Feng Xian didn’t elaborate on her plan, but before leaving, she repeatedly reminded Zhenzhen to keep it secret and not reveal a single word of what she had said today to anyone in the prince’s residence. She seriously warned Zhenzhen: “If you want to escape from the prince’s residence as soon as possible, this is the best opportunity, probably the only opportunity. Just pretend you never heard these words from me, and wait until the Eastern Palace banquet to act according to circumstances. But if you mention this to others in the next few days, you’ll surely fail completely, and then you’ll have to spend the rest of your life with a sick person you don’t like.” After a pause, she added, “When you’re serving at the banquet, don’t stay too close to Yinqi, but don’t be too far either. Be careful to protect yourself.”
With Zhenzhen’s intelligence, reflecting on Feng Xian’s words, it wasn’t hard to guess what she was planning: wontons would stimulate Yinqi’s illness, and Feng Xian would probably contact Yun Yingge, who was now working in the Eastern Palace, to add a dish of wontons to the banquet. When Yinqi fell ill because of this and created a disturbance, posing a threat to herself who was serving beside him, Feng Xian would then ask the Second Prince to speak to the Crown Prince, requesting the Crown Prince to intervene and rescue her.
This plan would certainly work, because the Crown Prince was benevolent and had helped Zhenzhen before, so he must have quite an impression of her. Moreover, the palace lady Yinqi had mistakenly killed before was bestowed by the Eastern Palace, so the Crown Prince would never let the same tragedy happen again.
However, if she followed this plan, Zhenzhen felt she would be wronging Yinqi. Since his last episode, Lady Chen Guo had again hired famous physicians to treat him. Every day he had to take large amounts of medicine, which made him nauseous, and he often vomited up both the medicine and all the food he had eaten previously. His complexion was now extremely haggard and he appeared even thinner. If she stimulated another episode, it would be like inflicting another double torture on him, both physical and mental, and whether he could recover like this time was uncertain.
The invitation from the Eastern Palace indeed arrived as expected, asking the Yinqi brothers to attend the banquet with their parents. When Lady Chen Guo asked Yinqi’s opinion, he smiled: “That’s fine. I’ve been feeling clear-headed and refreshed these past two days, and I was just thinking of going out for a walk.”
After Lady Chen Guo left, he took the medicinal juice Zhenzhen offered and drank it all at once, then dry-heaved several times, tears forced out, but he covered his mouth with his sleeve and finally suppressed it, not letting the medicine come back up.
Zhenzhen rubbed his back and fanned him, advising: “If it doesn’t taste good, take several small sips and swallow slowly. You don’t need to drink it so urgently.”
Yinqi shook his head: “I want to get better quickly…” Later he smiled and whispered to Zhenzhen: “You’ll come with me to the Eastern Palace and should meet many friends you knew in the Royal Kitchen. You’ve been at the prince’s residence for many days without being able to go out – you must be very depressed. This is a good chance to relax.”
Zhenzhen was momentarily stunned, only then realizing that his unusually active medicine-taking was to improve his condition and avoid missing the banquet due to illness, which would cause her to lose the opportunity to gather with old friends.
“When I was sick last time, I frightened you, didn’t I?” Yinqi looked at the still-dazed Zhenzhen and suddenly asked.
Zhenzhen couldn’t help but widen her eyes again: “You know…”
“When I have episodes, I don’t know what I’m doing,” Yinqi lowered his eyelids dejectedly. “The day before yesterday, during my afternoon nap, I inadvertently heard the maidservants in my room talking and learned that I nearly hurt you.”
After speaking, he stood up, took Zhenzhen’s hand toward the inner room, “I have something to give you.”
He dismissed all the maidservants, and only when the room contained just him and Zhenzhen did he open the cabinet door and take out a jade hairpin from a locked box to show Zhenzhen.
Zhenzhen examined it and saw the hairpin was pure white and lustrous, with a flowing cloud-shaped head and gentle, beautiful lines. What made it different was that the tail had been sharpened very keenly, like a weapon capable of injuring someone.
“There are no sharp weapons in my room, but they don’t know that I secretly polished this,” Yinqi smiled mischievously like a child plotting mischief behind his parents’ backs. “Now I’m giving it to you.”
Zhenzhen said the jade hairpin was precious and tried to decline it, but Yinqi grabbed her hand without allowing discussion and pressed the hairpin into her palm: “Just accept it and wear it in your hair from now on. If I have another episode, pull out the hairpin to stab me.”
His eyes were now pure and clear as a child’s, earnestly watching her, wholeheartedly hoping she would accept this gift that might harm him in the future.
Feeling inexplicably emotional, Zhenzhen shook her head and handed the hairpin back to Yinqi: “You’ll take your medicine well and recover. Nothing will happen again, so I won’t need this hairpin.”
Yinqi took the hairpin and gently inserted it into Zhenzhen’s hair, saying gently: “Use it well. If you’re hurt by me by mistake, I might be in more pain than being stabbed by the hairpin.”
This made Zhenzhen feel even more torn. She understood that, as Feng Xian said, the Crown Prince’s birthday banquet was a good opportunity to escape from the prince’s residence, but harming Yinqi in the process was absolutely not her wish. Considering the kindness Yinqi had shown her, she had almost given up the chance to escape and wanted to find an excuse to persuade Yinqi not to go to the Eastern Palace banquet, but Yinqi said: “Father has already replied to the Eastern Palace that I will attend. Last-minute refusal would be greatly disrespectful… Besides, I haven’t seen the Crown Prince for a long time, and I’d like to gather with the brothers too.”
So Zhenzhen was at a loss, unable to think of how to help him avoid the possible harm.
The next day Zhenzhen accompanied Yinqi for a walk in the garden. The autumn mood was strong then – outside the lake and rocks, several layers of maple, tree, and smoke tree red leaves were like fire, dyeing even the reflections in the clear blue water with flowing sunset colors. Autumn wind rustled through from time to time, and the originally green winding paths were already covered with accumulated yellow flowers. As the two walked among them, they suddenly heard something fall outside the rocks beside them, landing on dry fallen leaves with a continuous rustling sound.
Zhenzhen led Yinqi around to behind the rocks and discovered a white egret struggling on the ground with flapping wings. It was pure white all over with a long neck, beak, and legs, extremely beautiful in form, but its leg seemed injured, showing a patch of dark red blood.
Zhenzhen went forward to examine it and said to Yinqi: “It looks like it was grazed by an arrow. Probably after being shot, it flew for a while longer before its strength gave out and it fell.”
Yinqi looked closely at the egret’s wound: “Fortunately it’s not serious.” Then he asked Zhenzhen to take out her handkerchief, which he used to bandage the egret before placing it on the ground.
The egret walked two limping steps but still couldn’t support itself and collapsed to the ground again. Yinqi gently stroked its feathers: “Since you’ve come, you’re a guest. Rest assured and heal your wound at my home before leaving.”
Yinqi originally wanted to give the egret to the kitchen maid who raised poultry, but Zhenzhen, thinking of the white crane in Lin Hong’s garden, said this was inappropriate – such a fine bird couldn’t be housed with chickens and ducks. So the two carefully chose a space by the lake shielded by rocks, carried the egret there to rest, and went to the kitchen to get some grain to feed it.
Zhenzhen looked around and said: “We still need to build a fence around it so it won’t flutter about randomly or be disturbed by other small animals.”
She quickly borrowed tools from the gardener, cut some bamboo herself, and built a fence around the egret’s resting place. After carefully checking and finding no flaws, she left with Yinqi.
Unexpectedly, that night a violent storm swept through. Zhenzhen slept drowsily, and near dawn was awakened by the wind and rain. After lying quietly for a moment, she suddenly thought of the egret by the lake. Immediately alarmed and thinking “Oh no,” she hurriedly got up, put on clothes, and ran to the lakeside with an umbrella.
The newly built fence had indeed been blown to pieces by the sudden rain and fierce wind, and the egret was nowhere to be seen. Soon Yinqi also arrived, and together with Zhenzhen searched for a long time before discovering the egret’s floating corpse on the lake surface. Most likely the fence had collapsed, the egret was swept into the lake by wind and rain, and unable to escape due to its injury, it drowned.
Zhenzhen was extremely distressed and said dejectedly to Yinqi: “I should have listened to you and sent it to the poultry cage for care, or built the fence more solidly… It’s all my fault.”
Though Yinqi was also sad, he still gently comforted Zhenzhen: “You saved it and carefully built a fence for it. It will certainly be very grateful to you in heaven. The storm was an unavoidable natural disaster, unrelated to you. It’s not your fault – don’t take it too much to heart.”
Hearing this, Zhenzhen looked at Yinqi in confusion, seeing his eyes full of tender comfort. She thought carefully about his words, and her heart suddenly stirred. Turning toward the egret on the lake surface, she put her palms together, closed her eyes, and silently prayed.
Two days later, Yinqi suggested playing the blindfolded taste game with Zhenzhen again. Zhenzhen gladly agreed but requested a change – she would make several pastries for Yinqi to taste blindfolded and then say what they were.
Yinqi laughed: “That’s far too easy.”
Zhenzhen shook her head: “Not necessarily. I learned to make many kinds of pastries in the Royal Kitchen. You probably haven’t seen them all, so it’s normal if you can’t identify one or two.”
Yinqi agreed and, at Zhenzhen’s request, didn’t allow others to be present during the evening meal, quietly tasting the pastries Zhenzhen made.
That evening Zhenzhen went to the kitchen to work, declining other kitchen maids’ observation under the pretext of secrecy. After making several pastries and placing them in a food box, she brought them to Yinqi’s room.
Yinqi let her cover his eyes with a silk scarf. Zhenzhen immediately opened the food box, took out one pastry, picked up a piece with chopsticks, and brought it to Yinqi’s lips.
Yinqi took a light bite and, after chewing slightly, smiled: “It’s crab meat buns.”
Zhenzhen happily announced he was correct and took another dish for him to taste again.
This was really effortless for Yinqi: “This is Korean chestnut cake.”
He then continued in a relaxed and leisurely mood to guess the answers one by one without bloodshed: crispy seal pastries, peony cakes, wrapped steamed buns, small steamer cakes, and seed-stuffed shrimp noodles… until the last dish.
When Zhenzhen used a spoon to put a small wonton in his mouth, his confident smile instantly froze. Holding the wonton without chewing, still maintaining his blindfolded posture, his body began to tremble involuntarily, and his face flushed red.
Zhenzhen promptly set down the spoon and grasped his hand: “This time, what is it?”
“It’s, it’s…” Yinqi repeated blankly, his chest heaving as he began to gasp, struggling intensely inside between answering her question or letting the surging emotions in his heart explode instantly.
“This is just an ordinary pastry,” Zhenzhen whispered in his ear. “It’s food you might encounter in the past, present, and future. Just food, representing only the feelings of whoever cooked it for you, bringing you warmth and comfort, not harm.”
Yinqi grabbed off the blindfold silk scarf, spat out the wonton in his mouth, and stared at the bowl in front of him in panic, gasping and murmuring: “Auntie, Auntie…”
“You said that the storm blowing down the fence wasn’t my fault,” Zhenzhen again placed her hand over Yinqi’s hand on the table, where veins were gradually appearing. “Auntie’s matter is the same – it’s not your fault either.”