Chapter 13
Chapter 13
Three years ago, she had refused to break off the engagement because the dream had been too real, too terrifying.
But today he had kissed her, then turned and left without looking back. Suddenly, she was no longer certain.
Perhaps she really should stop waiting.
The higher he climbed, the less likely he was to be released from his slave status.
The moment he had been sentenced to castration, this marriage had been doomed to come to nothing.
Yet the scenes from her dream continued to haunt her.
The slightest thought of giving up pressed on her until she could hardly breathe.
Pressed so hard that she dared neither withdraw nor stop waiting.
Her father looked at his daughter’s red eyes and swallowed the words on his lips. Distressed for her, he waved a hand.
“Never mind. Go and rest. Have your mother make you a bowl of calming soup.”
Si Yan answered softly, rose to bow, and left the study.
Two days later, an entirely unexpected visitor arrived there.
The servant brought in tea and was about to withdraw when he was called back.
“Go and fetch Miss. Tell her…”
Remembering the “Minister Si” he had just heard, her father paused and looked at the man opposite him.
He sat upright in a red sandalwood chair, his back straight and his robe fastened with meticulous care.
Si Yan’s father looked back at the servant and completed his sentence. “Tell her Secretary Jiang is here.”
“Yes, my lord.” Head lowered, the servant withdrew and went to the rear courtyard.
Jihe was watering the flowers. Hearing his message, she set down the watering pot and went inside.
Si Yan reclined on the daybed, leafing through a storybook, while Linghe crouched beside her shelling walnuts.
“Miss, His Lordship asks you to come to the study… Secretary Jiang is here.”
Si Yan’s hand paused on the page. Without even raising her eyes, she answered indifferently,
“I’m not going. Tell him I have a headache.”
Jihe was about to say more when she saw Linghe shaking her head emphatically and signaling with her eyes.
Ever since returning from the Marquis of Yongning’s residence, their mistress had been terribly low. Her eyes had stayed red for days.
She called him a bastard every day, then stared blankly at the pendant on her waist.
“Miss, His Lordship said…” Honest Jihe wanted to try once more.
“I’m not going!” Si Yan dropped the storybook over her face, her chest heaving.
“I don’t care who’s here! My head hurts! Terribly! I can’t get off the daybed! I can’t walk!”
Linghe hurriedly gestured for Jihe to leave.
“I’ll take your answer back.” Taking the hint, Jihe withdrew and gently closed the door.
Back in the study,
the servant came trotting in and stood meekly at the door, a little sweat beading his forehead.
“My lord, Miss says… She says she has a headache and cannot come.”
The corner of her father’s mouth twitched.
That girl! She was plainly pretending!
He cleared his throat twice, set down his tea, and gave the man opposite him an apologetic smile.
“My daughter has been unwell of late. Forgive her, Secretary Jiang.”
Jiang Youze rested his fingers at the edge of his teacup. His expression remained cool and unapproachable.
He lowered his eyes to the tea leaves rising and falling in the water. His heart sank with them.
Was she truly ill?
Or had she truly come to hate him, so much that she would not even see him?
“Uncle, may I… go and see her?”
The hand holding the teacup went still. Si Yan’s father looked up at him.
At that moment, the two men in the study were no longer a Eunuch Secretary and a minister.
Only an old family friend who had watched the other grow up, and the younger man who had visited his home since childhood.
One was a father distressed for his daughter. The other was a man who wanted to see the woman he loved.
Si Yan’s father was silent for a long while before setting his cup on the table.
When he spoke, the earlier courtesies were gone, replaced by the plain speaking of an elder.
“Youze, you’re in the Directorate of Ceremonial now. There is no limit to your prospects.”
He paused, then spoke plainly.
“If you truly have no intention of being with her, tell her clearly, and soon. She’s eighteen this year. If she keeps waiting, I’m afraid she…”
He left the rest unsaid, but his meaning was clear.
Jiang Youze’s expression remained indifferent. Only the hand concealed in his sleeve tightened slightly.
Tell her clearly.
What would count as clear enough?
Even saying, “Don’t wait for me,” or, “If you want to marry him, accept,” had nearly torn his heart apart.
To make him spell it out, to truly say he did not want her, would be worse than driving a knife through him.
Looking at Jiang Youze’s expressionless face, Si Yan’s father sighed inwardly.
The boy had been like this since childhood.
He never showed the slightest emotion before anyone else. No one could tell what he was thinking.
Only with Si Yan did his guard fall, his expression softening without his knowing it.
“Go, then.” Her father lifted his tea and took a gulp, his tone carrying the resignation of someone who understood these things.
“But she’s angry. She may not agree to see you. You know that girl’s temper better than I do.”
Jiang Youze rose, bowed respectfully as a junior, and left the study.
The servant led him through the covered walkways, stopping at the entrance to the rear courtyard.
Linghe was coming out with the walnut shells. At the sight of him, she nearly spilled them all.
“S-Secretary Jiang…”
She stammered the greeting and instinctively glanced toward the main room.
“Why have you come? Miss…”
The person inside must have heard her voice. Yet she waited, and her mistress made no sound.
Not even a cough. She plainly wanted nothing to do with him and intended to play dead to the end.
“Miss is unwell and cannot receive visitors.” Linghe delivered the words stiffly, then walked away with the walnut shells.
Jiang Youze remained outside the courtyard gate, his gaze resting on the half-open window of the main room.
A familiar figure moved behind it. Then the window snapped shut.
She was there.
She did not want to see him.
When Linghe returned after emptying the shells, he was still there. She paced in agitation.
“Standing here won’t help. When Miss says she won’t see you, she means it!”
Remembering how her mistress had cried over him two days ago sent her anger surging.
“She cried for two whole days after coming back from the Marquis of Yongning’s residence! And whose fault was that?”
So what if he belonged to the Directorate of Ceremonial? So what if he was an imperial favorite?
He was still the culprit who had made her mistress cry like that!
When in her life had Miss ever humbled herself so much?
At the minister’s residence, if she asked for the stars, no one would offer her the moon instead. Who in the whole capital dared make her suffer?
Yet for this man, she had borne every insult and swallowed every grievance.
“You left her there without so much as looking back. Why come to see her now?”
Catching sight of Jiang Youze’s expression, Linghe’s voice lowered involuntarily.
Still, she forced herself to finish, though half the sharpness left her tone.
“If you truly want what’s best for Miss, stop troubling her!”
At last, a crack appeared in Jiang Youze’s calm, indifferent expression. His hidden hand clenched.
Cried for two days.
That day, her voice had trembled when she said, “I hate you.”
It had not been spoken merely in anger. He had truly hurt her.
In three years within the palace walls, what cruel words had he not heard? What humiliation had he not endured?
Yet none had made him hate himself as much as the words he had spoken himself.