After settling with Wu Zheng on the boat they would need for the following day’s departure, Hua Zhi declined his invitation and returned to the inn.
“Rest and recover well today. Tomorrow in Zhenyang, it is hard to say what conditions we will find — everyone must be sharp and ready for any contingency.”
Everyone agreed.
Hua Zhi went to the twins’ room.
Both of them were awake. Shao Yao, out of habit, stepped forward to check their pulses, shot a glance at the older sister, twisted her mouth, and stepped to one side.
Hua Zhi observed the two of them. Fraternal twins, by nature, tend not to look much alike — much like ordinary brothers and sisters. Yet these two had remarkably similar features, though telling them apart was easy enough: the older sister’s timidity and the younger brother’s steadiness were apparent at a single glance. She could understand Shao Yao’s dislike of the older sister — yet truly, the reaction was all too human. She herself had no particular strong feeling about it, merely an absence of fondness.
“Have you made up your minds?”
The younger brother pulled the older sister along and they knelt with their foreheads to the ground. “We beg Miss to take us with her. We are willing to serve as slaves and servants, to work as cattle and horses.”
Hua Zhi gave a slight nod. “Bao Xia.”
“Yes, Miss.”
“Write two contracts of indenture for them to press their handprints to. Use the same price our household pays when purchasing servants.”
“Yes.” Bao Xia looked at the two of them. “What are your names?”
“Our surname is Wu. My older sister is named Dashuang, and I am called Xiaoshuang.”
Bao Xia immediately wrote two contracts of indenture, and along with the contracts, she placed twenty silver taels in the twins’ hands. The current purchase price in the Hua household was ten taels per person.
The younger brother felt all the more certain that he wanted to follow this beautiful young lady. She could have given them nothing at all — yet not only did she give them money, she gave them more than the going rate. In Zhenyang, four taels of silver was more than enough to buy a servant.
“Bao Xia, they will be in your charge for this journey. Teach them the rules of the Hua household, and inform them of matters they will need to avoid in the capital as well.”
“Yes. This servant understands.” The first thing to teach them was how to address themselves — in the young lady’s presence, what right did they have to refer to themselves as “I”!
Back in her own room, Hua Zhi placed Wu Xiaoshuang’s contract of indenture in front of Xiao Liu. “This person is given to you for your use.”
The Sixth Prince stared in wide-eyed surprise. “Sister Hua purchased him herself…”
“Those two siblings cannot be placed together. This Wu Xiaoshuang, properly trained, will be useful.” Hua Zhi smiled. “The other princes, by your age, have already surrounded themselves with any number of capable people. Those you can rely on are far too few. Since Yan Xi placed you in my care, I must think ahead on these matters for you — otherwise, when you need someone, there will be no one to call upon. Then there is the matter of your maternal family. Before we left, I exchanged letters with your maternal grandmother. The Sun family will not be dispatching additional people to your side for the time being. With your surroundings kept clean, those people will have less reason to find you intolerable. Whatever it is you wish to do in the future, you must first grow up safely and without incident.”
The Sixth Prince’s eyes grew hot with tears. He dropped his head sharply, using the motion of taking the contract of indenture into his hands as cover to conceal the loss of composure he could not quite suppress. In that moment, he was overwhelmingly grateful to his eldest and fourth brothers — for without them, how would he ever have come to know Sister Hua?
Hua Zhi was startled to see him like this, and quickly understood. She could not help but laugh ruefully. She had no intention of performing any great act of benevolence — it was simply that this child had been well-behaved and quiet in her presence for several months now, and in her eyes, he was no different from her own younger brothers at home. All the more so since the Sun family had provided shelter and protection for the family at Yinshan Pass, she had found herself inclined to take this child to heart. There had truly been no other motive.
“Since we have come to this point, Xiao Liu, let me speak plainly with you.”
The child raised his head, his eyes still red at the rims.
“Your identity means that no matter what, you can never live as other children do. The Hua family is too comfortable and settled. Bailin, though he has some cleverness to him, has truly never weathered many storms. Do not let the Hua household’s atmosphere lead you to let your guard down. The Hua family is one place for you to rest your feet — a place you can always return to when you are tired or weary. But your world lies within those palace walls. There are things you cannot escape simply by retreating from them. No one will believe that a prince has no interest in that seat of power. And those within the imperial palace — they are people you must guard against for the rest of your life. Do you understand?”
“And Sister Hua? Does Sister Hua believe that I have no interest in that seat of power?” The child was insistent, his face full of stubborn urgency as he sought an answer. If even Sister Hua did not believe him…
Hua Zhi smiled. “I have no need to consider that question. To use an imperfect analogy — all parents in the world wish their children to achieve greatness. If you are interested, then to me it is simply one of your ambitions. If you are not, there are other paths you can walk. For as long as you consider yourself a member of the Hua family, I will ensure that even if you wish to roam all of the world beneath heaven, you will have nothing to worry about. And of course — if the day ever comes when you truly hold a position of great power, I believe you will shelter and protect the Hua family in return. Is that not so?”
The Sixth Prince’s tears spilled over all at once, falling in great drops, as if all the tears he had held back over the years were finally being cried out to the very last. He had never had a clear sense of what home meant. The imperial palace could never become one. His maternal family cherished him — yet the first thing they always considered was his identity as a prince. That embrace his maternal grandmother had given him that day outside the dining house was the limit of how close they could bring themselves to be.
After his mother consort passed away, he had always been alone. His imperial father, whom he could count on seeing perhaps only a few times in a year. His maternal grandmother, who scheduled their meetings by the calendar. His brothers, whom he could never truly grow close to. When he tallied it all up, the ones he felt most close to turned out to be nothing more than a handful of palace guards — and they were not family.
Yet now, Sister Hua had given him everything he had ever wanted. In the most natural way, she sheltered him from wind and rain, made the most careful and thoughtful arrangements for him, trusted him, taught him principles, and guided him to see and recognize problems… Everything he had once envied Bailin for having, he now possessed.
That feeling was so beautiful it made him want to hold on to it, made him instinctively want to have more and more of it, made him want — not to let others have any of it.
But he knew he could not.
What Sister Hua gave him now was the care that a younger brother who was not born of the same blood but was nonetheless deeply close would receive. If one day he stepped out of bounds and caused Sister Hua to stop treating him as a younger brother, all of this would be gone. He could only be a younger brother — that was the closest distance he could stand to Sister Hua.
That was already very good.
Hua Zhi’s smile was soft and warm. Just as she had done in the past when she had sorted Bailin out and then, once Bailin recognized his mistake and was crying in miserable heaps, she pressed a handkerchief to the child’s face. “Don’t keep things bottled up inside from now on. Even if there is something you find hard to bring to me, you can tell Bailin. Children are the only ones with the right to cry and make a fuss about things. By the time you have grown up, even if you want to cry, you will only be able to bury your head under the covers to do it.”
Those words made the child’s tears fall even faster. Hua Zhi could only fall silent and say nothing more. She knew what Yan Xi had in mind, and she herself harbored the same forethought — yet Xiao Liu was simply too well-behaved. More often than not, she forgot entirely about his exalted status and saw him purely as a child who tugged at her heart. That was perhaps because she felt so little awe of imperial power that she dared to say, without batting an eye, to a prince that she wanted to take care of him.
“All right — wipe those tears away. If Shao Yao sees you, she will make fun of you.”