On the eighth day of the fourth lunar month, it was the day the Princess Shunyang’s residence hosted the peony banquet.
A carriage slowly came to a stop in front of the grand gate of the Princess residence.
The moment Ye Caiwei stepped out of the carriage, gasps of admiration rose one after another.
Her title as a county princess, her flowing floating-gauze silk dress, her crystal-purple jade jewelry, her delicate makeup…
The envious and admiring gazes made Ye Caiwei thoroughly pleased. Every gesture and movement of hers carried the air of someone who outshone all others.
Shen Wu was practically grinding her back teeth in jealousy.
Given her temperament, the only reason she hadn’t already used underhanded means to ensure Ye Caiwei couldn’t wear the luminous floating silk brocade or those exquisite ornaments, and thus reduce her to nothing more than a mere backdrop to Ye Caiwei’s brilliance, was because she had been explicitly cautioned against it.
Ye Caiwei was the legitimate daughter of Second Master. If she secured a good marriage, it would benefit him greatly.
This also confirmed that Second Madam was still in the dark about Ye Caiwei being Second Master’s illegitimate daughter.
Unwilling to remain merely a backdrop, Shen Wu separated from Shen Wan and Ye Caiwei once they entered the Princess residence. As soon as they reached the garden, she went off to greet familiar noble ladies.
Shen Wan also quickly left Ye Caiwei behind and found a quiet pavilion with few people, sitting down alone to drink tea.
Gradually, the young men from the front courtyard also came into the garden. Thinking that the heir of the Marquis of Zhaoping should have arrived by now, Shen Wan got up to look for him.
She searched for a long time but saw no sign of him. She didn’t want to ask the maids of the Princess residence either, so she could only keep looking.
In the end, she didn’t find the Marquis of Zhaoping’s heir, but instead saw the heir of the Prince of Jingbei, Xie Jingyu.
Beside him were two others: Prince Yu Zhang, Xiao Cheng, and the heir of Marquis Linjiang, Chu Yang.
If she had known she would run into this nuisance, she would have taken another path. But turning back now would mean a long detour, and Shen Wan didn’t want that either, so she could only continue forward.
Since they were bound to meet head-on, she had no choice but to greet them. “Greetings, Prince Yu Zhang, Young Master Yang.”
The two nodded with faint smiles.
Xie Jingyu’s gaze fell on Shen Wan’s face.
Shen Wan pretended not to see him and walked straight past.
Seeing Xie Jingyu frown, Chu Yang suppressed a laugh. “Do you two cousin really have such a bad relationship? You don’t even greet each other…”
His voice wasn’t low, and it drifted into Shen Wan’s ears. Her face burned with embarrassment.
It was a memory she could not bear to recall.
When Shen Wan was ten years old, she had been in good health. One day she went out shopping with her servants and learned that her married aunt had brought her cousin to the capital for a visit. Happily, she returned home, only to mistakenly recognize Xie Jingyu as her cousin and went up to greet him.
“Cousin…”
Xie Jingyu looked at her. “And you are?”
“I’m Wan’er, your cousin. I wonder if you’re the eldest or second cousin?”
“I am your third cousin.”
It was the first time Xie Jingyu had encountered a cousin who didn’t even recognize her own relatives, and he found it amusing, teasing her out of curiosity. Shen Wan, however, took it seriously and assumed her aunt must have brought along some illegitimate son or nephew she didn’t know about.
Later, when she saw Xie Jingyu again on the street, she waved from afar, calling out enthusiastically, “Third Cousin…”
At the time, many people around them were puzzled as to when the heir of the Prince of Jingbei residence and the second young lady of the Dingguo residence had become cousins.
Only then did she realize she had mistaken him for someone else. She was so embarrassed she wished she could dig a hole and bury herself.
From that day on, whenever she saw Xie Jingyu, she avoided him if she could. Yet even so, he still bullied her, eventually to the point where he scattered her ashes.
A gust of wind passed, cooling the heat in her face. She continued searching.
Shanhu asked, “Miss, who are you looking for?”
“The heir of the Marquis of Zhaoping,” Shen Wan said, scanning the surroundings.
“Shall this servant look for him instead while Miss waits here?”
“That works.”
Shen Wan stayed where she was while Shanhu went off to find him.
But the Princess garden was too large. After a long while, Shanhu still hadn’t returned, and Shen Wan was already tired from standing.
She decided to find a place to sit and rest. As she walked toward a pavilion, she saw Ye Caiwei’s cousin, Xu Zhiyi, heading toward the northeast corner of the garden alone, without any maid attendants, acting somewhat secretive as if afraid of being noticed.
Without hesitation, Shen Wan followed.
She trailed Xu Zhiyi at a distance, afraid of being discovered, and hid behind a rockery. There, she saw a man waiting.
She wanted to confirm whether it was the heir of the Yongqing Marquis, so she leaned out to look, but just as she stepped forward, a hand suddenly covered her mouth and pulled her back.
Shen Wan had never done anything like tailing someone before. Already nervous, she was terrified out of her wits.
When she saw who was covering her mouth, her fear intensified even more.
It was Xie Jingyu!
Seeing him so close again, memories of being dragged into the rockery and humiliated in her previous life surged back instantly. Her face turned deathly pale as she struggled desperately.
“Don’t move…” Xie Jingyu whispered.
How could she not move?
In her past life, she had been dragged into that rockery by him twice.
Once, he had returned to the capital from the border. During a banquet, Xiao Wen toasted him, saying they had missed his wedding wine and should make it up to him. She had smiled at him then, but afterward, he dragged her, already pregnant, into the rockery, gripping her throat in fury.
“Who allowed you to smile at me? Do you think I can still smile?!”
That was the first time she understood what suffocation felt like. She nearly died in that rockery. After that, she never dared smile at him again, not even to look at him.
The second time was during her child’s first birthday. The emperor held a grand banquet in the palace. Xie Jingyu drank heavily, knocked out her maid, and dragged her into the rockery, questioning her furiously.
“You promised to wait until I finished mourning, until I returned from the border before I proposed, why did you go back on your word? Are you that eager to marry someone else? Do you like him that much?!”
That day, he mistook her for someone who had abandoned him. He was stronger, and she couldn’t break free. Afraid to call for help, he even kissed her forcibly and nearly assaulted her in the rockery.
She bit his lip and slapped him, and only then did he regain clarity and leave.
That was their final encounter in her past life, after that came the scattering of her ashes.
Now, once again pressed against the rockery, Shen Wan trembled uncontrollably with fear, forcing herself to endure it, because faint, breathy voices drifted over.
“Cousin…don’t do anything reckless…”