The sound of hoofbeats echoed beside her ears. Clop, clop, clop. It came from nowhere, pounding against her temples until her head felt ready to split apart.
Xie Shuning frowned tightly. Instinctively, she raised a hand to rub her forehead, but someone seized her wrist. Startled, she abruptly opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was a small face.
A pair of phoenix-shaped eyes, black and white sharply defined, were set within it. Their slightly upturned corners carried a trace of boldness, yet the pupils themselves were as dark as ink and as clear as crystal. The child stared at her without blinking.
This face… Xie Shuning froze. “Zhen’er!”
The name slipped from her lips, but instead of her usual voice, a soft, sweet murmur emerged.
“Mother, little sister is awake!”
Suddenly the little face moved closer, pressing its forehead against hers. Then the child shouted.
Hearing him, Xie Shuning let the hand she had been about to raise fall back down. Her eyes remained fixed on the child pressed against her as she stared and stared, forgetting even to push him away.
Not Zhen’er. The child before her was not her Zhen’er!
As she sat there stunned, a fair, slender hand suddenly reached over and gently pulled the child away from her.
Then a woman’s voice spoke softly, “A-Man is still ill. Don’t disturb her.”
A-Man? Xie Shuning shuddered from head to toe.
A-Man was her childhood nickname. It had been personally chosen by her maternal uncle, Song Yanzhao.
After her birth, her father named her Shuning, hoping she would grow into a gentle, peaceable woman. Her uncle, however, disliked the name. Unable to persuade her father otherwise, he had simply snatched away her mother’s opportunity to choose her pet name.
Looking back, although she had failed to become the quiet, docile daughter her parents had wanted, she had also disappointed her uncle’s hope that she would grow up lively and charming.
What was even more regrettable was that after her mother’s death, she had been taken into the care of her grandaunt in the main branch of the family. From that day onward, she had never again heard anyone call her “A-Man.”
“Mother, are we really going to live in the capital from now on?” The exquisitely adorable child pouted, two faint lines appearing between his brows.
“I like Yanling Prefecture. I don’t like the capital. A-Man doesn’t like it either! Otherwise she wouldn’t have gotten sick this time.”
“Such nonsense,” the young woman chided affectionately. “A-Man became ill because you secretly crawled into her bed in the middle of the night. Half of her body ended up outside the blanket, and that’s how she caught a cold. What does that have to do with the capital?”
The capital!
Still listening hazily, Xie Shuning suddenly widened her eyes. Cold sweat drenched her back, and her palms became slick with perspiration. She remembered now. The people before her were none other than her mother, Madam Song, and her twin brother, both of whom had long since died!
Struggling to sit upright, Xie Shuning stared fixedly at the child’s face, her heart twisting in agony. Her son, Zhen’er, had resembled neither her nor Lin Yuanzhi. Instead, he had looked seven or eight parts like her elder twin brother, Xie Yi, who had died young.
Her brother… Before he could even grow up, he had already gone to the Yellow Springs, just like her Zhen’er.
Neither of them had lived long enough for her to watch their features mature, or to see the faces they would have worn as adults. They had simply vanished from her life forever. Tears burst uncontrollably from her eyes.
Xie Shuning cried until she could scarcely breathe.
“A-Man, what is it? Everything was fine a moment ago. Why are you crying?” The young woman, dressed in a crimson jacket embroidered with vase motifs, hurriedly bent down, gathered her into her arms, and asked gently.
Through her tear-blurred eyes, Xie Shuning gazed at the young woman before her, whose skin was whiter than snow and whose beauty outshone the flowers. Fragments of her childhood came flooding back.
After her mother’s death, she had resented her countless times. Had her mother not been so weak, how could Madam Chen have stolen her rightful place as principal wife? How could she and her brother have been registered under Madam Chen’s name and forced to call their enemy
“Mother”? How could her brother have died? Things were never supposed to turn out that way!
“A-Man? A-Man?”
Clutching Madam Song’s collar, Xie Shuning burst into loud sobs, refusing to respond to her repeated calls. She wanted to cry. She wanted to cry with all her might. When she had been alive, she had neither dared nor been allowed to cry. Must she still be denied that relief now that she was dead?
“Madam, we’ve entered the city gates.” Suddenly, a vaguely familiar voice sounded from outside the carriage.
Xie Shuning’s sobs gradually subsided. After a moment, she remembered that the voice belonged to Nanny Gui, her mother’s trusted servant, Lunong’s mother, and also her own wet nurse.
When she married into the Lin family, Nanny Gui was the only attendant who accompanied her. Unfortunately, the old woman had always been frail and had passed away just a few years later. Thinking of this, Xie Shuning’s heart ached even more. She knew she was dead. That was the only reason she could see all these people who had long since left the world.
But where was her Zhen’er? And why did her own body feel so strange?
Confused, she heard Madam Song sigh gently. “A-Man must be missing her father. We’ve already entered the city. We’ll see him very soon. But if you keep crying like this, I’m afraid your father won’t be pleased.”
Xie Shuning stared at her in shock. After her outburst, the fog clouding her mind had finally begun to clear.
The carriage, the capital, her brother, who appeared only four or five years old, her young mother… Her eyes widened as realization struck.
Grabbing Madam Song’s hand tightly, she cried out desperately, “Mother! We can’t go to the Xie family! We have to go back! Back to Yanling!”
Madam Song was utterly stunned. It took her a long moment before she bent down and kissed her panic-stricken little face soothingly.
“What is the matter with you today, A-Man?” she said with a smile. “Yanling is lovely, but it can’t compare to the prosperity of the capital. Once your father takes you around the city in a few days, you’ll forget all about Yanling.”
“Mother, we can’t go back! Madam Chen will make you waste away in sorrow. She’ll cause Brother’s dea—”
“A-Man!” A sharp reprimand cut off her urgent words.
Madam Song’s expression darkened. “Where did you hear such things?” she asked unhappily. “Chen Shi… is only your father’s cousin.”
Frustrated by her mother’s blindness, Xie Shuning clenched her fists and struggled to break free from her embrace, wanting the carriage to turn around immediately and return to Yanling. But Madam Song held her tiny body firmly in her arms.
“A-Man, once we arrive at the Xie residence, you must never say such things again.” Looking at her daughter worriedly, Madam Song spoke with gentle concern. At the same time, she wondered who could have whispered such nonsense to a child barely four years old.
As for Xie Shuning, every word she wanted to say seemed lodged painfully in her throat. We can’t go back! How could they possibly return to the Xie family? That place was never their home!
Once they went there, her father would become someone else’s father. Her mother would be reduced to a concubine. She and her brother would become pitiful children with neither a true mother nor a father. Then her mother would die of grief. Her young brother would perish at the hands of villains.
After Madam Chen’s daughter, Shumin, was born, her father’s official career flourished, and he no longer spared her a glance.
As for Grandmother, there was no need to mention her. In Grandmother’s eyes, she was perhaps less important than the maids who served at her side.
A maid could at least wag her tail like a dog and earn a morsel of affection. What about her? No matter how hard she tried to please them, it was useless.
“We can’t go back!” Xie Shuning’s heart felt lodged in her throat. Terrified that those nightmares carved into her very bones would repeat themselves, she struggled in Madam Song’s embrace and shouted with all her might until even her soft, childish voice broke from desperation.