The rain continued to drizzle, but the atmosphere outside the Lu residence seemed frozen in time.
Except for Lu Wen Han’s clear declarations of “daughter” and “father,” everyone had fallen silent as if suddenly struck mute. Madam Sun from the Song family sat in the rain, forgetting even to stand up, clutching her chest as she tried to comprehend who Lu Wen Han was.
As she thought about it, realization struck.
Who else in Beijing could be Lu Wen Han? He was Minister of State Affairs Lu Wen Han, a close advisor to the Emperor. Though his official rank might not match the Duke’s, he wielded real power. Given the Emperor’s intentions to promote him to Prime Minister, every noble in Beijing sought his favor – whether from within the palace or without, whether imperial relatives or aristocrats. Everyone respectfully addressed him as “Lord Lu,” and even the Old Duke had to treat him as an equal.
Lu Wen Han’s daughter would be more than qualified to marry a prince – Song Qing Zhao was merely the second legitimate son of the Duke’s family. Song Qing Zhao’s status might be considered inferior.
But… wasn’t Lu Ming Shu just a commoner brought to the capital by a widow? How had she suddenly become Lu Wen Han’s daughter?
Madam Sun couldn’t find an answer to this question, but she knew she had caused grave trouble. She immediately kowtowed twice and fled ignominiously, supported by her maids.
Lu Wen Han no longer bothered with servants. Guessing that his thunderous anger had frightened this clever girl speechless, his expression grew increasingly gentle and loving.
“Don’t be afraid, Ming Shu. Father will support you in everything.”
Ming Shu wasn’t frightened – she was simply too shocked to react. If Madam Sun couldn’t make sense of it, Ming Shu was even more bewildered. She turned to Madam Zeng: “Mother, who is this person?”
She didn’t even address him as Lord Lu anymore.
Madam Zeng had never expected this. She and Lu Wen Han had been having a perfectly civil conversation behind closed doors. She had agreed to find an opportunity to tell the children about this matter, and Lu Wen Han hadn’t pressed her, only asking about events of the past eighteen years. They had both remained calm, and Lu Wen Han had been about to leave when he overheard Ming Shu being harassed by the Song family’s people.
Lu Wen Han had exploded in rage, his cultured facade torn away as if returning to eighteen years ago.
Faced with Ming Shu’s confusion, Madam Zeng found herself unable to answer – it would be wrong to say he was her father, but also wrong to say he wasn’t.
“I am your father.” Seeing Ming Shu’s confused face, Lu Wen Han spoke again with affection, “Tell Father, do you want to marry that Song boy?”
“She doesn’t.”
Before Ming Shu could speak, another voice cut in.
Through the drizzling spring rain, Lu Chang walked up from the other end of the long alley, holding an umbrella. He walked slowly, rain droplets hanging in his hair, his face expressionless, his eyes calm – like the spring rain itself, cool and clear-headed.
“Brother!” Ming Shu felt immensely relieved at the sight of Lu Chang. Ignoring the rain, she ran out from under the eaves to join him under his umbrella.
Lu Chang tilted the umbrella toward her. Ming Shu tugged at his sleeve and said, “That man says he’s our father.”
“Mm, I heard.” Lu Chang pulled her closer – the umbrella wasn’t large and even tilted toward her, but some rain still got through.
“But isn’t our father just a memorial tablet?” Ming Shu whispered to him.
The whisper wasn’t particularly quiet – just loud enough for Madam Zeng and Lu Wen Han to hear.
Lu Wen Han’s expression grew uncomfortable.
“I don’t know either.” Lu Chang spoke while walking with Ming Shu to their doorway. He ushered Ming Shu and Madam Zeng inside, then stood at the entrance himself, closed his umbrella, and shook it forcefully against the ground.
The flying droplets splashed onto Lu Wen Han.
Lu Chang didn’t apologize, only saying coolly, “This student has urgent matters at home and cannot entertain Lord Lu. Please take your leave.”
With that, he turned and entered the house, slamming the door in Lu Wen Han’s face and dropping the bolt.
Lu Wen Han nearly got his nose caught in the door.
The expected tearful scene of the father reuniting with his son and daughter didn’t materialize. The son was too calm, the daughter made sarcastic comments, and he couldn’t even get them to yell at him.
These children showed absolutely no respect for him, the Minister of State Affairs.
Who did they take after?
They were exactly like him in his youth.
—
Rain fell outside while the light inside the tightly closed house was dim. The atmosphere was tense, with no one speaking as they watched Lu Chang put away his umbrella and wipe the water from his shoes at the entrance.
Seeing her son’s silence, Madam Zeng seemed at a loss. She had kept this secret from him for eighteen years, never expecting it to explode today without any time to prepare.
Ming Shu looked at them both, first helping Madam Zeng to a chair, saying, “Mother, please sit.” Then she went to Lu Chang, rising on tiptoes to shake the raindrops from his hair, saying only, “Brother, your hair is wet.”
Her voice was soft and gentle, both playful and caring, easing the nearly frozen atmosphere.
“Thank you,” Lu Chang said, his tone neutral.
“Sit with Mother while I make you both some tea.” Ming Shu was already clearing away the tea Lu Wen Han had drunk.
Lu Chang stopped her: “Sit down. I’ll go.”
He took the used tea from Ming Shu’s hands and went to the kitchen. Ming Shu brought a stool to sit beside Madam Zeng and asked quietly, “Mother, was what Lord Lu said true?”
Madam Zeng silently nodded.
Ming Shu pressed her mother’s anxious fist resting on her knee: “Are you worried about Brother’s reaction?”
Madam Zeng nodded again.
“Brother is educated and reasonable, and he’s so filial to you, Mother. Don’t worry – besides, you have me.” Ming Shu comforted her.
Madam Zeng looked at Ming Shu with a gentle smile: “Ming Shu is so good, you’re Mother’s dearest comfort.”
Ming Shu smiled in return.
Soon Lu Chang returned carrying three bowls of tea, one for each of them, prepared for a long conversation. Ming Shu looked at her bowl – it contained salt-preserved plums and honey, a sour-sweet-salty combination that was her daily favorite.
“Mother, what exactly is our relationship with Minister Lu Wen Han?” Lu Chang sat opposite them, holding his bowl of plain water.
Madam Zeng’s bowl contained her usual eight-treasure tea.
“Lu Wen Han is your father.” Madam Zeng took a small sip of tea to steady herself, then began recounting the past.
—
The ill-fated relationship between Madam Zeng and Lu Wen Han dates back more than twenty years.
Madam Zeng wasn’t originally from Wuhu. She was from Xuanzhou, the daughter of an ordinary family, renowned throughout Jiangnan for her embroidery skills. Beautiful as well as talented, marriage proposals flooded in as soon as she came of age. Unfortunately, her mother had passed away by then, leaving only a gravely ill father and an opportunistic elder brother and sister-in-law. Her father, weakened by a long illness, couldn’t manage her marriage arrangements, which fell to her brother and sister-in-law. Greedy for money, they tried to sell her as a concubine to a wealthy local man nearly sixty years old.
“I was about Ming Shu’s age then – how could I submit to that? So I ran away from home. When my brother and sister-in-law discovered this, they pursued me relentlessly, chasing me to the riverbank. I thought then that I’d rather jump into the river and end it all than return with them. But before I could jump, I met the bane of my life.”
Madam Zeng was saved by a young man riding past the river.
Even after twenty years, the scene of Lu Wen Han saving her remained vivid, like a heavenly warrior descending.
At that time, a handsome youth and a beautiful maiden meeting under such circumstances – love at first sight was inevitable. Lu Wen Han gave her brother and sister-in-law a substantial sum of money and took her away.
“He brought me to his residence. I only thought of working like an ox or horse to repay that money. He didn’t care about the money at all, instead sheltering me and letting me stay in his home to earn money through embroidery. He told me his name was Lu Yuan Chuan, that his parents were deceased, and that he ran several rice shops – a modestly wealthy young merchant. He treated me very well, was gentle and considerate, caring for my every need, different from other men. I never doubted him.”
Madam Zeng continued her recollections.
The young Lu Wen Han looked seventy percent similar to Lu Chang but with smiling eyes. How could a teenage Madam Zeng resist his charm? She quickly fell in love. Lu Wen Han was equally captivated by her gentle manner and the strength hidden beneath her fragile appearance.
“Though we were in love, we never crossed any boundaries. He said he was devoted to me, and I insisted on a proper marriage. He agreed.”
Marriage contract, betrothal gifts, matchmaker, wedding ceremony – everything followed proper primary wife customs, lacking only his parents’ presence.
“I thought I was his properly married wife – no, I WAS his properly married wife! But I didn’t know Yuan Chuan was just his courtesy name. His full name was Lu Wen Han, the youngest son of the Lu family! He deceived me!”
The Lu family was Xuanzhou’s most famous official family, with three generations of government service, long since relocated to Beijing. Though sharing the surname, Madam Zeng never imagined Lu Wen Han could be the Lu family’s youngest son. She didn’t know this youngest son was notorious in the capital – brilliant but unruly from childhood, always causing trouble.
The year Madam Zeng met Lu Wen Han, he had caused major trouble in Beijing, offending someone he shouldn’t have. To quell the situation, his family elders decided to send him back to their old home in Xuanzhou – partly as punishment, partly abandoning his youngest son.
“That was probably his lowest point. Banished by his family, his prospects for fame and fortune scattered like clouds. Even I could see his resentment.”
Lu Wen Han was deeply rebellious. Dissatisfied with his family’s actions, he established his residence rather than enter the Lu family’s ancestral home. He never used the Lu family name in his dealings, and no one in Xuanzhou knew the Lu family’s youngest son had returned. This marriage was conducted entirely without his family elders’ knowledge.
“Though he was unrestrained and always causing trouble outside, he treated me well,” Madam Zeng took another sip of tea and continued.
After marriage, they lived blissfully for a time. Madam Zeng soon became pregnant and gave birth to Lu Chang.
In the second year after Lu Chang’s birth, people came from Beijing looking for Lu Wen Han. His elder brother had unfortunately died in a riding accident, leaving his parents without support and no one to inherit the family line. They remembered their youngest son and wanted him to return to Beijing.
“That’s when I learned he was the Lu family’s youngest son, not some rice merchant. He had noble birth, and was heaven’s favored son – not someone a commoner like me could match.”
Madam Zeng would never forget what the Lu family people said to her.
“Just a mistress, how dare you call yourself a wife?”
“If I had known this marriage would end like this, I would rather have jumped into the river that day than let him save me. Better to be a commoner’s wife than an emperor’s concubine – I never sought wealth and status, but he made me even lower than a concubine!” Madam Zeng’s eyes reddened, her hands trembling slightly.
From that day on, she argued constantly with Lu Wen Han. Even though he repeatedly assured her she was his wife, not a concubine, when she asked about his family’s attitude, he always fell silent.
The Lu family would never accept her.
“He was an ambitious man, certain to return to Beijing – what would I be then? He couldn’t give me any guarantees. He said he would fight for me, but I no longer believed his lies. We argued day and night.”
Such arguments wore away their love; even the deepest affection was exhausted. Both were worn out and finally, Madam Zeng made the break.
“I told him, let’s separate.”
By then, Lu Wen Han was also full of resentment from the endless arguments. Hearing her cruel words, he angrily agreed to the separation.
“I asked for nothing except the child. He didn’t fight me for that, just left the separation papers and returned to Beijing with his family people, leaving the house to me. But soon after he left, Lu family people came again, trying to take Lu Chang from me. If I stayed in Xuanzhou, I couldn’t have protected Lu Chang and would still have been controlled by my brother and sister-in-law. So I made a clean break, secretly fleeing to Wuhu in the night. I told everyone my husband had died of illness and never inquired about the Lu family or him again.”
Lu Chang knew the rest. Madam Zeng brought him to settle in Wuhu, where they lived until he was nine when flooding forced them to flee. The flood destroyed the government records, burying their past completely.
He still vividly remembered those days as refugees. Barely clothed, shoes worn through until they had to walk barefoot, begging for food from strangers along the way, enduring spit and beatings. They walked a thousand li until reaching Jiangning, where they met Ming Shu’s birth mother who gave them a lifeline.
He had been black and thin then, and Ming Shu had seemed like the moon in the sky to him.
“Mother.” Ming Shu moved closer to Madam Zeng, gently wiping away her tears with a handkerchief.
“Good girl.” Madam Zeng hadn’t noticed when she started crying, perhaps from remembering those difficult times. She dried her tears and continued gently, “You needn’t resent him. Though he has many faults, he never broke his promises to me. He said he wouldn’t take the child, and he didn’t – it was surely his parents who sent people, as the family elders wouldn’t allow their descendants to be lost outside. Today he told me our separation was just from his momentary anger, and that he planned to return for me after settling things in Beijing, but my temper was so great that I left with the child without a word, leaving him no way to find us.”
Guilt and regret appeared in her eyes as she spoke: “Blame me. If I hadn’t been so prideful then, if I’d let you return to the Lu family with him, you wouldn’t have had to endure such hardship those years.”
“Mother needn’t blame herself. Even if I had returned to the Lu family, in their eyes I would still have been an illegitimate son of a mistress – how could that compare to living openly and honorably as I do now?” Lu Chang finally spoke.
“Lu Chang!” Madam Zeng cried urgently, “I’m telling you all this so you understand – you are absolutely not a mistress’s son. He brought me in with proper betrothal gifts and three letters, all the documents are in my hands, including the separation papers. If anyone dares say otherwise, throw both the marriage documents and separation papers in their face!”
“Mother, that’s not what Brother meant,” Ming Shu quickly rose to calm Madam Zeng. “Brother feels living with you is better than life with the Lu family. I feel the same way.”
Madam Zeng slowly sat back down and said, “Regardless, what’s between Lu Wen Han and me is past, our grievances are settled, and we owe each other nothing. But you two are different. Whether to accept him as your father is your own decision – I won’t interfere.”
Lu Chang glanced at Madam Zeng and suddenly said, “Ming Shu, help Mother prepare some hot water.”
Ming Shu thought it was for washing Madam Zeng’s face and went to do so. After she left, Lu Chang said, “I may be Lu Wen Han’s son, but Ming Shu…”
“When he and I separated, I was just pregnant with a second child. You should have had a younger brother or sister, but I miscarried a few days after he left. He probably thinks Ming Shu is that child.” Madam Zeng’s eyes reddened again as she spoke.
She truly saw Ming Shu as her daughter, not only because of the early kindness of Ming Shu’s birth mother and Ming Shu’s lovable nature but also because of that lost child. If that pregnancy had been a girl, she would be Ming Shu’s age now. Sometimes she felt Ming Shu was heaven’s comfort to her…
Lu Chang understood. No wonder Lu Wen Han hadn’t doubted Ming Shu’s identity when he learned of his “daughter” – his misunderstanding had only grown deeper.
—
That night, exhausted from the day’s events, Madam Zeng retired early.
After she was asleep, Ming Shu quietly left her room to find Lu Chang. He wasn’t sleeping; candlelight showed through the crack in his door. Ming Shu knocked and entered when she heard his voice.
Lu Chang stood at the window with his back to her. The window was wide open, letting in gusts of wind and spatters of rain.
“The window’s so wide open, you’re getting rained on. Be careful not to catch cold.” Ming Shu stepped forward to close it.
Lu Chang’s hand pressed on the window frame, preventing it from closing. Ming Shu tried to pull his hand away but found it clenched tight, knuckles white with tension.
Ming Shu’s heart jumped. Looking at his face, she saw it was unnaturally calm.
So calm it showed neither joy nor anger, so calm that…
It hurt to see.
Ming Shu’s chest suddenly tightened, her heart feeling as if wrapped in threads pulling ever tighter.
“Brother…” she murmured.
For this suddenly appearing father, Ming Shu herself didn’t feel much, perhaps because of her memory loss – she couldn’t remember the past and felt neither excitement nor anger toward Lu Wen Han. But Lu Chang was different.
He had suffered too much pain in his early years from losing his father, enduring it all in silence, each hurt carved into his bones and blood. For him, Lu Wen Han’s appearance was like a sudden storm.
Yet he showed nothing, and if Ming Shu hadn’t noticed his state now, even she would have overlooked it.
He was in pain, a pain he couldn’t express.
He was only twenty – when other young men were just beginning to show their potential, he had already spent over ten years struggling for survival.
Those ten years should have been a youth’s time to soar freely.
“Brother, I’m Ming Shu. You don’t need to always be strong in front of me.” Ming Shu spoke beside his ear, her hand gently covering his fist, trying to get it to relax.
Lu Chang turned his head, confusion in his eyes, a hint of red rimming them.
He stared at Ming Shu for a moment, then suddenly wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her into his embrace, his head falling heavily against her neck.
A low, hoarse voice sounded in her ear: “Ming Shu, I’m hurting.”
Ming Shu said nothing, only reaching back to stroke his back soothingly.
After a quiet moment of comfort, Lu Chang finally released her, returning to his usual demeanor.
“Feeling better?” Ming Shu asked.
“I’m fine,” Lu Chang said calmly, now relaxed, but staring at Ming Shu he asked, “Earlier I heard you say outside – you want to marry Song Qing Zhao?”
“…” Ming Shu suddenly sensed trouble.
Lu Chang might be fine now, but her troubles were just beginning.