The Reward
When Nanny Zhang lifted the curtain and entered, the Grand Princess seemed to be lost in a hazy reverie. Nanny Zhang tiptoed to her side and gently kneaded her shoulders.
The Grand Princess gazed toward the partition and asked in a low voice, "Nanny, when I asked Ayan that day whether she harbored any resentment toward me, surely she isn't blaming me in her heart? She doesn't seem to cling to me the way she used to."
"Your Highness, set your mind at ease! The eldest young lady is a daughter you raised with your own hands. Do you not know her filial heart?" Nanny Zhang said, shielding Bai Jingyan with a warm smile.
"So much has happened at our estate lately. The eldest young lady is still young, and it must weigh heavily on her. This is precisely the time for you to be thinking of her—why would you expect the child to be the one doing the comforting?"
At Nanny Zhang's words, the Grand Princess closed her eyes with a weary look and drew a long breath. Then she gave a quiet laugh. "You're right. The fault is mine. Later, take out the jade chess set from the storeroom and bring it to Ayan early tomorrow morning. She has always been fond of such things."
"Once I have seen to Your Highness's bed, this servant will fetch it from the storeroom right away and deliver it to the eldest young lady first thing tomorrow morning," Nanny Zhang replied. "The people from Cheonsu House are coming early as well, with new clothes and ornaments for the estate's young ladies to wear to the palace banquet on Xiaonian eve. I shall send the chess set along with them."
The Grand Princess nodded and began fingering her prayer beads once more.
"Wei Zhong visited the Shadow Guard today. What did he have to report?"
"The Shadow Guard has been kept at the manor prepared for Your Highness's wedding and has never once been mobilized. But Commander Wan Yezhong has, according to regulation, assigned a mentor to each shadow guard to test their character and conduct before teaching them everything he knows. Wan Yezhong asked Wei Zhong to relay a message: the newly trained Shadow Guard is ready for immediate use, and they await Your Highness's command."
The Grand Princess closed her eyes, considered for a moment, and then said, "After the fifteenth of the first month, bring the Shadow Guard into the city. Assign two of them to protect Ayan. But she must never find out."
Nanny Zhang gave a start, but asked nothing more. She simply bowed her head and answered in the affirmative.
Ordering the Shadow Guard to protect Bai Jingyan in secret? It was protection—and surveillance. The Grand Princess still feared her granddaughter's rebellion.
The Grand Princess's eyes grew moist. Her late father's dying admonition rose in her memory: on behalf of the Jin imperial house, he had earnestly begged her to watch over the Duke of Zhenguo Estate.
Now the granddaughter she had raised with her own two hands was filled to the brim with rebellion, and it burned her like fire consuming her whole body.
Who could know the Grand Princess's suffering and torment? On one side, she had to protect the Bai family's bloodline at the risk of her life; on the other, she had to defend the imperial house of Jin with all her strength. Every step was an agony.
Lately, the thought kept returning to her, unbidden: when weighed against the empire of Jin, which mattered more—one's own flesh and blood? She still had not found the answer.
Back in her own quarters, Bai Jingyan changed into her training clothes with Chun Tao's help, then strapped sandbags to her arms and legs.
As she drilled her martial forms, she found herself recalling Xiao Rongyan's life from her previous existence.
It must have been around this very year. On Xiaonian evening, the Emperor had held a banquet at the palace, inviting his ministers and their families. Xiao Rongyan attended as a distinguished guest of the Prince Regent's estate. But in the middle of the banquet, he was caught meeting a maid in the service of the Prince Regent's secondary consort—and that maid declared on the spot that she was a spy from the State of Wei. Xiao Rongyan was seized and thrown into prison, where he was interrogated under torture.
In her past life, disaster had struck the Bai family soon after, and Bai Jingyan never learned when—or even whether—he had walked free. Whether his lungs and heart had been damaged by that imprisonment, or whether repeated brushes with death afterward had stripped him of his martial arts and left him a husk of a man, as they had her, she had no way of knowing.
Bai Jingyan closed her eyes tightly. Heat flowed through the air around her as she stood in the biting wind. Perhaps because they shared the same fate of losing their martial arts, she felt a pang of pity for Xiao Rongyan.
In her past life, after she learned the truth about Prince Liang, he had come to her aid time and again. And so she had come to feel genuine compassion for him.
Out in the kitchen, maids filed out in a line carrying buckets of steaming water. Following Chunyan's orders, they hurried with bowed heads into the inner chamber and poured the hot water into the bathing tub.
"Eldest young lady, the hour is here!"
Chun Tao hurried over to support Bai Jingyan. "Your bath is ready. Come and wash up."
Bai Jingyan rose with Chun Tao's help. Her legs were already far steadier than they had been on the first day of training.
After her bath, Bai Jingyan spread out a sheet of fine xuan paper, dipped the brush in ink, and lifted it. Then, as though struck by a moment's hesitation, she set the brush down again.
She had been about to use the Chengxintang paper the Grand Princess had received as tribute. The ink, too, was tribute-grade—Xiao Rongyan would trace the source of the message far too easily.
Instead, Bai Jingyan had Chun Tao bring ordinary white hemp paper and common ink from the accounting office, and took up the brush with her left hand.
When the letter was finished, she dried the ink, folded the paper, and handed it over. "Keep this safe. Deliver it to your uncle first thing tomorrow morning, and tell him it must reach the Xiao residence in the southern quarter of the city the day after tomorrow—that is, before Xiaonian eve. Warn him to be careful above all else that his identity is not discovered."
In her past life, Xiao Rongyan had helped her many times, and she had never once repaid him. It seemed right to help him while she still could.
Chun Tao asked no questions. She tucked the folded paper carefully into her sleeve and nodded solemnly. "Have no fear, young lady."
"Eldest young lady." At that moment, Chunyan lifted the curtain and entered, bowing. "Guard Nuo Ping is here to report. The young master brought back from the estate has been settled in Qingming Courtyard. They say he likely won't be able to leave his bed for half a month or so."
Half a month. So it amounts to no more than that.
"Good," Bai Jingyan said with a nod. "Tell Nuo Ping to send men to Qingming Courtyard. If Jinchi loses her head and lays her whip on that mother and son, there's no telling what trouble follows—so make sure no one may enter or leave without leave, and keep a tight watch. And tell Nuo Ping he's worked hard today, to get back to his post and rest early."
After leaving the inner quarters, Nuo Ping sought out Zhen Xiangzhi carrying two bottles of wine and some salve. As he applied the medicine, he brought up the incident in front of Mangang Pavilion that day, worry written across his face.
"Back when you made a scene at the gates of the Marquis of Loyal Courage's estate, didn't you shake your head and say that while the eldest young lady was defending the Duke of Zhenguo Estate's honor, His Majesty would take no pleasure in it? And now today she's gone and raised a storm in front of Mangang Pavilion too! This estate is becoming a source of constant worry."
Nuo Ping sighed and took a swallow of wine. "Isn't there some way to talk sense into her?"
The hand holding the wine bottle tightened. The moment Zhen Xiangzhi raised his head, something flashed through his mind, and in an instant, it was as if he had grasped everything at once. Light blazed in his eyes; he struck the table with a crack of his palm and burst into hearty laughter.
"What a truly extraordinary person!"
Nuo Ping stared at him. "What are you laughing at?"
"The eldest daughter of the Duke of Zhenguo, of course! Her foresight, her nerve—she is no ordinary woman!"
Zhen Xiangzhi tipped his head back and took a long drink. Then, eyes gleaming, he thrust up his thumb and pressed on rapidly. "I could see only ten paces ahead, but she had already seen a hundred! Every single step, advance after calculating it through—she moves not one inch without certainty! She is carrying the Bai family's reputation to its very height among the common people, and with that reputation she intends to build her strength and win the hearts of the people!"
Gazing at Nuo Ping's bewildered expression, Zhen Xiangzhi let out a long sigh. "The man who wins a war is not the one who drives his soldiers through bitter fighting, but the one who shapes a favorable situation and seizes victory from it. In other words, the one who creates the opening that lets strategy shatter the enemy's defenses. She is wielding the art of war! What she wants is to make the Emperor on his throne too mindful of the pressure of circumstance and the pressure of public opinion to dare touch the Bai family. Even the man who sits highest, who seems to hold all power in his grasp, cannot help but fear the people's emotions, their resentments, and the words they speak. He fears the brush at a historian's fingertips—what will remain a hundred years hence!"
Zhen Xiangzhi took another drink, then set the bottle down heavily. His chest swelled, hot blood surging through him—and then came a flicker of frustration at his own circumstances: blessed with talent, yet with nowhere to spend it.
"What a remarkable woman! And what a shame. Had the eldest young lady been born a man, the Bai family's glory would surely have lasted at least three more generations."
Had Bai Jingyan not been a woman, her name would certainly have held a place among the highest ranks of the court someday.
And had she not been a woman, her extraordinary brilliance alone would have been enough for Zhen Xiangzhi to bow his head willingly, enter the Bai estate, and serve as its strategist. What a pity it was—that talent so rare should be confined within the walls of a household simply for being born a woman.
"A shame," he murmured, his whole heart aching. He tipped his head back, drained the last of the wine, and let out a low sigh—whether for himself or for Bai Jingyan, even he could not say.
The next morning, while Bai Jingyan was eating breakfast after her training, Chunyan came bounding in with a beaming face.
"It was just as you said, young lady! The moment the second young lady heard what happened in the garden yesterday, she went straight to Qingming Courtyard with her whip, first thing in the morning wind. She whipped with such relish that she split a newly planted sapling clean in two! The concubine lying in the bed was so terrified she hid in her room and didn't dare move a muscle! If only you had ordered the guards not to intervene, young lady... A proper taste of the second young lady's whip is the only thing that would teach them never to presume upon you again! Wretched creatures!"
Bai Jingyan lowered her head and drank her porridge in silence. Chun Tao frowned.
However great their wrongdoing, that woman was still Lady Dong's secondary wife, and that concubine was Lady Dong's own. Servants like them had no right to speak so. "Never say such things again. It could bring trouble upon the young lady."
Chunyan pouted, looking none too convinced, and stood silently to one side.
By the time Bai Jingyan finished her breakfast, Nanny Zhang arrived with a servant from Cheonsu House.
"This is a chess set of jade from the Prince Regent's estate. His late Majesty bestowed it upon the Grand Princess when she was your age."
Nanny Zhang set the two bowls of the set down at her side. "The Grand Princess said she felt for you, young lady, and sent this servant to bring it."
"Tell Her Highness I am grateful."
Bai Jingyan fingered the finest grade of jade stones, then went on. "Nanny, I can see Her Highness is worried I might be entertaining some needless thoughts. Tell her there is no such thing."
Nanny Zhang's eyes reddened. "This servant knows it well! There is no possibility of it! Her Highness and I both watched you grow up, young lady. What lies in your heart—we know it as surely as Her Highness does!"