Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Before Father’s birthday that year, Grandfather and my eight uncles won another victory.
I was fourteen, transformed from a dull, tongue-tied, chubby girl into a quiet young woman. Years of Mother’s hellish training had left me capable enough to handle a petty thief alone.
My sisters near my age were actively seeking husbands.
“What kind of prince consort do you want?” Mother asked.
“Could I simply not have one?”
She smiled. “No one will force you. What I could not escape, I will never make you endure.”
Since Mother had violently established our place, our life had become comfortable. Other consorts parted before us. If Mother stared at one too long, the strong-willed shook and the weak fainted. Only the Empress maintained her dignity.
Father had not spent a night at our palace in years. Mother’s early hope had faded into numbness, and I had seen it. That was why I did not want marriage.
Noble Consort Zhao kept her rank. A noble consort whose family had collapsed was less worrying than one with powerful backing. Men.
She and Little Twenty-Nine undoubtedly hated us most, but Mother and I grew stronger every year. Poisoning us was impossible in the heavily guarded palace; even Father had to keep us alive while Grandfather and my uncles stood.
Little Twenty-Nine had become a silent, sullen girl and was also being shown prospective husbands.
Father lacked many things, but never daughters.
Because Grandfather had defeated Jin, its envoys came to seek peace and, rumor said, a marriage alliance. With so many princesses, Father was delighted. His unmarried daughters were terrified and rushed even faster to secure engagements.
I alone felt safe. Neither Jin nor Father would dare choose me.
I even yearned for the frontier.
Mother laughed. “You think it resembles the capital? The heat cooks you, the cold freezes you, sand fills the sky, and fruit and vegetables are scarce. They eat mostly beef and mutton. With your pampered stomach, you would be constipated in three days and begging to return in five.”
To save face, I wagered I could test frontier life by eating only beef and mutton for three days. Thus, while every unmarried princess feared being sent north, Mother and I happily roasted a whole lamb.
Consort Shun complained to the Empress that Consort Liang was heartless, ordering whole sheep and even roasting an ox that peasants needed for their livelihood. Her own daughter remained unmarried, and anxiety had blistered her mouth.
The Empress found her exhausting. If you resent Consort Liang, kill her yourself. Or send your father to replace the Defender-General. Why bring me your complaints?
The emperor was aging, her sons grown, yet he still refused to name a crown prince. To a mother, all three were brilliant—able to seize the moon above, catch turtles below, and excel at every art. How could she make him choose one?
After several days of meat, my farts smelled like rot and I could not relieve myself. At the sight of green vegetables, I nearly wept. I devoured three bowls of rice with chilled greens, then several basins of fruit in portions guaranteed to cause diarrhea.
The next morning I dashed into Mother’s hall shouting, “Mother, you cannot imagine—I passed an entire vat of—”
Three faces turned toward me.
Mother suppressed a laugh. “This is my daughter, Princess Ruyu. You may call her Ruyu. Yuer, this is Chancellor Chen’s wife and Young Master Chen. Your grandfather once saved the young master’s life, so they have come to thank him.”
My own mother could have offered me a graceful escape.
Young Master Chen was startlingly beautiful. Chancellor Chen, a famous statesman and scholar, had served both my grandfather the late emperor and Father. Upright and unaffiliated, he had never taken a concubine or even a bedmaid. Every young lady in the capital dreamed of his clean, honorable household.
He and his wife had four sons. This young master, Chen Xi, was the second legitimate son’s younger boy and the most promising grandson.
Why Grandfather had needed to save him was clearly sensitive; everyone wore expressions worse than mine during constipation. As an exemplary princess, I would not expose their embarrassment openly.
Chen Xi was pale, exquisite, and seemingly fragile enough to topple with a push. Beside him, I resembled a tower. Only the resolve in his eyes kept him from looking more like a noble maiden than I did.
As an unrelated boy he could not linger in a consort’s palace, so Mother ruthlessly sent me to show him the imperial garden.
Was I not a girl whose reputation might suffer? Apparently not. Beside Chen Xi, he was the one whose reputation looked endangered.
Madam Chen laughed that we were both children and her Xi’er needed friends.
That sentence extinguished my first spark of romance.
He walked beside me without saying a word. I could discuss swords, axes, and halberds, perhaps demonstrate how I could punch down a tree, but poetry was torture. We had no common language.
As I struggled for a topic, he laughed. His curved eyes reflected me.
“Your Highness need not be nervous. I know my exceptional appearance creates distance, but you are my savior’s granddaughter. There is no need for such reserve.”
I stared. He was a narcissist.