◎ Tending the Wound ◎

The first thing Qu You saw was his eyelashes — thick and black as a raven’s feathers.

Almost in the same instant, she was struck by a swift recollection of her strange dream — the owner of these eyes had once been so close to her, fastening a white fox-fur cloak around her shoulders, gazing at her with a smile, before quietly passing away amid a fine drizzle of apricot blossoms.

Zhou Tan was only just past twenty this year, not yet as gaunt as he had appeared in her dream.

In his unconscious face, Qu You could make out traces of the aloof, elegant, and powerful minister he would later become.

“Vain of his own beauty, flattering his sovereign; a handsome shell housing nothing within, ruthless and slipshod.”

In truth, she had once been far more interested in the study of law than in Zhou Tan himself — it was only because so little had ever been recorded of him that she had come to memorize every single word of what little there was.

Now, studying this face by candlelight with utter abandon, Qu You found herself sighing in acknowledgment that the historians’ precise brushwork had not lied — a man with looks like these, serving so close to the emperor, could hardly avoid being suspected of currying favor through flattery and charm.

It was only later, once “streaks of white had appeared at Zhou Tan’s temples,” that this particular line of attack against him had faded somewhat.

Nanny Yun leaned in close, a flicker of worry crossing her brow. She tugged the blanket up around Zhou Tan and said quietly, “The young master had his dressing changed this morning and is still deeply asleep. Please don’t take offense, my la— Madam.”

She didn’t understand the twists and turns of court politics, but from the laughter of all the visitors who had come and gone these past few days, she knew well enough that the emperor had arranged this marriage as a Chongxi ritual — meaning, of course, that he believed the young master would not survive.

The newly married young lady was beautiful and came from a family of scholars. From the moment the bridal sedan had arrived at the Zhou household, Nanny Yun had worried that the young lady might not be able to bear the humiliation, might create a scene threatening to end her life and ruin the wedding banquet, or might find Zhou Tan repulsive and refuse to go near him.

Instead, this young lady had proven nothing like the delicate, pampered girl she had imagined — not only had she not uttered a single word of complaint, but earlier she had calmly and effortlessly put the troublemaking Young Master in his place.

Though it had been improper for her to reveal her face in the hall, given how bleak the wedding had already been, such a small matter hardly seemed to count for anything anymore.

Watching Qu You curiously reach out to feel Zhou Tan’s forehead, Nanny Yun turned to her in surprise and asked, “Counting today, it’s been a full five days since he was attacked — why hasn’t he shown the slightest improvement?”

Nanny Yun knew nothing of medicine, and could only say, “The imperial physician came to see him and said the young master’s injuries were too severe — that it was now in heaven’s hands. He prescribed some medicine and hasn’t come back since.”

Qu You grew even more puzzled. “And you haven’t sent for any other physician since then?”

Nanny Yun looked troubled. “The imperial physician already came once — without an imperial order, how could we summon him again? As for physicians outside the palace, I have no contacts there. What if we brought in someone with ill intentions and it ended up harming the young master?”

Qu You reached out and pulled back the blanket covering him.

Zhou Tan’s wound was on his chest — she’d heard he’d been stabbed straight through the chest after stopping to help a young man who had stumbled while he was leaving the Ministry of Justice.

The wound had already been bandaged and redressed. Five days had passed — if it weren’t fatal, it should have long since scabbed over. Why, then, was it still seeping faint traces of blood?

Moreover, someone this gravely wounded shouldn’t be left to sleep so heavily for so long, nor should he be weighed down under such heavy blankets.

Aside from this one nanny, there seemed to be no one in the Zhou household who genuinely cared for him — and the nanny, understanding nothing of medicine, would never have dared to question the imperial physician’s judgment.

Qu You sighed inwardly, her fingers brushing lightly, almost unconsciously, across Zhou Tan’s face.

He was strikingly handsome — his complexion pale as freshly fallen snow, his nose bridge high, his lips thin. Even with his eyes closed, one could tell they turned up at the corners like a sparrow’s tail, with a tiny cinnabar mark at the outer corner of each eye. No matter how one looked at him, he didn’t resemble a ruthless, careless man in the least.

And now, with his face haggard and his hair disheveled, wearing only a snow-white undergarment with a gold-embroidered wedding robe draped over him haphazardly, the pallor of illness only made him seem all the more pitiful.

Qu You gently loosened the front of his robe and found that the area around his wound clearly hadn’t been properly cleaned — whoever had come to change his dressing must have been thoroughly careless, only changing the bandage without bothering with anything else.

She drew a sharp breath and immediately asked, “Nanny Yun, can you leave the residence right now?”

Nanny Yun blinked, not yet answering, when Qu You sighed. “Never mind — too many eyes about tonight, and it’s late besides. Here’s what we’ll do: tomorrow morning, take this token of mine to Twelve Sweetwater Lane, go to the house at the very end, and ask the man of the house to come here. Use the side gate, and try not to let anyone see you.”

She reached up to steady the heavy ceremonial headpiece atop her head, thought for a moment, and added, “And please prepare some clean gauze, cotton, scissors, and if possible, some unopened wine. Thank you, Nanny.”

Nanny Yun didn’t understand what this was about, but sensed that the woman before her meant Zhou Tan no harm, and so instinctively followed her instructions. Before long, she brought back everything Qu You had asked for, and then, at her request, closed the door and withdrew.

The room fell into a hushed stillness, lit only by candlelight. Qu You removed her heavy headpiece, loosely gathered her long hair, and sat down at the bedside to begin cleaning Zhou Tan’s wound.

Since he had managed to survive three or four days even without a physician’s care, this couldn’t be a truly fatal wound — but the sloppy treatment from the first day meant it wouldn’t heal properly anytime soon either; he would simply have to hang on and slowly recover on his own strength.

No wonder the rumors on the street all said Zhou Tan’s injuries were beyond saving — looking at the state he was in, it seemed even Emperor De himself hadn’t yet decided whether he wanted the man dead or alive, and had simply chosen to leave it to fate, to see whether he could pull through on his own.

But history recorded that Zhou Tan not only survived, but thrived — even after being demoted later on, he remained a man Emperor De trusted deeply, urgently recalled to the capital the moment he fell ill.

Though Zhou Tan was recorded in the history books as a treacherous minister, she was, after all, an objective researcher, and held no personal feelings of love or hatred toward him. Since fate had transmigrated her into this role, and given her this opportunity, perhaps — alongside investigating the mystery of the Flower-Cutting Edict — she could also reexamine this historical figure with fresh eyes.

After all, the joy of history lay precisely in exploring its most elusive mysteries.

But looking at the man’s battered, broken body, she couldn’t help but feel a stirring of pity all the same.

Across Zhou Tan’s chest and back, aside from the fatal wound, there remained dense clusters of old scars — whip marks, rod marks, and beneath his ribs, a distinct lotus-shaped brand.

By her estimation, these must have been inflicted during his imprisonment at the start of the year, during the Tower of Burning Candles case.

Emperor De was tyrannical and unpredictable, and the Tower of Burning Candles case had implicated a great many people — most of whom suffered only hunger and cold. But in order to break Gu Zhiyan’s resolve, his closest disciples and old friends had been subjected to unspeakably cruel treatment.

Gu Zhiyan’s reputation was known throughout the realm, and Emperor De hadn’t dared lay a hand on him directly — so instead, he’d forced Gu Zhiyan to watch his disciples and friends endure torture.

To be fair, Qu You could understand Zhou Tan’s decision — the fear of death was human instinct. It was only that, in this era, a scholar’s integrity was valued above life itself, and being scorned by one’s fellow literati was simply the ordinary cost of survival.

After Zhou Tan wrote the “Rhapsody on the Tower of Burning Candles,” Gu Zhiyan was released from prison, having suffered not a single mark on his body — he even received an imperial edict of comfort, was permitted to visit the ancestral temple, and returned to his hometown. Five days after leaving the capital, passing by Clear Creek along the way, he drowned himself.

At Gu Zhiyan’s funeral, Zhou Tan had not been permitted to so much as step through the gate.

As Qu You cleaned away the traces of dried blood around his wound, she thought slowly to herself: Emperor De was a master at breaking down men, as one might train a wild hawk — he understood better than anyone how to turn a lone crane into a household dog.

Half of Zhou Tan’s later ruthlessness and cruelty, she suspected, had been learned directly from him.

Becoming treacherous and villainous wasn’t the only path available — every choice had ultimately been his own to make. Pitiable, perhaps, but not necessarily deserving of sympathy.

Qu You held nothing but contempt for the misdeeds of Zhou Tan’s recorded in history, and yet she also admired the resolve he would later show in pushing through his reforms — these things, after all, couldn’t simply be judged as one and the same.

And besides, with him now lying half-dead on their marriage bed, she genuinely couldn’t bring herself to simply look away.

Having cleaned the area around his wound, she replaced the bandage. She knew nothing of medicine — only that this wound needed continued treatment, though she didn’t dare act rashly, and so contented herself for now with cleaning away the blood.

She soaked the cotton in wine, and despite her best efforts at care, some of it inevitably dripped onto the open wound as she wiped.

Zhou Tan let out a pained hiss in his sleep.

His hand trembled violently. Qu You used a handkerchief to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead, and patted the back of his hand soothingly — only to notice, for the first time, that he was wearing the very same white jade thumb ring that had appeared in her dream, his long fingers clenched tightly around it as though holding onto something of immense value.

It took her the better part of the night to finish tending to him properly, dress him back in his undergarment, and cover him with a thin blanket.

Reflecting on the fact that she herself was a restless sleeper, Qu You decided that despite how large the wedding bed was, she’d better not climb into it after all —

Lest she accidentally kick this dying man out of bed in her sleep.

And so, the next morning, once Nanny Yun had received permission to “enter” from the new mistress, she pushed open the door only to find Qu You rubbing her eyes as she climbed up off the floor. She had draped a thin silk robe over her undergarment, and, still half-asleep, accepted the strong tea Nanny Yun brought her, drinking down the entire cup in one go.

Nanny Yun looked silently at the bedding laid out on the floor, privately thinking to herself that this refined young lady from an official household had chosen to sleep uncomfortably on the ground rather than share the marriage bed — it seemed that no matter how much concern she showed for her husband’s life, in the end she still found him distasteful.

Nanny Yun brought her two maids with downcast eyes, one named He Xing and the other Shui Yue. The two of them quickly tidied the bedding on the floor, then briskly fetched water to help her dress and do her hair — all in one smooth, efficient sequence, without a single unnecessary word.

Since her transmigration, this was the first time Qu You had enjoyed such attentive service, and she couldn’t help but find it a bit of a novelty.

Shui Yue seemed to be a dedicated hairdressing maid, working quickly and skillfully. Just as Qu You was admiring the result in the bronze mirror, feeling satisfied, Shui Yue’s sleeve accidentally brushed against the table, knocking a pearl hair ornament to the floor.

Qu You glanced at it, and before she could even react, Shui Yue had already dropped to her knees with a thud, her face ashen, stammering in a panic, “Madam, Madam, please forgive me, I didn’t mean to!”

Nanny Yun quickly explained from the side, “Madam, these two girls were specially chosen by this old woman to serve you — they’re still young and haven’t quite learned all the proper etiquette yet, please bear with them…”

Qu You remained still where she sat, her hand — which she’d been about to reach out to pick up the ornament — frozen halfway through the air. After a moment’s pause, she reached out and steadied Shui Yue’s arm instead.

Shui Yue, trembling and keeping her head lowered, heard the beautiful, almost otherworldly mistress say to her in a calm voice, “Get up.”

Still dazed, she scrambled to her feet, and the mistress pressed the pearl ornament back into her hands. “It’s such a small thing — why drop to your knees over every little matter?”

Qu You patted the back of Shui Yue’s hand, then turned to Nanny Yun, hesitating. “Nanny, would it be too improper if I asked that everyone in the household not need to kneel before me from now on?”

Nanny Yun was taken aback. “Kneeling maintains the proper order of rank and status — such propriety cannot simply be discarded.”

But being, in truth, a genuine modern woman, Qu You found it very difficult to accept people dropping to their knees before her at every turn. She pressed a hand to her forehead. “Then how about this — Nanny, please tell everyone on my behalf that, except when truly necessary, a simple bow will do from now on. There’s no need for such… such alarm.”

Nanny Yun nodded. “That should be proper enough. Madam is kind-hearted, showing such consideration for the servants.”

This newly married mistress seemed to show none of the usual shyness expected of a new bride, nor any of the resentment Nanny Yun had half-expected — and with this, Nanny Yun’s respect for her grew even further. “Please come to the front hall for the tea ceremony, Madam. The Young Master is waiting to serve you tea.”

She stepped forward to support Qu You’s arm, and said quietly, “I’ll head out now to the place you instructed, Madam. As for your token…”

Qu You turned, picked up the writing brush from the table, and drew an illegible scrawl that meant nothing to Nanny Yun, then handed it to her. “Thank you for your trouble.”