Bright lanterns cast a brilliant glow, and candle wicks flickered with a rosy light.
Outside the window, a light drizzle drifted amidst wisps of wind. Inside the quiet chamber, Shen Lizhuang kept her pale and absent-minded face lowered, her gaze fixed stubbornly on the delicacies before her, yet she did not move for a long time.
She had gotten too carried away today, forgetting that she was Aiai, not Jiaojiao.
How could she have blurted that out to Consort Dowager Yun just like that? If Consort Dowager Yun took it to heart and inquired into the Shen family for the origin of the name, wouldn’t her false identity be exposed very soon?
She did not want to see disappointment flash in the Consort Dowager’s pure and gentle eyes, and she was even more terrified of the endless, unbearable consequences that the shattering of this false performance would bring.
“I—”
“What a lovely style name.”
Shen Lizhuang, who was about to speak, was cut off by Consort Dowager Yun’s gentle and harmonious smile. She raised her eyes to see the gentle and beautiful woman opposite her smiling brightly as she said,
“May I address you as Jiaojiao from now on?”
Turbulent breath swelled within Shen Lizhuang’s lungs, and her head spun violently. She hurriedly said, “Consort Dowager, I… few people know my style name, and I have a thin skin. I’m afraid… I’m afraid I cannot bear to have you address me this way in front of others.”
She quickly claimed to be easily embarrassed and begged the Consort Dowager to spare her.
Consort Dowager Yun did not make things difficult for her, saying warmly, “Very well, I won’t call you that in front of others. Don’t be nervous. Is the food not to your liking? I can have them remake it.”
Shen Lizhuang replied, “No. It’s just that my appetite is poor.”
“You still need to eat some,” Consort Dowager Yun said, looking at her with undisguised tenderness. “Putting on a bit of flesh is good; it makes you less prone to illness.”
Shen Lizhuang lowered her gaze and nodded softly, tasting a little bit of each rare delicacy on the jade plate.
By now it was evening, and a soft, pouring rain fell across the land, causing darkness to descend earlier than usual. Once the evening meal was finished, night had already fallen. Shen Lizhuang rose, intending to take her leave.
Consort Dowager Yun’s physical condition could no longer hold out. Suppressing a cough with difficulty, she smiled softly as Madam Zhou supported her to her feet, and said to her, “Whenever you feel like it, you are welcome to come to Wangjiang Courtyard to read books, or you can send someone to move whatever you like to read straight to Chunfeng Residence. Heqing also has a study; if he refuses to let you read his books, come and tell me.”
Hearing the Consort Dowager’s tone, which sounded as though she intended to stand up for her, Shen Lizhuang felt even more undeserving and dared not accept. It would be one thing if the name written on the marriage certificate was actually “Shen Lizhuang,” but she was not. She was not the legitimate Princess of the Prince of Jing’s Manor, but merely an impostor taking another’s place. How could she have the peace of mind to treat such a wonderful Consort Dowager as an elder?
Yet she could not bear to go against Consort Dowager Yun’s kind intentions, nor could she bear to see her disappointed. Shen Lizhuang uttered a few ambiguous words of agreement, and carrying a heart full of guilt and holding an umbrella, she departed from Wangjiang Courtyard.
When leaving, her two accompanying maidservants, Yingluo and Zhuji, came to meet her. Under the pretext of avoiding the rain, Shen Lizhuang put on her veil, which she never parted with during the day.
Not long after she left, Consort Dowager Yun rested in her bedchamber for a brief moment, lowering her eyelids with a desolate expression.
Shortly after escorting the Princess away, Madam Zhou came over to relay a message: the Prince of Jing had returned.
Every time His Highness returned from his official duties, his very first action was to pay his respects to his mother in Wangjiang Courtyard, rain or shine. Consort Dowager Yun had repeatedly persuaded him that he didn’t need to come every single day, as his physical health also required recuperation and his eyes needed careful treatment, but the Prince of Jing never listened for a single day.
The sound of his blind cane striking the gloomy, rainy wind paused as it was handed over to the senior attendant, Long Zhou. Then, the Prince of Jing walked in with heavy footsteps to pay his respects to Consort Dowager Yun.
“Heqing.”
Consort Dowager Yun forced herself to gather her energy so her son wouldn’t detect a shred of languor. Once she spoke, she said to Madam Zhou with brightened eyes, “I have a few words to speak alone with the Prince. You all keep watch outside and close the door.”
Madam Zhou complied, taking the others and stepping outside.
Ji Mu sought out a soft chair beside his mother’s side, sitting down with somewhat heavy breathing.
Consort Dowager Yun turned her gaze sideways and saw the tight, rigid exhaustion on his face, along with a hint of ferocity hidden within his contracted eye sockets. Her heart leaped in alarm. “Has she been found?”
Ji Mu let out a cold, deep chuckle. “My Princess has actually managed to escape from Yujing right under this Prince’s nose, eloping with a zither player.”
Consort Dowager Yun was startled and shocked. Although her son had communicated with her the day before, telling her that the Princess currently residing in Chunfeng Residence was not the original one—and she had mentally prepared herself and built up acceptance—upon hearing the news of Shen Meizhuang eloping with a zither player, she still found it hard to suppress her astonishment.
Ji Mu’s index finger pressed hard against the plain silver, moon-bright ring on his thumb, exerting enough force to turn his knuckles a stark, ghastly white. He tilted his head back, leaning against the backrest of the chair, forcing his restless breathing down inch by inch into his tightening chest so as not to display an uncontrolled state of frantic fury at that moment!
He had lost all face! It was a supreme humiliation!
Though he had never laid eyes upon Madam Shen, nor had his heart ever stirred because of her, for a Madam Shen who had married into the Prince’s Manor to elope with someone merely days later—where did that leave him, Ji Mu?!
This Madam Shen had trampled his dignity into the dust and ground it down; this was a deliberate attempt to invite public mockery upon him. And the Shen family was truly fascinating—even at this moment, they were still playing double-dealing games with him, acting as if they were fooling a fool, tricking and plotting against him with seamless perfection.
Watching the finger bones of her son—which were pressed against the edge of the desk, trembling with anger—Consort Dowager Yun reached out and pressed down on the back of Ji Mu’s hand. “Calm overcomes cold, stillness overcomes heat, and tranquility is the foundation of the world. What Mother taught you: do not let joy or anger show on your face, be neither rash nor arrogant.”
“Mother,” the Prince of Jing said hoarsely. In his vision, everything was pitch black, and turning his head to face her meant he could not see a thing anyway. It seemed that only here, by his mother’s side, where he knew his origins, could he find a sliver of a place to vent his grievances. “Ever since I lost my sight, those who have bullied me and humiliated me are like roaring rivers and crashing waves, pressing in and applying pressure layer upon layer. Now, even a mere Madam Shen dares to disregard this Prince. Faced with such supreme humiliation, must Mother still expect me to endure it?”
Consort Dowager Yun merely asked him, “Then what about Jiaojiao?”
The Prince of Jing’s breath tightened abruptly. “Jiaojiao?”
Consort Dowager Yun nodded, explaining, “Your current Princess.”
She pacified him in a slow voice: “Think about it: if you resolve to settle accounts thoroughly—yes, not a single member of the Shen family would escape, and all of them could be charged with the capital offense of offending the sacred will, or exiled to the military borders. But your Princess at this moment was also deceived by the Shen family’s arrangement to be sent to you. How is she to escape this chain of joint crime and disaster? Heqing, speaking frankly and fairly, do you not like her?”
Ji Mu remained silent.
His rigid expression offered a cold, mocking smirk at that, but from beginning to end, he did not refute it.
Consort Dowager Yun revealed a silent smile, her curved fingers covering her pale, icy lips.
Ji Mu once again pressed against the ring between his finger joints, a grim, cold, and forbidding aura suddenly turning even more sinister. “Therefore, Madam Shen does not need to return.”
Consort Dowager Yun was startled. “What?”
She understood the meaning behind Ji Mu’s words. If Shen Meizhuang did not return, everything could absurdly continue along this mistaken path.
Yet, although the Shen family had deceived the Prince of Jing’s Manor, Consort Dowager Yun was even more afraid that Ji Mu would stray down the wrong path. “You must not harbor murderous intent.”
Ji Mu curled his lips and pressed against his ring. “Mother, rest assured, this Prince has a sense of proportion.”
Consort Dowager Yun’s physical and mental state were both rapidly deteriorating, declining like a river flowing westward. At present, she truly had no way to restrain the Prince of Jing; even the slightest emotional agitation or speaking a few sentences would bring on symptoms of rapid, unstoppable panting.
While Heqing had been arrogant and haughty in his youth, he had not necessarily been extreme. However, ever since he lost his sight, his disposition had inevitably skewed somewhat to the extreme. Coupled with the fact that she herself was plagued by persistent illness and the Emperor—who had cherished him—had passed away, a raging fire of malice had built up within his heart. This fire could neither be released nor swallowed down, and Consort Dowager Yun worried that he would court disaster by playing with fire and ultimately harm himself.
“You… you…”
Ji Mu supported his mother’s convulsing body as she struggled unsteadily for breath, called Madam Zhou forward to tend to her, and pacified her, saying, “Your son has his own sense of proportion, Mother need not worry. You like Jiaojiao; your son will have her come keep you company more often in the future.”
Consort Dowager Yun was hardly trying to have Shen Lizhuang keep her company just for that. This thick-headed block of wood still hadn’t figured out how to win the favor of his own wife—he was a piece of stubborn iron, sharing the exact same stubborn lineage as his late father.
Ji Mu tended to his mother until she took her medicine and fell asleep after settling down, before finally departing from Wangjiang Courtyard.
By the time he left, the rain had grown heavier, and the driving downpour drummed against the lush greens and slender reds within the manor. Ji Mu put on a rain cape, held his blind cane, and accompanied by Li Mao holding an umbrella, walked back to Chunfeng Residence.
The lights were already extinguished.
Shen Lizhuang originally thought no one else would come tonight. After all, the Prince of Jing had been absent all day, and at this late hour, she figured the Tribute Hall malpractice case must be thorny, requiring him some time to gather evidence of the villains’ crimes.
Thinking that the Prince of Jing still possessed such an impartial and righteous side after all, Shen Lizhuang could not help but harbor a trace of yearning in her heart. Most of the examiners in the Tribute Hall were drawn from various ministries, but none of them held crucial vacancies in the court, so dealing with them shouldn’t take too long.
Just as she was thinking this, she suddenly heard the sound of a driving rain beating against the window—louder now, as if the wind had blown the door open.
Shen Lizhuang, who was rolled up in her quilt on the couch, waited for a moment. Seeing that no one came to close the door, she prepared to get up and close it herself. Before her fingers could even hook the bed curtain, it was abruptly thrown open.
A scorching, large hand grasped her wrist, which was suspended mid-air, and a body carrying the chill and moisture of the night rained down upon her. Startled, Shen Lizhuang was pushed back onto the soft couch. Believing a rake had paid a visit, she bent her knees, intending to kick him right in the lower body.
Yet, a man’s reflexes were simply too fast; the moment her delicate legs curled and lifted upward, her knee bones were heavily pinned down.
“Don’t move.”
The man she had attempted to injure finally spoke, though his voice seemed to suppress a massive, dark fire, his breath burning as if ablaze.
In an instant, Shen Lizhuang panicked terribly. Weak and drained of strength, she let out a soft cry of “Your Highness?”, only to be pressed back down onto the couch. Her clothes were torn apart in a flurry; his body, carrying flames like a scorching, red-hot piece of iron, enclosed her within the self-made prison of his iron arms, pressing down heavily with all his might.
Unable to bear it, Shen Lizhuang tilted her chin upward. Her fingers, which had already sunk into the muscles of his back, finally dropped limply amidst the crimson brocade quilt embroidered with playful golden carp, tightening slightly and trembling.
Ji Mu embraced the person in his arms, lowering his lips to kiss and plunder wantonly, driving her into a weak, trembling state where she had no spare breath to draw, whimpering and pleading to him mournfully.
The Shen family was truly something—they chased away Shen Meizhuang and sent this counterfeit instead. Using this beauty trap of replacing one person with another to deceive and humiliate him to this extent. Since he had fallen into the trap and sunk so deeply into her gentle embrace, there was nothing more to say.
Since she was here to seduce him and replace Madam Shen as the Princess, well then, she could come and properly compensate him!
Compensate him for the anger of being plotted against, compensate him for the vexation and regret after falling for the scheme, and compensate him for the addiction he had developed.
He wished he could completely possess the body and soul of the woman in his arms, kneading her into his very bones and blood—only then would it count as repaying the deception and indebtedness the Shen family had inflicted upon him.
Author’s Note:
Later on, when Dog Ji finds out that his wife doesn’t love him and wasn’t willing to come be his Princess of her own accord, he is going to suffer an absolute psychological collapse!