Chapter 7

I did not so much as raise an eyebrow. I took a leisurely sip of tea.

Yingyue cut my pastry into small pieces. “This is all you may have today.”

It was barely a mouthful, but what could I do? Old people must not eat too many sweets.

Nanny Gao laughed. “Only our young lady can keep Your Highness in line. You would never listen to me.”

“That’s because you’re just as greedy, Nanny. You begin by telling Grandmother off, and before long she’s won you over.”

We all laughed. None of us cared whether Liu Sanniang lived or died.

Humiliation turned to fury. Clutching the dagger, she lunged at me. “You venomous woman! I’ll kill you!”

Of course she could not hurt me. Before she even touched the hem of my robe, a guard kicked her to the ground and seized her.

I thought I heard a bone crack. Liu Sanniang screamed and fainted from the pain. I had water thrown over her to wake her.

I sent someone to the Song house to fetch her family.

Song Heqing came.

To my surprise, he had become ugly. Unkempt, too. He did not look at Liu Sanniang but hurried straight to me. An old man’s stale smell wafted over, and I covered my nose.

He gazed at me with aching tenderness. “Princess, I was wrong. I know I was wrong. More than forty years together—I cannot believe you could simply throw our love away. You are the only woman I love. I only pitied Liu Sanniang. I never felt anything for her. She deliberately seduced me. I promise, if you come back, I’ll send her to a nunnery…”

Weeping, his nose running, he drew from his robe the little shadow puppets he had so often used to make me smile.

“We sustained each other for forty years. You said we would grow old together, be buried in the same grave… Feiying, don’t cast me aside. Don’t leave me all alone. I know I was wrong. I can’t live without you…”

As I watched him, tears reddened the corners of my eyes.

Not for him. For the love I had once given him.

How had I loved such a creature for more than forty years?

Liu Sanniang was so stunned by his words that she forgot her pain. “Song Heqing!” she shrieked. “That isn’t what you used to say! You said I was your true wife, the only woman you loved! You said you married the princess only for her rank and power!”

“Shut your mouth!” he roared, then turned hastily to me. “Don’t listen to her, Princess. She’s trying to drive us apart.”

I could only find it funny.

“Song Heqing, your wife tried to assassinate me. I shall spare her this once because someone else put her up to it. If it happens again, I will have the entire Song family executed.”

Liu Sanniang would never have had the courage on her own. The Third Prince had sent her. If she killed me, so much the better; if she failed, she could at least make my life unpleasant.

Song Heqing looked at me incredulously, as though he had never known me at all.

He left in a daze. The little shadow puppets slipped from his hand and fell to the ground. A gust of wind carried them away, who knew where.

He forgot to take Liu Sanniang with him. She lay on the floor, sobbing in anguish and despair.