Chapter 3

I accepted the duchess as my adoptive mother and returned to the capital with her.

She named me He Yan and settled me in a country residence outside the city.

Only after we arrived did I learn that Lady Li’s relationship with her husband, the Duke of Ying, was strained.

She showed little interest even in her son, He Yan.

Had he not been getting married, with no one in the duke’s household to manage the arrangements, she would never have left me at the country residence and gone back alone.

On the day He Yan married Princess Pingyao, I slipped out to watch.

The heir was tall and handsome, the princess lovely and radiant. They looked perfectly matched.

Xu Qing, too, had changed into festive clothes and followed every step the bride took, guarding her closely.

As the couple bowed to Heaven and Earth, he stood among the guests and gazed at the princess with aching devotion. His eyes held the sorrow of unrequited love and heartfelt wishes for her happiness.

Like the tragic second suitor in a romance.

Where was the vicious cruelty with which he had killed my parents?

My lips curled in derision. I stared coldly at him, longing to tear him apart.

As though sensing it, he abruptly looked up. I ducked into the crowd.

He was looking around, alert, beginning to search for me, when someone suddenly pulled me backward.

A cry caught in my throat. Lady Li was watching me with concern and a measure of scrutiny. “Child, didn’t I tell you to rest and recover? What are you doing here?”

Cuiyu, the maid who had brought me, looked panicked. I pinched my thigh hard. With tears filling my swiftly reddening eyes, I said timidly, “The matron said you’re unhappy whenever you return to the duke’s residence, Mother. I was worried about you. I wanted to come and see…”

The scrutiny left Lady Li’s eyes. Surprised and touched, she stroked my hand. “Why are your hands so cold?”

She told the matron beside her to take me back. Through my veiled hat, I saw Xu Qing searching the crowd with a grim face. Feigning curiosity, I asked, “Is that the bride’s guard? Why does he look as though he’s searching for something?”

Lady Li immediately frowned.

As I followed the matron away, I heard her say coldly behind me, “Seize that man! Has he no manners? What if he disturbs the guests?”

At the entrance, I looked back and saw a group of servants leading Xu Qing away, humiliation written all over his face.

This was no longer Yangzhou. Here, beneath the emperor’s eye, power could crush a man. However skilled a fighter he was, he had to exercise some restraint.

I had no intention of relying on Lady Li’s affection to avenge my parents just yet.

She had adopted me because I resembled her dead daughter. In truth, we had known each other only a few months.

Even if my face persuaded her to kill Xu Qing for my parents, what about Princess Pingyao?

The princess was highborn and now her daughter-in-law. Lady Li might care little for He Yan, but he was still her son. She would not be foolish enough to destroy the marriage alliance between the Duke of Ying and the Marquis of Anguo for an outsider.

Besides, He Yan and the princess were newlyweds, still deeply in love. Any move I made now would only backfire.

So I would wait. Wait until I mattered deeply to Lady Li, until cracks appeared between He Yan, the princess and Xu Qing. Then I would take my chance.

But although I could not touch the princess or Xu Qing yet, I could still make them suffer a little.

Fortunately, her younger daughter’s early death had estranged Lady Li from the duke. She lived with me at the country residence and returned to his house only a few times a year.

That spared me encounters with Princess Pingyao and allowed me to recover in peace.

I had been in the capital almost a year before I first met He Yan and the princess face-to-face.

He Yan had never seen me before. Yet because of Lady Li’s affection for me, his gaze was sour with jealousy and resentment.

The princess, by contrast, was all smiles. She slipped a bracelet of creamy white jade off her own wrist, put it on mine and gently called me her little sister.

But I could see the disdain and contempt she could not conceal.

I had been afraid she would recognize me. Seeing her reaction, I was struck by the sheer absurdity of it.

She had forgotten me.

In Yangzhou, a few careless words from her had sent my entire family to hell. Less than a year later, she had forgotten me completely.

Hatred surged within me. Showing none of it, I offered He Yan and Princess Pingyao a timid smile.

They had come to persuade Lady Li to return to the duke’s residence.

What would people think of the mistress of a household living elsewhere all year?

But the moment Lady Li heard why they had come, she ordered them shown out.

“Mother, He Yun has been dead for five years. Aunt Chun has been dead for five years too. Why can’t you let this go and come home with me?” He Yan sounded utterly baffled.

Lady Li shook with rage. She seized a teacup and hurled it at him. “Get out! Get out!”

His face livid, He Yan swept away with the princess.

Lady Li was breathing hard. She swept the rest of the tea service off the table, then bent over it, her eyes red.

I trembled with fear, but still knelt and nestled against her legs. “Mother…”

She turned and fixed those bloodshot eyes on me. Then her gaze softened. She pulled me into her arms and wept.

He Yun was Lady Li’s younger daughter. She had just turned nine when she died.

Lady Li and the Duke of Ying had guarded the frontier together. Their elder child, He Yan, had remained in the capital, raised by his grandmother in the duke’s household. He Yun had been born on the frontier and grown up with her parents.

Five years earlier, war had broken out along the border again. Lady Li had sent her little girl back to the capital.

But when she and the duke returned in triumph after quelling the fighting, all they found at home was their daughter’s swollen, gray-white body.

He Yun had drowned in the pond at the duke’s residence.

Absurd, but true. More absurd still, Lady Li had discovered that the killer was a female cousin of the duke who had lived in their house for years. Everyone in the household protected her—including Lady Li’s own husband and the son she had carried for ten months.

And now He Yan called his own little sister by her full name while honoring a murderer as his aunt.

Of course Lady Li resented him.

I silently cursed He Yan for a fool. Feeling the warmth of Lady Li’s arms, I found myself troubled.

Our experiences were different. But in one sense, we shared the same grief.

I became even more devoted in caring for her.

Gradually, the searching appraisal left her eyes. In its place came nothing but tenderness and affection.

She truly came to love me as her own daughter. For the sake of my future marriage, she even brought me back to live at the duke’s residence and eased relations with her husband.

Because of that, the duke, too, sincerely accepted me as his adopted daughter.

It was the third year since Zhao Yang had become He Yan, and the third year of He Yan and Princess Pingyao’s marriage.

Their most passionate days were long past. The once innocent young princess now fretted over her still-empty womb. Listening to rumors outside the household, she kept an ever tighter watch on her husband.

At first, He Yan patiently comforted her. But his career had stalled, and he was already frustrated. When the princess kept clinging to him, weeping and making scenes, he finally lost his temper.

Pampered from birth and cherished by everyone around her, how could Princess Pingyao bear such treatment?

That day, shouting rang through the heir’s southern courtyard for a full two hours.

He Yan stormed out of the residence with scratches on his neck. Almost as soon as he left, Xu Qing entered the southern courtyard.

When I found He Yan at a restaurant in the city, he was drowning his troubles in wine, his cheeks flushed.

His eyes were still clear. The moment he saw me, he frowned. “What are you doing here?”

I sighed and told the waiter to bring soothing porridge and remove the wine. “I know you’re unhappy, Brother. But however unhappy you are, you must take care of yourself.”

“If you keep drinking like this, you’ll make yourself ill.”

Through my efforts over those three years, He Yan had stopped treating me as an enemy. He saw me only as a helpless young woman who depended on his family to survive. I also showed him great respect and affection, and posed no threat to his interests. He had grudgingly begun to call me his sister.

At my worried expression and soft voice, his face relaxed. He took the bowl from me.

But he said, “What would you know?”

“Of course I know,” I said quickly. “In the three years since the princess married into this family, you’ve been devoted to her. You even sent away the women who used to attend you in your bedchamber. For more than three years, you’ve taken no one else. Only her. Isn’t that proof of your love?”

He looked moved. I went on, “Children aren’t something you can force. My sister-in-law may be anxious, but she shouldn’t take it out on you.”

I understood He Yan. He was vain and proud. How could he ever imagine himself at fault?

And when it came to children, public opinion was always against the woman.

But I also knew I could not drive He Yan and Princess Pingyao apart with a few words. So I urged him to go home and comfort her.

“Whatever other people say, what matters is that you and your wife stand together.”

He took that to heart. As though remembering the sweet days they had once shared, he hurried home.

I stood upstairs in the teahouse, watching him go with satisfaction.

If I was right, Princess Pingyao would be in the southern courtyard now, weeping in Xu Qing’s arms.