Rebirth
Bai Jingyan swallowed the bitter medicine, wiped her mouth with a handkerchief, then leaned back against the pillow at the head of the bed and stared blankly at the white jade vase holding a branch of red plum blossoms.
She had clearly been dead. Yet the moment she opened her eyes, she had returned to the fourteenth day of the twelfth month of the fifteenth year of Xuanjia.
Tomorrow was the day her younger sister Bai Jinxiu would marry into the Zhongyong Marquis household. On that day in her past life, the Crown Prince's wedding procession had arrived half a shichen early. Seventeen men of the Zhenguo Duke Estate had all departed for the war-torn battlefields of the Southern Border, and the cousins sent to hold the gates in their place had been foolishly absorbed in cricket fights at the corner of the back courtyard — so Bai Jinxiu had stepped out of the estate a full shichen ahead of schedule.
Because the procession left early, it happened to run straight into the ambush on the Liang King. Hearing that the Liang King had been set upon by assassins, Bai Jinxiu had rushed to shield him and died beneath a blade.
Whenever she thought of the Liang King…
Bai Jingyan closed her eyes and clutched the quilt piled over her body, her breathing unsteady.
Her mind was flooded with what she had seen before her death — the Liang King's cold, mocking gaze and his terrifyingly cruel features.
He had crouched before her, drenched from head to toe in blood, while she lay too drained even to lift her head — and he had spoken at length.
How he had conspired with Liu Huanzhang, a deputy general in her grandfather's own army, to slaughter every man of the Bai family. How he had forged letters, imitating her grandfather's hand from the military manuals she herself had given him, declaring that the Bai family had conspired with the enemy and sold out the country. How he had hounded the surviving members of the Bai household to their deaths…
In her past life, Bai Jingyan had been a fool. She had believed, without question, in the Liang King's professions of loyalty. She had assumed he sought to rise in the world so he could clear the Bai family's name of its injustices, and she had given herself to him willingly. She had marched to war at his side, won resounding military honors, and draped glory upon him. With everything she had, she had helped him climb all the way to the Crown Prince's seat.
And then he had killed her grandfather, her father, and her brothers — and butchered her younger sisters without mercy. The memory of how her seven sisters had died horribly at the Liang King's hands sent blood surging up to her chest; her stomach heaved and ached as if it had been hollowed out. The cold-hearted, ruthless Liang King — she wanted to tear that black-hearted beast apart, limb from limb, while he still drew breath.
"Eldest Miss…"
Chun Tao called softly to Bai Jingyan, then continued in a low voice, a food box in her hands.
"The medicine Doctor Hong prescribed works well, but it's terribly bitter. Have some candied fruit to take the taste away."
Bai Jingyan placed a ginger-juiced plum in her mouth to soothe the bitterness, all the while gazing fixedly at Chun Tao, who stood behind her propping up a backrest pillow. Chun Tao was the daughter of the wet nurse who had served Bai Jingyan's mother, Lady Dong, and from childhood she had attended Bai Jingyan's side with unwavering devotion.
"Second Miss, the snow must have made the paths slippery. What brings you out here?"
From the courtyard came the cautious, fawning voice of an old servant at work.
Inside the warmed inner chamber, Chunyan — who had been bending over the brazier, stirring the firewood — set down her fire tongs, lifted the partition curtain, and stepped outside. Her greeting was curt.
"Second Miss."
Bai Jinxiu climbed the steps, shedding her hooded cloak, and quietly asked Chunyan,
"How is my eldest sister?"
"Thanks to your concern, the eldest Miss is doing well. Tomorrow is her wedding day, when she joins the Zhongyong Marquis household — surely your duties are a mountain to climb, yet instead of preparing you've troubled yourself to walk all the way to our Qinghui Courtyard in weather like this, with the snow falling so hard."
Chunyan's heart was twisted with resentment, and her words dripped with thorns.
It should have been the eldest Miss who was betrothed to the heir of the Zhongyong Marquis. But the year she turned sixteen, she had followed the Duke onto the battlefield, been wounded, and left with an illness that made it unlikely she could ever bear children — and so the betrothal had passed to the second Miss. How, then, could Chunyan's heart possibly be at ease?
Hearing the voices, Chun Tao glanced once toward the partition, then tucked the quilt snugly around Bai Jingyan and asked,
"Eldest Miss, the Second Miss seems to have arrived. Shall I show her in?"
Bai Jingyan's hand suddenly clenched into a fist. In her past life, Bai Jinxiu had taken a blade to protect the Liang King on her wedding day. Dying, she had begged him — begged him to protect Bai Jingyan for the rest of his life, to never do anything to wrong her elder sister. It was because of Bai Jinxiu's pleading, he had said, that he had spared Bai Jingyan's life.
Her heart aching, Bai Jingyan answered in a low, tight voice.
"Go and welcome your Second Miss in."
"Yes, Miss."
Chun Tao left the inner chamber, folded her hands with proper composure, greeted Bai Jinxiu with perfect courtesy, and went on,
"Second Miss. The eldest Miss took her medicine just now, and her color has much improved. She asked me to come out and welcome you — please, come in at once!"
Chun Tao lifted the partition curtain for her.
The moment she stepped inside, warmth washed over her face. Worried that the chill clinging to her body might reach her ailing sister, Bai Jinxiu paused briefly before the brazier at the entrance of the inner chamber to warm herself, then rounded the folding screen and went in.
"Elder sister…"
Seeing Bai Jinxiu's lovely, delicate face again filled Bai Jingyan's chest with shame and guilt. Because of her own ambiguous conduct toward the Liang King back then, Bai Jinxiu had mistaken it for deep, devoted love — and so she had spent her very life protecting the demonic beast who had driven the entire Bai family to its doom. Bai Jingyan had no face to show Bai Jinxiu, none at all, nor any face to face the Bai family.
Chun Tao directed a maid to place a small stool beside the bed. Before Bai Jinxiu could even sit, Bai Jingyan — her mouth still full of bitterness — beckoned to her, the rims of her eyes reddening.
"Jinxiu, come here."
Lifting the hem of her embroidered skirt, Bai Jinxiu perched on the edge of the bed and took Bai Jingyan's hand, her eyes brimming with worry. Bai Jingyan's face was as lifeless as an old woman's.
"Elder sister, tomorrow…"
Before Bai Jinxiu could finish, Bai Jingyan shook her head, her voice trembling with tears.
"Jinxiu, promise me. Whatever happens from now on — promise you'll protect yourself above all else. Do you understand?"
"Elder sister?"
Bai Jinxiu was bewildered.
"Promise me!"
She gripped her sister's hand tightly.
Feeling Bai Jingyan's ragged, unsteady breathing, Bai Jinxiu hurriedly nodded.
"I promise, elder sister."
With the wedding the next day and a hundred things demanding her attention, Bai Jinxiu stayed only a short while before returning home.
After seeing her off, Bai Jingyan dismissed all the maids. Lying in bed, she turned over everything that had happened between the Liang King and the Bai family, beginning to end. It was as though she had lived through one long nightmare — her whole body broke out in chills.
Heaven had granted her this. She had returned to the day before Bai Jinxiu's wedding, and no matter what it took, she would not allow Bai Jinxiu and the Bai family to fall as they had in her past life.
Tomorrow was the wedding day, and everything had to be made ready. If her dim-witted cousins were going to waste the day on cricket fights, someone would have to do their work in their place.
In her past life, when the assassination attempt on the Liang King on Chang'an Street was finally closed, the verdict had blamed Southern Yan spies.
Yet mulling it over again, something didn't sit right. The Liang King was widely rumored to be a weak, useless prince of no consequence. Would Southern Yan really have spared such enormous expense and risk to infiltrate the capital of Dadu — all to assassinate him?
And she had to send someone trustworthy to the Southern Border at once. If her grandfather, her father, and her brothers could still be saved, so much the better; if there was no chance of that, then she had to move swiftly to gather evidence. She would never allow the Liang King the opportunity to destroy the Bai family.
She could not conceal from her grandmother the truth that every man of the Bai family had died in the Southern Border. It would be far better to prepare her, even slightly, in advance — only then could she prevent the Grand Princess from collapsing in shock when the news from the front reached Dadu.
After all, so long as her grandmother — the Emperor's own aunt — still lived, the Bai family would never be reduced to the wretched state they had suffered in her past life, dragged hither and thither at the mercy of others.
Her body was still weak, and she had thought too much; drowsiness came pressing in. In a haze, Bai Jingyan dreamed of her grandfather, her father, and her brothers.
In the dream, her grandmother at her deathbed wept until her face was drenched, clutching her hand and her mother's hand as she blamed her own powerlessness. In the end she had been unable to hold on through the Bai family's darkest hour, and had followed her lord husband into death. She had passed the weighty duty of protecting the Bai widows to Lady Dong and to Bai Jingyan, begging them to accept it.
"Grandmother!"
Bai Jingyan cried out with a start, bolting upright and gasping for breath.
Only when she recognized that she was lying in her own bed in Qinghui Courtyard did the heart that had seemed about to burst through her chest slowly settle. Her white underclothes were soaked through with cold sweat, and her embroidered pillow was damp with tears.
Bai Jingyan squeezed her eyes shut. Remembering that dream, she knew she could delay no longer. Everything that needed doing had to be done in haste.
Struggling to gather herself, she pushed back the silk quilt and called for her maid in a hoarse voice.
"Chun Tao…"
"Coming, eldest Miss!"
It was Chunyan who answered, lifting the heavy bed curtains as she entered. Seeing Bai Jingyan sitting up on the edge of the bed, she hurried to drape a padded hooded cloak over her shoulders.
"Chun Tao went to help Nurse Luo over at Madam's courtyard — she hasn't returned yet."
Chunyan was worried to see how poor Bai Jingyan's color was.
"Miss, why didn't you call for someone to attend you when you rose?"
"What hour is it?"
"The hour of Wei, Miss."
Chunyan drew back the curtains on both sides of the bed.
"Shall I have some chicken congee brought for you? Nurse Fang in the kitchens has been simmering it over a low flame for hours — the fragrance is simply divine."
Bai Jingyan wrapped the cloak close around herself.
"Help me up, then."
At the announcement that the eldest Miss had risen, the quiet courtyard instantly stirred to life — snow was swept away, water fetched, voices calling back and forth.
Maids attending the morning wash then lined up in a row beneath the eaves, carrying mouth-rinsing water, a spittoon, a bronze basin, and towels. Chunyan ordered the partition raised, and they filed in together.
Chun Tao, back at Qinghui Courtyard, heard that the eldest Miss had risen and hastily brushed the snow from her clothes before lifting the curtain and entering to attend her. Bai Jingyan was dressing for the outdoors in an embroidered skirt worked with pure white blossoms, a white fox-fur cloak over her shoulders. At the sight, Chun Tao hurried forward to tie the cloak's cords for her.
"The snow is falling hard outside — where could you possibly be going in your condition?"
"To see my grandmother."
Chun Tao opened her mouth to argue, then thought better of it and loaded glowing coals from the brazier into a hand warmer. The eldest Miss was famously headstrong — she knew from long experience that begging until her lips wore out would change nothing.
Tucking the hand warmer into her robes, Bai Jingyan gave her instructions.
"Tell the others they needn't attend me or my grandmother, and withdraw. And go to Nuo Ping — I have matters for him to carry out. Have him wait for me half a shichen hence, in the covered walkway beside the rockery in the rear courtyard."
"Yes, Miss!"
Chun Tao answered.
Bai Jingyan took a step, then two, before turning her head, her hand tightening around the hand warmer. She looked at Chunyan, who was tidying the wardrobe — the girl who, for now at least, still served her faithfully.
"Chunyan, tell Shen Qingzhu to come find me at the hour of Xu."
By her reckoning, the men of the Bai family had very likely already perished. But Heaven had given her the chance to come back, and Bai Jingyan meant to do everything in her power to turn this tragedy around. Even if she could save just one of them — was that not a hundred times better than doing nothing at all?
"Yes, Miss! As soon as I've finished with the clothes, I'll go find Miss Shen at once!"
Chunyan answered brightly.