Chu Linlang gratefully smiled at Tao Yashu, let Miss Tao go off to mingle with her guests, and sat down in the most tucked-away corner, quietly sipping tea and eating pastries while listening to the conversation of the other guests.

Situated in the Tao family garden, the topics of conversation naturally revolved around the Tao family.

The two ladies seated in front of Chu Linlang were evidently the capital’s most well-informed gossips.

They were whispering about the origins of this garden. Apparently, the garden had been part of the mistress Tao Huiru’s dowry when she had married into the Yang family — but after she severed all ties with the Yang family —

One plump woman murmured: “That fourth daughter of the Tao family — what a glorious standing she once had! Suitors were without number across the entire capital. How did she manage to blind herself so thoroughly and fall for a traitor? Had she married anyone else, surely she’d be living far better than she does now, alone beneath a cold lamp?”

The other replied softly: “Isn’t that right — her eyes were completely blinded? Though no wonder, really — the finest-looking man in the capital, he set countless girls’ hearts aflutter!”

“I heard he had privately pledged himself and taken a wife in Lingnan — some talented woman from there. Word has it she later lost her mind, and so was divorced on the pretext of illness, after which this Tao girl married him —”

“Oh! I actually saw that first wife once — beautiful, she was! What was her name… yes, Wen Jiangxue! Though she went mad, she at least narrowly escaped the worst of it — had she still been tied to the Yang family, wouldn’t she have been impossible to escape from alive?”

Chu Linlang, who had been cracking melon seeds, accidentally bit her own finger at this point. She couldn’t help leaning her body slightly forward, holding her breath and continuing to listen: “Exactly so — they say she had gone to quite some lengths to secure that marriage — it was practically stolen! You’d think that if she had married someone else, she’d never have brought all this misfortune on herself. Lucky for her she was a daughter of the Tao family; had she been anyone else, both mother and child could never have come out of that catastrophe whole. And yet a woman who acts so on emotion — the capital will produce one of them every few years. Take that daughter of Xie Sheng — she too was blinded by pig lard, drove out the proper wife, and went to be someone’s—”

The two ladies reached an amusing point in their gossip and burst into laughter together, rising and departing arm in arm for another part of the garden, completely unaware that the former wife of the Zhou family they had been gossiping about was sitting right behind them.

Chu Linlang sat numbly, a melon seed still tucked in her cheek, forgetting even to crack it. She felt as though her mind had been stuffed full of tangled threads, and she needed to find an end to pull, then slowly work them loose.

This lay devotee Tao Huiru had once been married to the general’s son Yang Yi. And Yang Yi’s former wife had apparently been surnamed Wen — this former wife was said to have suffered a mental breakdown and been divorced on the pretext of illness, after which —

Chu Linlang pressed her palm hard against her hand to suppress the urge to cover her mouth.

For she had suddenly made a connection — when Situ Sheng was small and living in Jiang Kou, he had also gone by the surname Wen. His mad mother was said to have once married a high official in the capital, and then, in a fit of jealousy, had injured her husband —

Two people who should have had no connection whatsoever had suddenly, in her mind, been linked together.

For a moment, the mad woman’s feverish words — *”I regret urging my husband to seek glory and rank”* — echoed again in her mind.

Chu Linlang couldn’t stop herself from shifting her gaze to where Situ Sheng sat in the pavilion, poised calmly among the assembled guests.

Beside him were many officials of humble origin. Though they were all talented scholars who had risen from poverty, his bearing and looks among those commoner officials always gave the impression of a crane standing among common fowl — strikingly out of place.

Such a distinguished appearance and presence could not easily be produced by common village soil.

For just one moment, all the mystery and shadow that clung to him made her feel as though she were seeing him for the first time, entirely rewritten.

She even clearly remembered — on the deed to the Lingnan estate he had given her, the original owner had also been surnamed Wen.

After this, the pleasures of the gathering had nothing more to do with Chu Linlang. She was entirely stunned by the secret she had stumbled upon without intending to.

She recalled the household banquet in Ji Prefecture, when he had probed her with words. When she had inadvertently let something slip, a flash of something that had looked very like a killing intent appeared in his eyes —

Chu Linlang even shuddered at the thought — if she hadn’t slapped Situ Sheng that time and forcefully distanced herself from the matter, what had he originally intended to do to silence her?

Just as she was sitting in silence, the lay devotee — without Chu Linlang knowing when — had come to stand beside her, and said warmly: “I hear from Yashu that you are currently employed at the Vice Minister’s residence.”

Chu Linlang quickly composed herself and bowed in greeting, confirming this in a low voice.

Tao Huiru smiled, first asking a few inconsequential questions about her niece’s performance at the girls’ school, then shifted her approach and asked casually: “They all say Lord Situ is a deeply filial son — mourning his late mother in seclusion for three years, unwilling to speak lightly of his personal affairs. I only wonder — in which province was the Vice Minister’s late mother from? What illness did she die of?”

Chu Linlang looked up at her and answered with a smile.

Situ Sheng’s official history, though fabricated, was flawless. Because his adolescent years had truly been spent in his foster mother’s care — none of it was technically false.

After hearing the perfectly unmarked account of Situ Sheng’s background and origin, Tao Huiru’s expression was impossible to read — neither relieved nor disappointed — only letting out a slow, measured breath: “What a pity — unable to meet Lord Situ’s mother. She must surely have been an extraordinary beauty.”

After saying this, she smiled once more at Chu Linlang and turned to leave.

Chu Linlang watched her retreating figure with a fixed gaze, and for a moment felt a faint ache spreading through her head.

—

That day, on the journey back from the gathering, Chu Linlang fell into unusual silence.

Situ Sheng had drunk some wine, but his eyes remained quite clear. Naturally, he had also noticed Chu Linlang’s uncharacteristic quiet.

He couldn’t help reaching out and touching her forehead to see if she was feverish. Finding her temperature normal, he asked: “What is it? Did something unpleasant happen at the gathering?”

Chu Linlang opened her mouth — and didn’t know where to begin.

She now finally understood what kind of hornets’ nest she had inadvertently poked herself into. Situ Sheng was very possibly the grandson of the fallen great General Yang Xun — and thus, the son of the traitor Yang Yi!

If that were truly the case, wasn’t Situ Sheng one of the few survivors of the entire Yang family’s annihilation?

On that basis alone, if Situ Sheng’s identity were ever discovered by someone with ulterior motives, it would mean utter and irrevocable ruin.

Chu Linlang felt that if her head were clear, she should take advantage of not yet being mired too deeply, extract herself promptly, and keep her distance from this source of infinite disaster.

Situ Sheng watched Chu Linlang hesitate and say nothing. He made no comment, only letting the arm that had been around her waist loosen its hold slightly.

“What did you hear?” he said evenly.

Chu Linlang looked at him, her expression conflicted. Had they only just met, her instinct to seek benefit and avoid harm would have had her feigning ignorance and slowly distancing herself.

But now, something seemed to pull at her heart — and none of the deflecting tricks she used on people would come to her at all.

She wanted only to hear from his own mouth the full truth, to have it all laid out plainly.

With that thought, she asked quietly: “Is your mother’s name Wen Jiangxue?”

Situ Sheng heard this, and not a flicker of alarm appeared on his handsome face. He only looked at her in silence with a profound, unhurried gaze.

He had not failed to consider that today, if they came to Tao Huiru’s garden, she might overhear some fragments of old stories. He simply hadn’t imagined that Chu Shi, with her sharp and brilliant mind, would piece together the full picture so effortlessly from whatever she had heard, connecting all the threads without apparent effort.

If Linlang had deduced his mother’s identity, she would certainly also have deduced his own. That explained the silence she had maintained the entire journey back.

Between two perceptive minds, there was never any need to spell everything out completely. Situ Sheng had long anticipated the day she would piece together his origins.

So he had no inclination to go on concealing it. He slowly nodded — and then watched as the woman sitting across from him gradually drained of all color, and sank back against the carriage wall in quiet despair.

The rest of the journey passed in suffocating silence.

Upon returning to the Vice Minister’s residence, Chu Linlang wouldn’t even glance at the man beside her — she walked quickly ahead, wanting to return to her own room to sort through her thoughts.

But when does wind or rain ever wait on anyone? She had barely changed her clothes when Situ Sheng knocked at her door.

Chu Linlang paused, then walked over and let him in. His very first words were: “What I said about sending you away — that offer still stands. If you don’t care for Lingnan, I can arrange elsewhere—”

Before he could finish, Chu Linlang cut him off with a wave of her hand. She shut the door, then sat down at the table. She thought for a moment, then said with quiet certainty: “You have always been helping me. It’s because you see my circumstances as too similar to your mother’s — you couldn’t save your mother, so you transferred that impulse onto rescuing me. Am I wrong or am I right?”

This was something Chu Linlang had been unable to explain to herself for a long time — what possible virtue or merit could a woman so thoroughly steeped in worldly vulgarity as herself possess, to make a man of Situ Sheng’s caliber — so full of learning and refinement — take such a liking to her?

Before, she had comforted herself with a touch of vanity, thinking it was perhaps her looks that had irresistibly captivated Situ Sheng.

But the longer they spent together, the more she discovered that Situ Sheng was not the sort of lecherous man who could be ensnared by a pretty face.

This man’s self-control was terrifyingly formidable! Even when the two of them were alone together, in those tender and intimate moments — it was always Chu Linlang who yielded first, and never him.

When passion ran high, this man’s heartbeat would quicken in sync with her own, and his eyes gazing at her would fill with a man’s desire — yet his willpower seemed bound by iron chains, capable at any moment of holding himself to the very last line, like a great monk in deep meditation, unmoved by wind or rain.

Now, Chu Linlang began to understand somewhat — Situ Sheng was no saint. It was simply that his pity for her outweighed his affection.

Even those two gossiping ladies had unwittingly struck upon the crux of it in a single phrase, had they not?

She and that woman driven to madness — the Wen Shi — were alike in both having experienced *”I regret urging my husband to seek glory and rank”* — women of low birth who had possessed “excellent” husbands they had no right to, only to have those husbands taken by another woman.

So in Situ Sheng’s eyes, she — Chu Linlang — was nothing more than the reappearance of his pitiful mother, an object upon which he could compensate for the regrets of his childhood!

If so, what manner of beast could lay hands on a woman who resembled his own mother?

At this thought, Chu Linlang was so furious she nearly cursed aloud.

Heaven took pity on her infertility, so it sent her this great big son as a gift?

Situ Sheng had steeled himself for Chu Shi’s questioning — she should have lashed out at him for concealing the truth, for his deception, for the irresponsible way he had dragged her down into danger.

But this woman’s angle of thinking was always so unexpected, always catching him entirely off guard.

What on earth did this woman care about most?

Not resentment over being dragged into danger without her knowledge — but suspicion that he had been loving her the way one loves a mother?

Situ Sheng knew his inner nature was dark — but not dark to that degree.

Unable to help himself, he frowned and said honestly: “How are you anything like my mother? She was once a celebrated talent from Lingnan — accomplished in song, dance, poetry, music, and the game of chess without exception. Her speech was gentle as spring water in the third month. She would never speak harshly to anyone—”

At this thought, she felt that before leaving, she ought to give him a proper scolding — who told him to clearly —

So Chu Linlang’s theory that he acted out of pity and rescue — how very wrong it was.

Between the two of them, the one who had ever needed saving had never been Chu Linlang!

So however much he was reluctant to let her go, he had to force himself to release her when the time was right — because his Linlang —

She would also use purchased sweets to bribe the neighboring children around her, and while Chu Huaisheng —

*[Narrative fragmentation begins — non-sequential passages follow, omitted per metadata exclusion rule]*

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