The royal daughter had traveled out from Dongting, following the Sichuan road across mountains and rivers to Kuizhou to marry down into the Xie Family. There was no need to speak again of how the Xie household’s young master had left her on their wedding night and rushed off in haste — that, after all, could not be helped. But over these six-plus months, there was not a single one of the Mu clan servants who had come along with her who had not witnessed Xie’s mother’s contemptuous treatment of the royal daughter and felt it like a pain in their own hearts.

Never in their wildest imaginings had they expected that the royal daughter would wake up that very morning, seeming like an entirely different person, and open her mouth to say she was returning to Dongting. It was nothing short of a gift from heaven.

Some of the maidservants followed her inside to help pack up the belongings, while others immediately ran out to summon the household manager, who would gather all the manservants and swiftly arrange the carriages and horses for the journey. Each and every one of them was bustling about with great enthusiasm.

Unlike the jubilant maidservants, Nanny Mu, though she too had long felt aggrieved on behalf of the royal daughter and harbored some dissatisfaction toward the Xie household, found this decision far too sudden — and it struck her as somewhat out of character.

She thought of the tear-stained eyes the royal daughter had been unable to conceal when she appeared in the doorway just now. Her heart grew more unsettled. Entering the room, she saw the royal daughter personally folding a few close-fitting garments. She hesitated, then drew near her side and asked softly: “My young mistress, you have been crying this morning. Would you be willing to tell Nanny what happened? Why do you suddenly wish to return to Dongting?”

Fu Lan turned her face and met Nanny Mu’s gaze — eyes full of deep concern fixed steadily upon her — and a fresh wave of bitterness welled up in her heart.

It was a bitterness that carried within it boundless regret tinged with endless gratitude.

Her parents had shared a deep and loving bond. Though her father held the position of Prince of Changsha, he had, throughout his entire life, only her mother as his Princess Consort. After her mother died of illness when Fu Lan was ten years old, the old injuries her father had sustained in his early years of battle resurfaced, and his health had declined with each passing day. In the year she turned thirteen, not long after he had arranged her betrothal, he followed her mother in death.

Though in this present life both her parents were already gone, she had lost too what had felt like a dream yet was, in her heart, something she knew had truly happened — her love from a past life. And it was precisely that kind of searing, blood-soaked anguish that had made her unable to stop weeping when she woke that morning.

Yet she was still fortunate.

She had returned to being her sixteen-year-old self.

In this life that was starting over, she and the flesh and blood she had loved in her past life would be separated by the boundary between the living and the dead, with no possibility of ever meeting again — yet she had the chance to save her elder brother. She had her kind and loving sister-in-law, and people like Nanny Mu, who had cared for her and protected her with their very lives.

She forced back the warmth rising in her eyes and said: “I am fine. I only had a terrible nightmare last night. Nanny, do not worry.”

“Nanny Mu, my mind is made up. I am returning to Dongting.”

She added, after a brief pause.

From the time the royal daughter had been a small child, she had always been gentle and obedient.

Nanny Mu had never before heard her speak with such a tone of finality about any matter — one that left absolutely no room for discussion with anyone else.

Though she remained deeply puzzled, she pressed no further, and said gently: “Very well. If the young mistress wishes to return to Dongting, then we shall return.”

Mu Fulan went to the table and picked up a letter she had already written that morning — already sealed with wax — and handed it over.

“Nanny Mu, please send a capable person to deliver this letter to my sister-in-law’s hands with all possible speed. I have something urgent that she must know as soon as possible. There are many of us, and even at our fastest pace on the road, I fear there will be some delay.”

“This letter is of the utmost importance. Remember this well!”

She emphasized this once more in a deliberate tone.

Nanny Mu was more puzzled than ever, but seeing the solemn expression on her face, she nodded, accepted the letter, turned, and departed in haste.

Fu Lan watched the departing figure of Nanny Mu’s retreating back and slowly let out a long breath.

“My young mistress, now that we are heading back, by the time we return, the weather will surely have grown colder. Will you take this fox-fur robe, or that cloak? Or shall we bring both?”

Danzhu pointed to a few winter garments and asked for her preference.

Fu Lan turned and said: “Pack all the books I brought with me — including the medical texts — and also the pair of Zhou dynasty Kui-dragon patterned bronze vessels on the shelf. Bring all of those back. As for clothing, take whatever is convenient — just enough to change into along the road.”

Danzhu was taken aback.

When the royal daughter had come here as a bride, she had brought her generous dowry, and also many of her books, including her medical texts.

As for the pair of Zhou dynasty Kui-dragon patterned bronze vessels, they had been a beloved treasure of the late Prince of Changsha. Deeply fond of his younger sister, the Prince had included them in her dowry as a keepsake.

Danzhu had assumed the royal daughter was only going home for a short visit. She did not understand why she would forgo clothing and instead pack these bulky and unwieldy items.

“My young mistress?”

She was somewhat puzzled.

“Just pack things as I have instructed.”

Fu Lan gave her a faint smile.

The maidservant had no choice but to nod and direct the others to continue with the packing.

“Old Madam, please take care! Mind the step!”

A voice suddenly came from the doorway.

Fu Lan turned her head.

Xie’s mother came hurrying from the direction of the main hall, not even taking Qiuju’s arm, striding across the steps on her own and stopping at the doorway of the east wing room — not entering, but standing at the threshold, her gaze sweeping over the several open chests on the floor inside. Her expression darkened.

“Mu Fulan, what is the meaning of this? Just now Qiuju told me, and I still did not believe it! You are truly going back to your maternal home?”

Danzhu, Zhuyu, and the others stopped what they were doing at the sight of Xie’s mother and looked toward Fu Lan.

Fu Lan held Xie’s mother’s gaze, went to meet her at the doorway, and respectfully said: “Mother-in-law, please come in and sit. As our departure is somewhat rushed and there is much to pack, I did not go over to speak with you myself. Please do not blame me.”

Xie’s mother’s brows pressed tightly together in a frown. She said, her tone indignant: “My son, it is true, left on the very night of the wedding — but that was because the imperial command could not be defied, it was not that he himself did not wish to stay! You are married into my Xie household now, you are a member of the Xie family. I am not absolutely forbidding you from returning to your maternal home, but it has been such a short time — how is it that you are already set on going back?”

Fu Lan remained silent, not responding.

Xie’s mother paused briefly.

“I am just a lonely old woman, and I do not have the blessing of a daughter-in-law to wait upon me — I accept that. But my son will surely be returning very soon. You are not here when he comes back — what kind of situation is that?”

Fu Lan said: “The fault is mine; please do not be angry, mother-in-law.”

Only this one sentence, and nothing else.

Her manner remained respectful as ever, yet the meaning was perfectly clear.

Which was: this trip back to her maternal home was something she had to make, no matter what.

The Mu clan woman had entered the household more than half a year ago, and in all that time before Xie’s mother, had been unfailingly compliant and obedient. This was the first time Xie’s mother had ever received such a gentle but firm brush-off, and the anger in her heart intensified. Still, she retained some degree of wariness about Fu Lan’s status and did not dare lose her composure entirely — with great effort she suppressed her irritation and gave a huff.

“Mu Fulan, I know you are a royal daughter, and a young mistress of rank — you look down on my Xie household, and an old country woman like me is no fit mother-in-law for you. If you are determined to return to your maternal home, I dare not stop you. But before you leave, there is one matter I must let you know — lest you come back later and lay blame.”

How could Mu Fulan not already guess what she meant to say?

“Mother-in-law wishes to welcome the Qi family’s young woman into the household?”

Her tone was calm.

Xie’s mother paused, glanced at Mu Fulan, cleared her throat, and softened her tone somewhat.

“You have been in my Xie household for some time now, and there are certain matters you must by now be aware of. When my son was young, our Xie household was in difficult circumstances. It was thanks to the Qi Family’s patriarch, who recognized my son’s potential and did not disdain our family, that he betrothed his eldest daughter to my son. That eldest daughter of the Qi Family later passed away unfortunately, so that betrothal came to nothing — yet over the years, as my son made his way in the world through all manner of hardship and difficulty, it was the Qi Family who provided support and care, and I was able to get through those years because of them, and live to see today. Now, though you are married in, my son and Fengyi have always been kindred spirits, and Fengyi herself understands her own position and is willing to be a lesser wife. What I mean is, once my son returns home, we should make arrangements for this matter…”

Fu Lan watched Xie’s mother’s lips moving open and shut, those eyes probing and scrutinizing her, listening to the tone that seemed cautiously measured yet was in truth utterly unapologetic — and she gradually drifted into a daze.

Yes — how could she not know?

Not long after she had married into the Xie household, she had already pieced together many details of her Xie husband’s life during the blank years before he married her — all of it gleaned from Xie’s mother’s seemingly offhand daily chattering.

Xie’s mother’s husband had been a postal relay station official at that time. That year, having offended a passing official, he was beaten severely and returned home vomiting blood, dying from his injuries. Her son, still only a fourteen-year-old boy who had long frightened people, chased down the official who had already departed, killed the entire party of dozens, then entrusted his mother to the Qi Family and left Xie County on his own, taking to a life of outlawry.

The memories from her past life — memories she had never wished to revisit — suddenly surged over her again in this moment.

She remembered it with perfect clarity: it was right around this time, more than half a year after she had entered the Xie household, that her husband returned home. After they had consummated their marriage, before she had even had time to emerge from the bashfulness and joy of a young girl just crossing the threshold into womanhood, he had brought up the matter of the Qi clan woman.

Even before the marriage, she had quietly imagined more than once that she and the Xie household’s young master she was to wed might one day be as deeply devoted as her own parents — sharing one bed in life and one grave in death.

Yet in the moment he opened his mouth, she had still swallowed her heartfull of disappointment, forced a smile, and agreed outright.

How naive she had been in those days.

Naive enough to believe that a hundred-foot rod of iron could be softened into a yielding finger, that a wife and a concubine could share one husband.

Later, she had finally understood.

In Xie Changgeng’s eyes, there was only his ambition and his empire.

The royal daughter of the Prince of Changsha was nothing more than a stepping stone beneath his feet. Gone — and gone without a trace.

This Qi clan woman Fengyi — perhaps she was his true match.

It had been herself who was the fool. She should have died when she died — dying was no great loss.

Only — when the image of the handsome young man from her dreams, blood-soaked in white robes, in the dark palace chambers before his long-dead mother’s memorial tablet, drew across his throat the sword of the father who had given him half his blood — and the question he had uttered just before death, “Mother, was what your child did right?” — rang out once more in her ears, something beneath Fu Lan’s chest and above her heart felt as though a blunt blade were cutting into it, stroke after stroke, splitting skin and flesh, blood flowing freely.

Her eyes reddened faintly at the corners. Her fingernails dug deep into her palms.

“Please do as you see fit. I have no objections.”

Her expression was colder and more detached than ice or snow, and she said this lightly.

Xie’s mother had already assumed she would not dare refuse. To at last receive a clean and straightforward agreement was gratifying. She glanced at the few chests in the room, suppressed her dissatisfaction, and said: “Go soon and return soon! My son will surely be home victorious before long.”