Shen Lizhuang had the compensation money distributed to each household. In Ci’en Temple, which had grown quiet and desolate after the Buddha Bathing Festival, she was assigned a side room in the outer courtyard.
Because it was already dusk when she moved in, and the monks in the temple were all men, Shen Lizhuang did not disturb the monastic practices of the community. Early the next morning, she strolled over to the mountain gate and inquired of the little novice monk who had entertained her the day before about the various Guanyins from the Buddha Bathing Festival.
Little Master Huitong twirled a string of prayer beads given to his master in his hands, pressing his palms together in a greeting. “Princess Consort, those Guanyins were all selected by our temple’s senior masters through drawing lots among the pilgrims. After the ceremony, they each dispersed. Since someone bled outside the temple gates that day, it was considered inauspicious, and over these past two days, the pilgrims in the temple have sharply decreased, so they have all gone off to the Dharma Gate Temple.”
Shen Lizhuang pursued the matter: “Do you have a roster of their names?”
Little Master Huitong shook his head with innocent purity. However, his memory was quite good, and in the span of a breath, he recalled something else: “Ah, but it seems that a few days ago, a female benefactor whose appearance is very similar to yours came to the temple. She is a guest who has traveled from afar and is temporarily staying in the western side rooms outside the temple.”
Shen Lizhuang hurriedly expressed her thanks. “Thank you so much, little master. That is a friend of mine. I hope the little master will keep this secret for me.”
Little Master Huitong did not understand: “Can it not be spoken of to King Ji Mu either?”
Though he had already stepped outside the secular world, he still understood some worldly affairs. The Princess Consort and King Ji Mu were husband and wife; between husband and wife, there ought to be no secrets.
Shen Lizhuang solemnly pleaded: “Yes, not even to the Prince. I must ask the little master to conceal it for me.”
“Those who have left home do not tell lies, benefactor. I will agree to your request; I shall never speak of it,” Little Master Huitong said with a solemn air.
Shen Lizhuang also returned a Buddhist greeting to the little novice. Learning of her elder sister’s whereabouts, she could not endure even half a moment longer; she had to figure out why, disregarding the Emperor’s bestowal of marriage and the impending wrath of the Prince of Jing’s Manor, her sister had dared to run away without the slightest warning!
The entire Shen family had been abandoned by Shen Meizhuang, dragged into troubled waters, and pushed to the brink of utter destruction. How could she remain so untroubled and at peace?
Since she had left, why, after a mere two months, would she take the initiative to return? It wasn’t because she was dragged back by the Shen family, nor because her actions were discovered and she was seized by the Prince of Jing’s Manor, but rather because she had returned of her own accord, concealing it from both the Shen household and the Prince’s Manor.
Too many doubts weighed upon her heart, and these suspicions burned slowly like a low fire that refused to bring water to a boil, constantly tormenting her chest until her lungs felt painfully distended.
She was all the more eager to question her elder sister: since she had returned now without wishing to alert others, why had she deliberately drawn her gaze from afar in the main hall and lured her forward? What purpose was she harboring?
To harm her? Or to compensate her? To beg for her forgiveness?
When she left the Prince’s Manor, she had only brought Zhuji along. Zhuji was carefree and still fast asleep at this hour, so Shen Lizhuang hadn’t startled anyone, terrified of alerting the enemy. Instead, she had simply followed little master Huitong’s words and made her way alone to the western side rooms of Ci’en Temple.
Removing the veil hat from her head, Shen Lizhuang knocked on the door of the only female guest in the western rooms.
After months apart, neither of them expected to reunite under such circumstances.
Shen Meizhuang had grown much thinner; both her cheeks had sunken in slightly, and she looked haggard with the dust of travel, yet it could not entirely diminish the elegance she possessed before leaving the capital.
“You’ve come,” Shen Meizhuang invited her younger sister into the room, closed the door of the side room, and turned to walk to the longan-wood table, bending down to pour her a cup of tea. “I knew you would come, and that you wouldn’t alert anyone else.”
Shen Lizhuang sat down without moving, her gaze falling upon the tea in her elder sister’s hands, which rippled with emerald waves. “A fall into a pit, a gain in your wit. Elder sister, speak plainly; there is no need to beat around the bush.”
“Alright.” Shen Meizhuang’s expression was somewhat absent-minded, and her voice was as faint as a mosquito’s hum.
She hesitated as though trying to persuade herself to complete a task so agonizing she couldn’t even bring herself to contemplate it. After hesitating for a few moments, she suddenly took a deep breath, stood up, and knelt before Shen Lizhuang.
“Lizhuang, I’ve wronged you! Punish me as you see fit; if it lets you vent this anger, you can curse or blame me however you like!”
Shen Lizhuang rose in surprise.
She frowned as she looked at her elder sister, who had suddenly dropped to her knees before her. “Using the status of an elder to kneel before a younger—is elder sister trying to break my spirit?”
Shen Meizhuang’s somewhat sunken cheeks revealed an expression of bewilderment, regret, and sorrow pushed to the absolute extreme, and the bright, limpid water-eyes that used to be so brilliant now leaked streams of tears.
She attempted to shuffle forward on her knees, but Shen Lizhuang stepped aside to avoid her. Helpless, Shen Meizhuang bitterly swallowed her sobs and said, “I’ve wronged you.”
Shen Lizhuang frowned. She had come to cross-examine Shen Meizhuang, but upon hearing her apology, she could not feel a shred of joy. “You’ve also wronged your parents, and you’ve wronged the Prince of Jing, who was deceived by you. How could you be so foolish?”
Shen Meizhuang did not deny any of it. “Yes, my heart was blinded by greed to actually commit such a scandalous act that disgraced our family lineage. If I went back, Father would surely beat me to death! Lizhuang, I truly have nowhere to go and no face left to meet anyone!”
Shen Lizhuang said, “Fortunately, you still had a shred of brains and didn’t make a grand return to the Shen household. Do you know that I am currently playing your role? If we are exposed, our entire Shen family will likely not escape death!”
“I know!” Shen Meizhuang clutched her chest and nodded repeatedly, her pale cheeks bobbing up and down. “I truly know everything. Don’t worry, I will never be so foolish as to do something stupid that implicates you and drags down our family.”
Shen Lizhuang sat back down. In truth, she had already lost patience with Shen Meizhuang’s performance of sisterly affection; she only wished to understand the ins and outs of the matter, sort out future arrangements, and extricate herself as early as possible from this tangled mess of a substituted marriage.
Leaning back into the chair, Shen Lizhuang lowered her eyes to look at the golden sunlight filtering sideways through the window lattice and her elder sister, who was weeping tears quietly. There was no pity in her heart, only deep annoyance. “You returned alone? Where is that zither player?”
Shen Meizhuang’s expression stiffened for a moment as she recounted the experience of her elopement with Liu Xu and their subsequent hardships all the way to Zhizhou.
When they first fled, they had made meticulous plans, and initially the journey had been calm and peaceful, making their departure from Yujing very smooth. However, not long after arriving in Zhizhou, the situation suddenly took a sharp turn for the worse.
Their money had been stolen overnight by a black-hearted inn while they were lodging there.
Daring not to report it to the authorities for fear of drawing attention, they had no choice but to temporarily live in the countryside to save on expenses. Shen Meizhuang pawned the jewelry she carried on her person, which allowed them to be taken in by a farming family.
Every day depended on Liu Xu going out to fish in order to beg for a living.
Aside from embroidery, she didn’t know a single trade that could sustain a livelihood. Living off their savings, their days grew increasingly constrained.
Moreover, falling instantly from the Shen household and the Prince’s Manor into a state of dependence under someone else’s roof—a plight where even a full meal was difficult to come by—caused Shen Meizhuang’s discomfort to crawl over her like lice covering a body.
Yet during that initial period, sustained by her love for Liu Xu, she could still manage to “drink water with affection and find it sweet.”
“Disasters never come singly; not long after we reached Zhizhou, Liu Xu’s legs were broken…”
At this, Shen Lizhuang finally opened her eyes wide. “What happened?”
“When Liu Xu was in Yujing, he was a moderately famous zither player. After arriving in Zhizhou, seeing that life was growing harder by the day, he tried every possible means to go perform private concerts at the households of wealthy people in Zhizhou. As a result, he offended a locally renowned wealthy family, whose members claimed he had seduced an unmarried young lady of their household. In righteous indignation, they broke one of his legs.”
Hearing this, Shen Lizhuang’s trace of sympathy for Liu Xu was instantly extinguished; she wrinkled her nose, revealing a look of utter disgust.
Incorrigible! How could Shen Meizhuang have fallen in love with such a man?
Shen Meizhuang said remorsefully, “He kept assuring me that he hadn’t seduced that family’s daughter. Seeing that his leg was broken, I had him hauled back to the countryside on an ox cart…”
From childhood to adulthood, when had she ever suffered such grievances? Her silk skirt and fingernails were caked with mire, her fingertips were repeatedly pricked raw from doing embroidery, and her coarse cloth garments were constantly tearing and being mended, only to tear again—yet they could never block out the biting cold of March in Zhizhou. Every single night, she froze to the point where her bones felt like fused black ice, radiating cold air from deep within her bone marrow.
And what about him? With shattered bones, he lay dejectedly on a sickbed, staring helplessly up at the sky with nowhere to turn. He could no longer perform at private concerts, for no one would look twice at a crippled man with impaired mobility, nor could he wade into the water to fish. The entire person resembled a withered leaf swept away by a fierce autumn gale.
The once golden and jade-like countenance also looked uglier and more emaciated day by day. Under the grinding wear and tear of daily life, Shen Meizhuang’s love was finally worn away until not a shred remained.
She wished desperately that she had never known him, had never believed his sweet-talking seduction, and had never eloped with such a useless person. Compared to the blind, disabled Prince she had abandoned, he was now as far apart as the clouds and the mud.
Hearing her remorse, as well as the underlying purpose for her return to Yujing, Shen Lizhuang felt only a faint, cool mockery in her heart.
Shen Meizhuang was still kneeling on the ground, recounting with vacant eyes those final days of caring for Liu Xu in Zhizhou.
“I simply couldn’t accept that the rest of my life would be spent relying on a crippled man with no money and no power. The mere thought of such a foreseeable, dead-end life terrified me so much that I couldn’t sleep all night, and even lost clumps of hair.”
If this continued, she feared that before long, the first person to age prematurely would be none other than herself, who had always loved beauty and vanity the most.
At that moment, she began to regret it madly. In the dead of night, she couldn’t help recalling the younger sister she had schemed to leave behind in the Prince’s Manor, wondering what kind of life of embroidered garments and fine food she was currently leading.
The Prince of Jing hadn’t launched an attack, nor had he killed her; it must be because of their deception—the Prince hadn’t discovered the truth.
Worry, panic, regret, and torment finally gave birth to a surging, alternative desire in the depths of Shen Meizhuang’s heart: What if she returned at this moment?
What if she returned to Yujing at this moment and swapped identities back with Shen Lizhuang?
This thought grew wildly like overgrown weeds in a field, bit by bit consuming her last remaining hopes for Liu Xu.
An ugly, lame man lacking talent, power, and influence was unworthy of her, nor was he worth her sacrifice. Rather than this, it would be better to return to Yujing and undo their misplaced lives.
If her parents had discovered her escape, they must have gone frantic with worry; after all, this was a major matter involving the entire family lineage. If they could each return to their proper places, the Shen family would remain safe and sound, Shen Lizhuang could extricate herself, and she herself could step back into her own position. Everything would return to the right track, bringing happiness to all. The pillow-companion she shared days and nights with—the Prince of Jing—was blind; as long as she found a way to hoodwink everyone who had seen Shen Lizhuang, playing the trick of substituting the beams and pillars once more was not entirely impossible.
Thus, harboring this mindset, she left Liu Xu a sum of money, bid him farewell, and slipped back into Yujing.
Upon returning to Yujing, Shen Meizhuang caught sight of her true husband, the Prince of Jing, at the temple festival. At that moment, she finally understood what it meant to beat her chest and weep over a remorseful mistake.
How on earth could she have been blinded by Liu Xu’s honeyed words back then, ignoring her parents’ warnings and losing her head to elope with Liu Xu? Even she despised her own blindness; her parents must be even more disappointed.
“Lizhuang, I know that two months ago I left you behind in the Prince’s Manor to take my place—that was my wrong toward you. You can blame me, you can resent me. I know you’ve always been aloof, holding your own pride, and you certainly wouldn’t want to carry my name forever to serve your brother-in-law…”
Shen Lizhuang blinked her pear-like, limpid eyes, interrupting Shen Meizhuang’s performance, and asked lightly, “Isn’t my brother-in-law the zither player, Master Liu? The brother-in-law elder sister personally chose for me, the son-in-law chosen for the Shen family?”
Shen Meizhuang choked on her words, staring blankly upward with wide, copper-bell-like eyes.
She shook her head with a pale face, the clear tears beneath her pupils shaken loose to splash onto Shen Lizhuang’s sleeve. The other party’s expression wasn’t looking too good either, unostentatiously brushing away from the cloud-patterned cuff.
Clutching her chest, Shen Meizhuang explained hurriedly, “Lizhuang, what happened last time was my fault toward you; I shouldn’t have used sleeping powder to drug you when you weren’t defending yourself, leaving you behind alone in the manor to face the Prince of Jing. Elder sister truly knows she was wrong. But now, elder sister carries the reputation of an elopement and has no way out. If you won’t help elder sister, I—and the Shen family as well—will meet with disaster. Considering that we are flesh and blood of the same kin, won’t you help elder sister with this favor and swap us back?”
She negotiated with Shen Lizhuang in gentle, pleasant terms.
Shen Lizhuang looked at her elder sister, who was ceaselessly pleading on the ground, and asked, “We are a family, with bones connected even if our flesh is broken. But was that what elder sister was thinking when she ran away?”
Shen Meizhuang froze in stunned silence, looking up at Shen Lizhuang from the ground with a bewildered expression, feeling for a fraction of a second that this younger sister, who had always been so sensible and obedient, had become somewhat unfamiliar.
Steadying her breathing, Shen Lizhuang told her elder sister the cruel truth: “Elder sister, I have already consummated our marriage with my brother-in-law. More than once. He is deeply infatuated with me.”
Although what the Prince of Jing was infatuated with was merely her body, this infatuation made it several times more difficult for the two of them to swap back now without leaving any trace of a flaw.
Shen Meizhuang, sitting limply on the ground, felt her bones go somewhat soft. In truth, she had already thought of this possibility. She had been gone for so long, so far away—she had slept with Liu Xu no fewer than twenty times; if the Prince of Jing’s body had no ailments, how could he possibly leave a blooming newlywed wife untouched?
“Good sister, I will figure something out for all of this. Just think of it as taking pity on your sister, alright? I really have no other way,” Shen Meizhuang said, her voice brimming with tears once more. “I am at my wit’s end. If you agree to swap back, whatever conditions you raise, elder sister will satisfy them.”
Hearing this, she stopped abruptly with a look of incredible shock.
“Or could it be that you—you have already developed feelings for your brother-in-law, that you’ve already grown fond of him?”
Shen Lizhuang asked calmly, “When elder sister left in the first place, didn’t you hope that I would grow fond of my brother-in-law? Now that I’ve fulfilled your wish, elder sister, isn’t this for the best?”
“How—how could that be…” Shen Meizhuang’s lips trembled, her face turning even paler.
“Brother-in-law is handsome, elder sister, don’t deceive yourself. We sisters share the same eye for men—we admire beauty rather than virtue. Besides, he treats me well; not only is he gentle and considerate, but he also teaches me knowledge. Most importantly, he can even help me take the female examinations. How could I not like him?” Shen Lizhuang said, mixing truth with falsehood.
Shen Meizhuang lost her soul, muttering, “No. Could it be that you—you want to use my name to take the female examinations? Lizhuang, isn’t your greatest wish normally to stand on your own using your own name, Shen Lizhuang, to enshrine memorial tablets for your birth mother, and to have your name entered on a separate page of the genealogy book?”
Shen Lizhuang took a deep breath. Indeed, her elder sister still understood her to a certain extent; she had merely been trying to scare Shen Meizhuang.
“Elder sister, I can swap back with you and reclaim my own identity. However, having suffered your deception for nothing, what do I get out of it? Can you help me enter my name into the family genealogy, or can you help me attain glory, wealth, and honor, and make our father stop blocking me from pursuing official rank?”
“Elder sister, when I came looking for you today, I indeed had the intention of swapping identities with you; otherwise, I wouldn’t have come alone. You are a clever person, so you must have seen through my thoughts.”
“I don’t do things without receiving benefits. If elder sister can agree to the three conditions I mentioned above, I will agree to swap identities with you. Right now, I can take off these clothes, help you return to the position of Princess Consort, and even cover for you. Furthermore, you needn’t worry that I will betray you—once my name is entered into the family genealogy, we become a true family, sharing glory and suffering alike. For the sake of my own future, I will do nothing that harms others without benefiting myself.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Shen Meizhuang raised three fingers and swore: “I promise you.”
She even felt that the three conditions put forward by her younger sister were not only reasonable and fair, but practically too simple!
Her oath was also spoken with utmost sincerity, deliberately exaggerating the weight of her words out of fear that she wouldn’t be able to win trust.
Shen Lizhuang bowed slightly forward, helping her elder sister—who had knelt for so long that her legs had grown sore and numb—to her feet.
Compared to her unprepared elder sister, she harbored far more considerations. “Since we are swapping, we must discuss a seamless plan. During these past days, I have kept to myself and tried my best to wear a veil hat whenever I went out, so not many people in the Prince’s Manor have seen me.”
Shen Meizhuang was startled once more. Hearing this, she became entirely certain that her younger sister had truly never thought of remaining in the Prince’s Manor permanently to impersonate her as the Princess Consort.
“Lizhuang…”
“Don’t rush to thank me,” Shen Lizhuang said coolly. “You and I share similar features, with many points of resemblance in our appearance, and our statures are roughly comparable. We owe all this to our shared father, whether we admit it or not. But the people in the Prince’s Manor aren’t all fools. The Prince of Jing’s mother—”
Mentioning Consort Yun and recalling how Consort Yun had poured out her gentleness and reserved nothing in her treatment of her—while she herself had deceived and hoodwinked her due to various unavoidable circumstances, failing to show even a shred of complete honesty—made her heart feel scorched by fire, overwhelmed by guilt.
Yet, in all this, she was likewise helpless. She could never live out her entire life bearing Shen Meizhuang’s name; living that way would disgust her.
If a person does not look out for themselves, how can they dare to look out for others? Her primary concern was to consider herself.
Therefore, suppressing the discomfort of guilt welling up in her chest, she continued speaking to her elder sister, who was staring at her in astonished shock after her momentary pause: “Gentle, amiable, sensitive, and supremely clever—she is the one you must guard against the most. But the Consort Dowager is in poor health, resting for the most part and never going out; you should simply visit her Wangjiang Courtyard less often.”
Shen Meizhuang memorized them one by one, engraving them earnestly into her mind.
“As for your makeup, try your best to align it with my facial features. If you can fool people for three or five years, you can simply claim later that as you grew, your bone structure underwent subtle morphological changes, so people shouldn’t harbor suspicions. When you first return to the Prince’s Manor, pretend that you haven’t adapted to life in the temple and have broken out in rashes; stall for time as much as possible, pushing back any public appearances. Aside from the Consort Dowager, none of the people in the Prince’s Manor have a deep impression of me, and your trusted maids Yingluo and Zhuji will help you.”
“Then… what about the Prince of Jing?”
The Prince of Jing—who had shared pillow and mat with her younger sister for so long—even though he was blind, he was likely the most difficult person to fool.
Shen Lizhuang was struggling with this exact dilemma.
“When you are in his presence, you must definitely speak less.”
Shen Meizhuang assumed this was because the Prince of Jing was familiar with her younger sister’s vocal timbre, so the moment she opened her mouth, her cover would be blown.
“My throat was scorched by smoke and won’t recover for a while; even if it does, I’ll have to keep up the sequela.”
Pinching her fingers and thinking of the sacrifice required of her throat, Shen Meizhuang felt a preemptive ache in her flesh. However, if it meant getting her life back on track, such a small sacrifice counted for nothing—it was far better than spending a lifetime as a seamstress serving a cripple with unpredictable meals.
Shen Lizhuang said no more. With this level of awareness, she was certain that in the Prince’s Manor, Shen Meizhuang would pull out all the stops to deceive superiors and subordinates alike, playing her part flawlessly.
Besides, the person carried into the Prince’s Manor amidst a red procession spanning ten miles had originally been her elder sister.
During the period when she was occupying the magpie’s nest, she had merely confused the servants; right now, she was simply stirring the waters even muddier to confuse everyone further.
The whole thing was a muddled mess to begin with, something that should never have happened.
Since it had happened, gaining the benefit of having her name entered into the genealogy and securing her father’s support—enough to fully prepare for next year’s female examinations—meant she wasn’t coming out at a loss.
Her two months in the Prince’s Manor were not entirely devoid of things worth cherishing, but those things were like fleeting clouds and fragile glass—inherently unstable items to begin with, let alone things she had stolen. Even though she hadn’t stolen them subjectively, she had ultimately occupied someone else’s name and enjoyed someone else’s possessions.
If the Consort Dowager ever found out one day, would she be disappointed, or would she—just like accepting herself—accept a brand new daughter-in-law?
Unwilling to let Shen Meizhuang notice the ripples flowing within her pupils, Shen Lizhuang silently turned her gaze away.
Her fingers climbed up to her collar, unfastening the cloud-patterned, hanging-flower lapel inch by inch. She removed the pine-green plain tunic she had worn out of the Prince’s Manor, exchanging it garment by garment with her elder sister, who was changing clothes behind her.
Their silhouettes crossed back and forth, and within the span of mere breaths, the exchange was completely finished.
Zhuji, keeping watch in the side room, had been startled awake by the sound of the door opening.
When she opened her hazy apricot eyes and caught sight of the thin line of daylight shooting in from outside the door, she first murmured “Princess Consort” in a soft, drowsy daze.
Yet she felt something was somewhat amiss, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on what.
The Princess Consort stepped into the guest room, her delicate hands drawing the door behind her shut, lifting a corner of white gauze from the veil hat on her head to reveal the familiar countenance beneath. Thinking she must be seeing things, Zhuji rubbed her eyes desperately with her small hands and blinked several times.
Her vision suddenly shifted from hazy obscurity into a clear world.
She was so astonished that Zhuji nearly leaped up, a mixture of startled shock and joy overflowing the corners of her eyes: “Young Miss!”
“Hush.”
The Princess Consort extended a jade finger, pressing it gently against her cherry-like, delicate red lips.
“Say no more.”
Obeying the command, Zhuji hurriedly swallowed back the rest of her words with all her might, covering her mouth and daring not to make a single sound out of fear that her young lady would leave her behind again. Yet she remained far too shocked and utterly caught off guard—how had her young lady suddenly returned out of nowhere?
It was just like magic!
Wait, what about the Second Miss? Had she vanished again?
Dressed in the pine-yellow spring silk robe, Shen Meizhuang straightened her arms and slowly spun around once in front of Zhuji, asking the bewildered little girl:
“Look. Do you still recognize me?”