Chapter 3

Xiao Lie said he wouldn't help. His actions were rather more honest.

That very night, he sent his guards to corner Xie Heng in the Grand Secretariat's duty room. I have no idea what they discussed.

Early the next morning, Xie Heng arrived at our gate with a team of men. He said the Empress Dowager had ordered him to repair Lady Su's residence.

My sister stood beneath the covered walkway, watching him direct work on the leaking east room. Her lips pressed together slightly.

I sidled over and whispered,

“Sister, the Grand Secretary has a hundred affairs of state to attend to, yet he's come to mend your house himself. How are we calculating his wages?”

She glanced at me and said nothing.

Her ears, however, quietly turned red.

Xie Heng came down the ladder with dust on his pristine white robes.

He paid it no mind. Approaching my sister, he spoke gently.

“The beam on the east side has started to rot. I've told them to replace it. Autumn will be here in a couple of days, with all its rain. The room wouldn't be fit to live in.”

She lowered her eyes.

“Thank you for going to such trouble, Your Excellency.”

“No trouble.”

He paused, his gaze resting on her face.

“Your affairs have never been a trouble to me, Lady Su.”

It was so sweet it made my teeth ache. I was about to drag Chuntao away when a commotion broke out at the gate.

Our stepmother burst in, hair disheveled.

After Father divorced her, she'd stubbornly remained in the capital, spreading stories that my sister was a curse on her parents and any man she married.

Somehow, she'd heard Xie Heng was here. She rushed in, dropped to her knees, and began wailing.

“Your Excellency, you must see the truth! Su Changning has been secretly carrying on with another man. That's why she broke off her engagement!”

“She's a fickle little slut. You mustn't let her deceive you!”

She sobbed and knocked her forehead against the ground, not caring when it began to bleed.

“Her mother died young, and she's fated for the same end. No man who marries her will come to any good!”

My sister paled.

I snatched up a broom from the corner and was about to charge when Xie Heng raised a hand to stop me.

He took two steps forward and looked down at the kneeling woman, his gaze cool.

“Madam Li.”

His voice was ice.

“You accepted bribes from the Marquis of Ping's heir and plotted against Lady Su. The Court of Judicial Review has recorded your crimes.”

“After being divorced, instead of repenting, you've spread rumors and damaged another person's good name. Under the laws of Great Liang, slander that injures a person's reputation is punishable by forty strokes of the heavy rod and exile three hundred li away.”

She shuddered and looked up in disbelief.

“I… I'm the mistress of the Su household. Who would dare lay a hand on me?”

“The mistress of the Su household?”

Xie Heng laughed softly.

The coldness of that smile sent a chill down my spine.

“I would very much like to see who in this capital dares acknowledge you as such.”

He raised a hand. Two squads of fully armored imperial guards poured in through the gate and pinned her to the ground.

She struggled and screamed, cursing my sister without pause.

Xie Heng turned his head toward my sister. His voice softened abruptly.

“Lady Su, how would you like this handled?”

She looked at the woman writhing on the ground and remained silent for a long time.

This was the woman who'd made me kneel in the bitter winter cold and ordered the servants to pour cold water over me. She'd said she wanted to freeze the disobedient concubine's daughter to death.

The same woman who'd withheld my sister's monthly allowance, taken the jewelry her mother had left her piece by piece, and even tried to marry her off as the second wife of a fifty-year-old widower.

My sister stepped forward and crouched before her.

Her voice was utterly calm.

“Madam Li, forty strokes won't repay what you owe me and Youwei.”

“I won't have you beaten. I won't have you exiled.”

“I want you to live. To live very well.”

“To watch us trample your idiot son, Su Jingming, beneath our feet. To watch the respectability you value so highly crumble, piece by piece.”

Our stepmother's eyes widened, as though she'd heard something truly terrifying.

Her only son was her sole hope. But Su Jingming had been spoiled rotten. Drinking, womanizing, gambling—there was nothing he didn't do.

My sister rose and gave Xie Heng a slight nod.

“Take her away. Have her kneel outside the Su family's gate.”

When she had been dragged out, the courtyard fell quiet again.

Xie Heng looked at my sister with something deeper in his eyes.

“Those words struck very close to the heart, Lady Su.”

She turned and regarded him coolly.

“Do you think me too cruel?”

“No.”

He smiled.

“I merely think there is no one better suited to be my wife.”

He said it so naturally, as though the word “wife” had passed over his tongue a thousand times already.

For a moment, his bluntness left her speechless. She turned and went inside, her face impassive.

Her ears were red enough to drip blood.

Still clutching the broom, I exchanged a look with Xiao Lie.

“Are all you powerful men this shameless?”

It was a sincere question.

He immediately declared his loyalty.

“I'm shameless. But he's only shameless with your sister.”

After Xie Jinghuai was sent to the northern frontier, the Marquis of Ping's household fell into complete decline.

The old marchioness refused to accept it. She conspired with his former followers and bribed the men escorting him, planning to free him along the way.

When word reached the capital, Xiao Lie was in our courtyard peeling chestnuts.

His guard delivered the report loudly from beyond the wall.

Xiao Lie's hands paused.

Then he put the peeled chestnuts into my hand, stood, and brushed the crumbs from his robe.

“Youwei, wait for me.”

He sprang onto the wall, turned, and gave me a toothy grin.

“I'm going to catch that ugly toad. He won't hop his way out of the northern frontier again.”

He was gone exactly seven days.

When he returned, he was travel-worn and exhausted, with blood still unwiped from his armor.

He climbed over our wall before dawn.

I was asleep when the strong smell of blood woke me.

Opening my eyes, I found him crouched beside my bed.

His hands rested on its edge, his chin on the backs of them. He was watching me silently.

Dawn light slipped through the window and fell across his face.

His eyes were bloodshot. His lips were cracked and peeling, and a fine blade wound marked his cheek.

“Did I wake you?”

His voice was terribly hoarse.

I sat bolt upright and caught his arm, looking him over.

“You're hurt? Where? Why haven't you gone to an imperial physician?”

“Only a scratch. Nothing serious.”

He let me lift his sleeve, smiling like a fool.

“That bastard Xie Jinghuai had twenty men lying in ambush. I dealt with the lot.”

“He's locked in the northern frontier prison now. He won't get out in this lifetime.”

I stared at the cut on his forearm, still seeping blood, and smacked his shoulder hard.

“You call this a scratch? Do you think I'm blind?”

He grimaced at the pain but didn't dodge. Instead, he caught my hand, his smile deepening.

“Youwei, you're worried about me.”

“Obviously! If you die, who'll bring me buns from Liu Ji?”

I glared at him fiercely, but I couldn't keep my voice from shaking.

Suddenly, he pulled me into his arms.

His armor was hard and cold, pressing painfully against my bones.

His voice, though, was so gentle he hardly sounded like himself.

“I won't die. I haven't married you yet. Even the King of Hell would get sent packing if he came for me.”

I buried my face against his chest.

“If you run off and risk your life without a word again, I'll raise the courtyard wall another three chi. See if you can get in then.”

He went still. Then his arms tightened, and he rested his chin on my head.

“I'll get over it no matter how high you build it. Believe me?”

I did.

There was no wall in this world Xiao Lie couldn't climb.

Nothing he couldn't do.

Three months later, autumn had deepened.

My sister's case finally reached its conclusion at the Court of Judicial Review. In prison, Chuchu suddenly changed her testimony and revealed that our stepmother had ordered her to attack my sister.

She hadn't merely accepted Xie Jinghuai's money. She'd also conspired in secret with the old marchioness.

Her plan was to use Chuchu to get rid of my sister, clearing the way for her son, Su Jingming, to inherit the family property.

The news shook the court.

Father came in person and knelt outside our gate for an entire day, begging my sister to return home.

She didn't open it.

“That place was never my home,” she told me.

The next day, Xie Heng came.

Instead of entering through the front gate as usual, he climbed the wall.

The sight of the ever-dignified Grand Secretary hitching up his robes and scrambling over nearly made me choke to death on my osmanthus cake.

He landed, dusted off his robe with perfect composure, and approached my sister. From his sleeve, he took a document.

“This is the marriage decree I asked His Majesty for.”

He offered it with both hands, his eyes bright.

“But I won't use it. Su Changning, if you are willing, I will petition for the decree.”

“If you aren't, no third person will ever see this document.”

She looked at the brilliant yellow paper in silence for a long time.

The autumn breeze lifted osmanthus blossoms through the courtyard and scattered them onto her shoulder. Xie Heng brushed them away with the lightest touch, as though she might break.

“I don't need the wealth or splendor of your household.”

At last, she spoke, very softly.

“Nor do I care about your title.”

He said nothing, waiting quietly for her to finish.

“But the blade you took for me at the chrysanthemum banquet—that matters to me.”

She raised her eyes and met his gaze frankly.

“If you think that scar can win you a wife, go and ask for the decree.”

For a moment, he stared.

Then he laughed.

The next instant, he was over the wall and gone, even his retreating figure betraying his impatience.

Having watched the entire performance from beneath the walkway, I slowly sipped my tea.

At some point, Xiao Lie had crouched beside me. He was eating an osmanthus cake he'd acquired from somewhere.

“That crafty old fox. He's even learned to climb walls.”

“He learned it from you.”

“He ought to call me Master. How many years have I been doing it? He's barely started.”

I glanced at him.

“Xiao Lie, you're very proud of your wall-climbing, aren't you?”

“Of course. What's shameful about climbing into my wife's courtyard?”

His utter lack of shame made me laugh. I kicked him.

He didn't dodge. Grinning, he accepted the kick, then took a warm jade pendant from inside his robe.

The very piece I'd told Chuntao to smash.

“You didn't break it.”

He held it up before me. Sunlight shone through its clear, lustrous body.

“Youwei, you couldn't bear to.”

I said nothing.

I didn't deny it, either.

He tied the pendant at my waist, as carefully as though he were fastening armor.

“Your sister is going to marry.”

He lowered his head, his voice very quiet.

“Youwei, it's our turn.”

Hoofbeats sounded beyond the wall, drawing closer.

Then Xie Heng's voice carried into the courtyard, unusually impatient.

“Su Changning, I've obtained the decree!”

My sister stood in the courtyard and turned to look at me.

Sunlight fell across her face. There was light in her eyes and a smile on her lips—a look I'd never seen in all these years.

I smiled and nodded.

She opened the great gate that had been closed for three months.

Outside, Xie Heng swung down from his horse. The imperial decree fluttered in his hand.

Xiao Lie jumped down from the wall, drew me close, and said something softly.

The wind was too loud. I hadn't heard.

“What did you say?”

He leaned to my ear.

His voice came clearly through the wind.

“I said I've waited fourteen years for this day.”

I turned and looked at his handsome face, radiant in the sunlight.

Suddenly, the warmth of the jade at my waist seemed to spread straight into my heart.

On my sister's wedding day, the whole city was awash in red.

Xie Heng escorted her from our residence to his own with a bridal procession stretching ten li. It was so magnificent that even the Empress Dowager sent a wedding gift herself.

I stood among those seeing the bride off and watched him help my sister, dressed in wedding red, into the bridal sedan chair.

As he lifted its curtain, he glanced back at her.

His eyes were so gentle they seemed to hold an entire spring.

Beside me, Xiao Lie had been staring at me from beginning to end.

“Stop looking at me. Look at the bride.”

I pushed his face aside.

“What's so interesting about the bride? My Youwei will be the most beautiful bride in the world.”

Even with his face turned away, he kept muttering.

The grand procession gradually receded.

Suddenly, he took my hand.

“Youwei, I'll send the matchmaker to your door tomorrow.”

His ears were red with nerves. I couldn't help laughing.

“All right.”

“But you must use the front gate.”

“The front gate it is.”

Grinning, he led me home by the hand.

“After seven years of climbing walls, it's time I walked openly through the front gate for once.”

The setting sun stretched our shadows long.

Ahead lay the direction in which my sister's bridal sedan had vanished. Behind us stood the little residence, holding so many memories.

I closed my hand around the warm jade at my waist.

It was warm as someone's palm.

In seven years of climbing walls, he'd never been late.

And for all the years to come, I had no intention of choosing anyone else.