The Legitimate Eldest Daughter
Nanny Zhang bowed in greeting to Jin Lang before speaking. “The snow hasn’t let up at all, and since you’ve been drinking, Your Highness, I have already sent word to the Zhongyong Marquis Estate to send someone for you. Please come inside and have some hangover soup, Your Highness. A servant from the estate will arrive shortly to escort you home. Come in, come in.”
As a servant of the Zhenguo Duke Estate led Jin Lang in, the thorn branch still strapped to his back, Xiao Rongyan slowly turned to board his carriage — only for Lu Yuanfeng to shove his way through the crowd and seize him in one stride.
“Brother Xiao! This was your plan, so why are you running off? You have to see it through to the end!”
With that, Lu Yuanfeng hauled Xiao Rongyan by the arm and dragged him up the steps of the Zhenguo Duke Estate.
“Hey! Hey! Don’t shut the gate! Nanny Zhang, Nanny Zhang… She has come all this way through the snow — the least we can do is pay our respects to the old madam!”
Sima Ping and the other young gentlemen hurriedly called out to rein him in.
“Yuanfeng!”
“Yuanfeng, quit clinging to Brother Xiao and making a scene!”
“Lu Yuanfeng.”
Lu Yuanfeng paid them no heed whatsoever. Like some shameless, roving young playboy, he shoved Xiao Rongyan bodily through the great doors of the Zhenguo Duke Estate — without a shred of a gentleman’s decorum.
He had barely made it two steps inside before Bai Jinchi, the fourth daughter, her fury long past containment, came striding down the lantern-lit corridor, whip raised high and poised to strike Jin Lang.
Lu Yuanfeng startled so badly he stood rooted to the spot, hiccupping in fright.
“Jinchi!”
In the blink of an eye, Bai Jindong — skilled in the martial arts — planted herself in front of Jin Lang just as the whip came down, catching it mid-strike with all her strength. Her expression was stern as she spoke. “Mind your manners! Stand down!”
Nanny Zhang, startled out of her wits, pressed a handkerchief to her racing heart. Only after casting a sidelong glance at Bai Jingyan did she seem to relax, her tension ebbing away.
“Sister! Why are you stopping me?”
Bai Jinchi’s eyes blazed as she jabbed a finger at Jin Lang. “Our second sister is lying in bed hovering between life and death, and what is he doing? Attending social gatherings! Drinking wine! That entire household is rotten to the core behind their fine facade, and he’s just as conscienceless as the rest of them!”
Jin Lang clenched his fists, guilt and shame burning in his chest.
“Third sister, don’t stop her,” he said. “I deserve that whip.”
Xiao Rongyan’s gaze drifted, almost unconsciously, past the swirling snowflakes to the figure walking slowly toward them down the long corridor — calm, unhurried, composed.
Bai Jingyan stood beneath the eaves, her cloak draped over her shoulders. The red lanterns swaying against the falling snow lent a striking beauty to her clean, elegant features. With her deep, dark eyes as still as windless water, she stood as serene and pristine as a figure stepped out of a painting. She seemed an entirely different person from the imperious legitimate eldest daughter who had marched up to the Zhongyong Marquis Estate earlier that day, full of fire and fury.
“Bai Jinchi, come here.”
At her words, Bai Jinchi lifted her head and looked at Bai Jingyan. Then, with tear-bright eyes, she shot one last glare at Jin Lang and walked over to her sister’s side, wearing every look of reluctance.
The image of Bai Jinxiu lying motionless on her sickbed rose in Bai Jingyan’s mind, and resentment surged toward the entire Zhongyong household — Jin Lang included. And yet she could understand the impossible position he was in. Saddled with a stepmother like Lady Zhang, and crushed beneath the weight of filial duty, what choice had he truly been given?
Jin Lang looked at Bai Jingyan, emboldened by the wine in his veins. Was it the drink? Her beauty, too exquisite for words, struck him full in the eyes. His thoughts tangled into knots; he clutched the jade pendant at his waist in mute apology. His palm had gone slick with sweat, and he quickly averted his gaze, unable to meet her eyes.
“Is… is that woman the legitimate eldest daughter of the Bai family?”
Lu Yuanfeng stared at her, utterly spellbound, so transfixed that he never even noticed the snow settling on his eyelashes.
Xiao Rongyan’s dark, deep-set eyes remained perfectly composed. Inside his cloak, his fingers moved slowly over the jade cicada, clearly lost in thought, though his answer came out plain and simple.
“That’s her.”
The moment she stepped out of the corridor, Bai Jingyan faltered under his gaze — quiet and deep as still water.
His eyes, unfathomably dark, curved with the faintest smile as he inclined his head toward her — a greeting at once grave and gentle.
Before she knew it, Bai Jingyan’s grip tightened around the hand warmer in her hands. Her heart was pounding without reason, and even her breathing felt as though it had slipped ever so slightly off its course.
In her past life, Bai Jingyan had met countless cruel and fearsome men on the battlefield. Yet those who left their mark on her memory could be counted on one hand, and those who truly frightened her were rarer still. Not one of them had ever inspired in her the piercing dread that Xiao Rongyan did.
Beneath that tranquil, quietly refined exterior lurked an ambition like a tiger’s — a hunger to swallow rival kingdoms whole. He was a man who could take a life while wearing a smile, a man who buried his true heart so deeply that Bai Jingyan had gone to her grave without ever once glimpsing what lay beneath.
Only when she saw Lu Yuanfeng did Bai Jingyan understand why Xiao Rongyan had come with Jin Lang.
She closed her eyes for a brief moment. After pressing down the unease churning within her and the strange, disproportionate way Xiao Rongyan kept occupying her thoughts, she walked forward once more.
Nanny Zhang hurriedly turned, took the umbrella from a servant’s hand, and held it open to shield Bai Jingyan as she steadied her.
“Crown Prince Jin.”
Bai Jingyan kept a careful distance from Jin Lang and offered him a half-bow. “You come dressed so thinly, with a branch of thorns on your back to beg forgiveness — so I take it you have found a way to resolve this matter?”
Jin Lang hung his head, unable to face her. “Not yet.”
It felt as though something had clenched tight around Bai Jingyan’s heart. What a pity, she thought — such a stifling, spineless man. So that’s why, in my past life, he couldn’t even protect one wife of his own. What good is an apology that leads nowhere?
Unable to hold back her anger, Bai Jingyan’s voice rose. “Crown Prince Jin — can you give that same answer standing before my grandmother and my second aunt? Then allow me to ask you this. When you carried that thorn branch here today, whose forgiveness were you asking for? Are you begging on behalf of Lady Zhongyong? For your second sister? Or for yourself, Crown Prince Jin — for your own sake?”
The cold wind coiled the snow around them and slipped through every gap in their cloaks.
Jin Lang’s reddened eyes moved; his lips parted — but in the end he said nothing, only folded his hands in a deep bow before Bai Jingyan. “Jin Lang has no face to show you. I have nothing to say in my defense.”
When Jin Lang had come to the Zhenguo Duke Estate that day to propose marriage, Bai Jingyan had blocked him with a game of Go. Reading the strategy behind his moves, she had judged him anything but weak or pedantic — hardly a man incapable of great ambition. She had believed that a man’s manner of play revealed his character. She had believed Jin Lang bold and cunning, a man who could carry grand designs.
After a moment’s thought, Bai Jingyan tightened her grip on the hand warmer at her breast, quelled the fire still climbing in her chest, and spoke with deliberate calm.
“When Great Jin was founded, every man who earned great merit was enfeoffed as a lord and commissioned as a general. The title of Marquis Dingguo was granted with hereditary succession in perpetuity — passed down without end, never stripped of its original rank. The marquis had two sons born of his wife, and by rite and the order of elder and younger, the title ought to have passed to the elder son. But the marquis favored only his youngest. He wished to seat his youngest as heir, yet he could not flout his ancestors’ rites — and so the family fractured, and the war between brothers began. The marquis died of illness, and the title did pass to the elder son in the end. But the youngest, nursing his grievance, murdered his mother and his brothers, and the whole affair ended in tragedy.”
At the mention of Marquis Dingguo, Jin Lang’s eyes widened with sudden, blinding understanding. Every last strife in the Zhongyong household — in the end, did it not all spring from that single title?
The stepmother had wanted her own son to inherit. But bound by ancestral law, she could not say so openly, and so she schemed against Jin Lang in the shadows. She drove out the revered teacher who had instructed him and smeared his good name. And this time, to drive a wedge between Jin Lang and the Bai family, she had resorted to poison against Bai Jinxiu.
Watching Jin Lang’s face drain white and the veins stand out on his clenched fists, Bai Jingyan knew he had understood every word.
Jin Lang knew Lady Zhang’s heart better than Bai Jingyan ever could. But what of it? With the virtue of filial piety bearing down on him, for all his cleverness, he could never bring himself to transgress against propriety.
Seeing at last that Jin Lang was not beyond reaching, Bai Jingyan continued slowly, her voice level.
“A mirror of bronze lets a man straighten his robes. A mirror of history lets a ruler know a nation’s rise and fall. And a mirror of men lets one see one’s own gains and losses. There is even the example of Yao and Shun, who yielded the throne to another. Why should you not take them as your model, Crown Prince Jin? After all, the title of Zhongyong Marquis is nothing but a hollow shell. So long as you hold a great ambition in your heart, you need not worry that you cannot win something greater than a squabble over an inheritance.”
“Elder sister!” Bai Jinchi cried out, aghast.
Jin Lang’s eyes wavered. His head snapped up, and he stared at Bai Jingyan’s calm, unflinching face. Is she telling me to surrender the heirship with my own hands? How can she speak so boldly?
It was not that Jin Lang had never fought back. To all appearances he whiled away his days with the idle young lords of the capital, but behind the scenes he had labored hard. He had set his heart on taking first place in the imperial examinations. Yet all of it had been to secure his position as heir — not once had he ever considered giving that position up.
Bai Jinchi was not the only one stunned by Bai Jingyan’s words. Even Bai Jindong felt her heart lurch at them.
Standing a little apart with Xiao Rongyan, Lu Yuanfeng gazed at Bai Jingyan’s face, unruffled as still water, then dipped his head and murmured to Xiao Rongyan, “Brother Xiao, did you hear what the Bai family’s eldest daughter just said to Jin Lang? Why is Nanny Zhang so rattled? Don’t tell me she told him to break with the second daughter?”
A faint smile touched Xiao Rongyan’s lips. He brushed a dry leaf from the wind off his cloak, every motion of it effortless grace. “Barging uninvited into the Zhenguo Duke Estate is discourteous enough. Eavesdropping on private conversation besides — that is hardly the conduct of a gentleman.”
Privately, Xiao Rongyan marveled at Bai Jingyan’s boldness and force of spirit.
Even the highest men of the capital could not match the vision of this one woman. Jin Lang had grown up comfortable among the elite of Dadu, and could see through the affairs of his own household clear as day — yet he lacked the resolve to settle matters with the finality they demanded.
It seems the eldest daughter of the Bai family has poured her heart into this for nothing.
“Second sister is awake! Second sister is awake!”
At that moment, a maid’s voice rang out from the rear garden, sweet as a silver bell. In an instant the whole estate could breathe again, and the cry of “Second sister is awake!” began echoing from every corner of the Zhenguo Duke Estate.