It was already evening when they returned home.
The moment Shen Chenbi stepped through the door, she hugged the asparagus fern and ran back to her own courtyard. She carefully set it on the windowsill, pairing it with the crooked swallow kite. Then she stepped back three paces, tilted her head, and studied them for a long while before nodding in satisfaction.
Qingzao came in carrying a bowl of tremella soup. When she saw the new potted plant on the windowsill, she praised it. “This asparagus fern is growing so well.”
“Isn’t it?” Shen Chenbi happily took the soup and sat down to drink it slowly. As she drank, she told Qingzao the storyteller’s tale she had heard at the teahouse that day. “The storyteller told a story about a female hero. She was excellent with a sword and beat an entire nest of mountain bandits flat. She was so impressive.”
“And then what happened?”
“After that, the female hero was called home by her mother to meet a potential husband.” Shen Chenbi sighed. “The storyteller stopped there and said he would continue tomorrow. I really want to know who she was going to meet.”
Qingzao smiled. “Does Young Miss enjoy listening to this sort of thing? Once they tell the rest tomorrow, this servant will tell you about it when we get back.”
Shen Chenbi shook her head. “Older Sister might not take me out tomorrow.”
After saying this, she suddenly stopped. Lowering her head, she reached into her purse and took out the peace talisman, turning it over and over in her hands.
She had kept the talisman paper against her body for so many days that its edges had become slightly wrinkled, but the writing on it was still clear. She brought it close to the candle flame and made out the characters one by one, as though looking at them a little longer would let her recognize them all.
“Qingzao,” she suddenly said, “do you recognize these characters?”
Qingzao leaned over to take a look, then shook her head. “This servant cannot read. But since it is a peace talisman prayed for at White Cloud Temple, it must be an incantation, I imagine.”
Shen Chenbi hummed in acknowledgment, refolded the talisman paper, and tucked it back into her purse.
She had no idea what was written on it.
But she knew Older Sister would never harm her.
She patted the purse, pressed it beneath her pillow, blew out the candle, pulled up the covers, and closed her eyes.
Moonlight shone in through the window, falling on the asparagus fern on the windowsill and on the swallow kite’s two crooked wings.
She turned over, her mind filled with a jumble of thoughts: Would Older Sister take her out tomorrow? Who was the female hero in the storyteller’s tale going to meet? Was the curtain hanging in the private room beside theirs at the teahouse blue or blue-green?
And there was also—
The pinewood scent she had smelled outside Jifang Cosmetics Shop seemed to have drifted past her again today in the teahouse stairwell.
Only for a moment. It soon dispersed.
She had probably been mistaken.
She yawned, pulled the covers a little higher, and before long fell into a deep sleep.
There were no scumbags and no schemes in her dreams. There was only a swallow kite flying among the pomegranate blossoms, flying crookedly but never falling down.
At the same time, the lamp was still lit in Shen Wenyu’s study.
She sat before the desk, a sheet of paper spread out in front of her and covered densely with writing. There were names, official posts, and all the key points she remembered from her previous life. Xiao Yu’s name had been circled three times, with a note beside it: Grand Tutor to the Crown Prince, Vice Minister of Rites, rarely leaves his residence, has yet to appear.
A line had been drawn through Liu Qi’s name.
Beside Pei Zhuo’s name, she had originally written “Can be used” and “Be wary.” Now she had circled the words “Be wary” once more.
Her gaze rested on Pei Zhuo’s name, and she remained silent for a long time.
At the teahouse today, before Liu Qi barged in, she had caught sight of someone in the corridor.
That person had come out of the private room next door and brushed past Liu Qi on his way downstairs. Liu Qi had not noticed him, but she had.
He was tall and slender, dressed in a moon-white straight robe.
Although she had not seen his face, she recognized that back.
In her previous life, she had seen that man many times at palace banquets. He had sat upright in the seat of the Minister of the Dali Temple, his back straight, his expression cold and austere, utterly out of place amid the liveliness filling the hall.
The Minister of the Dali Temple, Pei Zhuo.
He had been at this teahouse today as well.
Shen Wenyu did not believe it was a coincidence.
She stared at the name circled three times on the paper, and an extremely unpleasant thought suddenly surfaced in her mind.
She had chosen Pei Zhuo because in her previous life he had been indifferent to women, impartial and incorruptible—the man in the entire capital least likely to develop feelings for her younger sister.
But what if—
What if, by some chance—
Suppose—
This iron-faced Yama had developed feelings for her younger sister?
Shen Wenyu closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and slowly let it out.
No. She could not frighten herself with her own conjectures.
What kind of beauty had a man like Pei Zhuo not seen? Her younger sister was pretty, but with Pei Zhuo’s self-control, it was impossible.
Absolutely impossible.
She opened her eyes, picked up her brush, and added another line of small characters beside Pei Zhuo’s name.
“Continue observing.”
Then she set down the brush, extinguished the candle, and pushed open the door into the night.
The courtyard was very quiet. Moonlight flowed like water, and the shadow of the pomegranate tree lay motionless on the ground.
The window of her younger sister’s room had already gone dark. It was quiet and still, as though she had fallen asleep.
Shen Wenyu stood beneath the pomegranate tree and looked up at the full moon. After a long while, she said softly,
“In this lifetime, no one gets to.”
Her voice was very light, yet heavier than stone.