Two days later, Mei Si came to see Wu Zhen again. Compared to his previous melancholy, this time Mei Si appeared more embarrassed and hesitant.
Finally, under Wu Zhen’s questioning, he stammered with a red face, “I suspect… I suspect Liu Taizhen might have… taken a liking to me…”
Wu Zhen immediately spat out her wine, amazed at little Mei Si’s imagination. She put down her cup and asked curiously, “How did you come to that conclusion?”
Mei Si replied angrily, “I was sleeping when I found her by my bedside in the middle of the night, touching my forehead. I was so frightened I felt dizzy and didn’t dare make a sound, just pretending to sleep. If she wasn’t interested in me, why would she sneak into my room at night, and do nothing but touch my forehead?”
Wu Zhen, seeing his uncomfortable and embarrassed expression, didn’t know what to say. After all, it wasn’t the first time Mei Si had overthought things.
Mei Si anxiously ran his fingers through his hair, “I thought she was going to eat me, but she left without doing anything. That’s why I wondered if she… if she had feelings for me…”
Wu Zhen thought to herself: Silly child, she wasn’t touching your forehead, she was trying to erase your memory. Your dizziness was probably due to her supernatural power, not fear.
Thinking this, Wu Zhen didn’t say anything out loud. Instead, she patted Mei Si’s shoulder and, suppressing her laughter, mischievously told him, “Isn’t this perfect? If she likes you, you don’t have to worry about your life anymore.”
But hearing this, Mei Si became even more uncomfortable, “No, no way.” He mumbled, “Lady Liu… she’s seven years older than me…”
Wu Zhen slapped him on the head, “I’m older than your cousin too. What are you implying?”
Seeing Wu Zhen’s half-smiling expression, Mei Si didn’t dare complain about the pain. He quickly hugged his head and ran away.
Wu Zhen had been finding amusement in Mei Si and Liu Taizhen’s situation these days. Having heard this interesting tidbit from Mei Si, she immediately decided that joy shared is joy doubled and went to share it with Liu Taizhen.
However, Liu Taizhen, one of the parties involved, didn’t find the situation as amusing as Wu Zhen did. She scowled, unusually angry, her pretty face so stern it could stop a galloping horse.
“Well, well, what an insolent boy!” she shouted, clearly infuriated.
But it only lasted a moment. She quickly calmed down and said to Wu Zhen through gritted teeth, “I’m done with this. Since I can’t erase his memory, just keep him in check from now on. Don’t let him spread this around.”
Seeing that she was about to wash her hands of the troublesome matter, Wu Zhen inwardly exclaimed what a pity it was. She had wanted to see more of the drama unfold. So, not one to let things lie, she advised, “Hey, don’t give up so quickly. Why not try a few more times? Maybe next time you’ll succeed in erasing his memory.”
Liu Taizhen didn’t even want to speak to her. She picked up a white jade snake paperweight from the table and threw it at Wu Zhen. Wu Zhen deftly caught it with one hand and placed it on the nearby couch. Seeing that Liu Taizhen was truly angry, she didn’t dare to tug on the snake’s tail any further. She patted her bottom and jumped out the window to leave.
Before leaving, she couldn’t resist adding, “Are you sure you don’t want to consider Mei Si? I’ve watched this young man grow up. Although he’s a bit reserved and proud with strangers, once he’s familiar with you, he’s quite easy to bully…”
Before she could finish, another barrage of objects flew towards the window. Wu Zhen promptly shut up and fled, leaving only the sound of her laughter behind.
Wu Zhen laughed for a while, then rode her horse down the main street, whip in hand, wondering where to pass the time. Suddenly, a call came.
“Second Young Lady!”
It was a servant from Duke Yu’s mansion. Wu Zhen hadn’t returned to Duke Yu’s mansion for quite some time. Since her marriage, her father had contentedly stayed at the temple, nibbling on vegetables and radishes while striking the wooden fish, no longer returning monthly. Now, Duke Yu’s mansion was only maintained by some servants for daily cleaning. There shouldn’t be anything happening, but the person who came looked extremely anxious.
“Second Young Lady, we’ve finally found you! Something’s happened, please come back to Duke Yu’s mansion quickly!”
Wu Zhen raised an eyebrow. Something happened?
When she returned to Duke Yu’s mansion, she saw an unfamiliar middle-aged servant at the entrance, covered in dust from travel, with two guards standing beside him. This middle-aged servant was well-dressed, likely a slave of high status valued by his master. Seeing Wu Zhen dismount, he hurriedly came forward, kowtowing as he spoke, “Are you the Second Young Lady? I am an old servant of the Pei family from Kunzhou, usually responsible for taking care of the Sixth Young Master.”
The Sixth Young Master he mentioned was Pei Jiya, Wu Zhen’s cousin, the only young man of this generation of the Kunzhou Pei family to survive to adulthood. The Pei family in Kunzhou had many daughters who all lived well into adulthood, but their sons seemed to have short lifespans, with several young masters dying of illness. Only the Sixth Young Master Pei Jiya remained, though he was also sickly. As the only surviving son, he held a special position in the Pei family, which shaped his peculiar personality.
When Wu Zhen heard the middle-aged servant mention Pei Jiya, she already had a guess. She had someone lead the horse away and walked towards the mansion gate. “What’s the matter? It must be urgent for you to wait at the gate. Let’s go inside and talk.”
The middle-aged servant quickly got up, “This servant was impolite. I was just so flustered.”
After they were seated in the reception hall, Wu Zhen finally learned why the middle-aged servant was so anxious and worried.
Pei Jiya had gone missing.
“The Sixth Young Master said earlier that he wanted to attend the Second Young Lady’s wedding and stay in Chang’an for two more months. You know the Sixth Young Master’s temperament, he doesn’t like us interfering too much. At first, we thought he was still staying in Chang’an. We sent two family letters but received no reply. We wanted to come and ask but feared angering him. There have been several times before when he went out and didn’t reply to family letters. As two months passed and he still hadn’t sent any message about returning, the family head finally sent this servant with others to fetch him. But when we arrived in Chang’an, the servants at Duke Yu’s mansion said the Sixth Young Master had already left long ago. That’s when we realized something was wrong.”
After the middle-aged servant finished speaking, he looked at her with drooping eyebrows and a worried face.
Wu Zhen tapped her knee thoughtfully. Cousin Pei had left before her wedding, which was before the Dragon Boat Festival. It had been more than two months, almost three months now. Although Kunzhou was far, it should only take ten days to half a month to reach. Now that he was missing, something must have happened on the way.
Wu Zhen couldn’t help but think of the small parting gift she had given him. Could it be because of that?
Thinking this, she said directly, “My cousin indeed left early. You rest at the mansion first. Tomorrow, I’ll send a team of guards to accompany you back to Kunzhou, searching for traces of my cousin along the way.”
The middle-aged servant immediately looked grateful and was led away by a waiting servant to rest.
Wu Zhen returned to her room. After pondering for a moment, she plucked two hairs from her head, twisted them around her finger, and softly chanted Pei Jiya’s name and birth date, then blew on the hairs.
The two thin hairs twisted and suddenly burst into flames, falling to the ground. Wu Zhen frowned. What was going on? Why couldn’t she divine anything?
Was there any other way to know if someone was still alive? As Wu Zhen was thinking, her eyes suddenly caught sight of more than a dozen gift boxes placed on a long table in the room. These were wedding gifts from friends. After moving to her husband’s place, she rarely came back and had forgotten about these gifts piled up here.
Wu Zhen suddenly remembered that Cousin Pei had left a gift too, which should be among that pile. Thinking she might find some clues, or at least use something he had touched to divine something, she walked over and rummaged through the pile, finding the gift left by Pei Jiya. Hoping to find some clues, even if there weren’t any, she thought she might be able to divine something from an object he had touched.
She quickly unwrapped the box and found an even more exquisite small sandalwood box inside, locked with a small golden lock. Not seeing a key, Wu Zhen looked at it for a moment, then casually pulled and broke the small golden lock, opening the sandalwood box.
Inside the box were not valuable items, but two crudely carved wooden figurines, seemingly carved by her cousin himself. Wu Zhen reached out and took the two figurines, examining them. She didn’t find anything unusual; they were just two ordinary willowwood figurines.
Just as she was about to put them back, she suddenly felt dizzy and her vision went black.
A moment later, Wu Zhen opened her eyes to see a small official in a blue uniform standing a few steps in front of her, cautiously and somewhat strangely asking, “Physician Mei, what’s wrong with you?”
Physician Mei? Wu Zhen realized something was off. She looked at her hands – they were large, with an old scar on the left palm. She was wearing a crimson official robe, with a silver incense ball tied at the waist – the one she had tied to her husband’s waist this morning.
Wu Zhen looked up at the not-unfamiliar room – it was her husband’s workroom in the Ministry of Justice.
She had become her husband.
It must be those two wooden figurines left by Pei Jiya that caused this. Wu Zhen immediately understood and couldn’t help but reveal a gloomy smile. Plotting against her? Well, well, her cousin was indeed worthy of being her cousin.
Wu Zhen suddenly felt no rush. She leaned back comfortably on the desk, interestedly examining her palms. These were her husband’s hands, now suddenly hers. It felt strange indeed.
What about her husband now? Could it be that he had gone into her body? Had they switched bodies? Wu Zhen was lost in her thoughts, unaware that she had frightened the small official greatly. The official watched in horror as the usually stern-faced Physician Mei, who had been talking normally, suddenly swayed forward, closed his eyes for a moment, and then, as if possessed, revealed a terrifying smile.
If Physician Mei’s smile was so frightening, then his usual lack of smiling was indeed correct. The small official trembled as he watched Physician Mei sit there lost in thought, his mannerisms and actions completely different from usual, as if he had become a different person. He remembered a certain rumor circulating in the Ministry of Justice and felt his legs weaken.
“Phy-Physician Mei?”
Hearing this weak voice, Wu Zhen looked up, only then remembering there was still someone else there. So she raised her head and smiled, “Everything’s fine here. You can go now.”
The small official, chilled to the bone by her smile, dared not say anything more. He clutched the unfinished official documents and quickly ran away.
Meanwhile, Mei Zuyu had been working diligently when he suddenly felt dizzy. When he regained clarity, he found himself no longer in the Ministry of Justice office, but in a somewhat familiar place.
Seeing the couch by the window, he realized this seemed to be his wife’s room in Duke Yu’s mansion. He saw two wooden figurines in his hand and also saw his hand – fair and delicate.
Mei Zuyu: “…?”