Inside the Imperial Study, Li Qianche had just finished listening to the report on the frontline battles when Shen Gaoyi stepped forward, holding a gold-lacquered tray, and said softly, “Your Majesty, as you instructed, each palace has added two extra meat dishes to the midday meal.”
Li Qianche’s hand paused slightly as he held his brush. Su Su’s pale face from the morning audience suddenly appeared in his mind so white it showed not a hint of color. “Is she ill?” His voice sank, carrying a trace of urgency that even he did not notice.
At those words, Shen Gaoyi’s heart lurched and his knees went weak. With a dull thud, he dropped to his knees on the green brick floor, his expression panicked. “Reporting to Your Majesty, on the day Lady Su was confined, she was on her way to the Imperial Study to plead her case when she happened to encounter Consort Zhuang… After being shoved, she fell and struck her head, remaining unconscious for an entire day. This servant saw that Your Majesty had been occupied with military affairs for days on end, and since Lady Su suffered no serious aftereffects after waking, I—I did not dare disturb Your Majesty and failed to report it in time…”
Li Qianche did not look up, his gaze still fixed on the memorials, but his voice was cold as ice. “Go and receive your punishment.”
With a mournful face, Shen Gaoyi kowtowed. “This servant obeys.”
He withdrew trembling, filled with regret. He knew well that the Emperor detested servants who concealed matters. Those twenty strokes of the board were unavoidable. Only now did he dare reflect carefully: when Lady Su had just been demoted, the imperial will was hard to read why would he risk offending the Emperor for the sake of a fallen and willful mistress? In hindsight, he had been clever only to outsmart himself.
In Changxin Palace, Su Su had recently made a habit of copying scriptures at her desk each morning, then sewing handkerchiefs in the afternoon, carefully saving the silver she earned. She had also quietly asked Xiao Anzi to bring back a few chicks and some vegetable seedlings from outside the palace, carving out a small patch of land by the back wall of the side hall.
“Qiuju, tighten the chicken coop in the rear courtyard a bit more,” she instructed softly, her gaze passing over the tender green shoots just breaking through the soil in the vegetable beds. “If even our food supply is cut off in winter, these vegetables and chickens will be our lifeline.” These mundane matters of survival were things she had to learn to handle thoroughly. If one day she were truly banished to the Cold Palace, the fragile signs of life in this small plot might help her endure a little longer long enough to hold on until the day she could feign death and leave the palace.
While she was copying Buddhist scriptures, Spring Orchid approached quietly and whispered, “My lady, a letter has arrived from the master.”
Su Su set down her wolf-hair brush and unfolded the letter with pale fingers. Her father wrote that, because of her sudden demotion, he knew the household must act with caution and had already begun checking whether there were any suspicious people nearby. Seeing that her father was alert, she felt somewhat reassured, yet her fingers trembled involuntarily. She hoped that in this life, the Su family could avoid disaster.
She held the letter close to the candle flame. The fire licked at the edges of the paper with a faint crackle. If this letter were seen by others, it would certainly implicate her father. She watched quietly as the paper turned to greenish smoke, her brows knotted with a gloom that would not easily dissipate.
To divert her thoughts, she lifted her skirt and walked over to the chicken pen, pinching a small handful of golden grain from a clay jar. With a light flick of her wrist, the grains scattered like broken gold. The chicks crowded around at once, their downy feathers rustling softly as they jostled.
Qiuju stepped closer and, at the sight before her, could not help covering her mouth with a smile. “My lady, if the master and madam were to see you like this now, they’d probably be stunned speechless. Such a scene would have been unimaginable in the past.”
Su Su smiled faintly, her fingers unconsciously rubbing along the rough rim of the clay jar. Wasn’t that so? Back in her maiden days, with her parents’ and brothers’ affection, how could she ever have imagined that one day she would need to manage such things herself? Yet as she looked at the little chicks, she seemed to see them growing plump in her mind. When winter came, stewing a pot of warming soup would not be a waste of these cold years in the deep palace.
At that moment, in the Su residence, candlelight flickered, illuminating a table full of exquisite dishes, yet it stirred not the slightest appetite in Madam Su, Tang Wanqing. She set down her silver chopsticks, tears rolling down once more and splashing tiny wet marks beside the snow-white porcelain plate. “I wonder whether Su’er can even have a bite of hot food in the palace… Now that she’s been demoted to a mere daying, who knows how many grievances she must endure.”
Su Mufeng nodded slightly, his heart just as heavy with worry. His daughter’s letter was steady in every word, yet where was the former brightness between the lines? She must have suffered greatly in the palace to have developed such a calm disposition. He picked up his ivory chopsticks, placed a piece of glistening crisp meat into his wife’s bowl, and wiped away her tears. “Madam, put your mind at ease. As long as Su’er knows how to bide her time and conceal her brilliance, the Empress Dowager will ultimately not disregard the Su family’s bloodline.”
Tang Wanqing had eaten little these days because of Su’er, and she looked much more haggard. Thinking of his wife’s health, Su Mufeng continued to comfort her.
Tang Wanqing clutched her handkerchief tightly, tear marks glinting faintly in the candlelight. “The matter of Prince Ning’s heir could never have been Su’er’s doing! No matter how willful she is, she would never harm a life… Yet now the Empress Dowager intends to bring Lin Yue from the second branch into the palace could it be that she no longer trusts Su’er?” Before she could finish speaking, her throat choked with sobs.
Su Mufeng gently placed his palm on her shoulder, the scent of sandalwood from his sleeves enveloping them both. “There are still doubts in this case; the palace is continuing its investigation. Yesterday, the Empress Dowager already sent word to the clan elders to temporarily postpone Lin Yue’s entry into the palace.” He lowered his voice slightly. “In her heart, the Empress Dowager still remembers Su’er.”
Only after hearing her husband’s words did Tang Wanqing feel somewhat reassured. She gradually stopped crying and nodded slowly, finally beginning to move her porcelain spoon. Su Mufeng stayed by her side until he saw her swallow the last mouthful of soup, then rose and headed toward the study.
On the bluestone steps, the moonlight lay cold and clear.
Su Jizhi came out through the moon-gate corridor and, seeing a few specks of soup on his father’s sleeve, immediately knew that his father had once again been attending his mother during her meal. These days, his mother had grown noticeably thinner over matters concerning his younger sister, and his father could never bear to see her cry every meal, he made sure to stay by her side personally.
Su Jizhi lowered his head and followed behind his father. On the green-brick ground, their two slender shadows appeared and disappeared. “Father, did Mother today… once again trouble herself over my sister’s affairs?” His fingers unconsciously rubbed at his sleeve cuff. Had he known it would come to this, he should have persuaded his sister not to enter the palace in the first place. Yet the Emperor and the Empress Dowager each had their own designs how could the Su family ever truly decide everything for themselves?
Su Mufeng stopped in front of the study. The setting sun stretched his figure into an even lonelier silhouette. Gazing at the blood-red clouds on the horizon, his thoughts drifted back to his youth.
That spring of apricot blossoms and gentle rain, he had fallen in love with Tang Wanqing at first sight, and from then on his feelings took deep root.
The clan elders, disdaining her background as merely the daughter of a merchant, had arranged a marriage for him with the Grand Tutor’s daughter. He had refused outright, determined to marry Wanqing instead. He had never regretted that choice.
The many years of warmth and companionship with his wife far surpassed the illusory allure of high office and rich emoluments.
Yet that decision had ultimately angered the Grand Tutor and deeply disappointed the clan elders, who had hoped to strengthen the family through a political marriage for this union had originally been the smooth path to success that the Empress Dowager and the clan had carefully laid out for him.
At that time, the late Emperor was vigorously purging the influence of imperial relatives by marriage. Even the Empress Dowager’s own maternal clan she being then the Empress was treading on thin ice. Seeing divisions arise within the Su family, and with Su Mufeng declining the Grand Tutor’s daughter, the late Emperor seized the opportunity to keep him confined to the post of Reader-in-Waiting at the Hanlin Academy, nominally as reassurance but in truth as a precaution, to prevent him from growing too powerful. When the clan elders saw that his prospects for promotion were bleak and that his office was lowly and his authority light, they gradually grew distant from the main branch.
Over the years, he had long since seen through the hollowness of power struggles and instead felt that such a quiet life suited him just fine until his daughter Su Su was born. From a young age she possessed striking beauty and was favored by the Empress Dowager, who brought her into the palace to learn the rules and be cultivated as a future empress. Only then did those long-absent elders begin to grow warm and attentive again…
Now, however, the new Emperor was quite wary of the Empress Dowager’s habitual involvement in governance. Since Su Su’s elevation to consort, Su Jizhi had willingly remained nothing more than a fourth-rank guard, dutiful and restrained, daring not to show the slightest ambition.
All of this was simply to put the one seated on the dragon throne at ease.