Father had already arrived in Dingzhou?
Lu Hong’s brow smoothed. He smiled easily and turned to Ling Jingshu. “Cousin Jingshu — A’Qian and I must go to the dock to meet Father. We shall have to come and see the peonies another day.”
Ling Jingshu’s reaction was strange. Her already-fair face had drained of nearly all color, the faint smile at her lips gone entirely. The dark brilliance of her pupils contracted — then slowly steadied. “Please go ahead, Cousin Lu Hong.”
The voice that had been cool but even turned in an instant to midwinter ice.
Lu Hong noticed the change with some curiosity, but didn’t dwell on it.
Lu Qian, on the other hand, went rigid throughout his entire body. He looked at Ling Jingshu once — a deeply complicated look, as if he wanted to say something. His lips moved. In the end, he said nothing. He lowered his head and followed Lu Hong away.
After the two Lu brothers left, Ling Jingshu stood in place for a long time.
Long enough that both Bai Yu and Ling Xiao could tell something was wrong.
Ling Xiao couldn’t see that her face had gone pale as snow, her expression locked stiff. But Bai Yu saw it plainly, and her heart sank. “Miss — are you all right?”
“A’Shu — why have you gone so quiet?” Ling Xiao reached out carefully, found the fabric of her sleeve, and held on. His face was full of anxious concern. “You were perfectly fine just a moment ago.”
Ling Jingshu drew a slow, deep breath. “Don’t worry. I’m fine.” She said it again, more quietly: “Truly, I’m fine.”
She had been reborn to the days of her girlhood. The humiliations of her past life had become history — they could no longer touch her. She needn’t be afraid. She would never let herself fall to that same end again…
Ling Jingshu repeated this to herself, over and over, until the trembling in her hands finally stilled.
This was not “fine” by any measure that Bai Yu could recognize. But Ling Jingshu had no intention of explaining, and both Bai Yu and Ling Xiao could only stay silently at her side.
Approaching footsteps broke the quiet.
Ling Xiao had the sharpest ears of any of them. He frowned and called out: “Who’s there?”
“It’s me.” A familiar girl’s voice — it was Ling Jingxian. She was walking quickly, and the easy sweetness she usually wore was absent. Look closely, and there was something dark and dissatisfied in the set of her brow.
She had come looking for trouble.
Ling Jingshu was preoccupied enough that her response was slow. “Cousin Jingxian — what brings you here?”
Ling Jingxian’s mouth twisted. A cold, short laugh. “This is the Ling family’s peony garden. You can come — am I not allowed?”
She looked around, eyes scanning, her expression sharpening with displeasure. “Where is Cousin Lu Hong? I heard he came to the peony garden with you. Where has he gone?”
When she’d heard Lu Hong was in the garden with Ling Jingshu, Ling Jingxian had been consumed by jealousy and come storming after them.
Ling Jingshu’s mood was foul — she had a whole knot of anger and grievance with nowhere to put it — and Ling Jingxian had delivered herself to the door at precisely the right moment. She showed no mercy. “His legs are his own. He goes where he likes, when he likes, and no one can stop him. If Cousin Jingxian wanted to see him, you should have come sooner — or sent someone to intercept him and have him wait for you.”
Ling Jingxian choked.
Her face turned a mortified red. Her eyes blazed. She bit out through her teeth: “Ling Jingshu! You clearly promised me that day — ” Her gaze flicked to Ling Xiao. She swallowed the rest of it and changed tack: “Surely you haven’t forgotten what you promised me.”
“I promised nothing,” Ling Jingshu said, ice-cold.
Ling Jingxian’s expression shifted. She was about to speak again — then Ling Jingshu’s chilled voice cut in again: “Whatever you want, I have no interest in it. Whatever you do is no concern of mine. If you bring this up to me again, don’t expect me to hold back.”
Blunt as a door slammed shut.
And yet — the anger drained from Ling Jingxian’s face remarkably fast. Something approaching a conciliatory smile replaced it. “My dear cousin, I let my impatience run away with me just now — forgive your elder cousin for speaking carelessly. Please don’t take it to heart.”
Ling Xiao, standing nearby listening, was thoroughly lost. He ventured: “Cousin Jingxian, what are the two of you talking about? I haven’t understood a single word.”
Before Ling Jingshu could answer, Ling Jingxian stepped in cheerfully: “It’s a secret between us sisters. Don’t go prying.”
Ling Xiao’s nature was good and guileless. Hearing this, he dropped the subject.
Ling Jingxian’s eyes shifted. She couldn’t quite help herself. “Cousin Xiao — Cousin Lu Hong came to the peony garden with all of you. Where’s he gone?”
Ling Jingshu had changed considerably of late — her manner distant, her words sharp, not someone easy to provoke. Better to ask Ling Xiao, who seemed more approachable.
“A page boy just came to report that our uncle has reached the dock,” Ling Xiao said readily. “Cousin Lu Hong and Cousin Lu Qian have gone to receive him.”
Oh — so their uncle had arrived.
The tension eased from Ling Jingxian’s brow. “Uncle had Auntie fretting constantly. It’s a relief he’s finally come. And come to think of it — Eldest Uncle’s family should be arriving very soon as well. Grandmother’s birthday is almost here. If they leave it much longer, they’ll miss it.”
The words had barely left her lips before a maidservant hurried over, bright-faced: “The Old Madam sends a message to the young masters and misses — the First Master’s family has also arrived at the dock. They’re unloading their luggage now and transferring to the carriages. They’ll be coming to the house together with the young masters’ uncle shortly. The Old Madam invites all the young masters and misses to gather at Yonghe Hall.”
“Speak of the sun and it appears.” Ling Jingxian laughed despite herself, then linked her arm through Ling Jingshu’s with easy familiarity. “We may as well go together — it’ll be livelier that way. Eldest Uncle and his family haven’t been back in five or six years. By the look of things, there’ll be tears again, just like when Auntie came home.”
She thought herself quite witty. She was still giggling when she finished.
Ling Jingshu gave her a look devoid of expression.
Ling Jingxian had been perfectly happy a moment ago, but under that blank, unflinching gaze, her laughter faded to something awkward. “If you don’t want to come, I’ll just go ahead then.”
She was privately baffled. Eldest Uncle’s family was returning, their uncle-in-law had come, the whole household was gathering — this was a wonderful occasion. How was there not a single trace of pleasure on Ling Jingshu’s face?
Bai Yu didn’t know the reason either, but she remembered the evasiveness when Madam Ling had first arrived, and said quietly: “If you’d rather not show yourself, miss, I’ll go to Yonghe Hall and say you’re unwell—”
“No need.”
Ling Jingshu drew a slow breath and cut her off: “I’ll go with Cousin Jingxian.”
One could not hide from things forever. What was coming would come. What had to be faced had to be faced. She would hold her head up and walk into the nightmare of her past life.
Ling Jingxian, to her credit, made no chatter on the way over.
Since Ling Jingshu had woken from that fever, her temperament, her bearing, her manner of speaking — all of it had changed considerably. When she wore that cold, collected expression, she gave off a chill that was almost physically unsettling.
Bluntly put, Ling Jingxian was a paper tiger — all roar at a distance, all collapse up close. She could posture and snap at most anyone, but when Ling Jingshu turned that blank, icy face on her, she immediately shrank.
When they arrived at Yonghe Hall, Ling Jingshu banished every trace of cold from her bearing almost at once. She stepped forward with a smile to bow and offer greetings to the Old Madam and the assembled elders, then quietly took her place at the side of her stepmother, Li Shi.
Ling Jingxian scolded herself silently. She must have imagined it all earlier. Ling Jingshu was, after all, still the same gentle and compliant girl she’d always been.
The gathering talked and waited for Ling Daye and their uncle-in-law to arrive.
“Elder Brother has served in the Ministry of Works for many years and by all accounts has the Minister’s full confidence. Vice Minister Qiao is nearly at retirement age — the position he vacates will, in all likelihood, go to Elder Brother.”
Ling Wuye moved in circles of men with official standing, and had a keen sense of how things moved in the court of Dazhou. He held forth with easy authority.
Ling Siye picked up the thread with a smile. “Elder Brother has been a Section Director of the Ministry of Works for all these years. A promotion is well overdue.”
The Director of Works was a fourth-rank post. Vice Minister would be senior third rank.
Senior third rank was nothing remarkable in the capital, where nobility was as common as dogs and imperial relatives walked every street. But in the civil service, it represented a genuine summit. Hold it for another ten or twenty years, and there might still be a path to the head of one of the Six Ministries.
At the mention of her eldest son, the Old Madam could barely contain her pride. Her face was wreathed in satisfaction. “Promotion would be wonderful, of course. But what matters most is that everyone is safe. At my age, I ask for nothing else — only that my children and grandchildren are all together, and all well.”
All well.
Ling Jingshu’s lips curved in something that was not quite a smile.
The Old Madam had generous hopes — but Eldest Uncle, unwilling to be content, had thrust himself into the struggle for the throne, and brought down catastrophe upon himself. He had been thrown into the prison cells of the Ministry of Justice. To free him, the Ling family had sold off their assets and called in every favor they had — and in the end, it was through the Lu family’s connections that they finally got him out.
After that, Eldest Uncle had lost his post, and never recovered. The once-great Ling family had forfeited the better part of its fortune and sunk into slow decline.
And it was because of all this that Lu An had dared to keep her confined within his household with complete impunity, treating the Ling family’s reputation as though it meant nothing. When she had fought and scraped her way back to the Ling household at last, the Old Madam had refused to give Lu An any cause for offense — and had sent her back, bound, to the Lu household…
One life — and in the end it could not escape the two words: power and gain. Yet the one who had paid the price was only her — innocent, and with so little to show for it.