Chapter 2

My honesty, to my surprise, earned me an earth-shattering secret.

Pei Yuan told me he planned to fake his death next month.

The moment he said it, I clapped my hands over my ears and let his mouth open and close.

I knew perfectly well what I shouldn't hear.

I had forgotten that Li Qing was in the room too.

The instant I lowered my hands, she delivered the thunderbolt.

"His Highness says he's going to fake his death. We can go with him and fake ours too, or stay here, look after the residence, and live in peace."

Pei Yuan gave her a thumbs-up.

"Brief and to the point."

He said he would first have my tongue treated during the month that remained.

Perhaps it was revenge: the physician he found prescribed something that made my tongue terribly numb.

So numb I could barely think straight.

In the end, Li Qing talked me into choosing death.

Then the two of us could travel the world with swords at our sides and see what lay beyond the capital.

Pei Yuan had spent years preparing to fake his death.

There were even supporting entries in the Imperial Medical Bureau's records.

I could take a little medicine too, but pretending to fall ill might damage His Majesty's reputation.

If the officials started saying he couldn't tolerate the two of us, he might fly into a rage and have our corpses whipped. That would be a disaster.

So I offered my own suggestion.

"I'll dash my head against your coffin and die of grief. That way, I'll leave a reputation for devotion."

"What about your father?"

"Father can keep a secret. I'll just give him advance warning."

After Lin Yue's wedding, Pei Yuan and I got down to preparations.

Every few days, he fainted. I spent my days praying to Buddha and the immortals.

"Heaven protect him. Please keep His Highness safe."

Every few days, he coughed up blood. I wept like rain.

"Your Highness, you can't leave me all alone!"

But his fake death came so suddenly that Li Qing had to drag me out from under my quilt.

Dressed in white, I fought back a yawn until tears welled in my eyes.

"Your Highness, now that you're dead, what am I to do?"

I gritted my teeth and threw myself headfirst at his coffin.

Li Qing committed to the performance, smearing fake blood on my forehead.

"Your Highness, now that you're dead, what am I to do?"

I hid in her arms and played dead.

Before she could give me the death-feigning pill, however, Eunuch Qin's voice rang out.

"His Majesty arrives!"

Perhaps all the blood on Li Qing and me looked rather alarming.

His Majesty's voice caught.

"Since my uncle and aunt are so devoted, let them share a coffin."

Terrified we would be exposed, Li Qing hastily summoned Bai Zhu to stuff me into Pei Yuan's coffin.

In the darkness, sprawled on top of him, I discreetly felt his neck.

The faint warmth of his skin let me breathe again.

What if he had really died and I was buried with him?

His throat bobbed twice, signaling me to stay still.

The coffin was cramped. I could only lie sideways across him.

Perhaps the funeral music outside was rather soothing. Listening to his heartbeat, I actually fell asleep.

When a shaft of light slipped through a crack, Pei Yuan woke me.

"Get up. Bai Zhu's here to dig us out."

"Can I lie here a little longer? My legs have gone numb."

"Yes," he said stiffly. "But could you move a little? My arm's gone numb too."

As we wriggled about, the lid was lifted clean away.

It wasn't Li Qing and Bai Zhu looking down at us.

It was His Majesty and Eunuch Qin.

The emperor coldly told us to get out if we'd finished sleeping.

"Uncle, go back to your office and finish reviewing those memorials."

"And you, Princess, take lunch to the Ministry of Justice. The minister has another prisoner he can't question."

I glared reproachfully at Pei Yuan.

"Did you tell His Majesty too?"

Helping me out, he said he hadn't.

Neither had I.

His Majesty said he had learned it from my father.

"Your father can keep his mouth shut. His face is another matter."

"He's been testing dishes at the Imperial Prison every day. Three days, apparently, and nothing has worked as well as yours."

I was furious.

Couldn't cook? Couldn't he at least manage some carcass broth?

Seething, I returned to the residence, changed into men's clothes, and went straight to the Imperial Prison.

There I found Pei Yuan seething too.

Li Qing expertly poured my freshly made soup into the prisoner's mouth.

He was stubborn indeed. He wouldn't say a word, merely stuck his fingers down his throat.

Father asked whether he intended to confess.

Hoarsely, the man said that, barring anything unexpected, he'd be walking out of the Imperial Prison tomorrow.

I gave a cold laugh.

"Barring anything unexpected, I'd be in a carriage on my way to Jiangnan right now."

"Life is unpredictable. Instead, here I am bringing you intestines."

Pei Yuan's smile was colder still.

"Barring anything unexpected, I'd be riding for the northwest, spear in my left hand, a hunting hound at my right."

"Of course, not everyone gets to come back from the dead."

Under our combined assault, the prisoner stopped trying to gag himself and grabbed Father instead.

"My lord, I'll confess! I'll tell you everything!"

"I only helped the Marquis of Chengen with a little usury! It's not a capital offense!"

We were bitter to the marrow. Pei Yuan flatly declared that he wouldn't eat a single bite of my cooking that evening.

My tears started at once.

"It wasn't so bad before I had any hope."

"But everything was ready. And now we can't go."

I cried all the way home from the Imperial Prison. At a loss, Pei Yuan tried to comfort me.

"I'll eat whatever you make tonight. Will that do?"

We reached the gates to find a queue of people waiting to deliver gifts.

"What are these gifts for?" he asked.

I smiled awkwardly. The wailing from the residence had shaken the heavens last night, and we had held a very grand funeral.

So when I returned, I could only announce that the prince's favorite dog had died.

This time, Pei Yuan sighed.

"These people want me to fight His Majesty."

Before he had finished sighing, Li Qing brought out my cooking.

He looked utterly bereft of any reason to live.

"And you want to fight me, don't you?"

I sighed too.

"Then why don't you cook? You know His Majesty dismissed all the cooks when he arranged our marriage."

"And there are imperial spies in your courtyard."

"Keep having your tongue treated," Pei Yuan said helplessly.

Court by day, memorials to review afterward—he suffered enough already.

"I can't suffer through three meals as well."

He rolled up his sleeves and went into the kitchen himself.

I couldn't judge the flavor, but it certainly looked a little better than my food.

Word promptly spread that we were so devoted to each other that the mighty Prince Regent himself had taken to the kitchen.

Even more people came with gifts.

Every morning, the first thing I did was register them and put them into storage.

Pei Yuan explained that for years, every gift to the residence had been recorded, then split equally with His Majesty.

Steward Zhao had previously handled it. Now it was my job.

I no longer had the energy to explain that I really wasn't an imperial spy.

Steward Zhao was, though.

So I did as Pei Yuan said. When someone sent a basket of wild greens, I sent half to His Majesty.

Pei Yuan chopped the rest and stir-fried them with eggs.

"Now this is food fit for human beings," he said as he ate.

Li Qing and I were genuinely curious about the taste of wild greens. After dinner, we sat side by side in the courtyard, soaking our tongues.

"Your Highness," she mumbled, "do you think our tongues can really be cured?"

I nodded.

"I suppose so. Otherwise, all this numbness would be for nothing."

She looked puzzled.

"Numbness? What's numb?"

Sensing something wrong, I withdrew my tongue.

"Yours isn't numb?"

"No."

I ground my teeth.

Very good, Pei Yuan. Settling a personal grudge, were we?

But he guarded the kitchen too closely for me to strike.

Not until the next morning, just before dawn, did a furious roar shake the neighboring courtyard.

"Song Ci! You soaked Sichuan peppercorns in my tea?"

I rolled over and slept all the better.

Before long, however, Li Qing woke me.

"Your Highness, the Marchioness of Chengen is here with gifts. Again. And again. And again."

Still half asleep, I asked, "Last night, did His Highness say the edict appointing the empress would be announced soon?"

"It should be within the next few days."

Li Qing nodded.

"His Highness said the date of the investiture is settled too. The sixth of next month."

I flopped onto my pillow.

"Tell the marchioness I have a cold. She mustn't catch it."

"Give her some of those sweet oranges His Highness brought home yesterday."

Li Qing shook her head.

"You're learning from His Highness. Talking in circles now."

"Why not just tell her it's settled?"