You're Out of Your Mind
In Qinghui Yuan, Nanny Dong and Chun Tao were packing Bai Jingyan's belongings to be carried to the Southern Border.
Bai Jingyan had told Chun Tao to bring out her silver armor, the Red-Tasseled Spear, and the Sun-Shooting Bow.
Chun Tao let out a long sigh, then instructed a servant to fetch a red sandalwood chest layered with dust. Inside lay Bai Jingyan's silver armor, the Red-Tasseled Spear, and the Sun-Shooting Bow.
Bai Jingyan stood in the wavering glow of candlelight. A single shougushe—an archer's thumb ring carved from beast bone—worn smooth from years of handling, rested atop the armor. She slipped it onto her thumb and examined it closely by the lamplight.
A she was also called a thumb ring. Her grandfather had given it to her when she first began practicing with the bow. Though such rings were originally made for drawing a bowstring, ever since Gaozu the Founding Emperor established the dynasty, the great families that had earned their titles through martial valor no longer wished their descendants to train in the military arts—and so the ring had become an ornament worn by the sons and daughters of noble houses.
The thumb ring Bai Jingyan wore was stained faintly black with sweat. It fell far short of her grandfather's. His black zhang ring had been a masterpiece of its age.
Nanny Dong lifted the screen curtain and hurried in, bowing low before speaking.
"Eldest Young Lady, Xiao Ruohai wishes to see you."
"Show him in."
Bai Jingyan drew the ring from her thumb, tucked it back into the wooden chest, and told Chun Tao to store it carefully. She intended to take it with her to the Southern Border.
Xiao Ruohai entered the room, paid his respects, and informed Bai Jingyan that the Emperor had conferred upon Bai Jinxiu the title of First-Rank Lady of Haogao.
"I don't know who first called the Crown Prince benevolent and righteous, but the people are now singing the praises of His Highness and His Majesty alike. They say the Crown Prince honors loyal ministers and cares well for their bereaved families."
Bai Jingyan raised a brow, faintly surprised.
"Riding on the Bai family's reputation for 'benevolence and righteousness,' is it? That hardly sounds like His Highness's own thinking. Someone of talent must have attached himself to the Crown Prince."
She had only just leveraged the Crown Prince's fame and prestige to secure some benefit for Bai Jinxiu, and already the Crown Prince had turned around and ridden the Bai name to burnish his own standing. He was a man who never lost out, not by an inch.
It was Bai Jingyan who had petitioned the Emperor for this edict, yet the Emperor had issued it even earlier, granting favor to Bai Jingyan before the campaign began and winning the people's goodwill in the process. Honor and profit both in hand—an exquisite bargain from the Emperor's point of view.
A choice that served them all, one might say.
Xiao Ruohai nodded.
"The Crown Prince has found himself a man. Not long after returning from the Regent's residence to his own palace—scarcely the time it takes to drink a cup of tea—he rushed back into the palace, and shortly afterward, the Emperor issued the edict."
So someone had indeed advised the sovereign. A most timely edict, after all.
Xiao Ruohai continued.
"The Regent's residence is in high spirits. After His Highness returned to the palace, he lavished rewards on a man called Master Jin. It seems this Master Jin was the one who counseled the Crown Prince. He holds the post of honored guest in the Crown Prince's establishment—his name, I learned, is Zhen Xiangzhi."
Zhen Xiangzhi...
No wonder.
Bai Jingyan pressed her lips together. So in this life too, Zhen Xiangzhi had gone to the Crown Prince and become his strategist.
Zhen Xiangzhi was a man of great talent. If only, in this life, the Crown Prince could truly recognize his worth!
And she did not wish to stand in opposition to Zhen Xiangzhi—not out of fear of making an enemy of him, but because such a man was simply too precious to waste.
Du Zhimi was cunning in his schemes, but a true petty villain with vicious methods—a man who could not be stopped no matter how one tried. Zhen Xiangzhi was different. He had cunning and he had means, but he was a true gentleman at heart, of upright and kindly disposition.
"If Master Jin is someone the Crown Prince values, I'm bound to meet him on the way to the Southern Border. It would be wise to keep an eye on him."
Bai Jingyan looked at Xiao Ruohai and lowered her voice.
"Youxing—this trip to the Southern Border came so suddenly. Are all the preparations in order?"
"Have no fear, Eldest Young Lady. Our people have already been dispatched to the Southern Border along several separate routes. We intend to trail the army at a distance throughout the journey, so we will never be seen."
In truth, Xiao Ruohai had one worry he kept to himself: with so few masters among them, the Eldest Young Lady's journey to the Southern Border remained fraught with peril.
Just then, Chun Xing lifted the screen and entered with a bow.
"Eldest Young Lady, Madam has come to Qinghui Yuan."
Bai Jingyan nodded, then turned to Xiao Ruohai.
"Youxing, thank you for your trouble."
Deeply honored by her words, Xiao Ruohai hurriedly withdrew.
Once he was gone, Bai Jingyan told Chun Tao to quickly hide the weighted sandbags bound around her limbs. If her mother learned that she strapped them on every day to train, she would only worry all the more. Then Bai Jingyan went out to greet Lady Dong.
The moment they entered the room, Lady Dong seized her daughter's hands and ordered everyone else out. Then, with reddened eyes, she dragged her into the inner chamber and pressed her slender fingers hard against her daughter's forehead.
"You're out of your mind."
Bai Jingyan had known her mother would react this way upon learning of the journey south. She helped Lady Dong to sit on the edge of the bed and asked quietly,
"After Jinxiu visited you today, you went out by carriage as well, didn't you? Did you go to Uncle's house and ask him to send men?"
Who else but Lady Dong would have?
When the Crown Prince himself had come to announce the schedule for the southern campaign, it was clear that her daughter's departure could no longer be undone. If a settled matter could not be changed, then Lady Dong had to protect her daughter's life by whatever means she could. The moment she sent Bai Jinxiu off, she had gone straight out—straight to the Dong family, to request personal guards who could accompany her daughter to the Southern Border. Only then could her child's life be safeguarded.
Only the betrothal between Bai Jingyan and Dong Zhanglan, which she and Old Taijun Dong had arranged together, would have to be set aside for now.
"They say a house piled with a thousand gold does not seat its heir beneath the eaves, and a house piled with ten thousand gold does not let its heir ride a horse crosswise. Every man of the Bai family has died on the Southern Border—do you not know that you are the eldest legitimate grandson of this house now? You swore before your grandfather's memorial tablet that you would raise up the Bai name again, and yet you would shoulder the greatest burden of all and still walk into danger?"
Tears spilled down Lady Dong's reddened cheeks. Her eyes were a tangle of fury and heartache.
Looking into her mother's eyes, Bai Jingyan's chest ached, and she gripped her mother's arm tightly. Her mother only ever quoted the classics and old tales when she was angry.
Lady Dong was profoundly learned. Her father had always been left speechless by her words—and always the one to apologize afterward.
Bai Jingyan remembered a scene from her childhood. Beneath the cherry tree, her father had flushed scarlet at her mother's scolding, shaken out his sleeves, and stormed off. But a little while later, he returned with a teacup in hand, apologized with a smile, and murmured in a low voice,
"My lady. The fault was mine."
Bai Jingyan rested her chin on her mother's shoulder. Countless emotions she could not name tangled together and surged over her like an incoming tide, and suppressing them, she echoed her father's words.
"Mother. Ayan was wrong."
Lady Dong glared at her daughter. She glared and glared—and in the end, she could not hold back her tears again. She pulled her daughter into her arms and held her tight.
"Mother, I must go to the Southern Border. To protect the Bai family, the people's hearts alone are not enough. Only by holding military power will the royal house grow afraid—and only then will they fear the Bai family. That is what it truly means to protect our family."
Bai Jingyan laid herself bare before her mother, hiding nothing.
"During those two days I slept, I dreamed of Father and Ayu. I will not let the family we have left come to the same end they did. I want to protect you, my aunts, and my younger sisters. And if I think on a grander scale—I want to carry on Grandfather's final wish.
Mother, a person spends no more than a few decades in this world. But for a great family to endure across generations, to persist through long ages without vanishing, there is only one way: not merely the continuity of blood, but the passing down of character and conviction. Only when the descendants of the Bai family carry forward the Bai will, the Bai character, does the family truly continue. If a family's spirit dies, it will one day be swallowed by the years, forgotten in the flowing river of time."
As she listened to her daughter's quiet words, Lady Dong's anger ebbed away, leaving only worry and tenderness behind. The daughter who should have been raised like a treasure among treasures had, in the end, lifted the burden meant for a son onto her own shoulders.
Her daughter carried such a great ambition in her heart—how could a mother stand against it?
Lady Dong bit down hard on her lower lip, took her daughter's hands, and drew her close once more.
"Your uncle has transferred to you all one hundred personal guards he brought from the Dong family. From this moment, they will follow your word alone. Your uncle has already sent men to Dengzhou, and the rest will find some way to stay in contact with you."
It was no surprise for a great family to keep personal guards. The greater a family's power, the more guards it maintained—and only the great families had the means to keep them. In the end, such guards were little different from a great clan's private army.
Her uncle had, in effect, handed her the Dong family's soldiers.
"Mother, I will not betray the trust of Grandmother and Uncle."
Bai Jingyan said in a low voice.
"Your grandmother and your uncle feel the same as I do. We will be waiting only for you to come home safe."
Lady Dong's voice trembled as she spoke. Before her daughter, she showed a frailty that was rare for her.
"I have already lost your father and Ayu. I cannot lose you too. Do you understand?"
"I understand. Mother, I know all of it."
Bai Jingyan's eyes rimmed red as she embraced her mother tightly and spoke through her tears.
"Mother, don't worry. I will return to your side whole and unharmed. Trust me, Mother."
Lady Dong handed Bai Jingyan a white jade tally—one that carried the authority to command the Dong family guards.
"So this is the token that can move the Dong family's guards."
Bai Jingyan received the jade tally and spoke in a low voice.
"If not for my mourning period, I would have gone to Grandmother and Uncle myself to thank them in person."
"Your grandmother and uncle care nothing for such formalities. Now go on and pack—gather everything you need, every last thing. Just now your second aunt brought me a protective mirror charm she made before the festival and asked me to pass it on to you. Take it with you to the Southern Border. It's made of the finest materials, so be sure to bring it."
Lady Dong tucked her daughter's hair behind her ear.
"Yes, Mother."
Bai Jingyan nodded and smiled faintly.
"You, Grandmother, Uncle, and my aunts are all worried for me, so I'll do my best to return before we reach Suyang."
"Good."
Lady Dong let out a long, deep breath. Her chest felt heavy and hollow.