Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Mu Yuchang’s imperial father was the late emperor who had personally led the campaign.
By the time Mu Yuchang was born, the emperor was already very old.
At that point, the palace already had a Crown Prince in the prime of his life.
And the Crown Prince’s son was deeply beloved by the emperor, who specially bestowed upon him the title of Imperial Grandson.
With that, there was no real fight for the throne to be had.
For someone like Mu Yuchang, spending the rest of his life as a wealthy, carefree prince was ambition enough, so he spent his days running wild and having fun.
Only this time, he had gone too far-and somehow lost the main procession moving the royal family to the new capital.
I asked him, “What about the Grand Princess? Why didn’t she leave?”
“Her husband, the prince consort, marched with Father on this campaign. His body was sent back very early on, and his eyes had been gouged out-two huge holes left behind. So the Grand Princess hates Beidi to the bone. There is no way she would willingly hand over Ying’an Prefecture.”
As Mu Yuchang spoke, his brows were knitted tightly together.
Zhu Qingyun and I both fell silent. We exchanged a glance and secretly sucked in a cold breath.
The Grand Princess had always been an extraordinary woman. Everyone in Ying’an Prefecture knew that.
When I was very little, I heard a storyteller in a teahouse speak of her deeds with great relish.
It was said that when the Grand Princess had just come of age, she was to go to Beidi for a marriage alliance.
But when she reached the border, she discovered that Beidi had never sincerely intended to welcome a bride. They were only using the pretext to seize a hostage.
The Grand Princess made a decisive call on the spot. With only a hundred or so eunuchs and attendants at her side, she fought her way out, then led them through pass after pass, trekking thousands of li until they returned to Ying’an Prefecture.
So when she helped me up in the street, I felt as if I were dreaming, and I bragged about it to everyone I met.
Grandfather was hard of hearing, so I only told him once. Grandmother was forgetful, so I told her three times. As for Father and Mother, I must have told them five or six times, because no matter how many times they heard it, they would smile and say I was blessed.
As for Zhu Qingyun, I never showed off to him.
Though he often called me Second Sister, and I always answered, if I thought about it carefully, we were not really close.
At the very least, we did not laugh and roughhouse like ordinary siblings.
It was two months ago that he came to speak to me of his own accord.
Back then, he had gotten into a quarrel with Third Sister. Third Sister put a rat in his bed, so he gave her a taste of her own medicine and placed the rat right under Third Sister’s pillow. But that day I was unwell. Dazed and muddleheaded, I wandered into her room, lay down on her bed, and fell asleep. That one nap scared my soul clean out of me.
It took both a physician and a spirit medium coming over before my soul was called back.
Father was furious. He gave Zhu Qingyun a beating, then docked Third Sister’s monthly allowance.
A few days later came the lantern festival. I had fully recovered, so of course I wanted to go out and play.
Before I left, Zhu Qingyun stopped me as if nothing had happened. “Second Sister, can you buy me a lantern?”
“Aren’t you going out?”
“It hurts too much. I can’t walk.”
“All right.”
And that was all.
Never before had there been a moment like tonight, where we sat together in the courtyard, letting the night wind blow over us, just to listen to Mu Yuchang tell stories.
Yet all of a sudden, I realized that the moment I had longed for so dearly-standing with my family beneath the bright moon, enjoying the cool of the night-had just favored me, only I had failed to notice. And now, when I wanted to hold on to it, the person beside me had already fallen asleep.
Tomorrow night, then.
But tomorrow night was too far away.
After Ying’an Prefecture became an isolated city, every day felt very long.