The carriage stopped at the entrance of Tianyin Nunnery. Mama Yuan helped Yin Xuesu down from the vehicle.
When she reached for the basket of offerings, Yin Xuesu shook her head. “I’ll carry it myself. I’m not that delicate.”
From the mountain gate to the main hall, the distance wasn’t far, but there were many steps—one flight after another.
Mama Yuan was getting on in years and couldn’t climb as well as she used to. Halfway up, she was already panting like a bellows.
Yin Xuesu, by contrast, showed no sweat and no shortness of breath—only a faint flush of pink spreading across her fair skin.
She even had a free hand to support Mama Yuan.
Mama Yuan already knew her background.
Coming from a common market family, the eldest daughter who had to support her household—she could hardly afford to be delicate. That was what had made her so robust.
No wonder she hadn’t let Mama Yuan take the basket earlier—she’d anticipated this.
Mama Yuan was touched by her thoughtfulness and consideration.
Then she noticed how familiar Yin Xuesu seemed with the place and asked, “Does Lady Yin come here often?”
Yin Xuesu nodded. “A few times.”
Mama Yuan filed this away and said no more.
Tianyin Nunnery wasn’t well-known in the capital and rarely hosted ceremonies of any kind.
Changrui had sent someone ahead to make arrangements, so everything was prepared by the time Yin Xuesu arrived.
Under the guidance of the resident monk, Yin Xuesu recited sutras and offered prayers.
By the time the full memorial rites were complete, the sun had climbed to its zenith.
They stayed for a vegetarian meal at the nunnery.
After the meal, Mama Yuan assumed it was time to head down the mountain, but Yin Xuesu asked the abbess, “Is Abbess Mingjing on the mountain?”
The abbess nodded.
Yin Xuesu asked Mama Yuan to wait in the guest hall and followed the abbess to the rear slopes.
Abbess Mingjing was pounding herbs. When she saw Yin Xuesu, she rose and intoned a Buddhist invocation.
Yin Xuesu returned the greeting and took another look at her.
Nearly fifty, gaunt from years of vegetarian living, her complexion poor—only the faint traces of youthful beauty remained in her brows and eyes.
Her dark robes were patched upon patched. She lived in a humble cottage with a brushwood gate, eating plain fare and drinking coarse tea.
Who would have thought that such an unremarkable old nun had such an extraordinary history?
Yin Xuesu had only learned of it by accident in her previous life, and from none other than Tong Jinxian’s younger brother, Tong Jizhang.
It was like finally glimpsing a thread of light in endless darkness.
She had exhausted every means to escape the cage that trapped her, hoping to bring her child to Abbess Mingjing and beg the abbess to shelter them both.
But something went wrong along the way, and she was quickly captured and brought back by Tong Jizhang and his men.
Not long after, Tong Jizhang told her that Abbess Mingjing had passed away. And Yin Xuesu lost her last hope…
Now, looking at the person before her who represented that hope, she parted her lips but didn’t know what to say.
She lowered her head, rolled up her sleeves, walked over, picked up the small stone pestle, and began pounding herbs with practiced ease.
Abbess Mingjing lived a quiet life. Aside from chanting sutras and performing her daily devotions, she gathered and prepared herbs, then made medicine pouches to distribute at the foot of the mountain.
Once, while giving alms in the market, she’d been harassed by a group of street ruffians who claimed her medicine had made someone ill and demanded compensation—or they’d drag her before the authorities.
It was Yin Xuesu, passing by, who had cleverly helped her out of the situation.
Seeing that the abbess had twisted her ankle while dodging them, Yin Xuesu had even hired a mule cart and personally escorted her back to Tianyin Nunnery.
The two had hit it off well.
From then on, whenever Yin Xuesu had free time, she would visit Abbess Mingjing, and helping make medicine pouches was a common occurrence.
But back then, Yin Xuesu’s heart had been pure.
Each visit to Tianyin Nunnery was both a sincere call on the abbess and a chance to steal half a day’s respite from the crushing weight of life.
No calculation. No ulterior motives.
This time was different.
She had come with a purpose, and it made everything she did feel deliberate and contrived.
Yin Xuesu was disappointed in herself for this—so much so that she couldn’t meet the abbess’s eyes.
Last night she had lain awake, struggling with herself all night.
In the end, she had still come.
Since her goal was set, she would simply charge toward it.
Everything that could serve her purpose, she would strive to secure.
Even if it meant resorting to any means necessary.
Abbess Mingjing watched Yin Xuesu working with her head down, lost in thought.
The abbess had mentioned earlier that the memorial rites at the front hall were for Yin Xuesu’s late father.
With her family’s circumstances, where would she have found the money?
And though her dress was understated, she was clothed in fine silks—a far cry from the plain cotton and wooden hairpins of a few months ago.
The abbess knew that something must have happened in the intervening months.
Something that had either changed her nature or turned her life upside down.
Yin Xuesu didn’t speak of it, and Abbess Mingjing didn’t ask. She walked to the other side and turned over the herbs drying in the bamboo tray.
September came, and still no happy news arrived.
Tong Jinxian began to suspect.
It was one thing if she herself couldn’t conceive—but to swap in a highly fertile surrogate who had already borne three sons in succession, and still nothing?
“Don’t tell me it’s you who’s the problem.”
Tong Jinxian suspected the root of the issue lay with Zhao Shiyan.
Yes, he was well-endowed and excellent in bed.
But none of that guaranteed fertility.
No man took kindly to having his abilities in that regard questioned.
Zhao Shiyan denied it outright: “Absolutely impossible!”
“I was just saying. Why are you reacting so strongly?”
Tong Jinxian looked at him strangely.
“Between the two of us—I haven’t conceived, and you’ve never been with anyone else. How do you know for certain you’re capable?”
This line of reasoning made Tong Jinxian feel inexplicably better about the situation.
If she couldn’t conceive, it wasn’t just her problem—Zhao Shiyan had a problem too, and then all their problems would cease to be problems.
What face would her mother-in-law have left to keep finding fault, pressuring her, forcing her, and making her life miserable?
The more Tong Jinxian thought about it, the more agitated she became. She immediately wanted to find a physician specializing in male ailments to examine Zhao Shiyan.
Zhao Shiyan’s face changed on the spot, and he adamantly refused.
If word of this ever got out, he would never be able to hold his head up again.
And then he thought—his wife had been married into the family for three years with no sign of a child, and Liu Xun and the others would occasionally tease him, asking whether he wasn’t putting in the effort or simply couldn’t perform… His expression grew even darker.
Before this, he hadn’t cared much about heirs, after all, he was still young.
But now he thought differently.
The two nearly fell out over the matter of seeing a physician.
Only when Tong Jinxian saw Zhao Shiyan’s unprecedented stubbornness did she reluctantly drop the matter.
The atmosphere was tense and frozen the entire way to the Tonghua Courtyard.
One day apart felt like three autumns.
Zhao Shiyan had been longing for this visit all along.
Yet that unpleasantness this morning had to happen.
As if to prove something, the moment he entered the west chamber, he swept Yin Xuesu, who had been waiting behind the door, into his arms, turned, and pressed her against the wall.
His hot breath brushed against her ear as he pressed his lips to her soft earlobe and said, “Give me a son, and I’ll give you whatever you want.”
Before Yin Xuesu could respond, his hand gripped her jaw and he kissed her hard.
“Don’t—don’t here.” Yin Xuesu tilted her head back, biting her lip tightly, forcing out fragmented words in a faint voice.
Zhao Shiyan knew her worry.
He freed one hand to support her, breathing heavily. “It’s fine.”
This wall wasn’t directly adjacent to the side room; he hadn’t completely lost his head.
“But, I’m afraid…”
Through the sliver of light leaking from the door gap, he caught the trembling fear in her eyes.
Zhao Shiyan couldn’t help but feel tenderness, and the restlessness within him grew even harder to contain.
“Shh… I’ll be gentle. She won’t hear.”