Chapter 4
Shen Qingyue had married into the prince’s household at seventeen. In five whole years, she had not borne a single child.
Haughty and aloof, she did little to please Gu Zheng.
If my memory served, Secondary Consort Tang would be his current favorite.
Shen Qingyue had the title of principal consort and little else. Her life in his household was hardly pleasant.
Last month, she had come home with red-rimmed eyes, just as I arrived to pay my respects to the first wife.
She had looked dazed at the sight of my face.
And then, scarcely had I celebrated my coming-of-age ceremony before they hurried me into the bridal sedan.
After entering the prince’s household, I would win Gu Zheng’s good humor, then persuade him to visit Shen Qingyue’s courtyard.
That was how she had come by her four children.
Such lofty pride she had.
Whatever she wanted, she never said so.
Others had to press her, persuade her, force it into her hands.
Only then would she reluctantly accept.
Afterward, she would play the victim and say,
“None of this was what I wanted in the first place!”
I solemnly kowtowed to the first wife three times. Then, supported by the bridal attendant, I climbed into the sedan without looking back.
This time, she would be the fish upon the chopping board, and I would hold the knife.
The sedan swayed and jolted until I was dizzy.
My sister had chosen the bearers herself.
She wanted my help securing favor, yet dared not let me win too much of it.
So, on my first night, I had vomited all over Gu Zheng the moment he entered my courtyard.
He was fastidious about cleanliness. It had made him dislike me for a long time.
There was no shared-cup wedding ceremony for a concubine.
I sat alone in the spacious bridal chamber.
In my previous life, I had studied medicine for years to poison and drug the other concubines.
I pressed the acupoint between my thumb and forefinger for a while, until the sick feeling in my chest had completely subsided.
Gu Zheng was powerful, solemn, and proper, like some elderly pedant.
But what he admired most were lively, innocent women, even women with a willful streak.
He observed every convention while harboring a wild beast within.
He longed to shatter the rules and trample every distinction of rank and etiquette.
And so, when he pushed open the door,
he found me standing by the table, stuffing a pastry into my mouth.
“Cough—cough!”
I swallowed the osmanthus cake and shot him a reproachful look.
“Brother-in-law, you startled me!”
He paused, then laughed.
“What did you call me?”
I had only just celebrated my coming of age.
A girl of fifteen could quite naturally be innocent and ignorant of the world.
Gu Zheng regarded me with undisguised curiosity.
What he disliked most were women obsessed with propriety and convention,
their mouths full of the Three Obediences and Four Virtues, all decorum and restraint.
Shen Qingyue presented herself as precisely the sort of woman he most disliked.
In my previous life, changing his impression of her had taken considerable effort.
I had recast her rigidity as modesty.
Her aloofness became a shy reluctance to yield.
Even as I praised her to Gu Zheng, I had to labor to convince Shen Qingyue to come down from her pedestal.
She resented it deeply.
“Only the lowest women go out of their way to please men.
“As his principal consort, it is my duty to urge His Highness to behave with propriety and observe his obligations.”
I had wanted to tell her she was his wife, not his mother.
As regent, Gu Zheng commanded hundreds of thousands of troops in the northwest.
When he came home, he wanted rest and ease.
He did not want lectures on a lot of stuffy moral principles.
Shen Qingyue had stubbornly refused to understand.
I had been forced to smooth things over between them.
The lies I told, the worry I endured—I could not have counted them.
Shen Qingyue had been a poor ally indeed.
She had done nothing but hold me back.
Fortunately, this time she was my enemy.
The thought nearly made me laugh aloud.
“Pfft!”
Oh dear. I really had laughed…