“Yun Guan, have you really thought this through? You want to enter the palace with me?”
In the Huainan Marquis Mansion, Madam Wen stared at her daughter in astonishment.
After receiving an affirmative reply, her eyes welled with tears. “I’ll go pack our things. We’ll set off tomorrow morning.”
Gazing at the slight redness at the corners of her mother’s eyes, Meng Yunwan sighed silently.
In her previous life, her mother had remarried into the Huainan Marquis Mansion, giving birth to her and Meng Yu Tang. Later, after the Late Emperor passed away, her mother’s former husband, Prince Zhao, ascended the throne as the New Emperor and summoned her mother to the palace to serve him.
This decree sent a massive shockwave through the capital.
For a monarch to steal his subject’s wife was an act intolerable by the laws of propriety. For a time, civil officials remonstrated to the death, and military officials boycotted the court.
Thus, three days later, the New Emperor issued an additional edict, claiming that Madam Wen had not remarried but had merely been lodging at the Marquis Mansion. He also declared that Madam Wen’s daughter was of royal blood and could not be left to wander outside. As this concerned the imperial lineage, it finally quelled some of the rumors.
To make the act convincing, Madam Wen had to bring one daughter with her into the palace.
The blessed honor of leaping from a marquis’s daughter to a royal princess naturally did not fall to Meng Yunwan, who had been unfavored since childhood. In the last life, it was her legitimate younger sister, Meng Yu Tang, who accompanied their mother into the palace.
She, on the other hand, was left behind in the Marquis Mansion to live with her father and cousins.
Seven years later.
Her eldest brother won first place in the imperial examinations and was ennobled. The Huainan Marquis Mansion reached the zenith of its glory, and she became the highly sought-after Princess of Jinyang in the capital, with a hundred families vying for her hand.
Meng Yu Tang, however, had entered the palace at the age of thirteen with crude etiquette. She repeatedly offended the nobles, was ostracized by the imperial palace, and was finally married off in a hurry to a mid-ranking official.
Her married life was also extremely dissatisfying. The official had married Meng Yu Tang for the imperial backing he thought she had, only to discover after she married in that she had failed to build any connections during her years in the palace.
Thus, the affection between husband and wife was thin, and their arguments were constant.
By the time Meng Yunwan saw Meng Yu Tang again, she had already married into the Eastern Palace as the Crown Princess.
An endless stream of people sought official posts through her, and Meng Yu Tang’s husband was among them.
Seeing the husband who would beat and curse her daily act so fawning and obsequious toward Meng Yunwan, Meng Yu Tang finally broke down completely. While Meng Yunwan was changing her clothes, she swapped her teacup and sent her to her death with a dose of Poisoned Wine.
With her last ounce of strength, she plunged a dagger into Meng Yu Tang’s chest, and the two of them perished together.
Who would have thought that when she opened her eyes again, she had returned to the day Madam Wen was to enter the palace.
This time, Meng Yu Tang was the first to speak.
“What’s so good about entering the palace? Mother is greedy for fame and fortune, I disdain to be associated with her! I want to stay in the Marquis Mansion and be with my father and brothers forever!”
Meng Yunwan glanced at her in surprise. It seemed her legitimate younger sister had also been reborn.
“In that case, I will accompany Mother into the palace,” she said.
The moment she said this, she immediately felt several gazes of disgust fall upon her in the hall.
Her eldest brother, Meng Ruan, spoke faintly, “Little Sister has always been of this nature—snobbish and ungrateful.”
Her second brother, Meng Fan, was young and impetuous, and he couldn’t stop himself from shoving her. “Meng Yunwan, has our Marquis Mansion not fed you or clothed you? For you to be so eager to climb the social ladder, aren’t you disgusting!”
Her third brother, Meng Nan, who had always been gentle, also sneered, “Sooner or later, we will pass the examinations and make a name for ourselves, making Yu Tang the most honored woman in the capital. Meng Yunwan, don’t you come crying to us in regret then!”
Looking at her three self-righteous cousins, Meng Yunwan couldn’t help but curve her lips into a mocking smile.
Make a name for themselves?
But they seemed to have forgotten—
In the last life, it was she who was forced by the family to bind her hair and pose as a man, taking the Palace Examination in her brother’s stead. She had taken first place in the Spring Imperial Examination that year, which was what brought glory to the Marquis Mansion.
Her eldest brother used the scholarly honor she had earned to marry a princess.
Her second brother smoothly entered the prestigious Bailu Mountain to study.
Her third brother’s studies advanced by leaps and bounds under her personal tutelage, and he placed third in the imperial examinations eight years later.
The entire family had risen in status thanks to Meng Yunwan.
She was eager to see,
without her help in this life, how her three lazy and ignorant cousins would make a name for themselves, and how the already declining Huainan Marquis Mansion would become glorious and wealthy, joining the ranks of the capital’s top nobility.
That night, she and her mother packed their belongings. Although they were entering the palace by imperial decree, no one in the Huainan Marquis Mansion cared for them. Even their luggage was pitifully scarce.
“Following me has made you suffer.” Madam Wen’s heart ached as she looked at the few meager chests.
Meng Yunwan held her mother’s hand. “I don’t feel wronged, truly.”
In this life, she would rather enter the palace and fight for her own future. Staying in the Marquis Mansion was where the real, endless grievances lay.
Her thoughts were simple, and her outlook was clear. She slept exceptionally peacefully that night.
Early the next morning, the procession to receive them arrived.
A young man stepped out of the sedan chair. He was dressed in crimson robes with a jade coronet, a light fur cloak, and a jeweled belt. A eunuch beside him smiled politely.
“His Majesty values you, Madam, and you, Young Miss, and has specially dispatched His Highness Prince Yi to serve as the Enfeoffment Envoy to welcome you both back to the palace.”
Meng Yunwan’s eyes stung slightly. The face before her was a little younger than in her memory, his brows carrying the unique arrogance and spirit of a young man.
She found herself staring, lost in thought, until Ling Shuo, opposite her, frowned almost imperceptibly and asked coolly, “Is there something on my face?”
Meng Yunwan snapped back to her senses and hurriedly bowed. “Your subject has been impolite.”
Ling Shuo let out a soft, inscrutable scoff and turned to get back into his sedan chair.
Through the hazy curtain of the sedan, Meng Yunwan gazed at the back of the man on the white horse ahead, an indescribable mix of joy and sorrow in her heart.
The joy was that she and he actually had a day to meet again. The sorrow was that the man she had once shared a pillow with no longer recognized her. Before him, she could only humbly call herself “your subject,” a heavenly chasm separating them.
The carriage stopped at some point, and Ling Shuo stood beside it to help them alight.
As Meng Yunwan lifted the curtain to get out, she happened to see a willow catkin float past Ling Shuo. She subconsciously warned him to be careful, but in doing so, she failed to watch her own step and slipped.
Ling Shuo, who was right beside her, reacted quickly, instantly steadying her arm. His voice was deep. “Be careful, Miss.”
The willow catkin was blown away by the breeze his movement created.
Meng Yunwan discreetly breathed a sigh of relief.
Then she slowly bowed. “Thank you, Your Highness.”
Ling Shuo was allergic to willow catkins.
She had only learned this in her past life when she had a craving for snake meat soup in the third month. Ling Shuo had gone into the mountains alone to find it for her, but he had inhaled the willow catkins drifting in the forest and was carried out unconscious.
From then on, whenever Ling Shuo was present, Meng Yunwan was on high alert against willow catkins.
Therefore, in that split second just now, she had called out almost instinctively.
After Meng Yunwan left.
Ling Shuo remained standing in place, his eyes profound as he watched the woman’s slender back recede into the distance. He then shifted his gaze to the willow catkin on the ground.
He was lost in thought.