Chapter 4
Xiao Ji’s patience ran out.
His gaze chilled, and his face filled with irritation.
“If you’re upset, then say so.”
“Who are you putting on this passive-aggressive display for?”
“If word reaches the palace, your sister will inevitably come hounding me with another unreasonable quarrel.”
So
he did not care about my feelings or my grievance.
He cared only that my sister might quarrel with him.
I looked up and met his gaze.
“She won’t.”
“Of course she will!”
His voice rose.
“Your sister meant well. She wanted to make up for your birthday with a banquet in the palace, but one remark from you silenced her. She was so upset she barely slept for half a month.”
“She looks after you in every way and considers you in everything. Yet not only are you ungrateful, you sulk and lose your temper over every petty matter.
“Are you worthy of all the care she has shown you?
“Search your conscience. Other than cooking porridge, making soup, and brewing medicine, what have you ever done for her?”
It felt as if a knife had drawn lightly across my heart.
There was no sound, yet a dull pain spread through my chest.
The dress clenched in my hands had been sent by my sister.
I preferred simple elegance. She said it lacked dignity and composure.
Every dress and piece of jewelry I owned had been replaced.
The dark red cloud patterns made me look older than I was, and the mass of ornaments on my head left me struggling to breathe.
Like this marriage forced upon mismatched people, nothing ever seemed to fit.
I sniffed. My voice was as light as a feather.
“I took her place in marriage. I risked my life for her. Was that still not enough?”
My sister was the legitimate daughter of a general’s household.
She took after our father, a veteran of countless campaigns.
She loved blades and spears, excelled at military strategy, acted decisively, and never tolerated dissent.
At seven, she had slung a spear over her shoulder and pointed grandly toward the northwest.
“Who says a woman is lesser than a man? One day, I will wield my spear and beat those frontier invaders until they wail for their parents.”
“Watch me, Ah Sui. One day, your sister will stand above ten thousand others. I will carve a new path beneath heaven and earn the reverence of generations to come.”
“When that day arrives, you can hide beneath the great shelter I cast and live your comfortable little life, you hopeless crybaby.”
Back then, I eagerly held out a cup of hot tea to her, my eyes shining.
“My sister is the greatest, greatest, greatest sister in the whole world. I’ll be your number-one lackey forever and solve every problem for my greatest, greatest, greatest, greatest sister!”
We had both kept our promises.
At thirteen, my sister slipped out of the capital overnight and took her spear to the battlefield.
Over three years at the frontier, she won victory after victory.
Spear thrust by spear thrust, she tore apart the world’s prejudice against women.
Sitting tall in the saddle, she forced everyone to recognize what a woman could become.
That included the crown prince, who was tempering himself at the frontier.
They spent every day together. They fought side by side. They shielded each other from blades. They pledged their hearts and promised a lifetime together.
But my sister had long been betrothed.
Her fiancé was Xiao Ji, the crown prince’s trusted confidant and the only son of a ducal house.
The Eastern Palace could not afford scandal, and a hero’s reputation could not be stained by romantic impropriety.
To preserve both, they had me take her place as the bride.
The first time Xiao Ji met me alone,
he stood in black beyond the little latticed window, unspoken devotion shadowing his deep-set eyes.
He said,
“Your sister has great ambitions. She is not some ordinary woman consumed by romance.”
“You and I are her closest kin and dearest friend. We should support her quietly and help her achieve those ambitions.”
“I have no objection to marrying you.”
“What about you?”
My gaze moved from his chiseled profile to the hairpin in my dressing case.
On my sister’s tenth birthday,
he had given her a full set of ornaments and tossed me a pearl hairpin almost as an afterthought.
He had said,
“Ah Sui is gentle and well behaved. A lustrous pearl suits you.”
I never dared wear it.
I hid it in my dressing case as if hiding a shameful secret.
My sister said she would protect me, and she had.
Cart after cart of rewards won on horseback was sent to my courtyard.
She said,
“Ah Sui is soft and timid. She is so easily bullied.”
“With a generous dowry behind her and my military achievements shielding her, no one will dare mistreat her, whoever she marries.”
At the time, she did not know that I would one day marry the childhood sweetheart who had been promised to her.
She had simply wanted to be good to me.
And so I kept my own promise.
I remained my sister’s lackey. I married Xiao Ji and removed an obstacle for her and the Eastern Palace.
The moon did not shine for me alone.
But it was enough to stand within its light.
That was how my marriage to Xiao Ji became a prize I was said to have stolen from my sister through scheming.
My reputation had been ruined ever since.
Later,
the crown prince fell gravely ill and began favoring his Secondary Consort.
My sister returned to our family home in secret, her eyes swollen like a rabbit’s from crying, and asked me to accompany her to Huguo Temple to pray for his recovery.
Of course I went.
But the crown prince’s Secondary Consort had already sent people to follow us. They ambushed us halfway to the temple.
My sister was carrying a child and could not be exposed to the slightest danger.
So I put on her cloak and galloped away, drawing the pursuers after me.
When they drove me into a dead end, I threw myself from a cliff.
I plunged into an icy pool, broke two ribs, and damaged my health.
I lay unconscious for half a month. The cold penetrated so deeply that I would never be able to bear a child.
Yet when rewards were distributed for the rescue, even the maids who had escorted my sister were granted noble titles as Ladies of the County. My name alone was absent from the list.
People gossiped that I had fled like a coward when the enemy appeared, abandoning my pregnant sister to be rescued by a fortunate passerby.
They said I deserved what happened: I had tried to save myself, fallen from a towering cliff, and nearly lost my wretched life.
Xiao Ji comforted me.
“The Crown Princess is with child, and the Feng family has become too prominent. That inevitably invites imperial suspicion. Your deed was not reported for reward, but that does not mean it lacked merit. We all know what you did.”
He was lying.
I had overheard the truth.
My sister was the Crown Princess of the Eastern Palace, Great Yong’s goddess of war. She could not bear the stain of cowardice—the charge of pushing her younger half sister into danger to save herself.
They had no choice but to wrong me and let me bear the disgrace.
But I did not feel wronged.
I had promised to be my sister’s lackey for life.
When one patch was sewn over another often enough, it became daily life rather than an injustice.
Xiao Ji, however, felt guilty.
For the first time, he drew me into his arms and comforted me.
“Ah Sui, I will treat you well from now on. There will never be anyone else in this residence. Your wishes will come first in all things. Do not fight for those empty honors.”
Because I did not fight,
because my deeds were never recorded on paper,
everything I had willingly done in the past was erased completely.
It became the accusation he flung at me today: “What have you ever done for her?”