If even her hair had become like this, what must the woman herself have endured?

Sorrow and regret rose together from the bottom of Zhou Shuhui’s heart. How bitterly she repented her past!

Mother and daughters wept for a long time. At last, they dismissed the servants and went into the inner room to speak. Inevitably, they asked what Zhou Shuhui had experienced all these years.

At this point, Zhou Shuhui had no wish to conceal anything. She recounted every foolish thing she had done, then everything that happened after Yu Sixian took her away. When she finished, she knelt on the floor, too ashamed to raise her head.

Madam Zhou’s grief and pity gradually transformed into shock, fury, and bitter disappointment. “Shuhui, how could you have been so foolish?”

As her agitation mounted, Madam Zhou lost control and began coughing without pause. Her face turned blue.

Alarmed, Zhou Shuyao hurried to find her medicine. She fed her mother a pill with water and repeatedly stroked her back to help her breathe. “Mother, don’t be angry. Please calm yourself. The physician said anger is the last thing your health can bear…”

Afraid her mother would only grow angrier if she remained, Zhou Shuyao quickly ordered servants to escort her back to her bedchamber to rest.

Zhou Shuhui felt as though lightning had struck her.

Yu Sixian had been the true mastermind behind her father’s murder?!

It was him?!

Her knees gave way, and she collapsed to the floor, every trace of color draining from her face. “Shuyao, was Mother telling the truth? Was Yu Sixian really the man who arranged Father’s murder?!”

Zhou Shuyao clenched her teeth in anger. “Of course he was! Do you think we would invent such a thing? You spent years beside him. Did you truly never recognize what sort of man he was? He massacred entire cities. Why would he hesitate to kill Father for standing in his way?”

Pain and disappointment filled her voice. “Sister, were you truly that foolish, or did you merely pretend not to understand? Father was serving in Pingcheng. Do you not know whose path he obstructed there?! Yu Sixian never acted without profit and was certainly no good man. Why would he take you in for no reason? By your own account, he ignored those bandits while they were murdering people. Only after you called out his name and he learned who you were did he intervene. Is it not obvious what he wanted?!”

Zhou Shuyao called her foolish three times in succession.

He truly did it!

That brief realization thundered beside Zhou Shuhui’s ears like a colossal drum. Her eardrums throbbed, and her heart pounded so violently it seemed ready to leap from her throat.

Yu Sixian had murdered not only Bai Lu’s father, but hers as well!

She and Bai Lu were close in age and had grown up together in Prince Su’s residence. Bai Lu had killed Yu Sixian to avenge her father. But what had Zhou Shuhui done?

She had filled her heart with Yu Sixian and even offered to become his concubine?!

Heavens, what had she done?!

Why had she entered this book?!

Had her parents’ lives been too peaceful, so she came to burden them with turmoil and suffering?!

Yu Sixian, the man she had yearned for all these years, was her father’s murderer and the true culprit who shattered the Zhou Family!

And all those years, with what contempt had Yu Sixian watched her attentions and wholehearted devotion?!

Zhou Shuhui released a piercing scream and clutched her head, her expression crumbling.

The violent emotion tore open her wounds. Blood seeped through the white silk covering her eyes, staining it a brutal crimson.

Zhou Shuyao resented her sister’s folly, but they were still bound by blood. Seeing her in such a state softened her heart. She sent for a physician to bind the wounds again, then said wearily, “Sister, now that you are home, settle your heart. Yu Sixian is dead, so Father can rest in the Underworld. Our uncles have treated Mother and me well all these years. Even if we cannot bring glory to the Zhou Family, we must not bring it shame. Don’t you agree?”

Zhou Shuhui sat woodenly upon the floor as if her soul had departed. After a long time, she said in a trembling voice, “Shuyao, there is something I beg you to do.”

“What is it?”

“Give me a length of white silk and let me die.”

Zhou Shuhui resembled a puppet whose soul had vanished. “While alive, I never did a single good thing for the Zhou Family. I only brought it disgrace. Word must already have spread that I slandered Chancellor He before the armies. Let me atone with my death. It would be the best ending.”

Zhou Shuyao was angry at her folly and hated her inability to distinguish right from wrong, but their sisterly bond was real. They shared the same mother and father, blood of the same source. After years apart, they had only just met again today. How could she bear to demand her sister’s life?

“Don’t speak that way. You are still young, and many years lie ahead. Even ants struggle to survive. How much more should a person?”

Zhou Shuhui said dully, “I have truly had enough of living. Shuyao, I ask only for death.”

Zhou Shuyao answered with a slap.

“Sister, when will you finally grow up and behave like an adult?!”

Unable to endure any more, Zhou Shuyao said, “You chose the wrong path at every crossroads placed before you. Even today, do you insist upon compounding one mistake with another? If you were determined to die, you should have died on the battlefield when Yu Sixian forced you to frame Chancellor He. Your death could have proven the Zhou Family’s unyielding integrity and its refusal to join traitors! You clung to life then and already disgraced the family. If you seek death now, what will you accomplish except hurting Mother and me? When will you finally come to your senses?!”

Her sister’s words struck Zhou Shuhui where it hurt most. Overcome by shame and grief, she drew up her knees like an injured animal, wrapped her arms around them, and whimpered softly.
Zhou Shuyao wanted to say more, but seeing her sister like this proved too painful. In the end, she merely sighed. “Mother has always kept your room ready. Go rest. Do not do anything foolish.”

…

After that first day’s condemnation, no one in the Zhou Family said anything else to humiliate Zhou Shuhui. Even when the aunts from the second and third branches visited, they exchanged only a few polite pleasantries and treated her with great kindness.

That kindness cut Zhou Shuhui more deeply than a knife, leaving her in unbearable anguish.

What unforgivable follies had she committed?

Such a good family, yet it had been cursed with one rotten apple like her!

Guilt, self-reproach, and regret tangled together until they nearly crushed her. Though still alive, she became little more than a walking corpse.

One evening, the city held a lantern festival. Seeing Zhou Shuhui in slightly better spirits and eating an extra bowl of rice, Madam Zhou asked Zhou Shuyao to take her sister outside for a change of mood.

She did not say they should go look at the lanterns. Since blind Zhou Shuhui’s return, everyone in the household had tacitly avoided words connected to seeing.

That only deepened Zhou Shuhui’s guilt.

The lantern festival was lively and crowded. Because her sister could not see, Zhou Shuyao described their surroundings to her.

Zhou Shuhui displayed a rare trace of interest and even wanted to enter the heart of the festivities. Zhou Shuyao hesitated, but seeing her enthusiasm, eventually agreed.

The crowd churned around them, noisy and boiling with excitement. The sisters’ linked hands were torn apart by the press of bodies. Zhou Shuyao felt her sister’s fingers slide inch by inch from her palm and looked over in shock. At that instant, she understood the words Zhou Shuhui silently formed with her lips.

Goodbye.

By the time Zhou Shuyao recovered, her sister had vanished.

Searching among tens of thousands of revelers for someone determined to hide was difficult even when that person was blind.

Zhou Shuyao panicked.

The lantern festival stretched along the river. After leaving her sister, Zhou Shuhui stumbled toward the riverbank in the direction she had determined beforehand.

Before she reached the water, someone stopped her.

A clear and gentle young voice said, “Miss, you are going the wrong way.”

After studying her clothes, he added, “Where do you live? I will send someone to escort you home.”

Zhou Shuhui was startled at first. When she heard no malice in his voice, she quickly calmed herself. “I am not lost. My family and I agreed to meet here. They will arrive soon.” She stopped moving and pretended to wait.

“Oh.” The young man warned, “The river is not far away. Please be careful.” His footsteps gradually receded.

Zhou Shuhui continued toward the water, only to hear the young man speak again. “Why do you wish to drown yourself?”

After a slight pause, he asked, “Is it because of your eyes?”

He had only pretended to leave. In truth, he had remained nearby the entire time.

Moved by such attentive kindness, Zhou Shuhui’s lips trembled several times before she finally answered, “No. I have simply had enough of living.”

She choked upon her tears. “I am a rotten person. I deserve no pity. I never did a single thing to make my family happy. I only brought them shame again and again. I have no right to remain in this world!”

The young man said, “But your clothes are clean and neat, so someone clearly cares for you with great attention. Your family loves you dearly.”

“That is precisely why I am even more ashamed to face them.”

“You regard death as atonement and repentance. But have you considered that it may cause your family even greater harm?”

He smiled gently. “Did you truly come out alone? I doubt it. If you die, what will happen to the person who accompanied you? What will happen to the family who happily watched you leave home? Stubbornly believing death can wash everything clean would be yet another act that breaks your family’s hearts.”

Zhou Shuhui froze. After a long silence, she smiled bitterly. “You are remarkably good at comforting people, and very gentle. I imagine your life must have gone smoothly, without setbacks or hardship.”

“No.” The young man smiled and shook his head. “You cannot imagine the suffering I endured as a child.”

Zhou Shuhui was surprised. After a moment of silence, she said, “How remarkable. Nothing in the way you speak reveals it.”

“Past suffering has already passed. Why preserve it until today? Precisely because I suffered so much, I do not wish to see others follow the same path.”

Zhou Shuhui listened blankly. Without realizing it, she began to cry.

“You remind me of someone.”

She meant Yu Sixian. “He also suffered painful things as a child. Later, he chose to turn his blade upon others to dispel the shadows in his memories.”

The young man said, “That was harmful to him and even more harmful to everyone else.”

“You are right,” Zhou Shuhui said through her tears.

Unfortunately, she had not understood such a simple truth until now.

She had once yearned for an all-consuming romance in which one person slaughtered the entire world for another. She had envied the sincerity of a love that would betray everyone beneath heaven but never betray its beloved. Yet love should not be the sole pursuit of a human life. The world held many other precious and beautiful things.

Some people suffered harm, then turned their blades upon those weaker than themselves to vent their anger and injustice. Others showed compassion to the weak and sought to benefit all beneath heaven, unwilling to let anyone endure the pain they themselves had suffered.

Gentleness and compassion that endured after every tribulation were the most precious qualities in the world.