Chapter 19
Chapter 19
Si Yan was alone in the room.
She pulled the quilt over her head, hugged herself, and curled into a ball.
She did not cry.
She only felt as though something inside her chest were being hollowed out, little by little.
Early the next morning,
Linghe pushed open the door with a copper basin in her hands and found her mistress already sitting at the dressing table.
“Miss? Why are you up so early today?”
Usually, she had to be called several times before she would leave her bed.
Had the sun risen in the west?
Si Yan combed her hair, her eyes on the mirror but her gaze unfocused.
“We have to pay our respects to the Fifth Princess today. I can’t be late.”
Linghe nodded without thinking much of it and briskly helped her wash and dress.
Once everything was ready, her eyes happened to pass over the bedside table. Something new lay there.
A gilt bronze waist token, with an indigo tassel and several characters cast into its surface.
“Miss, that is…”
“Come.” Without a glance toward the bed, Si Yan walked straight to the door.
When they reached the Fifth Princess’s Yaohua Hall, Shen Mingzhu and Zhao Huaining were already there.
The Fifth Princess, Xue Yushu, reclined on a daybed. Seeing Si Yan enter, she sat a little straighter.
“Si Yan pays her respects to Your Highness.” Si Yan walked to the center of the hall and made a proper bow.
Xue Yushu exchanged a look with the two women seated below her.
“Rise.” She lifted her hand lazily, her gaze lingering on Si Yan for several breaths.
“Miss Si really is beautiful. No wonder someone cannot stop thinking about her.”
“Your Highness is too kind.” Si Yan kept her eyes lowered and a proper smile on her face.
“My looks are quite unremarkable, not one ten-thousandth of Your Highness’s beauty.”
Pleased by the flattery, Xue Yushu lifted her chin slightly. “Very well. Give her a seat.”
Soon after Si Yan sat, Song Qingyi and Liu Xiyue arrived and took their places in turn.
There was little serious business on the first day, only learning their way around and studying the rules.
Before bed, Linghe was about to leave a gap in the window for air when she was stopped.
“Don’t leave it open.” With her back to the window, Si Yan pulled the quilt to her chin. “Shut it tight.”
Linghe paused and looked outside. In this weather, the room would become terribly stuffy with the window closed.
Her mistress had liked open windows since childhood, even in winter.
Today, everything was truly out of the ordinary.
Even when the young eunuchs brought food that evening, she had refused it, however tearfully they begged.
Linghe slid the window bolt into place. After a moment’s hesitation, she could not keep from asking,
“Miss, what’s wrong today?”
“Nothing. Go to bed.”
Hearing that she was unhappy, Linghe wisely asked no more. She put out the lamp and withdrew.
The night deepened. The room was silent, without the slightest glow of lamplight.
Jiang Youze stood before the window, moonlight casting his shadow onto the floor inside.
Qingqing was angry.
He was to blame.
He rested his forehead against the cold window lattice as the cool night wind brushed his face.
The moon moved from the treetops to the roof. Dew dampened his shoulders.
Si Yan lay on her side, looking at the indistinct shadow outside the window.
Her tears slid soundlessly over the bridge of her nose and soaked her pillow.
They were the tears she had held back all day. Now they flowed without stopping.
She truly did not understand him.
In her dream, even after she married another man, Jiang Youze had seized her and kept her imprisoned at his side.
Even when she hated him, resented him, even wounded him with a knife, he would not let go.
But the Jiang Youze of now?
When he kissed her, he seemed intent on crushing her and swallowing her whole.
The possessiveness surging in his eyes was every bit as fierce as Lord Jiuqiansui’s in her dream, if not fiercer.
Yet the moment the kiss ended, he began pushing her away.
What did he mean by it?
She wanted him either to push her away completely and never return, or to hold on to her and never let go.
Not leave her like this, her heart suspended in midair with nowhere to rest.
When Linghe returned from fetching water that morning, she found a brocade box on the windowsill.
She picked it up and examined it, then rose on tiptoe to look beyond the courtyard gate.
There was not even a footprint on the blue-brick path. She had no idea when it had been left there.
Setting down the copper basin, she took the box inside, opened it, and placed it on the dressing table.
“Miss, look at this.”
Inside lay a white jade hairpin. Its flower petals were thin enough to let light through, and a South Sea pearl was set in the center.
Si Yan was sitting at the dressing table combing her hair. The wooden comb stopped in midair.
Her lips pressed together. Her fingers stirred as though to reach for it, then drew back and tightened around the comb.
More gifts!
At home, he had sent fabrics, rouge, and powder. In the palace, food and jewelry. Now another hairpin.
Did he think gifts could soothe her anger?
She was a person. She could hurt.
He had pushed her away so many times that the wounds in her heart had not even scabbed over!
And he wanted to gloss it all over with a hairpin?
“Put it in the dressing case.” She set the comb on the table and rose to change.
“Won’t you wear it, Miss?”
Linghe blinked, looked down at the pin, then up at the back of her mistress’s head.
Such a beautiful hairpin. Prettier than every piece of jewelry on her mistress’s dressing table.
Why not wear it?
“No!”
Si Yan fastened her sash before the bronze mirror, her eyes straying uncontrollably toward the dressing case.
“I don’t care for it.”
Pretending not to notice, Linghe closed the brocade box and tucked it at the very back of the case.
For several days in a row, something arrived on the windowsill.
White jade earrings, a pure gold twisted-wire bracelet, a butterfly hairpin inlaid with kingfisher feathers…
Something different every day.
Si Yan stuffed them all into the drawer of her dressing case without a second look. Yet a smile began to touch her lips.
“Miss!” Linghe hurried in from the window and presented a brocade box.
“Today’s hairpin looks very much like the one you pawned.”
Si Yan picked it up and examined it closely. It did not merely look like it. It was the very same pin.
Had he redeemed it?
Watching her expression, Linghe ventured, “Shall I put it in your hair, Miss?”
Si Yan nodded and handed it over, then picked up the lip color from the table and applied it.
Her chin was slightly raised. She could not suppress the curve of her mouth, though her tone remained proudly defiant.
“He mustn’t think this means I’ll forgive him.”
Linghe nearly laughed. She hastily lowered her head and pretended to arrange the dressing case.
Her mistress’s stubborn tongue must be tougher than the palace walls.
When lessons ended that day, Si Yan was just about to rise and leave when Xue Yushu’s voice drifted over.
“The weather is fine. You will all accompany me for a walk in the Imperial Garden.”
They left Yaohua Hall, passed along the long palace paths, and headed for the Imperial Garden.
Xue Yushu walked at the front, the noble young ladies clustered about her like stars around the moon.
Si Yan trailed at the back, waving her round fan and letting her gaze wander idly over the herbaceous peonies beside the path.
The Imperial Garden was in full bloom. Tree and herbaceous peonies crowded every corner, their fragrance filling the air.
As she looked down at the flowers, she suddenly heard the laughter and conversation ahead fall silent.