Chapter 3
As time passed, my elder sister somehow heard that Ji Qinglin and I were living in perfect harmony.
Claiming she missed her younger sister, she summoned me to the palace.
She reclined at ease upon her chaise.
Her earrings swayed gently, and luxury clung to her every inch.
I knelt on the floor and looked up at her.
My gaze passed over the lavish furnishings in the Crown Princess’s residence.
In that dazed moment, something in my mind was on the verge of breaking through the soil.
My elder sister noticed nothing.
She dismissed the palace servants and began reminiscing with me, convinced she was being considerate.
“Madam Ji is generous, and Brother Qinglin has a gentle nature. If I hadn’t entered the palace, how could you ever have climbed into such a wealthy marriage?”
“I still remember him pushing me on the swing and me writing him little poems. Those green days of youth are gone forever.”
As my elder sister sighed over the past, a sweet blush colored her cheeks.
She completely forgot to tell me to rise.
Only when a maid hurried in to report that His Highness had finished discussing state affairs did she suddenly come to her senses.
She hastily sent me out of the palace.
My life began to sink into a vicious cycle.
By day, I entered the palace and knelt while my elder sister reminisced.
By night, Ji Qinglin vented on my body all his bitterness at failing to marry the woman he loved.
I still had to pay my respects to my mother-in-law morning and evening.
She resented the endless wait for grandchildren.
Yet she could neither bear to lecture her precious son nor dare blame my elder sister, who stood far above her.
Every scrap of her fury therefore poured onto me.
Standing in punishment, sorting prayer beans, and copying scriptures became routine.
Sometimes I fled to my maiden home for a moment’s breath, only to be met again and again by Mother’s glare.
“What sort of married woman keeps running back to her parents’ home? Our two houses cannot be allowed to fall out because of your willfulness.”
“Don’t blame me for favoring your elder sister. Even if a good life is placed in your hands, you conjure trouble out of thin air. You’re an embarrassment who will never belong in respectable company.”
Mother pressed at her temple and waved me away impatiently.
Beneath the blazing sun,
I stood outside the gates of my childhood home, cold spreading through my limbs.
I lowered my eyes and opened my hand. Every trace of color had drained from it.
At last I understood.
Whether with my husband’s family or my own,
the two paths before me both ended in death.
When I returned to my courtyard,
Ji Qinglin had already been waiting beneath the tree for some time.
One pale, elegant fingertip nudged the medicine bowl toward me. “Make up for last night’s dose today. It’s just cool enough to drink.”
My fist tightened abruptly.
I stared at Ji Qinglin for a long moment.
Then I answered with a radiant smile, “Yes. Whatever you say, Husband.”
If no one else would leave me a road to live,
then I could only take theirs.
The decision itself took only an instant.
I remained the meek, timid wife of the heir to the House of Marquis Jingyuan.
Until one day, while I stood in the courtyard as punishment,
a servant burst through the door, wailing, “Madam, the heir was riding outside the capital when his horse suddenly panicked and threw him…”
My mother-in-law’s breath caught in her throat, and she collapsed onto the couch.
She had always enjoyed tormenting me over trivial matters.
She never allowed me to touch the authority of managing the household.
So when disaster struck, I could do nothing but cry out for her in helpless panic.
By the time she regained consciousness, produced the household’s calling card to summon an imperial physician, and hurried to the outskirts of the capital,
Ji Qinglin had already breathed his last.
At midnight, I burned his clothes.
I had embroidered every pattern at the collar and cuffs with thread soaked in a medicinal solution.
Combined with the calming incense pellet in his sachet,
it became a drug capable of driving a horse mad.
Then I went to weep before my mother-in-law.
The loss of her son in middle age turned most of her carefully tended hair white.
“If the imperial physician had arrived sooner, could my husband have been saved?”
“Mother, I have been unfilial. As I tossed and turned at night, I even began to resent you…”
“The house has lost its only heir. What will become of the two of us now?”
My mother-in-law said nothing.
Her eyes stared fixedly at the bed curtains.
Within three months, grief and despair carried her after Ji Qinglin.