chapter 5

Father brought the villagers home, and I returned with them.

I truly was the eldest princess – the princess who had vanished by accident on the journey home after Grand Preceptor Su led men to rescue the Crown Prince.

Eunuch Jiang galloped to the capital with the joyful news. When the Emperor received it, he burst into tears before the entire court. Once again, he recounted how he and his elder sister had depended on each other through the two years they were captives of the Jin barbarians.

He ordered Grand Preceptor Su to send men at once, together with the full ceremonial guard of the Guardian Princess of the Realm, to escort me back to the palace.

As for the aged tea, it turned out that some junior eunuch in the Directorate had made a foolish mistake.

It was all a misunderstanding. The man had already been beheaded.

Yunhuai Village received a plaque praising its “Virtue, Righteousness, and Loyalty to the Sovereign,” along with freedom from taxes for three years.

Although many days of the harvest had been lost, smiles returned to the pickers’ faces. Villagers came to our home with gifts, warm but cautious in my newly elevated presence.

I politely refused the residence arranged for me in the city. Until it was time to return to the capital, I insisted on staying in the village.

Every official in Liu’an, from the prefect down to the county clerks, braved the two-hour mountain path to pay their respects.

Our three-room house of gray tile and blue brick filled with delicacies, bolts of cloth, pearl hairpins, and jewelry.

I still wore clothes altered by Qiantao, ate Mother’s cooking, helped Father with his accounts, and squeezed into the same bed as Sibao.

Whenever villagers stopped by, I casually gave them the things piled in our main room.

Even Xiaoyu, who disliked me more than anyone, was stunned by the wealth there.

I gave him a jeweled dagger. After an awkward moment, he took it and ran. Qiantao reminded him to thank me, but he would rather knock his head against the floor several more times than soften his stubborn tongue.

The next morning, a basket of April berries appeared outside our door.

The entire village glowed with celebration.

Everyone except Father and Mother.

Mother silently slaughtered the two laying hens. She stewed one into soup and red-braised the other with the fresh bamboo shoots Xiaopang brought.

Father visited the surrounding villages and bought cured pork and sausages. He sliced them thin and steamed them over the rice pot.

Qiantao’s family slaughtered their pig early. Old Niu sent the partridge caught in his field, Pockmarked Wang brought fish from his pond, and Dapang’s father brought a rabbit he had trapped…

All because I once mentioned that I liked scorched rice crust, they cooked a fresh pot of rice three times a day. They spread sauce on the crust, soaked it in soup, sandwiched it around vegetables, or drenched it in gravy, inventing a different way to serve it at every meal.

Father and Mother only regretted that it was not autumn, so they could not feed me every edible thing on the mountain.

I continued wandering around the village with Xiaofu. Sometimes I even went up to the tea fields to pick two or three leaves.

From the mountain, I could see the entire village at a glance, and my heart ached at the thought of leaving.

How could such a tiny place hold so much tenderness?

The escort from the capital arrived just as the tea harvest was ending.

Grand Preceptor Su’s youngest son rode at its head.

He was Su Botang, Deputy Commander of the Palace Command.

He was about our age, tall and straight, magnificent in bearing. He stood out from the crowd and was strikingly handsome.

The dashing young general made old aunties and young wives alike draw quiet breaths.

Only my parents looked conflicted. Even the usually careless Sibao narrowed her eyes and studied him.

Dressed in armor with a longsword at his side, he stopped before our home, swept back his robe, knelt, and offered me a faultless salute.

Then he spoke the same words he had said many years ago.

“Your servant has come to escort Your Highness home.”