“Have you heard? The wife of Lord Qi, the Gongbu Shilang, seduced the Emperor and climbed into the dragon bed! She’s bewitched His Majesty so much that he summons her to the palace every night to attend to him.”
“No wonder the Emperor hasn’t selected any concubines yet. It turns out his heart has been led astray by a vixen…”
“It’s no surprise the Suguogong Fu won’t let that mother and daughter through their doors. They must be afraid she’ll stain the family threshold…”
“Bah! What a shameless slut! If I were her, I would have hung myself with a length of white silk long ago. How can she still have the face to be seen in public?”
…
After the illicit affair between Xue Jiayan and the Emperor was exposed, an overwhelming wave of condemnation crashed over her. Despising and disgusted looks pierced her like needles. From her initial state of being mortified to the point of wanting to die, she had gradually become numb.
Her mother-in-law, Madam Luan, sat in a rosewood horseshoe-back armchair from Xue Jiayan’s own dowry, her gaze filled with deep loathing as she looked at her. “Xue, my son truly suffered eight lifetimes of bad luck to marry you. With his status as a Jinshi, what kind of woman could he not have wed? Yet he had to marry a shameless slut like you!”
Her father-in-law, Qi Bingchun, glared at her with sinister malice, cursing through gritted teeth, “You wench! With such conduct, how are you fit to manage this household?”
Her sister-in-law, Qi Qianrong, pointed a finger at her and scolded, the gold bracelet set with rubies—a gift from Xue Jiayan—shimmering on her wrist as she moved.
“A lewd woman like you isn’t fit to touch Tang Jie’er! From now on, she will be raised by my mother to prevent her from being corrupted by you.”
Xue Jiayan knelt on the ground and begged them not to take her daughter away, but they forcibly snatched Tang Jie’er, leaving both mother and daughter to wail in heartbreak.
Her husband, Qi Shaoting, stood by and watched it all happen in silence. Once Tang Jie’er had been carried away, he walked over and said with contempt, “Xue, if you have even a shred of shame left, you should know what to do.”
Xue Jiayan collapsed on the floor. She knew what he meant: he wanted her to die.
He had already achieved a high position and met with great success. Moreover, he had gained the favor of Princess Huishan. He no longer had any use for a woman with such a ruined reputation.
She had wanted to die for a long time—since the very first night she was sent into the palace.
But she still had her parents and her daughter. She still had people to care for, so she could not die. She could only endure a miserable existence.
That was until her mother, Madam Lyu, died of a broken heart, and her beloved daughter, Tang Jie’er, died in the pond of her mother-in-law’s courtyard. Every ounce of strength that had kept Xue Jiayan alive vanished.
She held Tang Jie’er’s cold corpse, her hands shaking uncontrollably.
Her Tang Jie’er was only five years old. She was such a good and sensible child. If it were possible, she would have willingly traded her own life for Tang Jie’er’s.
“Sister-in-law, don’t blame Mother. It was Tang Jie’er’s own fault for being too playful…” Qi Qianrong’s voice rang out.
“I… I told her long ago to stay away from the pond, but she wouldn’t listen. Sigh…” Madam Luan said timidly, shirking responsibility as she always did.
“Mother didn’t do it on purpose. Everyone has their own fate; perhaps this was just her destiny…”
This was Qi Shaoting’s voice. Xue Jiayan looked up. Though they had been husband and wife for seven years, the man in her eyes was a complete stranger, no longer the shy scholar of years past.
“Everyone has their own fate; perhaps this was just her destiny”?
Xue Jiayan was so enraged that she laughed, her smile looking twisted and strange.
In this entire family, she was the only one who truly cared for Tang Jie’er. Yet they called her lewd and shameless, saying she was unfit to raise her daughter, and had forcibly taken her away to be raised by her mother-in-law.
They had snatched Tang Jie’er away but never looked after her with any heart. It was only when the small child’s body floated to the surface that anyone noticed.
And her father’s response was “everyone has their own fate.”
Xue Jiayan recalled the words the Emperor had spoken in a fit of rage the previous night. It turned out that Qi Shaoting had a choice back then. He had chosen to gift her to the Emperor to enjoy wealth and power, and then he had the audacity to sanctimoniously condemn her for being “wanton.”
The fire of rage ignited in her heart, which had turned to cold ash. She gently kissed Tang Jie’er’s cold cheek, placed her by the side of the pond, and whispered, “Tang Jie’er, next time, Mother will definitely protect you.”
Squatting beside Xue Jiayan, Qi Shaoting heard these words and breathed a sigh of relief. Just as he was about to offer a few more words of hollow comfort, his vision suddenly went dark. Xue Jiayan lunged at him, gripping him tightly, and pushed him into the pond with desperate strength.
Xue Jiayan went into the water along with Qi Shaoting.
The watching Qi family members and servants cried out in shock and scrambled to jump in to save them.
The pond was not deep; for an adult standing upright, it would only reach the thighs. Qi Shaoting was tall, and he originally thought he could easily shake off the frail Xue Jiayan. However, Xue Jiayan’s arms were locked around his neck like a vice, tightening further and further. She pressed his head underwater, making it impossible for him to breathe, and his limbs gradually lost their strength.
Several male servants from the Qi household jumped in to help. They were not lacking in strength, but they were shocked to find that the Eldest Young Madam seemed to have lost all regard for her own life. No matter how much force they used—even as they snapped her fingers—she did not loosen her grip in the slightest.
The servants had no choice but to lift the inseparable couple onto the bank together. Madam Luan and Qi Qianrong wailed as they checked on Qi Shaoting. He had choked on too much foul water and had fallen unconscious, his life hanging in the balance. A piece of his ear was missing, and blood was gushing out steadily.
Qi Qianrong looked up at her sister-in-law, who was slumped over Qi Shaoting’s back. Xue Jiayan’s eyes were wide and staring; she had already breathed her last, still clutching half an ear between her teeth.
Qi Qianrong shrieked in terror and scrambled back a step, muttering, “It has nothing to do with me! If you want retribution, don’t come for me!”
In the final moments of Xue Jiayan’s consciousness, her body was freezing, and her mouth was filled with the metallic taste of blood. She felt nauseated and wanted to vomit; it was Qi Shaoting’s blood. His heart was black, so his blood surely tasted more foul than a normal person’s.
She felt herself drifting upward, flying higher and higher. The bloody taste in her mouth faded, and her heart slowly grew calm.
Xue Jiayan thought that perhaps she was going to Jile Shijie. She wanted to find her mother and her daughter there, to find those she loved. If they could not be together in life, then being together in death would be just as well.
Amidst the chaos, Xue Jiayan could hear nothing. Within the buzzing roar, a white light suddenly appeared before her eyes, and she snapped them shut…
When Xue Jiayan regained her senses, she felt a gentle warmth all over her body. The air around her carried the faint scent of “Xuezhong Chunxin.” She couldn’t help but find it strange; why did the underworld smell exactly like the world of the living?
She slowly opened her eyes. Before her was a screen painted with a landscape. Beneath the window to the west sat a long table, upon which a bronze tripod incense burner released curls of blue smoke. The scent of “Xuezhong Chunxin” must have been coming from there.
In front of the screen stood a Huanghuali square table, set with a Phoebe zhennan tea tray. On the tray was a set of Ruyao Tianqingyou tea bowls.
…
Everything was so familiar. Xue Jiayan looked on in a daze, slowly turning her head to look around repeatedly.
She suddenly stood up, walked quickly to the window, and pushed it open to look outside.
The lights on the long street were brilliant, the crowds were like a woven tapestry, a scene of total prosperity and bustle…
This was the night of the Lantern Festival in the second year of Zhaoping!
Xue Jiayan gripped the red-lacquered window railing of the second floor. Her fingertips were ice-cold, and fine goosebumps rose on her forearms. She couldn’t help but shiver.
It wasn’t from the cold; it was from the shock.
How could she have been reborn on the night of the Lantern Festival in the second year of Zhaoping? She had clearly dragged Qi Shaoting down to hell with her. She should have been reuniting with her mother and daughter.