The wind blew, making the windows bang loudly. A maid reached out to close them. Inside the room on the floor sat bronze oxen, their bellies filled with heavy ice blocks.
Every summer in Yanjing, the heat arrived early. Ice blocks had to be transported from cellars a hundred li away. A small piece alone was worth ten taels of silver, not to mention such complete, stone-plate-sized whole blocks, and especially not to mention that in all four corners of the room sat four identical bronze oxen.
The room was cool and refreshing. On the daybed near the small table sat a beautiful woman, one hand supporting her chin as she lazily examined the account book before her. Beside this woman sat a delicate young girl of thirteen or fourteen, eating iced sugar fruit cream mixed with crushed ice while casually flipping through invitation cards stacked as high as a small mountain before her. Two maids stood quietly behind them, gently fanning the two.
“The rain is really heavy…” the delicate young girl said, staring outside the window somewhat dazed.
The beautiful woman glanced at her and said, “Eat less cold food, lest tonight when your father returns you can’t eat dinner again.” Then she said to the maid beside her, “Ruyi, take away the fruit cream. This pot of tea has gone cold—bring a pot of hot fragrant tea.”
Though the girl was somewhat dissatisfied, she said nothing. Ruyi set down the fan, bent down to pick up the fruit cream from the table, and was about to leave when an old woman in silk and cotton clothing walked in from outside. Seeing her, the woman didn’t greet her but walked straight toward the beautiful woman, clearly having urgent matters.
Ruyi paused, carrying the fruit cream and cold tea out the door, faintly hearing voices from behind.
“…they say she’s seriously ill… learned about Third Miss’s marriage match and quarreled bitterly with Abbess Jing’an…”
“Her health is poor. She’s already too ill to get out of bed…”
“The physician says she won’t survive this summer. Should we tell the master…”
The room fell quiet for a while, then the beautiful woman’s gentle voice rang out: “Master has been busy with official duties lately. There’s no need to trouble him with such trivial matters. When he has leisure time, I’ll tell him myself.”
Next, the girl’s uniquely charming voice rang out: “Why bother with her? She doesn’t even look at what kind of person she is, daring to reach for connections with any family.”
“Let’s not talk about that.” The woman changed the subject. “I heard the new top scholar’s wife passed away from illness a few days ago. Tomorrow we must pay a condolence call.” Her voice sounded very sympathetic. “So young, yet she died of illness. What a pitiful person.”
What a pitiful person indeed. Ruyi thought this in her heart but didn’t stop walking, carrying the silver tray toward the kitchen.
The madam in the room was the current Chief Grand Secretary Jiang Yuanbai’s second wife, Ji Shuran. The girl was the Chief Grand Secretary’s daughter, Ji Shuran’s biological daughter, the Jiang family’s Third Miss, Jiang Youyao.
As for the person they mentioned who “wouldn’t survive this summer,” that should be the Jiang family’s Second Miss, Jiang Li.
Five years ago, Second Miss Jiang Li was sent to a temple to learn proper conduct after making a mistake. For five years, the Jiang family seemed to have forgotten such a person existed. Currently, Ji Shuran was in charge of the household, and the only legitimate daughter of the Jiang family was Jiang Youyao. The legitimate daughter of the Chief Grand Secretary’s first wife was now about to not survive the summer, yet not a single person in the entire household knew.
But even if they knew, it seemed nothing would change.
Ruyi sighed in her heart. Looking at the cold tea in her hand, what could be done? The first madam had already passed, and Second Miss Jiang had such an unlikable reputation.
That’s just how the world was—when a person leaves, the tea grows cold.
…
Helin Temple on Mount Qingcheng was a famous temple.
Though the mountain path was rugged, the mountain featured deep and elegant pines and rocks, lush forests and tall bamboo. The scenery was quite beautiful. Especially the abbot, Master Tongming, was renowned far and wide. It was said that prayers at Songhe Temple were very efficacious, so many people spared no effort, traveling over mountains and through waters to reach Helin Temple, just to offer a stick of incense.
Not far from Helin Temple stood a nunnery. Compared to Helin Temple’s endless stream of pilgrims, this nunnery appeared cold and desolate, practically empty.
After a night of rain, the mountain wind grew even colder. In a room near the woodshed in the nunnery, a woman’s sobbing could be heard continuously.
“Miss… Miss, what are we to do…”
The moment Xue Fangfei opened her eyes, she felt noise clamoring in her ears. She struggled to move her fingers, only feeling her body was unbearably heavy. When she moved again, she suddenly understood—it wasn’t that her body was unbearably heavy, but that the quilt covering her was too heavy.
The cotton quilt had originally been thin, but because it had gotten damp it became cold and heavy, unbearably uncomfortable covering her body. She threw off the quilt, felt her chest much more comfortable, and slowly sat up.
The sobbing beside her stopped abruptly. By the dim candlelight on the table, what entered her vision was a face unable to conceal its delight. She said, “Miss has awakened!”
Miss?
Xue Fangfei froze, sizing up the person before her. The girl before her appeared only fifteen or sixteen years old, her eyes swollen like peach pits. She looked quite cute, but her emaciated appearance was heartbreaking to see. She wore an ill-fitting dark blue cloth dress, without a single piece of jewelry on her entire body, staring at Xue Fangfei with a silly smile.
Calling her miss—could she be a maid? But even the maids by her side in Tongxiang before she married wouldn’t have dressed so shabbily.
Xue Fangfei snapped back to attention with a start. No, wait—the important point was, she didn’t remember having such a maid. After she married into Yanjing, she had four personal maids. Two later married off, and the remaining two—after the incident at the banquet that day, Shen Yurong’s mother wanted to beat both maids to death, but Xue Fangfei pleaded bitterly to stop her and had them released. Those who later served her were probably Princess Yongning’s spies.
Princess Yongning! Some images suddenly flashed rapidly before her eyes. Xue Fangfei remembered—clearly Princess Yongning had come to provoke her, and she had been strangled to death by Princess Yongning’s servants. Could she have not died? How was that possible? Princess Yongning, someone who eliminated threats so thoroughly, couldn’t possibly have left her alive.
Could it be… she was saved by someone? Was it Shen Yurong? Or someone else?
Xue Fangfei stared straight at the little maid without speaking. The little maid’s silly smile stopped. Looking somewhat frightened, she said softly, “Miss? Miss?”
“Who are you?” Xue Fangfei asked. As soon as the words left her mouth, she froze, seeming to feel something was wrong, but couldn’t figure out exactly what was wrong.
The little maid grew even more anxious. She said, “Miss, this servant is Tong’er!”
Tong’er? Xue Fangfei couldn’t recall such a person.
“Miss,” Tong’er looked like she was about to cry. She said, “Miss, this servant knows you’re unhappy. How could Second Miss and the others steal your marriage match? That was the match Madam arranged for you when she was alive. How could the Marquis Ningyuan’s family commit such treacherous, dishonorable acts? And the master too. Miss, this servant knows you resent the master, but you can’t give up on everything because you can’t accept it. Even if you don’t think of yourself, you should think of Madam. If Madam’s spirit in heaven sees you like this, how sad she would be!”
Xue Fangfei watched the little maid wail in bewilderment, but in her heart wondered what this had to do with Marquis Ningyuan. Xue Fangfei knew of the Marquis Ningyuan’s heir. Shen Yurong’s younger sister, Shen Ruyun—her sister-in-law—greatly admired the Marquis Ningyuan’s heir, a famously handsome man in Yanjing. But what did this have to do with her?
The little maid continued crying absorbedly when suddenly a thunderclap outside illuminated the room—the cold, dilapidated chamber, the icy bedding—and also illuminated Xue Fangfei herself.
Xue Fangfei suddenly understood what was wrong.
This voice… delicate and crisp, though weary, it carried the soft sweetness unique to young girls.
This was not her voice.
“Who am I?” Xue Fangfei asked.
Tong’er froze.
“Who am I?” Xue Fangfei asked once more.
“What are you saying?” Tong’er thought she was being indignant and immediately said, “You are the legitimate daughter of the current Cabinet Chief Grand Secretary Lord Jiang’s household, the Jiang family’s Second Miss.” She added, “A proper golden-branched, jade-leafed daughter, the Chief Grand Secretary’s daughter!”
The Jiang family, the Chief Grand Secretary’s daughter, Second Miss Jiang, Jiang Li.
Xue Fangfei closed her eyes.
She had become Jiang Li.