Chapter 4
The Xu family’s very survival was at stake. For the next two days, he could not even spare time to visit the pleasure house and court Miss Xuanmeng.
We searched through every tale of spirits and marvels we could find, but discovered no way to change back.
At last, our final day arrived.
Winter rain fell the night before my departure, a fine, unbroken drizzle pattering on the roof tiles. We sat facing each other across a desk barely three feet wide, yet it felt as though the Milky Way lay between us.
Candlelight played over his face and danced in his eyes, just as it had on our wedding night. He was so beautiful that my heart stirred.
He had been only nineteen then. He would not even kick the bridal sedan’s door, prompting everyone to laugh that he would never command his wife. From the moment I stepped out until we entered the bridal chamber, he cast the wedding sash to the ground and strode forward to seize my hand. Except when we bowed to Heaven and Earth, he refused to let go.
The wedding matron protested that this broke every rule. Friends and relatives celebrating with us covered the children’s eyes.
“You’re hurting me…” I complained, covering my reddened wrist.
“I’m afraid you’ll run away if I let go.” He lifted my veil. Flames danced in his eyes; his youthful gaze was both shy and burning. “That dream I told you about, the one that frightens me most—you left. You rode away on Zhaoye. No matter how I called, you couldn’t hear me. I couldn’t catch you. I lost you…”
Seven years between us seemed to pass in an instant. I did not know when that stubborn, steadfast boy had released my hand, leaving me alone, so close to him and yet a world away.
“Deputy General Yang Zhaoxi. A son of an aristocratic family. Headstrong and reckless. I’ve tried to teach him several times, but he resents it and repeatedly defies his superiors. Still, he is… useful.”
His voice dragged me back to the present.
Yang Zhaoxi? I remembered him attending our wedding with the old duchess. He had been only fifteen then, but modest and courteous, every inch a young gentleman. Had four years truly turned him headstrong and reckless?
“Our strategist, Yuanque, fancies himself Zhuge Liang reborn. Conservative by nature; avoids risky moves. Trustworthy.”
“The chief scout, Shouya, never takes anything seriously and is always making jokes. But he has extraordinary talents and extraordinary luck. You can…” He thought for a long time without finding the word, then finally smiled. “You can trade insults with him to pass the time.”
His mouth curved faintly as he spoke of the comrades who had faced death beside him.
It had been a long time since he had told me anything about his life.
Once, I had ridden beside him across the Northern Wastes, and we had talked of everything. Now I lived in the inner quarters, and the countless petty duties of the general’s household had almost made me forget my childhood.
“You haven’t told me these things for so long, ever since I married into your family. Sometimes I dream of Laughing Corpse Mountain in the Northern Wastes, the Xiao people’s troublesome beast-commanding arts, and the mountain spirit said to haunt the slopes…”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew I had erred. Books said those things were no concern of a woman.
He did not want to listen to a resentful wife complain, so he changed the subject.
“They say there’s a mountain spirit on Laughing Corpse Mountain. I used to think it was only a story, until I saw her myself…”
His face lit up as he spoke of the mountain-spirit girl. Remembering the rumors of how he had met Miss Xuanmeng, I felt the light go out of my eyes.
“Miss Xuanmeng, you mean.”
He looked a little embarrassed that I had exposed his thoughts.
These past few days, occupied with our exchanged bodies, he had seldom gone to support Miss Xuanmeng at the pleasure house. Instead he sent letters through his attendants to ease his longing.
“There’s no need to feel awkward. You and I are no longer husband and wife. These bodies are all that bind us.” I smiled, my eyes stinging. “When I secretly pledged myself to you and slipped out on the Lantern Festival, I knew this day might come.”
When we fell in love, Xu Ziyi’s father gladly gave his consent. My father refused no matter what.
He had been a widower for many years, and I was his only daughter. He would not let me marry into a general’s exalted household.
“Everyone in there has eyes for wealth and a heart for power. What do you know of their schemes?”
“Ziyi will protect me.”
My father sighed again and again. But lost in love, I would listen to nothing.
On the Lantern Festival I secretly kept our appointment and pledged myself to him. Father was so angry that he accused me of running off in shame.
“A woman formally betrothed becomes a wife; one who runs to a man becomes a concubine! Don’t you know what’s at stake?”
He ordered me to kneel before my mother’s spirit tablet. His face livid, he raised his horsewhip. Convinced I had done nothing wrong, I lifted my chin and waited for the blow. Several times he tried, but could not bring himself to strike. At last he sighed and threw down the whip. Sitting alone in a corner, his head bowed, he wept. The man hailed as Master Zhou of the horse yards, the father who had indulged my every wish since childhood, seemed to age decades overnight.
The next day, Xu Ziyi knelt outside our home. After he endured three days of winter rain, my father finally relented. Three long sighs were his tacit consent.
Xu Ziyi had treated me well. Even when the old madam broke three rattan switches across him, he insisted that I would be his lawful wife.
Back then I truly believed that solemn vows of love could never change.
At my mention of the past, Xu Ziyi grew uncomfortable and said nothing. It only made me seem like a bitter, faded wife.
“Does your face still hurt?” I looked at the mark of the slap and changed the subject.
“How do you usually attend to Mother? Why would she lose her temper like that?”
“How do I treat her? She is your mother, so I honor her as if she were my own.”
“Concubine Zhou says you’re usually disrespectful and show her no filial devotion.”
“You believe Concubine Zhou, but not me. Is that it?”
I looked at him quietly. Suddenly he seemed uneasy.
“Mother is old. Naturally her tongue can be sharp. Once we’ve changed back, go apologize and kowtow to her. Her words may be harsh, but her heart is soft.”
She called me an ungrateful beast, and all that amounted to was a lightly dismissed “sharp tongue”?
And I was supposed to kneel and beg forgiveness?
“I have only one thing to say: be careful of your brother’s concubines.”
“Can women in the inner quarters be more dangerous than the swords of a battlefield?” He laughed scornfully. “I’ll discreetly seek a way to change us back here in the capital. All you need to do is stay alive on the front. We may be back in our own bodies before you’ve even reached the Northern Wastes.”
We sat in silence. Outside, rain beat upon the withered lotus leaves; the candlewick crackled.
“Look how devoted our master and madam are.” Hongyu and Lüzhu, keeping watch outside, were chatting.
“That Miss Xuanmeng is a shameless, lowborn hussy. Singing for money in a brothel, entangling herself with the crown prince and another prince… I hear she’s even hiding some man of unknown origins in her room there…” Lüzhu was still young. Indignant on my behalf, she let her voice rise without realizing it. “Our madam’s such a good person, and she’s been secretly crying these past few days…”
Xu Ziyi’s expression darkened. He was about to get up and punish her, but I held him back.
“After our divorce, I’m taking Lüzhu and Hongyu with me. They’ve been with me since childhood. They speak for me because we’re devoted to one another. If you punish them while wearing my face, you’ll break their hearts.”
“Xu Ziyi, after four years as your wife, this is my only request.”
He hesitated, then nodded.