Chapter 3
A month later, the Crown Prince prepared to depart.
The prefect summoned Su Yanbai.
Dusk fell, but he did not return.
Afraid something had happened to him, I went to ask after him myself and learned the truth.
Su Yanbai had cured the Crown Prince, and the prefect wanted to recommend him for a post as an imperial physician.
When Su Yanbai refused, the prefect detained him.
“Madam Su, becoming an imperial physician is a tremendous honor. You must persuade Doctor Su.”
I was allowed to see Su Yanbai.
He had been tortured in private and lay facedown on an earthen bed, but his grip on my hand was fierce.
“I only want to be with you. I do not want to go anywhere else.”
Of course I understood.
“Wait for me. I have a way.”
The prefect was forcing the recommendation not because he bore Su Yanbai any ill will, but because he wanted to curry favor with the Crown Prince.
I waited outside the prefect’s residence and stopped the Crown Prince’s carriage.
“Your Highness, I am Doctor Su’s wife. I beg a favor of you!”
A cold wind drove the rain sideways, blurring even my voice.
“Who dares obstruct His Highness’s carriage?”
After I explained, a guard ran to the carriage to report.
“Your Highness, it concerns the Doctor Su who examined you recently. He does not wish to enter the palace as an imperial physician, so the prefect has detained him by force.”
The wind stirred the carriage curtain.
“Who is the woman kneeling ahead?”
For a moment, I was dazed.
Why did that voice sound so familiar, as though I had heard it somewhere before?
“Your Highness, she is Doctor Su’s wife. She is with child as well.”
Long, pale fingers appeared and curled around the curtain.
I watched without blinking.
The man inside had to be the Crown Prince.
The curtain rose slowly, revealing his chin, his lips, his nose…
“Madam Su, mind your manners,” someone warned.
I hastily lowered my head.
Su Yanbai had told me that the powerful observed endless rules and disliked being stared at by commoners.
From a distance, I felt the man’s gaze rest on me for a moment.
Silence followed.
“The palace has no shortage of physicians, but a child cannot do without a father. Tell the prefect to release her husband.”
His hand withdrew.
The curtain fell, and the carriage rolled away.
Still kneeling, I watched it recede in a trance.
He sounded exactly like Pei Ye.
Surely there could not be such a coincidence.
No. Surely not.
How could it be?
With the Crown Prince’s command, the prefect released Su Yanbai at once.
Night had fallen by the time I helped my injured husband home.
Along the way, I told him how I had stopped the Crown Prince’s carriage.
“Perhaps I imagined it, but the Crown Prince sounded very much like Pei Ye.”
Su Yanbai stiffened.
“You think Pei Ye is the Crown Prince?” He pressed his lips together and glanced at me. “Could you have heard wrong?”
“How could I mistake his voice?” I answered without thinking. Then I noticed how pale Su Yanbai had become and coughed awkwardly. “Still… perhaps I did hear wrong.”
Su Yanbai smiled faintly.
“It is all right. I trust your judgment of him.”
Yet I heard a strange note of dejection in his voice.
As we crossed the threshold, the night wind struck us full in the face.
Su Yanbai lowered his head and coughed lightly into his fist. His body swayed, then tipped into my arms.
I caught him and held on tightly.
“Are you all right?”
He took the opportunity to wrap an arm around my waist. Looking down at me, he fixed me with an earnest gaze.
“If he truly is no one of consequence, you need not avoid speaking of him around me. I do not think he deserves to become someone we silently agree never to mention. Truly.”
I stared at him, surprised that he would say such a thing.
“Of course I do not think—”
Before I could finish, he silenced me with a featherlight kiss.
“Ah Qing, just tell me he means nothing.”
I gazed into his eyes and surrendered to that gentle bewitchment.
“Yes. He means nothing.”
Even if Pei Ye truly was the Crown Prince, he meant nothing to me.
Su Yanbai’s lips curved. He held me more tightly.
Two days later, I ran into that same guard at Su Medical Clinic.
“Madam Su, congratulations. His Highness ordered me to present this calligraphy to Doctor Su.”
He unfurled the scroll. Four characters were written across it: *The Hands of a Healer, the Heart of a Saint*.
The gathered townspeople cheered and applauded.
“Su Medical Clinic will truly be famous now!”
I alone stood frozen.
Staring at the four characters, I instantly saw Pei Ye in my mind.
It had been a spring evening. He sat by the window, writing with intense concentration.
I had crept up behind him and sounded out the words one by one. “Where my heart finds home is… is what?”
The last two characters looked identical and impossibly complicated. I could not read them.
“When did you get here?”
He hurriedly crumpled the paper and stuffed it into his sleeve, as though terrified I might see it.
At the time, I had cared only about getting him to put a child in me. But the instant I saw this scroll, the memory returned.
The Crown Prince’s handwriting was exactly the same as Pei Ye’s.
The character for *heart*, in particular, could only have been written by the same hand.
My mind went blank.
Pei Ye was the Crown Prince.
He had even been here. He had nearly met Su Yanbai and me together, but he still had not discovered the truth.
Of course. He did not know that Su Yanbai’s surname was Su.
From beginning to end, he had believed Su Yanbai was surnamed Xu and was my biological brother.
If he ever learned otherwise…
“Madam Su? Madam Su?”
I snapped back to myself. “What?”
“Why is Doctor Su not here today?”
“He is still at home recovering. I was simply overwhelmed… Has His Highness left already?”
I could not hide my unease.
Fortunately, the guard took it for awed excitement.
“His Highness departs today. I am afraid he has no time to receive your thanks.”
“Then I should go home and tell Yanbai the good news.”
I hugged the scroll to my chest with a beaming smile.
The moment I stepped out, the smile vanished. I half ran all the way home.
I had to tell Su Yanbai.
We could not stay here.
If the Crown Prince summoned him for treatment again, we might not be so lucky.
But in my haste, I rounded a corner and nearly collided with a troop of riders. Unable to dodge in time, I slammed against the wall and fell.
The scroll rolled to the ground.
“Xu Qing?”
That painfully familiar voice came from above me.
My heart jolted.
I forced myself to look up and met Pei Ye’s eyes.
He was on horseback, dressed in riding clothes. Surrounded by attendants, his stern features seemed aloof and commanding.
“I…”
I had no idea what to say. I did not even know how to address him.
Pei Ye frowned, suspicion sharpening his gaze.
“What are you doing here?”
“Well… coincidences happen sometimes, do they not?”
Bracing one hand against the wall, I smiled as I spoke and used my skirt to hide the scroll by my feet.
Pei Ye narrowed his eyes, thinking hard, and tightened his grip on the reins.
“So you followed me.”
My eyes widened.
“I did not…”
“Then how did you know I was here?”
His aggressive question left me speechless, which only confirmed his theory.
He looked at me, then suddenly pressed his lips together, dismounted, and walked over.
“Xu Qing, you are a poor liar. Look at you—you are so nervous you cannot even invent an excuse.”
He stared into my eyes.
I did not dare move.
The scroll beneath my skirt had begun to roll and was about to emerge, so I pinned it under my foot.
“Did you run all this way alone? Does your brother know? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?” Pei Ye scolded coldly.
I could not see what right he had to lecture me, so I lifted my head and met his gaze.
“You care so much about me, yet you never even told me who you were.”
Pei Ye looked as though he wanted to speak, then slowly stepped back.
At that moment, the guard who had delivered the calligraphy arrived.
He saw Pei Ye and me together and stopped in astonishment.
“Your Highness? Madam Su…?”
Disaster was upon me. In my panic, I stepped wrong on the rolling scroll and pitched forward.
Everyone cried out.
“Your Highness!”
To protect the child in my belly, I had no choice but to use the noble Crown Prince as a cushion.
That also kept him from hearing the guard call me Madam Su.
Pinned beneath me, Pei Ye’s expression turned dark and complicated.
“Resorting to such tricks in public—have you no shame?”
“What? I did not do it on purpose.”
I answered carelessly while sprawled across his chest. In truth, before he could react, I snatched up the scroll and shoved it into my sleeve.
Then Pei Ye pushed me away.
“Xu Qing, you have gotten much heavier!”
Sitting on the ground, I gave him an awkward smile.
“Only a little.”
After all, it was not just my weight anymore.
His men helped him to his feet, and only then did he notice the guard.
“Did you deliver the item I gave you?”
The guard stared blankly at me. “Yes. I just gave it to…”
He probably meant to say he had given it to me, but Pei Ye, irritated and distracted, cut him off.
“Good. Escort Miss Xu home.”
“Miss… Miss Xu? Who?” the guard asked, even more confused.
“Her.”
Pei Ye pointed casually at me, mounted his horse, and continued on his way.
Only after everyone else had left did I slowly climb to my feet.
“Madam Su, why did His Highness call you Miss Xu?” the guard asked, utterly bewildered.
I answered absently, “My surname is Xu. He must have forgotten my husband’s surname for a moment.”
“Then you knew His Highness before? But earlier, why did you…?”
“We know each other, but not well.”