Chapter 5

The Song family was given three days to vacate the consort’s residence.

When I arrived with my attendants, they were packing. Dozens of large chests stood scattered across the courtyard.

The entire household reacted as though an enemy had descended upon them.

Song Heqing glared. “What are you doing here? Have you come to laugh at us?”

His features had not changed, but his composure and refinement were gone. He looked thin and shriveled, a furious little old man.

The anger had not killed him, then. How hardy he was.

“Insolence!” Nanny Gao snapped. “You stand before the princess. Pay your respects!”

Only then did he remember himself, though he was slow to move. Lady Huang knelt first, followed by a whole crowd. Song Zhang was absent; presumably, he could not yet leave his bed.

I did not give them permission to rise. With a wave of my hand, I sent guards pouring into the courtyard.

Song Heqing’s face drained of color. Fear showed in his eyes.

“Do not be afraid,” I said. “I have merely come to take back what belongs to me.”

When the late emperor bestowed the consort’s residence on us, I had paid for everything in it: the ornamental rockeries and trees, the cups and dishes, and all that lay between. The Songs had not contributed a penny.

With the marriage annulled, I had every right to reclaim it all.

Most of what they had already packed belonged to me. Nanny Gao checked the inventory item by item. Before long, the dozens of chests had been turned upside down, and my possessions stood in a separate pile. The Songs were left with four or five chests of clothes.

Tears sprang to Song Yumian’s eyes as she gazed longingly at the jewelry scattered outside the chests.

Song Heqing’s lips trembled. “Must Your Highness drive us to utter ruin? Zhang is still your son. Will you truly leave him nothing?”

I looked at him without warmth. “You may take your own possessions. Anything bought with my money stays here—not so much as a needle or a thread leaves this house. If I discover otherwise, do not blame me for taking it to the authorities.”

I glanced at Liu Sanniang. Nanny Gao rushed over and stripped the hairpin from her hair and the gold bangles from her wrists.

“You think yourself worthy of wearing the Grand Princess’s belongings?”

Liu Sanniang did not dare make a sound. Terrified, Song Yumian hastily threw down the gold ornaments she had hidden on her person.

Song Heqing closed his eyes in despair. “Princess, we were husband and wife for forty years…”

I laughed coldly. “His Majesty has decreed that our marriage is void. Why bring it up? Do you mean to defy his edict?”

He fell silent at once, his old, withered body swaying in the wind.