Lin Qi let out a low, muffled sound from his throat upon hearing those words.
“Smack—”
The teacup slipped from his hand and slammed violently onto the ground in Lin Yao’s direction.
Shards of porcelain flew everywhere, and a sharp fragment grazed her cheek, leaving a thin line of blood.
Crown Princess Lin Rou let out a brief, startled gasp, then quickly covered her mouth with her handkerchief and composed herself.
Lin Yao pressed her hand to her cheek, her fingertips meeting a warm, sticky wetness. She looked down at the blood on her fingers and actually smiled.
“When a person’s luck runs out, even drinking cold water gets stuck in their teeth. For this to cut me too—it seems Father’s teacup carries more weight than the concern in your words.”
Minister Lin did not respond.
The anger in his eyes receded as quickly as an ebbing tide, replaced by something far more chilling—the dark, inscrutable look of a man who had spent years navigating the treacherous waters of officialdom.
He rose slowly, walked over to Lin Yao, and looked down at her from above.
They stood extremely close—close enough that Lin Yao could see the white hairs at his temples and the bloodshot veins in his eyes.
“All these years I’ve neglected your upbringing, and I never realized you’d grown into such a willful, defiant creature.”
His voice was so soft that only Lin Yao could hear him.
“Yao’er, do you think you’re being clever right now?”
He leaned in slightly, his tone even carrying a hint of almost fatherly patience, yet his eyes were as cold as two dried-up wells.
“You’re nothing but a superfluous pawn on the royal chessboard. The Crown Prince won’t protect you, the Fourth Prince hates you to the bone, and the Emperor only wants to cover up the scandal. The only reason you can still stand here and speak is because your surname is Lin.”
He straightened up, took a step back, and once again became the dignified, composed Prime Minister.
“Without that surname, you would have been beaten to death with clubs in the Imperial Study that day.”
Lin Yao suddenly realized that Lin Qi was right—this surname was the greatest leverage she held.
She stood up and gave a slight bow, her demeanor neither humble nor overbearing.
“Father is right. Your daughter truly doesn’t understand anything. What I said just now was out of anger and confusion. Please don’t take it to heart.”
She paused, the corners of her mouth curving into a smile so obedient it was almost unnatural.
“Your daughter remembers. I am a Lin.”
Minister Lin gave her a long, searching look—one filled with scrutiny, warning, and a hint of unease he himself might not have recognized.
“Good, as long as you understand.” He flicked his sleeve. “Have someone apply medicine to the wound on your face. Don’t let it leave a scar. The wedding is approaching, and it wouldn’t look good if word got out.”
With that, he turned and walked toward the palace gates. As he passed Lin Rou, his steps paused briefly. “From now on, you sisters should look after each other.”
After Minister Lin left, the hall fell silent.
Lin Rou rose and walked over, personally taking out a clean handkerchief and gently pressing it against Lin Yao’s wound. “Father has a quick temper. Please don’t take it to heart, Sister.”
She wiped away the blood for Lin Yao, then stepped back half a pace and resumed her seat at the head of the hall.
“If Sister needs anything while at Jingyou Pavilion, just send word to the Eastern Palace.” She lifted her teacup and took a sip. “After all, we are blood sisters, and soon we’ll be sisters-in-law as well. We ought to be closer.”
“Then I thank the Crown Princess.”
The moment she stepped out the main gate, the afternoon sunlight blazed down on her, making her squint.
Wind swept through the corridor, scattering her long hair across her shoulders. She should have walked straight back the way she came, but as her steps passed the fork in the garden, she inexplicably halted.
That feeling was back.
Not pain, not fragments of memory, but something far more subtle—like an extremely thin thread tied to her chest, gently tugging her in a certain direction.
Lin Yao could clearly tell that this stirring did not belong to her.
It was the original owner’s body remembering the way.
She hesitated for a moment, then turned and went down that path.
Her steps carried her through the corridor, around a moss-covered rockery. She couldn’t explain why, but her hands and feet moved with a practiced ease as if she’d done this a thousand times—climbing onto the stone railing of the corridor, stepping on the protruding rocks, and in a few quick moves, vaulting over to the shaded side of the rockery.
Only when she landed did she realize: she was someone who hadn’t exercised in centuries, who sat at a computer all day and barely walked a few steps—since when was she this agile?
This was the original owner’s muscle memory. She must have climbed this path countless times as a child.
The grass on the shaded side was far denser than elsewhere, clearly untouched for a long time. Lin Yao parted a clump of wild grass, and her fingertips suddenly touched something hard and cool.
She picked it up and looked—it was a small clay figurine.
The craftsmanship was so crude it was almost painful to look at. The facial features were nothing more than a few crooked carved lines, and the painted colors had long since peeled and faded. But one could tell it had been carefully shaped and meticulously painted at some point.
A child’s handiwork.
Lin Yao held the little clay figurine, feeling no ripple of emotion in her heart. But her fingertips trembled uncontrollably, and that sourness that didn’t belong to her surged up from the depths of her chest once again.
Crown Prince Chu Huaian had just finished court when he heard that Minister Lin had come to the Eastern Palace to visit the Crown Princess. He hurried back immediately.
But the moment he stepped into the courtyard, his feet froze in place.
Someone was standing on the rockery.
She wore a pale green dress, her hair unbound, lifted by the wind and falling again—a picture like ink bleeding into water against the afternoon backlight.
Chu Huaian’s breath caught for an instant.
The floodgates of memory were thrown open without warning, two scenes overlapping almost perfectly.
More than a decade ago, it was this same rockery.
A little girl with lopsided twin buns had climbed to the very top on all fours, then turned back, half her hair loose, her face smeared with mud, grinning triumphantly as she shouted down to him:
“Huaian-gege, look how amazing I am!”
As if under a spell, Chu Huaian had unknowingly already walked to the corridor.
On the rockery, Lin Yao was staring blankly at the little clay figurine in her hand, a scratch on her face just like when she was a child, from who knows where.
Chu Huaian stood quietly in the corridor, making no sound.
When Lin Yao noticed Chu Huaian, she let out a startled yelp: “Oh my god… I’m sorry! I…”
She had been wandering around someone else’s house, even climbed onto the rockery to rummage through their things—in modern times, this would definitely get her roasted online, with the comment section full of “No sense of boundaries!”
Flustered, she didn’t know whether to jump down first or apologize first. After a moment of helpless flailing, she decided to deal with the stolen goods issue first.
“Um… this must have been dropped here by someone. I’ll return it to its owner.” She held out the clay figurine, her tone like she was returning a lost item that had nothing to do with her.
Chu Huaian watched the figurine being offered to him. When he took it, his fingertips tightened almost imperceptibly for a moment.
She had made it for him when she was ten, saying she’d hide it first and give it to him on his birthday. But by that birthday, she never came again. Chu Huaian had searched the entire Eastern Palace and never found it. Who would have thought that eight years later, this thing would find its way back to him in such an absurd manner.
Yet the way she handed it back was like returning some piece of junk she’d picked up off the ground, not knowing who it belonged to.
He didn’t let any expression cross his face.
“Thank you.”
He slipped the figurine into his sleeve without a trace, then raised his other hand and extended it toward her.
“Can you get down?”
“I can get down! I was so agile climbing up just now—ah!!”
When Lin Yao had come up, she felt as nimble as a monkey and hadn’t thought to take his hand at all. But as she stepped down, her legs gave way, her body tilted, and she instinctively grabbed his wrist.
Chu Huaian seemed to have expected this all along. He steadied her without a flicker of change, his other hand lightly bracing her elbow as he guided her down.
Once on the ground, Lin Yao let out a long breath and hurriedly explained: “Your Highness the Crown Prince, it was my sister—the Crown Princess—who told me to come see my father. I didn’t barge in on my own. I just took a wrong turn. Please don’t hold it against me!”
With that, she mimicked the way the maids in her room curtsied, giving a clumsy bow. “This daughter takes her leave!”
Then she turned and ran without looking back, her skirts and hair flying wildly in the wind.
Chu Huaian stood in place, his gaze following that panicked retreating figure, the corner of his lips curving slightly.
Still the same playful, mischievous Ayao.
Just as reckless, just as prone to showing off and then stumbling.
But she didn’t even recognize the clay figurine she had made with her own hands.
He lowered his eyes, his fingertips rubbing the rough little clay figure through his sleeve. He stood there for a long time—long enough for the light and shadows in the courtyard to shift half an inch.
Then he withdrew his gaze, his expression returning to its usual calm detachment.
He thought of the night before the wedding.
That night, his trusted aide had come in haste to report: “Your Highness, we’ve learned that the Prime Minister’s residence has a blind and mute young lady kept in an outer courtyard. Fourth Prince seems to intend to use her to make trouble on the wedding day…”
Chu Huaian hadn’t even lifted his brow. “Someone like Chu Liyuan—does he think he’s worthy of contending with me?” He gave a faint smile. “Find a way to take Fourth’s personal jade pendant. Turn his scheme against him.”
The blind and mute young lady of the Prime Minister’s residence.
He had heard it and moved on, without a moment’s further thought.
If at that moment he had asked one more question—when did the Prime Minister’s residence acquire a blind and mute young lady? If he had felt even a flicker of suspicion…
Chu Huaian’s gaze fell on the direction where she had disappeared, his voice returning to its usual composure.
He called over his trusted aide, his tone cold: “At Jingyou Pavilion, station a reliable person. Keep watch day and night.”