Chapter 9
Chapter 9
The physician came by that morning and took Ji Hanyi’s pulse. He said she was doing somewhat better, but coughs were not easy to cure, so she would still need several days of rest.
Ji Hanyi was content as long as her cold had improved. Her coughing was only slightly worse at night, and she hardly coughed during the day.
But just as Ji Hanyi began to recover, her mother-in-law’s condition worsened.
Naturally, Ji Hanyi had to attend to her in person. Madam Lin could not stop vomiting. The imperial physician said her stomach had been chilled and wrote a prescription, leaving everyone in the room bustling about.
Members of the Second Branch and Third Branch all came to express their concern. The smell of medicine mingled with the murmur of conversation, making the crowded room feel hot and stifling.
Ji Hanyi had been jostled to one side. She felt slightly dizzy and found it difficult to breathe.
Fortunately, they had only come to offer a few perfunctory words of concern. Seeing that Madam Lin was too weak to speak much, they soon left. The room emptied until Ji Hanyi was the only one remaining.
Ji Hanyi had yet to recover from her cold, but she spent the entire afternoon tending to Madam Lin. As dusk approached, she braced one hand against a small side table. Cold sweat broke out across her forehead, her face turned deathly pale, and her body began to crumple toward the floor.
A nearby older maidservant hurried over and caught Ji Hanyi, steadying her before she could fall. Alarmed by her bloodless face, the woman quickly said, “Madam is asleep now. Young Madam, you should get some rest too. We ought to summon the physician to examine you.”
Just then, Li Mingrou came in from outside. Seeing Ji Hanyi propping herself up against the small table, she said, “I’ll look after Aunt. Sister-in-law, you should go rest for a while.”
Ji Hanyi shivered uncontrollably. Even drawing enough breath to speak made her feel as though she might collapse. Her vision darkened, as if she would fall the very next moment.
She gripped Rongchun’s hand tightly and mustered enough strength to nod. Only then did she allow Rongchun to help her out.
Outside, the cold wind struck her sweat-damp forehead, its chill piercing to the bone. The lantern lighting their way doubled and blurred before her eyes, everything hazy and indistinct. In her daze, Ji Hanyi remembered how, when she was little, her father would come home after his social engagements and carry her on his back through the night.
Her eyes grew moist for a moment, but she forced back her tears. Tilting her face upward, she let the cold snow fall upon her cheeks. Each icy touch gradually cleared her head.
She leaned against Rongchun as they continued back.
Watching Ji Hanyi’s pallid face, Rongchun asked anxiously, “Young Madam, what’s wrong?”
Ji Hanyi closed her eyes and shook her head. With great effort, she replied, “We’ll talk when we get back.”
As soon as they returned to her courtyard and Ji Hanyi leaned back against the bed, she turned her head and retched. The maids in the room were terrified and hurried to summon the physician again.
After examining her, the physician sighed. “Young Madam has chills and a fever. Her cold had yet to pass, but she was exposed to cold wind and exhausted herself, which has caused her headache and body aches. Her cold has worsened, and her existing blood deficiency has also thrown her internal organs out of balance.”
He carefully studied Ji Hanyi’s complexion before adding in a low voice, “Young Madam must not get chilled again. She needs to recuperate properly for several days.”
Rongchun’s heart ached as she watched from the side.
Plenty of people had visited the First Madam that day, but all they had done was offer a few words of concern. The Young Madam was the only one who had stayed to care for her in person.
As her daughter-in-law, the Young Madam could not shirk her duty and refuse to attend to her.
Her cold had not even healed, yet she had gone back and forth all day and been exposed to the frigid wind. How could her condition not worsen?
Ji Hanyi leaned back with her eyes closed.
One illness had yet to pass before another struck. It was a burden, no matter how she looked at it.
Outside, Rongchun saw the physician off and instructed the maids to prepare the medicine. Just as she was about to turn around, she spotted a gate servant hurrying toward her. She stopped and asked, “What is it?”
The servant held a letter in his hand. Approaching Rongchun, he said respectfully, “This letter came from the Gu Residence. They said I must place it directly into the Eldest Young Madam’s hands.”
When Rongchun heard it was from the Gu Family and had been delivered in such haste at this hour, she feared it must be extremely urgent.
She quickly said, “The Young Madam is ill. Give the letter to me, and I’ll take it inside.”
Rongchun was Ji Hanyi’s senior personal maid and had accompanied her from her maiden home, so she was naturally trustworthy. The servant promptly handed the letter to her.
Ji Hanyi was leaning against the headboard when Rongchun brought in the letter from the Gu Family. She paused briefly, then reached out and accepted it.
It had been sealed with wax. Lowering her eyes, she opened the envelope.
The candle beside her cast a bright glow over the handwriting on the paper.
Ji Hanyi read to the end, then silently slipped the letter back into its envelope.
Standing beside her, Rongchun hurriedly asked, “Is it about Young Madam’s mother’s illness…?”
Ji Hanyi shook her head. After coughing a few times, she silently turned her gaze toward the flickering candle flame nearby.
The letter was from her maternal grandmother. An Operations Commandant from the Eastern Office of the Jinyiwei had arrested her cousin Gu Xun, who was still studying at the Imperial Academy.
Today, he had already been transferred to the Northern Pacification Office.
There was no need to imagine what sort of treatment awaited him there.
Everyone knew that no one could withstand the torture in the Northern Pacification Office’s prisons. It never took long for prisoners to confess, and quite a few had died in the Pacification Office.
Ji Hanyi knew why her grandmother had written to her in such haste. The husband of Xie Jin, the Eldest Young Lady of the Xie Family, was the Northern Pacification Office’s Senior Official — the Pacification Commissioner.
If he were willing to release Cousin Xun, it would not be difficult at all.
Another throb of pain went through Ji Hanyi’s head, and she pressed her fingertips to her forehead.
Gu Xun had been arrested by the Operations Commandant merely for privately discussing Dunjia Military Arts and Taiyi Numerological Arts with others. The matter could be made serious or trivial; it all depended on how those in power chose to judge it.
The imperial court had always rigorously investigated forbidden occult texts, and many people had been implicated as a result.
If they chose to make a serious case of it, even the Gu Family might be dragged in.
Yet the Gu Family was now like a broken branch battered by wind and rain. It could not withstand another storm.
Ji Hanyi closed her eyes wearily. The Eldest Young Lady of the Xie Family was Madam Lin’s eldest daughter from the First Branch. She had always been haughty and condescending. If Ji Hanyi went to her, she would not agree to help — unless Xie Yuheng personally asked her.
But Ji Hanyi knew that asking Xie Yuheng for help would be utterly pointless.
Besides, neither she nor the Gu Family mattered much to Xie Yuheng. Even if she asked, he most likely would not give the matter any consideration.
The more Ji Hanyi searched through her thoughts for another solution, the more powerless she felt. She slipped the letter beneath her pillow, then called for Rongchun to help her up.
Rongchun paused before hurriedly asking, “Where are you going, Young Madam?”
Even the slightest movement made Ji Hanyi’s bones ache. A suffocating weight pressed against her chest as she answered softly, “The study.”
Rongchun grew anxious. “The study is all the way in the rear corridor rooms. If Young Madam goes there now, you’ll certainly be exposed to the wind. Just tell me what you need, and I’ll fetch it for you.”
Seeing the concern on Rongchun’s face, Ji Hanyi nodded. “Then bring me paper and a brush.”
Rongchun nodded at once. Only after helping Ji Hanyi lie back down did she hurry away.
Once the paper and brush arrived, Ji Hanyi sat on the daybed with an outer robe draped around her. Two braziers burned beside her, their glow lending even her pale blue underrobe a warm hue.
She held the brush poised over the paper, yet could not bring herself to write a single word.
Rongchun crouched to stir the charcoal, then placed a hand warmer freshly refilled by another maid into Ji Hanyi’s arms. When she saw that Ji Hanyi’s brush had hung in midair for a long while without making a single stroke, she could not help asking curiously, “Who are you writing to, Young Madam?”
Ji Hanyi pressed her lips together. Shadows pooled beneath her long, thick lashes as she replied in a very soft voice, “The Shen Residence.”
Rongchun froze.
She had never expected Young Madam to suddenly write to the Shen Residence.
There were many noble and aristocratic households in the capital, but when it came to the most exalted of them all, none could compare to the Shen Residence.
And the most exalted person in the Shen Residence was Fifth Master Shen, who, despite his youth, had already risen to become Left Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate.
He was the Empress’s own younger brother, which made His Majesty the Emperor his brother-in-law. His father was an esteemed statesman who had served through three reigns and was enshrined in the Imperial Ancestral Temple — the Former Chief Grand Secretary and teacher of His Majesty the Emperor.
Marquis Shen was the son born to the Former Chief Grand Secretary in his old age and the only descendant of his branch. He had only just turned twenty when His Majesty the Emperor granted him the title Marquis of Rong’en, making him the youngest Marquis of his day.
During the struggle for the throne, the Shen Family had supported His Majesty the Emperor from beginning to end, and Her Majesty the Empress had even taken an arrow for His Majesty the Emperor. Now the imperial couple were deeply devoted to each other, there were only a handful of consorts in the harem, and both imperial princes had been born to the Empress. Who could possibly afford to offend the Shen Family?
Rongchun lowered her gaze to Ji Hanyi’s still-blank sheet of paper and could not resist asking softly, “Are you writing to Marquis Shen, Young Madam?”
Ji Hanyi pressed her lips together, but all she could see was Shen Si’s cold, distant gaze that kept everyone at arm’s length.
Supporting her head with one hand, Ji Hanyi’s fingers tightened slightly. At last, the brush suspended in midair descended and formed the first character.
Before she could finish the letter, footsteps sounded behind her. Ji Hanyi glanced over her shoulder and saw Xie Yuheng enter with an icy expression.
He had not changed out of his court robes or even removed his cloak. Dampness clung to his shoulders, and he brought a wave of bitter winter cold into the room.