Details of that night?
Luo Tang picked up a piece of pastry and moved to shove it into her mouth, but Jiyao reached out and pressed down on her hand. “Stop eating for a second. Tell me the details.”
Jiyao was Gu Siwai’s personal maid, and the two of them lived a secluded, mutually dependent life together within the residential courtyard. Gu Siwai was the daughter of Grand Duke Gu, though for many years she had shut herself away from the world and maintained no contact with the Gu clan.
Jiyao pressed her for details.
Quietly setting the pastry back down with an innocent expression, Luo Tang looked straight at Jiyao. “Do you honestly think… something ought to have happened between her and me?”
Refusing to let her have the pastry, Jiyao took a massive bite of it herself. “If you told that story to a ghost, even the ghosts wouldn’t believe it.”
Luo Tang: “…” If I were in my past life, I wouldn’t have believed it either.
Actually, on that night.
“Don’t leave. I’ll escort you back to the Grand Commandant’s manor tomorrow,” Zhe Qing had promised.
Zhe Qing’s promise held very little practical value for Luo Tang. If she couldn’t even handle minor predicaments like this, how could she have ever climbed to the position of Prime Minister as a woman in her previous life?
She had intended to leave, but Zhe Qing’s skin was radiating a deep, unnatural flush, clearly betraying the effects of a drug.
Hesitating for a moment, she recalled a single line from Zhe Qing’s journal:
“I am a woman, yet I look up to the highest mountain peaks and vow to contend with them head-on.”
She was a woman, born into a position of inherent disadvantage—yet she insisted on challenging the highest peaks of power.
Luo Tang sighed internally. “I suppose I’ve truly been bewitched by beauty,” she thought, resigning herself to stay. She requested some ice, dropped it into a basin of well water, soaked a cloth, and took hold of Zhe Qing’s wrist.
The icy-cold cloth glided across the burning, flushed skin, gradually cooling her fevered fingertips.
Suddenly, Zhe Qing bolted upright, gripping Luo Tang’s hand in a tight, vice-like grasp as her eyes swam with a dazed, feverish infatuation.
The heavy rain had cleared, leaving a brilliant, peerless rainbow arching across the sky.
Zhe Qing half-raised her upper body, her collar falling open to expose her collarbones and shoulders as she lifted her gaze to stare directly at Luo Tang, rendering those delicate collarbones all the more striking.
Luo Tang’s breath hitched. Driven by a guilty conscience, she used her free hand to hurriedly cover Zhe Qing’s parting collar. “Let me make one thing clear, I do happen to like women, but you shouldn’t go around tempting me like this.”
Though she had only intended to shield the snow-white skin from view, her palm accidentally brushed against its velvety softness.
She had merely meant to cover her, yet unintended contact had occurred.
While Zhe Qing was the one burning with fever, Luo Tang felt the blood rushing fiercely through her own veins as she stared down into the other woman’s eyes.
The flush of brilliant color in Zhe Qing’s eyes resembled light rippling across a clear stream, swimming with moisture, dazzling and intensely alluring.
Swallowing hard to suppress the sudden impulse, Luo Tang yanked her hand back. The very next instant, Zhe Qing lowered her head and pressed her lips against the back of Luo Tang’s hand.
Luo Tang: “…”
I mustn’t quarrel with an invalid.
Still, that—that—that kiss just now felt like something brushing softly across her skin, sending a tingling, electric itch rippling straight through her flesh and striking her heart.
Her chest felt itchy; her throat felt itchy.
Terrified, Luo Tang jerked her hand away, shoved Zhe Qing back against the pillows, and jammed the remaining cold cloth directly into her hand. “Here, hold this, it’s cool.”
The ice-water-soaked towel pressed against her burning skin provided far more soothing relief than human flesh ever could.
Recounting the memory up to this point, Jiyao ruthlessly cut her off. “She kissed your hand.”
Swallowing hard, Luo Tang stuffed a piece of pastry into her mouth, her cheeks bulging as she nodded mutely.
Advanced in years, Jiyao wore an expression of sudden, profound enlightenment upon hearing this. “And then? When you were wiping her down, you didn’t even take off her clothes?”
“Halfway off,” Luo Tang stated with absolute honesty.
Jiyao: “What do you mean by halfway off?”
Displaying an expression of utter resignation, Luo Tang mechanically chewed another piece of pastry. At that exact moment, a soft cry of pain echoed out from the inner chamber.
Anxiously glancing back toward the door, she noted that the cry, though soft, was laced with a delicate, melting vulnerability that seemed to strike directly at her heart.
Jiyao pressed further. “Why did you stop your story?”
“I’ve lost the mood to tell it. Can I go inside and check on her?” Luo Tang felt a spike of anxiety. Zhe Qing was someone who excelled at swallowing her own suffering; she hadn’t made a single sound on that fateful night.
If she was crying out now, the pain must be excruciating.
Jiyao eyed her suspiciously. Just then, the door swung open, and Luo Tang sprang up from the steps like a startled rabbit. “Teacher Gu, how is she?”
“Are you that worried?” Gu Siwai asked, a faint smile touching her lips as she gazed down at her.
That single look made Luo Tang feel thoroughly unequipped to hide her thoughts. She offered an earnest, straightforward explanation: “We’re friends, after all. Isn’t it only natural to be worried?”
Gu Siwai’s gaze remained soft and gentle. Possessing an inherently tolerant disposition, she had no intention of prying further, stepping aside to clear the doorway. “Go see for yourself. Relying on someone else’s secondhand account will only make you more anxious.”
Bowing to express her gratitude, Luo Tang received a dismissive wave of the hand. “No need for thanks.”
A smile bloomed across Luo Tang’s face. She couldn’t help feeling that Gu Siwai possessed an enviable breadth of mind, truly broad-minded and deeply reasonable.
The young maiden hurried anxiously inside, while Jiyao shuffled over to Gu Siwai’s side and whispered, “They spent an entire night together under the same roof, and that night, the Prime Minister had been drugged.”
“Drugged? How on earth did someone as cautious as her ever fall into such a trap?” Gu Siwai looked genuinely astonished, knowing full well that Zhe Qing’s operational style was always airtight and immune to careless blunders.
She mused, “I suspect she was fully aware the wine was tainted, yet chose to drink it anyway.”
Frowning in displeasure, Jiyao nudged Gu Siwai. “Why are you focusing on that?”
Gu Siwai looked perplexed. “What on earth ought I to be focusing on, then?”
“That Luo person is just as despicable as her uncle, she’s nothing but bad news, and she took advantage of the Prime Minister!” Jiyao gritted her teeth, recalling the utterly shameful reputation of the Grand Commandant’s estate and concluding that Luo Tang must be cut from the exact same cloth.
In a rare display of amusement, Gu Siwai raised an eyebrow. “Xiao Ruonan is her maternal uncle, not her biological father.”
“She was raised within the Grand Commandant’s estate, and look at those cunning eyes of hers, she definitely bullied the Prime Minister! That scoundrel Lin Huaijin refuses to stand up for her, so you ought to step in and uphold justice!” The more Jiyao thought about it, the angrier she grew. How could someone as pristine and ethereal as the Prime Minister suffer such misfortune?
Gu Siwai rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you go uphold justice for her yourself?”
Jiyao rolled her eyes right back. “I lack both standing and influence; I can’t uphold anything. You should step in, we can’t just let her be bullied like this.”
Gu Siwai asked, “What exactly do you propose we do?”
Jiyao declared, “Bind them in a covenant.”
A covenant referred to what commoners called marriage, though within the laws of the dynasty, a formal union between two women was legally recognized and protected under the official designation of a covenant (jie qi).
The practice had originated many years prior and possessed full legal backing, mirroring traditional marriage in every legal aspect.
However, over the years, the number of women choosing to enter into such covenants was vanishingly small; those who supported the concept preferred to merely talk about it, while those who opposed it still treated it like worthless dirt.
Gu Siwai shook her head. “Don’t go stirring up trouble. The Xiao family will never agree to it, and neither will Lin Huaijin.”
Jiyao rolled her eyes again, deeply disgruntled. “Luo Tang said she took off half her clothes!”
With a look of sheer, helpless defeat, Gu Siwai stared at her long-time personal companion, swallowing back whatever lecture she had prepared before instructing, “Go prepare some dishes that Ah-Zhe enjoys eating.”
Jiyao let out a heavy sigh. Gu Siwai added, “Stop meddling blindly in her personal affairs, you’ve interfered so many times in the past that you practically frightened her away from ever visiting.”
Gu Siwai and Lin Huaijin had been youthful sweethearts in their early days. Though they eventually parted ways, they continued to reside in the exact same capital city, yet never crossed paths again.
One lived in the east, the other in the west.
To be precise, it was Gu Siwai who deliberately avoided laying eyes on Lin Huaijin.
Ever since Lin Huaijin adopted Zhe Qing, she made it a yearly tradition to send the girl to pay her respects to Gu Siwai.
Once Zhe Qing reached adulthood, Jiyao terrified the girl might be corrupted by her two stubbornly unmarried elders and adopt the habit of remaining single for life, had secretly attempted to meddle and play matchmaker on several occasions.
Upon discovering her intentions, Zhe Qing had been so unnerved that she avoided coming by for many days running.
Meanwhile, inside the room, Zhe Qing furrowed her brows in lingering discomfort as Luo Tang handed her a piece of pastry, her expression softening into gentle warmth. Zhe Qing’s luck is truly abysmal, she thought.
Lowering her gaze, Zhe Qing accepted the pastry and proactively broke the silence: “The pain has subsided.”
That involuntary cry earlier had simply been a momentary lapse of composure.
Yet Luo Tang countered gently, “If it hurts, just admit it hurts, there’s no need to bottle it up inside. Pain is part of being human. You are flesh and blood, born of mortal stock; why must you constantly force yourself to act like an unfeeling deity?”
Zhe Qing was deeply struck by the remark, lifting her long, heavy eyelashes to gaze directly at her.
Remaining silent, she took a bite of the pastry. It was exceptionally sweet, melting instantly upon the tongue.
As the sweetness bloomed in her mouth, the throbbing agony in her ankle genuinely seemed to recede a fraction.
The next second, Luo Tang slid the entire plate right in front of her and casually inquired, “Do you recognize that person who fell from the teahouse?”
“I do. She was a female official; you needn’t concern yourself with it,” Zhe Qing replied, though her fingers tightened involuntarily around the edge of the plate.
Luo Tang narrowed her eyes. “You seem to be harboring a difficult secret.”
Catching the unspoken implication, Zhe Qing finally raised her head to lock eyes with the sharp, penetrating gaze of the maiden, who stared right back at her. “You think this has something to do with me, don’t you?”
Luo Tang’s sharpness left Zhe Qing with zero room left to fabricate falsehoods.
Zhe Qing admitted, “It does.”
A flicker of mocking amusement crossed Luo Tang’s eyes. “Let me take a guess. If I guess correctly, just nod; if I’m wrong, you can correct me.”
Zhe Qing gave a slight nod.
Setting the pastry aside, Luo Tang wiped her hands with a linen cloth. Zhe Qing’s gaze tracked the movement, her fingers were slender and pearly-white, tipped with nails stained a delicate shade of floral red, rendering them all the more graceful and exquisite.
Her hands were remarkably attractive.
Completely oblivious to the other woman’s train of thought, Luo Tang tossed the cloth aside and stated seriously, “Was it her who submitted the proposal to your Grand Preceptor to resolve the river-dike crisis I mentioned earlier?”
Zhe Qing remained silent, her alabaster complexion turning even paler.
Luo Tang pressed on, “Your teacher, unaware of the underlying reality, memorialized it to the Empress Dowager, who was overjoyed. Am I right?”
Sunlight streamed through the doorway, casting a golden patch across the floor right at Zhe Qing’s feet before climbing upward to envelop her entirely, illuminating her cold, aloof profile.
Lacking conversational warmth, Zhe Qing radiated an imposing, majestic authority that naturally discouraged others from meeting her gaze.
A faint smile touched Luo Tang’s lips. “Yet you exposed the truth, starting by outing this female official. The Empress Dowager penalized her, and today she ended up dead. Am. I. Right?”
The young maiden was terrifyingly astute, her wolf-like eyes flashing with the dazzling brilliance of starlight.
“So the moment you recognized her earlier, you couldn’t wait to leave the scene, terrified that your teacher might discover you had witnessed it all.”
Luo Tang let out a soft, rueful sigh. Youthful, brilliant, and daringly perceptive, she had managed to reconstruct the entire sequence of events in a mere handful of sentences.
Fixing an earnest, pleading stare upon Zhe Qing, she added, “She’s dead now, and you and Grand Preceptor Lin can continue playing the role of the devoted, harmonious mentor and student, standing tall as paragons of virtue.”
Her eyes acted like a mirror, reflecting Zhe Qing’s position so starkly that the older woman felt utterly stripped of her dignity.
At that exact moment, Jiyao pushed the door open, carrying a bowl of honeyed water and setting it down before them both with the casual question, “What would you like for lunch?”
Her timely entrance offered Zhe Qing an immediate reprieve. Offering a faint, strained smile, Zhe Qing replied, “I don’t mind; whatever Auntie decides is fine.”
With a hearty chuckle, Jiyao remarked, “If you’re leaving it to me, I’ll make sure to prepare crystal dragon-phoenix cakes, folded goose pastries, mutton soup in a basin, sliced raw fish…”
Before Jiyao could finish rattling off her list of desired delicacies, Zhe Qing suddenly reached out and clamped a hand firmly over Luo Tang’s mouth.
Luo Tang’s tongue accidentally swept across the center of Zhe Qing’s palm, sending a soft, sensitive jolt of electrical friction shooting straight through her skin.