Chapter 6

Jiang Bao’er became frantic. She shoved Rongqi away and stood protectively in front of me.

“Where did this scoundrel come from? Who’s your sister?”

Nobody in the household knew who Rongqi was except Jiang Xiechuan and me.

Over the next few days, everything about Rongqi displeased Jiang Bao’er.

With her hands on her hips, she looked him up and down and snorted.

“Are you the man from Suzhou Sister Feng told me about?”

Beside him, Chen Jing trembled. He had already wiped his sweat away three times.

“No.”

“I am.”

Rongqi and I spoke at the same time. The room grew awkward at once.

Jiang Bao’er was clever. In an instant, she understood I didn’t like Rongqi.

She looked even more pleased with herself.

“I don’t think you’re anything special. You’re fairly good-looking. Do you have a lot of money?”

Rongqi considered, then nodded.

“Quite a lot.”

“Still not as much as Father. This isn’t his only house. We have several estates in the countryside too!”

This time Jiang Xiechuan was the one wiping away sweat. He hurried to pull Bao’er back.

“No more nonsense! Old Liu, take this disobedient girl away and make her kneel!”

“I won’t! Father! I finally persuaded Sister Feng to consider becoming your wife! Where did this rotten scoundrel come from?”

Jiang Xiechuan could no longer remain standing. He hastily knelt to beg forgiveness.

“Forgive us, Young Master Pei. My daughter is young. Please don’t take offense at her.”

I shielded Jiang Bao’er behind me.

“Rong… If you have something to say, say it to me. Don’t make things difficult for them.”

Afraid Bao’er might say something else to anger Rongqi, I went with him into an inner room.

“Sister, come back with me.” Rongqi reached urgently for my hand. “I was wrong. I shouldn’t have doubted you or tested you. Do you resent me? Are you angry with me…?”

I shook my head, finding it rather absurd.

“What does Your Majesty mean by testing me? I served my master faithfully for twenty years, grateful for his generous treatment of his servants. Not once did I harbor resentment.”

“Sister, don’t speak to me like a stranger. Back then—back then I was foolish. I thought you had selfish motives, that you were good to me only to secure your future…”

“Your Majesty is confused. You have only two sisters, both living in their princesses’ residences now. Although I no longer serve in the palace, please call me Aunt as you did before.”

“Sister!”

Rongqi clutched my sleeve and wouldn’t let go.

“Please… Sister… I’m begging you… Don’t speak to me like this…

“I was foolish. I’d seen so much false affection. I couldn’t tell… I couldn’t tell what was true, so I wanted to test you…”

His eyes reddened. It was as though I could see the child in Canglu Palace twenty years earlier once more.

He had wailed in despair amid the downpour, unable to understand why the people around him always abandoned him.

“I know now that the Xu family didn’t stake everything on me alone. Even Xu Wanzhen’s remaining unmarried all these years was just part of their wager…

“I’ve treated her coldly these past days, but her family isn’t angry. They have plenty of other daughters of marriageable age to send into the palace…”

Rongqi really was confused.

He didn’t owe me any explanation about himself and Xu Wanzhen.

I was only a servant. How could I dare concern myself with discord between the emperor and empress?

“Your Majesty must be joking.”

“Sister! For my mother’s sake, answer me. Don’t abandon me, please.”

At the mention of Noble Consort Rou, I froze.

His eyes were bloodshot. He clutched my sleeve in fear, terrified I would leave him again.

I sighed deeply.

“Rongqi, when I taught you not to defend yourself before the late emperor that day, it wasn’t because I was full of schemes.

“When I was thirteen, my parents sold me to a human broker. Father held me in his arms, reluctant to part, but I knew he still had some money. He simply didn’t want to keep me.

“Mother told me over and over that it wasn’t because they didn’t love me, that they didn’t really want to do it. She even asked me not to hate them.

“You see, they said one thing and did another.

“They cried so bitterly, as though I were the one abandoning them.

“Later, I understood. They’d hidden their hearts away and given me no share of them. All those words about loving me were things they said for their own ears, to deceive themselves and ease their consciences.

“People like them have no heart, yet demand sincerity from others. They expect you to suffer a broken heart without resentment or regret.

“You can only offer them false feeling to trick a show of affection out of them.

“Rongqi, I merely understood that a little earlier than you did. But I wish I had never understood it at all.”

The snow outside had stopped long ago. Moonlight reflected off its whiteness, illuminating people’s hearts.

And letting me see that his face was covered in tears.

“Rongqi, I’m not really so above worldly things.

“When I learned you had married Xu Wanzhen, I was sad for a while. But not for long.

“I soon comforted myself. I hadn’t dreamed of being a consort or an imperial concubine. My ambitions were small. I thought I could be a Noble Lady, and that would do.

“If my lowly birth made me unworthy of being a consort, I wouldn’t want people’s gossip to put you in a difficult position.

“Or I could become the senior attendant in charge of the kitchens or the clothing bureau. We wouldn’t have to worry about food and clothing as we once did.

“I considered so many things. The one thing I never considered was that you thought so little of me.”

That day, I had almost persuaded myself to bow before wealth and honor and become a concubine.

After all, for a few scraps of silver, I had already pleaded with so many people and lowered my head so many times.

But then I heard the servants discussing the glass cup Eunuch Chen had broken. They sighed and said that although it looked sturdy, it was actually very brittle. It couldn’t withstand a knock.

A sincere heart was the same.

If you kept it safe, it would never break.

But you couldn’t throw it to the ground, then blame it for being fragile.

“After leaving the palace, I discovered that saving money didn’t seem as hard as it was inside.

“I’ve asked around. Houses in Suzhou are cheap. A smaller one, a little farther out, with a kindly owner who’ll throw in the old wooden bed, table, and chairs, costs less than a hundred taels.”

Seeing my resolve, Rongqi pleaded with his eyes.

“Sister, wait for me a little longer. One day—one day we can go and live quietly together in Suzhou.”

I shook my head and slowly drew my sleeve from his grasp.

“Please don’t say such reckless things again, Your Majesty.”

To Rongqi, his sister had said everything she had to say.

To His Majesty, I bowed deeply.

“If Your Majesty remembers my past service with affection, bestow a little silver on me to make a home. I shall be most grateful.”

The last snow of winter had fallen a few days before.

On the winter-counting chart Jiang Bao’er had pasted to the wall, all eighty-one plum blossoms were colored in.

Now we had enjoyed seven sunny days in a row. Old Liu said every day to come would be a good one.

When the weather grew warm, the Jiang sisters’ lessons ended too.

I asked Chen Jing to carry a message, hoping Rongqi would exempt the sisters from next year’s selection and allow them to marry elsewhere.

Jiang Mingzhu didn’t wish to enter the palace, and Jiang Bao’er’s temperament was wholly unsuited to confinement within four palace walls.

On a spring day without wind or rain, I set off for Suzhou.

At the landing, Jiang Bao’er couldn’t bear to part with me. She clung to my legs, crying so hard she could hardly speak.

“Bao’er, did you apologize to Old Liu for pushing her that day?”

“…Yes.”

“Don’t cry. Suzhou is famous for its Linglong cakes. When Aunt Feng comes back, shall I bring you some?”

“…Then you must come back soon, Aunt. The cakes won’t taste good cold.”

The boat got under way. On either bank, new willow leaves shimmered through the mist.

Several travelers on board, chatting to pass the time, began discussing the news that the emperor had deposed his empress.

They were guarded about such palace secrets, saying only that no house was more heartless than an emperor’s.

Heartless or loving, none of it concerned me any more.

I only wanted to know what Suzhou’s climate and surroundings were like, and whether its winters were cold.

The boatman, who came from Suzhou and had nothing to do just then, grew lively when I spoke to him.

People in Suzhou were simple-hearted and hospitable. Hearing me praise the place, he was so pleased he wanted to sing a local tune.

I thought he would sing the peddler’s song, about having no virtue in a former life, being born in Suzhou, and being thrown away at thirteen or fourteen.

But the sun was so lovely, and the new willows on either bank so full of spring. I really feared he would spoil the mood.

The boatman guessed my thoughts, waved his hand, and proudly sang:

“Storehouses full of gold, full of silver bright,
Suzhou’s granaries brim with rice.

“No summer heat, no winter cold,
A lovely view the whole year round.

“Sweet osmanthus, spring days long,
My hometown can be yours as well.”

The End