“Well? Did you see it?”
“I saw it, Your Ladyship. While the young mistress was undressing to bathe, this old slave took a quiet peek. There is a butterfly birthmark on her snowy right buttock. It’s pink, about the size of an infant’s palm.”
“Then there’s no mistake. Thank the heavens, truly thank the heavens…”
Late at night, outside a bathing chamber in the Western Garden of the Marquis’s estate, the Marquis’s wife clasped her hands together and bowed repeatedly toward the bright moon.
Nanny Wu was her dowry maid and the one who had later delivered her baby. In truth, she had only herself to blame for her carelessness back then. The moment the child was pulled out, Nanny Wu had mentioned the birthmark, but she had just given birth, was utterly exhausted, and had only glanced at it without taking it to heart—it wasn’t until her daughter was three months old and she washed her personally that she discovered the birthmark was gone.
Later, she had even consulted a physician, who said that a child’s birthmark could indeed fade away with the years.
If… if she had maintained just a fraction more suspicion back then and ordered someone to investigate and check, she would have discovered the anomaly, and her child wouldn’t have been swapped away since infancy, losing her birth mother.
Now that her daughter had been recovered against all odds, Jiang Lan was already overjoyed. She truly thought she would never see her again in this lifetime.
“Mistress, the young mistress’s clothes are all prepared.”
Behind Caihuan, a group of maidservants held trays bearing soft satin chest wraps, lotus-root-colored pipa-collared blouses, pomegranate-red orchid-embroidered silk skirts, a pair of gold-threaded pearl-studded satin shoes, and a silver lotus sachet. Because it was already late, they hadn’t prepared elaborate hairpins and ornaments.
Caihuan recalled that back in the bathing chamber, the young mistress had seemed rather uncomfortable and embarrassed to undress in front of them, insisting on washing by herself, which was why she had led everyone out.
Yet thinking about it now, in the vast Marquis’s estate, there was no mistress who bathed without anyone to attend to her. Caihuan couldn’t help bringing it up again: “Mistress, should this servant take people back inside to wait upon the young mistress…”
Jiang Lan: “Never mind, let them rest first. Give the things to me, and just leave two people to help me as assistants.”
Caihuan knew that the Marquis’s wife had finally found her daughter and wanted to handle everything personally tonight. Thus, she dismissed the rest of the maidservants, leaving only her two most capable assistants and herself to accompany the Marquis’s wife inside.
A wide screen was set up in the bathing chamber, wreathed in steam. Jiang Lan set down the tray of clothes and walked over to the tub where her daughter was bathing. Her daughter still seemed somewhat shy, not daring to look at people, keeping her eyes lowered on the water’s surface.
The mother and daughter had only met today and weren’t very familiar with each other. Moreover, Jiang Lan regretted that she had been truly blind at the South Market, uttering harsh words that had hurt her daughter’s heart.
Standing an arm’s length away from the tub, she didn’t dare act rashly, and simply asked while gazing at that slender, white back, “Yu’er, is the water still warm? Should Mother have someone add a bit more?”
The small head above the water shook.
Jiang Lan probed further: “Tonight, will you let Mother accompany Yu’er? Mother wants to look at you.”
Seeing the head nod, Jiang Lan finally let out a sigh of relief and revealed a smile.
The maidservants quickly brought over a sandalwood low stool, and the Marquis’s wife sat down beside the bathing tub. Picking up a soft cloth soaked in warm water filled with flower petals, she began to help Shen Mingyu wipe her back where she couldn’t reach.
Jiang Lan was born into a wealthy, noble lineage and had lived for over forty years. It had always been others exhausting every means to serve and please her, offering things that were only ever insufficiently precious or rare. Today was the first time she had ever done such menial service for someone else. Jiang Lan felt somewhat unaccustomed to it, yet she also found it joyful and warm.
In the first sixteen years, she had given her daughter far, far too little. Now, having the opportunity to do these things was the greatest joy for a mother.
As she wiped, Jiang Lan gazed at that thin, small frame, wondering how much suffering she must have endured outside.
She thought of Yan’er again. Sigh, clearly they were the exact same age, yet anyone could tell at a glance that Yan’er was delicately raised and nurtured with meticulous care.
Ripples undulated across the water’s surface. From the initial timidity, shock, caution, and unfamiliarity upon first entering the wealthy Marquis’s estate, Shen Mingyu now felt physically and mentally relaxed under the soaking hot water, loosening up considerably.
She had never seen such a large bathing tub!
It could easily seat four people.
Shen Mingyu couldn’t help thinking of her childhood baths—she hadn’t even had a wooden tub, and could only fetch water and hide behind the back wall of the outhouse to scrub herself. Her tender skin would constantly scrape against grass blades and twigs, and when summer came, it would attract mosquito bites, leaving her unbearably itchy.
Later, she married Pei Lang, and though she finally got a wooden tub that could seat a person, it was a narrow little thing inside that dimly lit, oil-lamp-lit cottage—whereas the bathing chamber she was in right now was spacious and bright, draped with red silk, partitioned by an antique sandalwood screen embroidered with flowering branches.
Even the warm bathwater had various herbal sachets, bamboo leaves, and peach skins spread at the bottom, making the water fragrant, smooth, and nourishing.
And the cloth the Marquis’s wife used to wipe her back was so soft, like a fluffy yet firm cloud. She had handled tailoring work for wealthy households before, but she had never seen material this soft.
Her dark, round eyes stared intently, her fingertips plucking a flower petal.
Taking this in, Jiang Lan felt a pang of heartache and let out a soft, gentle sigh.
Seeing that her daughter was about to finish bathing, Jiang Lan took the soft linen cloth handed over by a maid to help her dry off, but Shen Mingyu flinched away slightly, lowering her head in a bit of shyness.
Jiang Lan couldn’t help smiling—what was there to be shy about in front of her mother? Then she thought better of it; after all, the child hadn’t been by her birth mother’s side since birth, and those words were simply impossible to say out loud. Thus, she had no choice but to signal all the maidservants to turn around, while she herself stepped back slightly.
After changing into fresh clothes, Shen Mingyu was led by the Marquis’s wife to the dining hall, followed by a throng of maidservants dressed in reds and greens.
At that moment, the young woman still hadn’t recovered her wits from her own gorgeous attire.
So a woman’s clothes could be this light and this soft, feeling like wearing a layer of gauze, yet not gauze at all—it featured dense, meticulous stitches and a smooth, silky texture. Shen Mingyu considered her own embroidery skills to be quite good, yet she had never seen anything as lifelike as the lotus petal on her sleeve.
She could smell the fragrance infused into the clothes, walking along this vast winding covered corridor beneath an endless night sky, where the leaves of tall, verdant paulownia trees half-obscured a waning moon.
She thought to herself that coming to the capital was truly the right choice. Though she had spent over half a month searching for her mother, getting the chance to catch a glimpse and look around inside such a magnificent estate meant she wouldn’t have lived in vain in this lifetime.
“Yu’er, what are you thinking about?”
Seeing her daughter lost in thought, Jiang Lan suddenly asked.
The hand held by the Marquis’s wife was very warm. At this moment, Shen Mingyu still felt unfamiliar and cautious toward this “birth mother,” but she answered honestly anyway: “I was thinking about when I’ll ever be able to save enough money to buy a house this big.”
A life of being unvalued and wandering had made her habitually strive to save money; having silver gripped in her hands gave her a sense of security.
The Marquis’s wife felt her heart ache, murmuring “silly child,” “What money to save? Isn’t it good to live with Mother? The family estate is so huge, and you have your father, brothers, and sisters; you’ll get to meet them all shortly.”
Seeing her frail and slender frame, the Marquis’s wife felt a twinge of pain and couldn’t help saying, “Silly child, stop trying to save money. If you want houses and farmland, Mother will set them up for you. This is what Mother ought to give you in the first place. I’ll find you the best location in the capital, and hire people to help you manage shops and businesses. Isn’t that much faster than saving money on your own?”
Shen Mingyu was left dumbfounded, nodding obediently.
So having a mother meant this?
She was overjoyed—anything related to making money made her happy! Having a mother was also happy; being able to eat and dress well was simply one of life’s greatest pleasures.
The desolate wind blew, lightly swirling branch blossoms to fall across the sky. The moonlight, cascading like brilliant satin, illuminated the mother and daughter reunited after a long separation in the wealthy Marquis’s estate, while thousands of miles away across mountains and rivers, it simultaneously cast its light upon a remote little village in Pingyang County.
“Auntie Qiu, Tiezheng, have you seen Mingyu?”
“Uncle Zhao, have you seen Mingyu?”
“Auntie, have you seen my Mingyu?”
There was a stream in Baiyun Village, said to be formed from the tears shed by Pangu when heaven and earth were first split. For thousands of years, it had gurgled along, flowing past bustling Jinling, passing the southeast of the mountains, emptying into Baiyun Village, and finally heading onwards to unknown destinations.
Amidst the ding-dong sound of the stream, the cicadas grew increasingly noisy. Anyone carrying hoes back from the fields at moonrise in this village could hear the youth’s anxious calls for someone. He was anxious and bewildered, asking everyone he met, even stopping Thin Pole, who was usually at odds with him.
The villagers all shook their heads and sighed heavily. Only that sharp-tongued Thin Pole would make sarcastic, direct remarks. Yet the youth would look dumbfounded, grabbing people frantically to ask questions until even Thin Pole was scared enough to stop talking, waving his hands frantically and saying I don’t know, I don’t know…
Pei Shumin had searched many places: Tiezheng’s house, Auntie Zhao’s house, nearby neighbors, Village Bailiff Zhou’s house, and he had even gone to Chen Township’s private school, rushing all the way to Pingyang County to search frantically through nameless bookstores, yet still he hadn’t found her.
Mingyu… where could Mingyu have gone?
His silly Mingyu—why would she bring her jewelry when going out? Why wasn’t she home even this late?
Anxiety consumed Pei Shumin as he wandered aimlessly in search. He refused to believe Thin Pole’s words; how could Shen Mingyu possibly leave? How could she run off with money?
She was the Mingyu who would secretly save up money to buy him books, the Mingyu who would make clothes and cook flower pastries for him, the Mingyu waiting with piping-hot meals for her husband to return, and the Mingyu who dropped out of school without a word so he wouldn’t be too tired… she was also the good Mingyu who shyly said she wanted to bear children for him…
She couldn’t have left.
Perhaps she had gone somewhere to play, gotten tired from walking, and couldn’t find her way home… or perhaps, just like last time, she had been swindled out of all her money by an unscrupulous merchant, leaving her penniless and too ashamed to come home.
In short, she wouldn’t have left.
Yet, truly, he couldn’t find her anymore.
Pei Shumin had no idea how many miles he had walked, knowing only that his legs had gone numb. Any book he had ever read, any skill he had ever learned, proved entirely useless at this moment. He panicked—an unprecedented panic. Even though he forced himself to remain calm, he still lost his wits out of sheer terror.
He leaned against the earthen wall at the entrance of the village like a walking corpse. The wind blew desolately as his pitch-black, unfocused pupils stared unblinkingly at the moon in the sky.
He couldn’t find his wife.
Pei Shumin suddenly lowered his head, unable to stop his entire body from trembling.
No, he had to find Shen Mingyu.
He had to.
Nobody could stop him.
Entering the dining hall, the maidservants filed in to help set the table and arrange dishes.
The served dishes included perilla fish, dairy tofu soup, shrimp and mushroom, five-flavor apricot paste goose, and bone soup, paired with soft, glutinous pearlescent fragrant rice, supplemented by cherry stew, flower-cup longan, and dried pears.
Shen Mingyu’s eyes dazzled at the sight. She didn’t know the names of half of them, knowing only that these plate upon plate of dishes were exquisite and appetizing, full of color, aroma, and flavor, rousing hunger in a stomach that hadn’t felt empty to begin with. Before she could react, a maid’s slender, delicate hands poured a stream of golden wine carrying a refreshing, fragrant aroma.
“This is bamboo leaf wine, perfect for pairing with food. It’s the one your mother drinks most often.”
The Marquis’s wife probed gently, “Yu’er, would you like to taste a cup?”
Shen Mingyu carefully lifted the wine cup and took a light sip… and her soul flew straight up beyond the ninth heaven.
She had never tasted anything this good!
This was completely different from the rice wine in their village; it was mellow upon entry, carrying the fresh fragrance of newly sprouted bamboo after the rain. Taking a gentle sip felt like standing in heaven overlooking the mortal realm. If she could learn this brewing recipe, how wonderful that would be! She could brew the wine herself and sell it later, making a massive profit.
Shen Mingyu’s sparkling eyes rolled, and under the encouragement of the Marquis’s wife, she tasted the delicacies on the table one by one.
This trip was truly not made in vain!
Yet, seeing her daughter like this—finding novelty in everything—made Jiang Lan’s heart ache even more. Aside from the moment she was held in her wet nurse’s arms right after birth, her child had never seen anything good afterward, acting so cautiously even when facing her own mother.
As Shen Mingyu ate, Jiang Lan used a handkerchief to gently wipe her eyes, filled entirely with heartache—it was all that wicked woman’s fault! The bitch had actually dared to scheme against Jiang Lan and abuse her daughter, reducing her poor daughter who should have been born of golden branches and jade leaves to this. The moment she caught that woman, she would make her wish she were dead.
“Cough, cough, cough…”
Shen Mingyu choked on her food, and Jiang Lan hurriedly patted her back. “Yu’er, eat slowly. If you like it, Mother will have people make more…”
Addicted as she was to the food, Shen Mingyu knew she couldn’t possibly eat this much, and hurriedly stopped the Marquis’s wife.
Seeing her daughter’s cheeks puffed out roundly, the Marquis’s wife laughed in spite of herself: “You like it? Mother will take you to eat at the Pan Family Restaurant tomorrow. Their dishes are also top-notch…”
Shen Mingyu’s eyes brightened, and she nodded.
Right at that moment, an announcement rang out from outside: “Mistress, the Marquis has arrived!”
The Marquis, the Marquis of Wu’an?
Hearing this, Shen Mingyu raised her head and sure enough saw a man in majestic purple robes striding in. Though middle-aged, the man possessed thick brows, large eyes, and an unwavering presence. Even on his battle-weary and weathered face, she could catch the shadow of her own features.
Shen Mingyu was somewhat surprised.
Even Helan Chang was stunned upon seeing his own daughter.
How could she look so much alike.
Four parts like Jiang Lan, and a full seven parts like him—she was truly deserving of being their legitimate daughter. Helan Chang was practically frozen for a moment, only sitting down properly after being pulled by the Marquis’s wife. The Marquis’s wife scolded playfully, “What are you doing? You scared our child.”
“Oh, oh.”
Helan Chang recovered his wits, made a polite gesture, filled his daughter’s cup with wine, and frantically and clumsily picked out a couple of dishes for her.
Shen Mingyu ate quietly. After she finished a bowl, the Marquis’s wife personally refilled it, refusing to let the attending maidservants do it.
Just as Shen Mingyu reached out to pick up a piece of bone bone, she happened to raise her head, her round eyes locking directly with Helan Chang’s. Then, four eyes met, and the scene fell into a temporary awkwardness…
Jiang Lan ladled soup for her daughter and smiled to smooth things over: “We’re family, what are you staring at each other for? Aren’t you afraid you won’t have time to see each other in the future?”
“Oh, right—”
Remembering something, Jiang Lan hurried to call Caihuan from outside, “Have Eldest Master and Second Master returned from their duties? Call all the young masters and misses in the estate, as well as the concubines. Now that Yu’er is back, it’s time for them all to meet her.”
While waiting for everyone to arrive, Helan Chang gazed at his daughter’s familiar face, feeling a myriad of emotions.
He poured himself a cup of wine.
Not long ago, the Emperor had been searching for the Crown Prince who had been missing for seventeen years, and he had felt a sense of pity for His Majesty in his heart. Never did he expect that the exact same thing would happen to him shortly afterward.
Though both involved lost children, his situation wasn’t entirely identical to the Emperor’s—the Crown Prince had gone missing because of that palace coup years ago when the city gates caught fire and the late Empress fled with him in her arms. As for his daughter, she had been swapped away since infancy.
Helan Chang looked at his daughter’s face and met her gaze again. Finding it somewhat absurd, he smiled as he drank.
“You say your name is Mingyu?”
The young woman by the dining table nodded.
Helan Chang evaluated it: “The name that woman gave my daughter is passable; not completely ruined.”
Hearing this, Jiang Lan rolled her eyes so hard they almost reached the ceiling.
Passable? The names of the Helan family’s younger generation—Qian, Jun, Yan, Cang, and the like—which one wasn’t a carefully chosen, excellent character? They involved divination and hiring masters to calculate them. Yet that wicked woman gave her daughter the name Mingyu, which was terribly vulgar, sounding just like some sort of agate or jade. But Jiang Lan didn’t dare say it aloud, fearing it would hurt the child’s feelings. Thus, she managed to hold back, remaining silent as she continued picking food for her.
“Yu’er, where did that original mother of yours usually take you to live?” Helan Chang asked.
Shen Mingyu lifted her head from her fragrant, soft rice and answered truthfully, “In a small county at the very south of Jinling, right against the mountains—Pingyang County. Have you heard of it, Marquis? But we didn’t live in the county town; we stayed in a remote village called Shaoxi Village.”
Helan Chang lowered his gaze to ponder: “Pingyang County…”
Jiang Lan was also surprised, grabbing her husband’s arm: “Didn’t His Majesty send you to inspect water conservancy around Jinling last year, and you went there too? At that time, you were only a step away from our daughter.”
Helan Chang hadn’t expected fate to be this coincidental.
Though he had gone to Jinling under the imperial decree to inspect water conservancy at the time, behind the scenes he was secretly helping His Majesty search for the Crown Prince. Because the political situation at court was turbulent, His Majesty didn’t want the matter exposed, so he hadn’t told anyone, keeping even his own wife in the dark.
He hadn’t expected that both his own daughter and the Crown Prince would happen to turn up in Pingyang County. Then… could they have known each other?
Yet at this thought, Helan Chang shook his head with a chuckle, feeling the idea was far too absurd—
Living in Pingyang County at the same time was already a one-in-ten-thousand coincidence; in such a vast prefecture and county amid all living beings, how could the two of them possibly cross paths?
Besides, even if they had the fate to cross paths, without recognizing each other, they would merely glance past one another as passing strangers. Considering that the Emperor was currently seriously ill, the Crown Prince had yet to return to court, and the political situation remained unstable, it was inappropriate to leak this matter outside. Therefore, Helan Chang only entertained the thought for a moment before dropping it.
Seeing his daughter looking thin and frail, Helan Chang couldn’t help picking food for her and telling her to eat more.
Remembering the hardships the child had endured all these years, he sighed in his heart, turning immediately to instruct the servants to take good care of the Fourth Young Mistress and add whatever was lacking.
Before long, announcements sounded outside, and Helan Qian and the others arrived.
With the whole family now reunited and Jiang Lan overjoyed, she took Shen Mingyu’s hand and introduced them one by one: “This is your eldest brother…”
“This is your second brother, third brother…”
“This is your cousin…”
“This is your second sister…”
Shen Mingyu met a great many people in one breath. Aside from her brothers and sisters, there were also the estate’s concubines.
Dressed in brocade and fine silks, they looked as though they had stepped right out of a painting. The men stood tall and straight, wearing crowns and jade waist rings, while the women fluttered with hairpin lights and side-locks, their brows shaded with cosmetic ink. Shen Mingyu had thought the attire of the Zhou family’s female relatives was already quite polished, but until coming to Bianjing and seeing the pedestrians on the streets did she realize there were always people better than oneself.
Later on, when she arrived at the Marquis’s estate and saw maidens who looked like fairies one after another, she assumed they were all noble ladies, only for someone to smile and tell her no—they were merely maidservants of the Marquis’s estate. And now, at this moment, Shen Mingyu was seeing true branches of gold and leaves of jade, making her marvel again and again. Even though the Marquis’s wife had dressed her in lavish, luxurious clothes, set against the backdrop of this group of people, it felt like a demon-reflecting mirror, instantly exposing her rustic, insignificant shadow and making her pale by comparison.
When the Marquis’s wife mentioned, “This is your third sister, Helan Yan,” Shen Mingyu’s gaze paused, fixing on the young woman of similar age in the center of the hall—so she was Helan Yan.
Unlike Shen Mingyu’s large, round eyes, Helan Yan’s brows and eyes were somewhat slender, bearing a slight resemblance to her birth mother, Qin Niang.
In truth, when naming Yan’er earlier, the Marquis’s wife had harbored some reservations; after all, the two children had been swapped since infancy. But an introduction was unavoidable, so she could only test the waters by looking at Mingyu.
Fortunately, Yu’er showed no unusual reaction, displaying more of a sense of wonder instead, her dark, round eyes blooming with a strange light. The Marquis’s wife finally let her heart drop back into her chest, muttering silently to herself: My silly child.
Helan Qian, Helan Jun, and the rest were exceedingly curious about this recovered younger sister, but fearing they might frighten her, their words were modest and their etiquette flawless.
Because they had to report for duty early the next morning, they couldn’t stay long, and after spending a short while with their family, they departed. Subsequently, several concubines successively took their leave of the Marquis’s wife and departed with their respective maids.
At that moment, the only ones left in the room were Shen Mingyu, the Marquis’s wife, and Helan Yan, who was about to leave.
“Yan’er, do you still have something to say?”
Having raised her for over a dozen years, the Marquis’s wife saw through her daughter’s mind instantly.
“Yes,” Helan Yan lowered her head. “Mother, now that Little Sister has been found, might you allow Huai’en and me…”
“Don’t even think about it.”
Before she could finish, the Marquis’s wife had already interrupted: “What status does Huai’en hold, and what status do you hold?”
“Mother, Huai’en is a good person, I like him…”
“Enough, Yan’er, he is simply not a match for you.”
Speaking of this groom, the Marquis’s wife actually had a bellyful of anger. “Had we known today, our Helan family shouldn’t have taken him in. It’s bad enough that he doesn’t know how to repay kindness, but he actually dared to seduce my daughter—is this delusional daydreams of flying up the branches to become a phoenix? Poor people are simply like this…”
At this point, the Marquis’s wife suddenly cut herself short. She realized she had said the wrong thing, glanced out of the corner of her eye nervously at Shen Mingyu, and stopped continuing.
“Why has Mother stopped talking again? Thinking of Little Sister, is that it? So Mother also knows that loving someone cannot mean slandering them, yet why didn’t you know your daughter also fancies him…”
The Marquis’s wife’s expression shifted slightly, frightening a maid into hurriedly pulling Helan Yan back.
At this moment, Helan Yan also abruptly realized her speech was disrespectful, closed her mouth in a huff, and taking advantage of the fact that her mother hadn’t lost her temper yet, she simply said a brief word and requested to leave, leaving only Shen Mingyu clutching a goose leg in a daze, still failing to recover from those words just now…
The Marquis’s wife settled her ruffled composure and called for Steward Xue Ding: “Keep an eye on Third Mistress’s quarters from now on, dispatch more guards, and do not allow anyone else to enter.”
Steward Xue Ding tremblingly acknowledged the order, then quietly raised his head to glance at the protagonist of today’s fresh news, burning the face of this future Fourth Young Mistress into his memory so he could suck up to her in the future, before taking his leave along with the gate guards.
Once everyone had cleared out and the room grew quiet, the Marquis’s wife finally felt more at ease.
She gazed in silence at Shen Mingyu, who was still burying her head in her meal. It’s all because I spoiled Yan’er, she thought, wondering how much of that the child had heard. Not until Shen Mingyu finished eating did the Marquis’s wife wipe her face for her, and seeing that the night outside was already deep, she called for the maidservants to attend to her and her daughter’s washing and dressing.
The lamps in the room went out. The golden beast burner in the corner of the room drifted out a faint cloud-fog fragrance. Shen Mingyu lay on the spacious nanmu carved-flower babu bed, gazing through the shark-silk canopy at the faint moonlight outside the window.
Tonight, the Marquis’s wife was sleeping alongside her.
For as long as she could remember, this was the first time anyone had claimed to be her mother and wanted to sleep beside her. She had waited for this day for sixteen years, thinking it would pass her by for the rest of her life.
The young woman’s dark, bright eyes gazed at the top of the canopy, then at the Marquis’s wife beside her.
In the dead of night, silent and still, she and she were like two small boats in a vast ocean of people, drifting for sixteen years before finally meeting at this moment.
After a very, very long while, within the warm canopy, a soft murmur suddenly drifted from Jiang Lan: “Yu’er, how did you get through all these years?”
“Without a mother by your side, how did you get through it?”
She turned her head to look at the Marquis’s wife.
The moonlight reflected against Shen Mingyu’s youthful, bright face, her eyes dark. Yet within that pitch-black darkness, a faint ray of light seemed visible… In her memory, there was the lean, muscular shadow of a youth.
……
Pei Shumin had searched everywhere, yet couldn’t find a single trace.
Some advised him to stop looking, saying she couldn’t be found, but he refused to believe Shen Mingyu would leave without uttering a sound.
He only smiled draftily, responding to those people: “Yuniang probably went somewhere to play and hasn’t come back yet. I’ll wait a bit longer; maybe she stepped out of Pingyang, and tomorrow I’ll walk out of Pingyang to take a look too.”
He returned home, utterly exhausted.
This day had felt agonizingly long. He figured that perhaps after a sleep—just sleeping through it—everything would pass. After a good sleep, come daylight, Mingyu would find her own way back.
Pei Shumin washed up roughly and stripped off his outer robes.
With the midsummer heat sweltering, he wore only a thin under-tunic. Pei Shumin gazed at his reflection in the bronze mirror: after months away, the youth’s brows and eyes had grown increasingly sharp, weathered by rain and wind. Yet because of the long journey and taking on physical labor to earn travel money along the way, he had tanned somewhat, the calluses on his fingertips had thickened, and the veins on his arms bulged visibly.
The only thing unchanged was this old, patched cloth outfit of his.
Once the examination results came out, barring accidents, he would be able to take Mingyu away from this small mountain village. They wouldn’t have to live hard lives anymore; he wouldn’t let her live a hard life. He would strive to climb upward, walk the official path, seize everything, and build a better home for her and for their children.
The most urgent task right now, however, was still finding Mingyu first.
Pei Shumin sorted out his thoughts, already hatching a new idea for searching the next day.
Regaining his vigor, he prepared to return to his bed when he suddenly noticed an inconspicuous scrap of paper protruding from beneath the cosmetic dressing box.
Pei Shumin pulled it out hesitatingly. Sure enough, it was a letter.
The handwriting on the envelope was hers.
Her writing remained just as it was in his memory; although not very practiced, looking like thick black fuzzy caterpillars, it had already shown progress. Because of his year-round teaching, one could still spot the shadow of his brush strokes within it.
Doubtful and apprehensive, Pei Shumin unfolded it. The moment he finished reading, the slip of paper slid instantly from his fingertips.
He suddenly raised his head, looking around himself in helplessness and bewilderment. He gazed and gazed, his wandering gaze finding no fixed point. He stared at this crude, cramped thatched cottage; stared at the low wooden table where the two of them used to share meals—through all four seasons, three meals a day; stared at the bed where they had once shared passionate, tender love, though that rocking bed had ultimately stopped at the very end of time… Finally, his gaze drifted back to this empty room.
Empty, with not a single soul besides himself, returning precisely to how it had been at the very beginning.
She was a liar. A liar, a liar, a liar…
Your wife is just a liar…
In Pei Shumin’s ears, Thin Pole’s voice seemed to drift by once more: “She only came for your thirty taels of betrothal money in the first place. Only a fool like you would marry her; she was bound to run off with the money sooner or later…”
He abruptly lost all his strength, leaning against the dressing table. After a long, long moment, he let out a low, wretched laugh.