Chunyan
When Shen Qingzhu emerged from the inner room with a face drained of all color, Chun Tao hurriedly raised the partition screen and stepped inside, worry written across her features.
"Eldest Miss……"
Bai Jingyan stood beside the brazier, watching the charcoal flames flicker as she slowly willed the turmoil in her chest to settle.
Do your utmost, and leave the rest to Heaven. That is all any of us can do.
"Chun Tao, you must be exhausted."
Bai Jingyan's mind was still reeling.
"I will see you settled so you can rest, Eldest Miss."
Chun Tao gently removed the pearl ornaments and hairpin from Bai Jingyan's hair. Changed into comfortable clothes, Bai Jingyan leaned against the warm brick bed and closed her eyes for a short while before Mama Qin, who attended her mother Lady Dong, came to wake her. She rose, sat up, and drank down a bowl of bitter medicine.
Watching her mistress furrow her brow in misery as she swallowed the medicine, Mama Qin's heart ached for her, and she quickly handed over a cup of warm water so Bai Jingyan could rinse her mouth.
"Eldest Miss, just bear with it a little longer. Physician Hong says that if you keep taking this medicine for another month or so, your cold illness will improve a great deal."
Bai Jingyan dabbed lightly at her lips with a handkerchief, then plucked a plum candy from the food box Chun Tao was holding and slipped it into her mouth. Only then did she seem to feel a little better.
"Mother will have her hands full with Jinxiu's wedding tomorrow, and you are her right hand, Mama Qin. She cannot spare you, so there is no need to come check on me so many times a day. Please tell her not to worry about me."
"Yes, Eldest Miss. Don't worry—I'll relay your words exactly."
When Bai Jingyan reached for the medical tome on the rosewood side table, Chun Tao tactfully set down the food box and spoke up with a smile.
"I'll walk you out, Mama Qin."
Mama Qin bowed to Bai Jingyan, and as she stepped outside, she gave Chun Tao a parting admonition.
"With the great ceremony tomorrow, the maids will be giddy with excitement from this evening onward and sure to grow careless and lazy. The stewarding mama who serves at Eldest Miss's side won't return until tomorrow, so pay particular attention to the old servant in charge of the heating, and keep the brazier in this room burning hot at all times! Eldest Miss feels the cold badly, so make sure the night maid on watch takes special care."
"Don't you worry, Mama Qin!"
Chun Tao smiled as she lifted the partition screen for her.
"I'll be standing guard right here myself."
* * *
After seeing Mama Qin off, Chun Tao stood beneath the eaves and was about to return inside when she spotted Chunyan running toward the shelter of the eaves with her hair covered in snow, dashing up from the entrance. Chunyan shook the snow from her clothes and asked,
"Is the Eldest Miss awake?"
"She's awake. She just took her medicine, and she's reading a book now."
Chun Tao brushed the snow from Chunyan's hair.
"Where on earth did you go, coming back chilled to the bone like that? What if you'd carried the cold in to the Eldest Miss?"
Chunyan wore an unreadable smile.
"Something wonderful. I'm going inside to tell the Eldest Miss—she's going to be so pleased!"
Before Chun Tao could stop her, Chunyan flung up the partition screen in a flurry and darted into the room.
"Eldest Miss!"
Chunyan performed a respectful bow toward Bai Jingyan, who was leaning against the large pillow embroidered with golden auspicious clouds and reading a book, then said with a beaming smile,
"Eldest Miss, Prince Liang heard early this morning that Physician Hong had come to the estate, and he was so worried your health might have taken a turn that he came secretly to the side gate at the back of our manor. I went to see when word reached me, and Prince Liang—he was fidgeting so shyly, saying he had come to fetch those military texts the Old Duke annotated with his own hand……"
At the two words Prince Liang, Bai Jingyan's entire body went rigid, and she very nearly lost control of her emotions. Her hand rested on the rosewood side table with such force that it seemed her nails might sink straight into the prized chicken-wing wood.
In her past life, it had been exactly like this—without a second thought, she had placed her grandfather's annotated military texts into Prince Liang's hands.
To Bai Jingyan, Prince Liang was like the rotted flesh beneath a wound torn open and festering, where venom pooled and seeped. He surfaced in her mind at the oddest moments, and every time he did, he turned her stomach. He was not the man who had taken her life, but he was the one who could make her retch for a long while afterward. A truly bone-chilling creature of a man.
She steadied herself, lifted her head, and looked at Chunyan, who was still chattering away in her excitement.
"I heard it from Tongji, the young servant at Prince Liang's side—he says the Prince arrived before daybreak and has been waiting ever since. His face was frozen purple from the cold!"
Chunyan's expression was moved and aching all at once.
Bai Jingyan turned a page of her book without replying.
Chunyan could not understand it. Prince Liang, a precious son of the imperial family—a jewel among men—had humbled himself and stood in the falling snow, and at the side gate of the Zhenguo Duke Estate no less, waiting all day long. Even she had been touched by the sight, so why was the Eldest Miss so cold? Could it be she still carried feelings for the heir of the Zhongyong Marquis Estate?
Chunyan's voice dropped lower.
"The Prince said he was worried your heart might suffer if the Zhongyong Marquis heir takes the Second Young Miss away tomorrow, so it seemed he wished to use the books as an excuse to share a few words with you, Eldest Miss."
"And so you decided to speak on the Eldest Miss's behalf?"
Chun Tao's face had gone livid with anger.
"You girl—has your gall swollen to the size of the sky? If anyone catches wind of this and spreads word that the Eldest Miss and Prince Liang met in private, it could ruin her reputation entirely!"
Chunyan, swept up in her admiration of Prince Liang's devotion, had never once considered the storm it might stir. Chun Tao's words struck the mark dead center, and she started in fright.
"Eldest Miss, your servant……"
Only after her rebirth had Bai Jingyan understood: Chunyan's eventual, utter capitulation to Prince Liang had surely begun here. In pressing for a meeting between Bai Jingyan and the Prince, she had fallen for him herself.
Bai Jingyan asked in a tone of perfect calm,
"And what does Prince Liang say?"
Chunyan fidgeted anxiously before speaking.
"The Prince said the Zhongyong Marquis household has narrow vision. When they learned you could not easily conceive, Eldest Miss, and yet still bade the heir take the Second Young Miss as his bride, it showed that any daughter of the Zhenguo Duke Estate would do, and that they consider it no matter who the person is. But the Prince says he is actually grateful for the Zhongyong household's shallowness…… because this has given him his chance to win your heart."
So it was that Prince Liang had deceived her, deceived her maid who served him with all her heart, and even deceived her mother. Not once had anyone in the Bai family doubted him. All of them had believed he cherished such deep affection for Bai Jingyan that even her infertility meant nothing to him.
A bone-deep chill radiated from Bai Jingyan as she shut her eyes tightly.
Chunyan, unable to tell whether her actions had truly been wrong, only hunched her shoulders and stood there.
"Eldest Miss, did your servant…… did your servant spoil things again?"
Prince Liang had come all the way to the manor to fetch her grandfather's annotations. The Prince she knew never gave up on what he wanted—so if this approach failed, he would simply try another. That much was certain.
What Prince Liang sought was the handwriting itself, so he could copy her grandfather's annotations stroke for stroke.
Bai Jingyan possessed a one-of-a-kind military text that her grandfather had given her as a gift—but it was not annotated by her grandfather. It had been annotated by the founding emperor of the dynasty, the Gaozu Emperor himself. Bai Jingyan decided she would give this text to Prince Liang.
Yes—copy it to your heart's content.
Her long, lustrous black hair spilling down her back, Bai Jingyan instructed Chun Tao to fetch the carved rosewood chest from the study.
"Bring the military text Grandfather gave me, and deliver it to Prince Liang. Tell him, as well, that I thank him for his kind concern."
"Yes, Eldest Miss!"
The moment the chest was placed in her hands, Chunyan's spirits soared. She answered brightly,
"I'll deliver this book to Prince Liang right away!"
Chun Tao, still uneasy, grabbed hold of her and dropped her voice to a low warning.
"You—be careful when you go to see Prince Liang. Don't stir up trouble and put the Eldest Miss in an awkward position. Even if the Eldest Miss forgives you, the Madam won't……. You don't have enough lives to spare for it."
"Don't worry, Sister Chun Tao!"
Chunyan was spirited to a fault. Convinced that Prince Liang's words had moved the Eldest Miss, she clutched the rosewood chest to her chest and darted out the door.
Under the howling north wind, snowflakes swirled through the empty air. Between the carved wooden lattices of the window came the sound of the wind raging at full force.
Bai Jingyan turned her head and went on reading her book. Controlling her emotions was no longer as difficult as it had been in the first days after her rebirth.
Looking back on her past life, the crucial piece of evidence that had driven the Bai family to a dead end was the so-called treasonous correspondence found in her grandfather's study.
It was said to have been planted long ago by someone who had infiltrated the Zhenguo Duke Estate—someone in the service of Prince Liang or Li Mu. Only a handful of people could come and go freely from her grandfather's study. It was not yet urgent. There was still time to find that person.
For a long while after her rebirth, she simply could not understand why Prince Liang and Li Mu, in league with Zhang Youhuan, had sought to wipe out the Bai family to the last man when not a single son remained to them. Only later did she learn the reason.
What Prince Liang's faction wanted was the Bai Family Army. Unlike other martial households, the Bai clan did not restrict military training to its men. From Bai Jingyan, the eldest legitimate daughter of the Zhenguo Duke Estate, down to the youngest, every member of the family—man and woman alike—was required to study strategy, horsemanship, the spear, and the sword. There was no one who did not know it.
Killing every man of the Bai family would have been useless. So long as even one drop of Bai blood survived—and so long as that survivor was no fool—the devoted, valorous Bai Family Army would never take orders from another hand.
Besides, the Bai family's eldest daughter Bai Jingyan, second daughter Bai Jinxiu, and third daughter Bai Jindong had all donned armor and taken the field of war alongside their grandfather. They had shed blood with the Bai Family Army through the fiercest of campaigns.
Bai Jingyan closed her eyes and gripped the book in her hands.
In her past life, every time she recalled the Bai family's blood-soaked grievance, her chest had burned as though set alight. She had always regretted that she never lived to strip the skin from Zhang Youhuan and Li Mu and snap their bones. And Prince Liang…… Bai Jingyan had been taken in by his hollow favors and lived like a dog for his sake.
She had endured even the despair of a collapsing sky.
And now Heaven, taking pity on her, had granted her one more chance. She could not say whether she could change the fate of her grandfather and father—but one thing was certain: she could rewrite the ending of the Bai family.
She must not let vengeance sweep her away into losing her mind. She had silently endured and withstood all those long years—and now, with her grandmother, her mother, and all the women of the Bai family still alive, she had nothing to fear.
Take it slowly. There is no need to rush……. Solve it piece by piece, one thing at a time. The traitors who brought the Zhenguo Duke Estate to ruin—I will drag every last one of them down into the dust.