The Fairest Beauty Under Heaven
The young ladies nearby began to whisper among themselves.
"Oh my! Sister, you haven't even been married off yet, and already you're draping yourself all over a prince?"
Liu Yafu's ears flushed crimson. She lowered her lovely eyes and said shyly, "If you keep spouting nonsense like that, I won't bother speaking with any of you again."
"Oh my! Oh my! That's enough, all of you! If the Fourth Prince hears, he'll think we've been tormenting the Commandery Princess. And what if he blames us for it...!"
Lu Bohua covered her lips and laughed.
Though it felt like being teased, Liu Yafu was so pleased she hardly knew what to do with herself.
When word reached her yesterday that the Fourth Prince of Liang had gone so far as to kneel and declare that if she would only accept him as her husband, he would never take a concubine or side consort for as long as he lived, her heart had fluttered wildly. And just now, having seen the extraordinary, strikingly handsome face of the Prince of Liang for herself, she decided that her father had been right—this was not a bad match at all.
"The Zhenguo Commandery Princess has arrived."
"The Zhenguo Commandery Princess is here too!"
Bai Jingyan and Bai Jinchi entered, standing at Lady Dong's side. Zhen Zeping, who had been chatting with his fellow officers, hurried over with his wife and daughter the moment he spotted Bai Jingyan, eager to pay his respects.
"Madam, Commandery Princess, County Princess."
Lady Dong returned his bow with a gracious smile. Zhen Zeping's wife gazed up at Bai Jingyan with eyes brimming with reverence, then hastily tugged her daughter's wrist to drag her into a proper greeting.
The murmuring of the women reached Liu Yafu's ears, and she turned her head toward the entrance of the great hall as well. But the officers and their families had crowded around Bai Jingyan to exchange greetings, blocking her view, so Liu Yafu could not make out her face.
Then a eunuch's announcement rang out loudly through the hall: His Highness the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess had arrived.
Lady Dong, Bai Jingyan, Bai Jinchi, and the officers and their families who had been trading greetings all hurriedly parted to either side of the aisle, bowing toward the Crown Prince as he entered.
The previous night, the Crown Prince had sent a letter to the Zhenguo Commandery Princess's residence. Li Zhijie had indeed been carrying nothing but a single leg, and his true aim had been to 'sow discord between the sovereign and ministers of Jin.' But Bai Jingyan was a woman who trusted the Crown Prince and served him with unwavering loyalty, and so she had reported the matter to him directly—Li Zhijie's scheme had come to nothing.
The Crown Prince had told her not to grieve over it too much, and had even sent along a generous gift.
Bai Jingyan lifted her head. The moment she saw Xiao Rongyan standing beside the Crown Prince, yesterday's events on the pleasure boat flashed through her mind, and she hastily looked away.
Xiao Rongyan wore a faint smile as he bowed to Lady Dong and Bai Jingyan in the formal salute of a subject. His manner was impeccably courteous.
The Crown Princess glanced at Bai Jingyan, then let her gaze drift back to Xiao Rongyan before raising a handkerchief to her lips and laughing softly.
"Madam, Commandery Princess, County Princess—please, be seated. His Majesty and Her Majesty the Empress will arrive shortly."
"Yes, Your Highness."
Lady Dong bowed her head with only the slightest nod, then followed the Crown Prince and Crown Princess toward the seats at the front.
The women, none of whom had ever laid eyes on Xiao Rongyan before, began whispering and speculating about his identity.
He wore a plain white robe, cinched at the waist with a jade-green belt. The attire was simple and unadorned, yet it could not conceal the air of refinement and nobility that radiated from his entire bearing. His face was strikingly handsome, too—the boldly arching browbones lent his eyes greater depth, and his gaze was calm and limpid. A soft smile played perpetually at the corners of his mouth, and the profound erudition and gentle, scholarly grace he exuded drew the eye again and again.
Liu Yafu found her attention seized by the man beside the Crown Prince. Then, before she could even collect herself, she saw the Fourth Prince of Liang, who had been seated at the table, abruptly spring to his feet. His body knocked against the table, rattling the lid of the incense burner carved with auspicious beasts.
Wei Qiheng steadied himself on the table, then, face flushed red, hurried toward where Bai Jingyan stood and planted himself squarely in her path, bowing.
"Commandery Princess..."
Liu Yafu's gaze followed Wei Qiheng and then locked onto Bai Jingyan. In an instant her breathing grew ragged, and she very nearly tore her handkerchief to shreds.
She had assumed the woman would merely be pretty. Never had she imagined that Bai Jingyan's beauty would be so luminous and radiant that it made breathing difficult. The woman's skin was as flawless as if lit from behind by a lamp, glowing with a luster so pure it was nearly translucent. One would never guess she had spent months waging war in the Southern Border.
Her frame and features were elegant and graceful, touched with the faintest suggestion of delicate frailty—nothing about her suggested a seasoned campaigner. Only her deep, tranquil eyes were as still as a dark well, and about her lingered the steady, composed poise of one trained in the martial arts.
Beauty and strength in a single body. A woman so nobly beautiful, yet wrapped in an air of calm, weighty gravity.
Liu Yafu's breath came a little faster, and the whispers of the girls faded faintly into her ears. Someone was saying that Bai Jingyan was prettier than she was, and Liu Yafu was so mortified she hardly knew where to hide.
"So the Zhenguo Commandery Princess was that beautiful! And we never knew. Those noble young men weren't lying after all. It would be no exaggeration to call her the most beautiful woman in the world!"
"That one sitting over there—Jin's self-proclaimed greatest beauty. Just now Lu Yuanfeng was saying the Commandery Princess only looks lovely because she's good at fighting, and now that he's seen her with his own eyes, not a word?"
"Exactly! The moment people called her the greatest beauty she got so full of herself she went around criticizing other women's dress. But look at the Commandery Princess. She's plainly dressed, without a trace of powder or rouge—and that face is the true face that could topple kingdoms!"
A bolder young lady from one of the old aristocratic families cast Liu Yafu a mocking look. Her ears burned hotter still.
"Pay them no mind!"
Lu Bohua glared at the loose-tongued gossips.
"Whatever anyone says, your match is one the whole world envies! Men are naturally drawn to a general who has proven herself on the battlefield—it only means the Prince of Liang doesn't discriminate against women. Look on the bright side."
Lu Bohua's words seemed to soothe her a little. Liu Yafu lifted the corners of her mouth, suppressing her anger behind a smile.
"That's right. Men will always favor a general skilled in war. But the army is crawling with men, isn't it? How many would actually take a woman who lived among the ranks as their wife? Ah—Jin Lang excepted!"
Lu Bohua couldn't bring herself to agree, but knowing Liu Yafu was only lashing out because she felt wretched, she answered with a smile and a discreet silence.
"If you ask me, the only reason the Commandery Princess ever won on the battlefield is that face of hers. Try standing on a battlefield looking like that—what man could bring himself to attack her? One brush of those eyes and your legs would turn to water! The Commandery Princess is right. The army is nothing but men—who could have guessed anything would happen? And if a man takes a woman who's been rolling around army camps as his wife, won't disaster visit his whole family?"
One of Liu Yafu's closest friends gave a light laugh and pressed on.
"Take Jin Lang over there. He took Bai Jinxiu as his wife, and how many misfortunes have befallen the Jin family since? The wife of the Marquis of Zhongyong was all but dragged off to Qingyan, and later even the Marquis himself died. The Jin family lost its very title!"
Liu Yafu covered her lips with her handkerchief and laughed lightly. It felt deliciously satisfying.
"Well, there is that."
Bai Jingyan stared, utterly dumbfounded, at the man who had appeared before her, his two eyes burning with a passion that seemed ready to catch fire at any moment. After a moment's visible bewilderment, she returned Wei Qiheng's bow with a calm, level expression, then turned and walked unhurriedly after Lady Dong toward her seat.
It was the first time in his life Wei Qiheng had ever been slighted by a beauty. With the eyes of a madman, he stood there like a fool, staring blankly at her retreating back.
He clenched his fists inside his sleeves. In any case, the Emperor of Jin and the Han King had already granted permission for him to take the Commandery Princess as his wife, and the matter was to be announced at today's palace banquet. There was no need to rush. Even if she felt nothing for him now, he was confident that one day he would make her love him.
Wei Qiheng returned to his seat, unable to tear his gaze from Bai Jingyan's back as though it might bore a hole clean through her, joy overflowing uncontrollably in his eyes.
He had seen countless beauties in his life, but she was the only one who lingered in his thoughts like this. He felt he could go his whole life without another beauty at his side—as long as he had this one woman, it would be enough.
Wei Qiheng had met his destined match—just as his younger sister had said.
At the eunuch's proclamation that the Emperor of Jin and the Emperor of Great Yan had arrived, everyone in the great hall rose to their feet and bowed.
Bai Jingyan lifted her head and looked up at the Emperor of Yan. Their eyes met entirely by accident. Warning blazed in hers. Murong Yu faltered for a moment, then broke into an exasperated smile.
So I've made myself thoroughly disliked by the girl my little brother has set his heart on.
The Emperor of Jin and the Emperor of Yan entered together, and their seats had all been arranged in the ancient manner, side by side at the head of the hall.
The young prince Murong Li, standing beside the Emperor of Yan, gave a spark of light when he saw Bai Jingyan. Guided by the Crown Prince, he took the seat beside him.
The Crown Prince fussed over Murong Li attentively, like an elder brother.
Murong Li was turning his head, suppressing the urge to glance toward Xiao Rongyan, when the Crown Prince—feigning ignorance of the fact that they had boated together on the lake only yesterday—moved to make introductions. Only then did Murong Li speak.
"Yesterday's boating was done with Master Xiao. Master Xiao is already aware, you see."
The Emperor of Yan looked toward where Murong Li and Xiao Rongyan sat, smiled, raised his wine cup in a light salute, then tilted his head back behind his sleeve and drained it.
The Crown Prince was in high spirits. Having heard that Xiao Rongyan and the Emperor of Yan had gone boating together the day before, he had urged Xiao Rongyan to grow close to the Yan emperor.
"You know Master Xiao, then?"
The Emperor of Jin asked Murong Yu.
"The Grand Steward who attends me came to know Master Xiao in Nanyan, and yesterday my youngest son threw a tantrum insisting he wanted to go out on the lake, so he borrowed Master Xiao's pleasure boat."
Murong Yu answered candidly, hiding nothing.
"Master Xiao is a man of exceptional learning. Though a merchant by origin, he has won Your Majesty's favor. It seems the Emperor of Great Yan holds him in high regard as well."
The Empress spoke up.
The Empress, long absent from public view, had attended the banquet in the Emperor's wake—only to find, utterly unexpectedly, that the Crown Prince's birth mother, Noble Consort Liu, was seated at a rank lower than the Emperor's, while the currently favored Lady Chu sat at the Emperor's side.
The guests were stunned by the depth of Lady Chu's favor, and stunned once more by the beauty of the Emperor of Yan, which seemed fit to seize hold of rivers and mountains.
Just then, the urgent strains of the huqin—a Chinese bowed string instrument—and a rapid, insistent tattoo of drums rang out through the hall.
A woman in a brilliant crimson skirt, a golden jade tablet at her waist and a golden veil across her face, appeared in the palace hall moving to the rhythm. Her steps were light, and every sway to the melody set the golden bells at her ankles chiming softly. Behind her, more than a dozen Xiliang men entered, beating drums.
Bai Jingyan looked at Li Tianfu. The woman who had been drowning in despair over Liu Chentuo's death only yesterday now flaunted herself with utterly transformed, seductive grace. Her gaze was fixed upon the Emperor, and her purpose was unmistakably clear.