The Xie Residence’s carriage quietly stopped at the side gate. The carriage curtain was lifted, and Xie Lanyin stepped down onto the footstool, her steps unsteady, her face almost transparently pale in the dim yellow light of the lanterns at the entrance.
As soon as she crossed the threshold, the butler approached with hands lowered, his voice hushed: “First Young Miss, Old Master Xie has instructed that upon your return, you are to go directly to the Pine Crane Hall study.”
A faint trace of weariness flickered in Xie Lanyin’s eyes. She nodded and, without even returning to her own courtyard to change, walked directly towards her grandfather’s courtyard.
Inside the Pine Crane Hall study, the lamps were brightly lit. Xie Mingyuan sat upright behind the zitan wood grand desk, a scroll in his hand, though he wasn’t reading it. Xie Yanqing stood beside the desk, his brows tightly furrowed. Seeing his daughter enter, his lips moved, his eyes filled with heartache and worry.
“Your granddaughter pays respects to Grandfather.” Xie Lanyin curtsied respectfully, her voice a little hoarse.
“Mm.” Xie Mingyuan put down the scroll, his gaze sharp. “Sit.”
This time, Xie Lanyin did not merely perch on the front edge of the embroidered stool, maintaining a respectful posture, as she usually did. She walked directly to the armchair below the main seat and sank into it as if her strength had utterly failed her, her back resting against the hard chair back. Her entire being exuded a profound weariness and… a reckless indifference.
“Yin’er! Do not speak nonsense!” Xie Yanqing couldn’t help but call out softly, wanting to remind his daughter to mind her manners. But seeing the lifeless look in her eyes on her pale face, and thinking of everything she had endured in the palace today, the words caught in his throat, turning into a heavy sigh.
Xie Mingyuan took in his son’s reaction and his granddaughter’s state, his face impassive. He merely said, “Recount, in full detail, everything that happened at the Spring Banquet today, from before the Empress Dowager bestowed the marriage until after.”
Xie Lanyin did not answer immediately. She leaned back in the armchair, tilting her head slightly to look at the intricate painted caisson ceiling of the study. Those auspicious patterns, meant to symbolize good fortune, now seemed only ironic.
After a long pause, she slowly turned her head back to her grandfather, even managing a faint, cold curve of her lips: “Do I… need to recount it again, Grandfather?”
Her voice was very soft, yet it carried an icy edge, scraping against the silence of the study.
Xie Yanqing’s heart tightened.
Xie Mingyuan looked at her with a deep gaze.
Xie Lanyin met his eyes. Her usually calm and gentle gaze was now like two deep, frozen pools, beneath which surged emotions suppressed to their very limit.
“You are the pillar of a centuries-old scholarly family, a First-Rank Grand Tutor revered by both court and commoners, with disciples and old acquaintances scattered across the realm.” She spoke each word clearly and slowly. “But what does that matter?”
She leaned forward slightly, her hand resting on the armrest of the chair, her fingertips white from the force: “The Imperial Family wants your granddaughter to marry into the royal household. With an Imperial Decree, you must express your gratitude, disregarding the ancestral teaching that a scholarly family should not be overly intimate with the Imperial Family.”
“The Imperial Family wants your granddaughter to marry an Imperial Guard secret agent. With an Imperial Decree from the Empress Dowager, you still must express your gratitude, disregarding the reputation of a scholarly family maintaining a clear distinction from cruel officials and brutal agents.”
Her voice gradually rose, carrying a sharp, almost collapsing calmness: “Before Imperial Power, what are the Xie family’s scholarly integrity, my granddaughter’s reputation and purity, or even your own dignity, Grandfather… worth?”
“They don’t care. They only care about balance, about checks and balances, about where each chess piece is best placed!”
Xie Lanyin responded according to “Xie Lanyin’s” remembered reactions.
“Yin’er! Do not speak nonsense!”
Xie Yanqing’s face was ashen, his lips trembling. His gaze at his daughter was filled with horror and pain, then he hastily turned to his father, fearing that such rebellious words would provoke thunderous wrath.
Xie Mingyuan remained seated in the spacious rosewood armchair, his back as straight as a pine, as if his granddaughter’s accusations, which almost overturned the roof, were merely an insignificant breeze. The deep wrinkles on his face appeared even deeper in the flickering candlelight, like carved ravines, imbued with the full weight of decades of official life and the trials of three dynasties.
“Are you finished?”
Xie Lanyin met his gaze, her chest still heaving, a stubborn determination rising on her pale face, as if she were prepared to face any consequences. She did not answer, but her eyes clearly said: Yes, I am finished. What will you do?
Xie Mingyuan sighed almost inaudibly.
“Do you think this honorary title of ‘Grand Tutor,’ this reputation as a ‘pillar of the scholarly faction,’ was earned by secluding myself to read and focusing solely on self-cultivation?” His voice remained steady, but it carried a desolate weariness. “You are mistaken. It was earned through countless deliberations, countless compromises, and countless times… walking a steel tightrope, finer than fine, between Imperial Power and righteousness, family and individual.”
He looked back at Xie Lanyin, his gaze sharpening: “The Imperial Family wanted you to marry into the royal household. Do you think I had no reservations? The Imperial Family betrothed you to Zhan Shuo. Do you think I could truly accept it calmly, feeling honored?” He shook his head, his voice deepening. “Yin’er, you underestimate your grandfather, and you overestimate the Xie family.”
“In this Imperial City, no one is a chess piece that cannot be sacrificed. The only difference is that some pieces are placed in the open, enjoying boundless glory; some are abandoned in the shadows, silently annihilated; and most pieces…” He paused, his gaze pressing down on Xie Lanyin like a tangible weight, “are forced to move positions, change their strategy, yet must continue to play on the chessboard until… they find a new way to survive, or are completely out of the game.”
Xie Yanqing listened with bated breath. His father’s words were almost peeling back the cruelest truth beneath the Xie family’s glamorous exterior.
“Marrying Zhan Shuo is a humiliation, a helplessness, a political calculation.” He admitted it bluntly and coldly. “But it is not necessarily a dead end. Zhan Shuo, a man who rose from humble origins, is cunning and shrewd. He is His Majesty’s sharpest blade, yet he might also be the one most adept at assessing the situation and finding openings. His marriage to you is also coerced; he, too, is in the vortex.”
His gaze grew profound, as if he were strategizing: “This marriage binds the Xie family to the Imperial Guard, and to the most direct enforcers of Imperial Power. It is a risk, but also… an unprecedented variable. In the past, the Xie family, as a scholarly faction, could only speak from within the Imperial Court. What about now?”
He said no more, but the implication was clear enough—the Xie family’s reach, perhaps, could extend to another entirely different, yet crucial, domain through this twisted marriage.
“Yin’er,” Xie Mingyuan’s tone finally softened, carrying a nearly imperceptible weariness and deep-seated hope belonging to a grandfather, “your response in the hall today showed quick wit and the ability to endure humiliation. Your counterattack in that desperate situation yesterday… was extraordinary.” He had evidently learned more details through certain channels. “This indicates that, at your core, you might not be as fragile as you appear, not so… easily manipulated.”
“Since fate has cast you into a wolf’s den, then open your eyes and see what kind of wolves surround you, what they want, what they fear. Then, learn how to… find your own place in this wolf’s den, stand firm, and even—”
He paused again, leaving Xie Lanyin with infinite room for imagination.
“Protecting yourself, perhaps, could one day make you an unexpected… vital piece for the Xie family in this chaotic game.”
Xie Lanyin looked up in a daze, gazing at the white-haired old man behind the desk.
Grandfather, this was her grandfather!
Not the rigid, stern, scholarly elder who only knew poetry, books, rites, and righteousness, as she remembered him. Nor the pedantic patriarch she had imagined, who would only suppress her with family duty and the family’s reputation.
He was actually… so clear-headed, so ruthless, and so… deeply familiar with the rules of this man-eating game.
“Grandfather!”
The exclamation burst out. It was no longer the resentful and sarcastic “Grandfather” from before, nor the respectful and distant “Grandfather.” This cry carried the hoarseness of a recent emotional storm, and even more, a sudden, bright radiance, like the clearing of clouds to reveal the sun.
Her eyes, which had been moist and red from agitation and despair, still shone with unshed tears, yet now they blazed astonishingly, as if two small, cold flames had been ignited within them, staring directly at Xie Mingyuan.
Xie Mingyuan’s tightly furrowed brow, upon seeing that sudden spark in his granddaughter’s eyes, relaxed for a fleeting, almost imperceptible moment.
He had gambled correctly. This child’s resilience and perceptiveness were far beyond the ordinary. She had not been completely crushed by the successive blows, had not succumbed to self-pity, but had, after the sharpest pain, quickly grasped the most core, coldest, and most practical thread in his words.
He did not show much expression on his face, but the heavy, oppressive feeling that enveloped him quietly dissipated somewhat. He nodded slightly, a movement so small it was almost invisible, yet it was a silent affirmation.
“Go down and rest.” He waved his hand, his voice returning to its usual calmness. “The wedding date is not yet set, there is still time. For these days, observe much, listen much, speak little. Especially… regarding everything about your future husband.”
“If you have nothing else to do, come and play chess with Grandfather.”
Xie Lanyin paused. Slowly, she stood up. This time, her back unconsciously straightened a little.
“Your granddaughter… understands. Thank you for your guidance, Grandfather.”
She said nothing more, only performed a more serene and complex bow towards her grandfather and father than when she arrived, then turned and exited this study that had suffocated her, yet also seemed to have injected her with a strange power.
The door closed behind her.
Xie Mingyuan sat in his chair for a long time, gazing in the direction his granddaughter had left. After a while, he closed his eyes with extreme weariness.
“Father…” Xie Yanqing began, then hesitated, full of worry.
“Let her be.” Xie Mingyuan’s voice was barely audible, filled with deep fatigue. “This child’s destiny… has already changed. Whether it is fortune or misfortune depends entirely on whether she herself can… forge a path to survival on this chessboard of iron and blood.”