Chapter 5

Only two people knew the truth in full.

The Grand Preceptor, Pei Yanchu.

And his wife.

One hesitated, always seeming to have something to say but holding it back.

The other kept me at a distance.

I touched the wooden sword pendant at my waist.

When Father carved this little sword, he had used the handle of an old kitchen knife. It was made of jujube wood, hard and rough enough to raise blisters on his hands.

He’d said, “For my daughter, I have to use the hardest wood. That way it can suppress evil spirits.”

But now I understood.

Perhaps the thing he had wanted to suppress wasn’t an evil spirit.

It was the past.

Two more days passed.

During those two days, the Grand Preceptor’s wife never saw me again.

Pei Yanchu came to the side hall for breakfast every morning, and every day he ordered a dish Lingge had once made.

On the first day, fish slices stir-fried with vinegar. On the second, crab-roe tofu. On the third, osmanthus-scented lotus root stuffed with glutinous rice.

He never mentioned Lingge by name. He only said, “This is an old dish from the household,” then ate in silence.

I ate in silence, too.

But by the third day, when the osmanthus-scented lotus root was served, I couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

I knew this dish too well.

Father had a little trick for stuffing lotus root that no one else knew. Besides glutinous rice, he packed tiny pieces of red date into the holes.

He said, “Your mother taught me that.”

But the lotus root prepared by the Grand Preceptor’s cook had little bits of red date inside, too.

That wasn’t a coincidence.

It was the recipe of the same person.

I put down my chopsticks.

“Old sir, Lingge was my mother.”

Pei Yanchu’s chopsticks froze in midair.

He didn’t look shocked. He didn’t deny it.

He even let out a sigh of relief.

As though he had been waiting a long time for me to say it.

“How did you find out?”

“The jade bangle had the words ‘Lingge’ engraved on it. The inside cover of my father’s book of fortune-telling had the same words. And the dishes you’ve ordered for me every day—the dishes my mother used to make—you were testing me. You wanted to confirm it.”

Pei Yanchu slowly set down his chopsticks.

“You’re more perceptive than your mother.”

“My father taught me. He said that when you’re making your way through the world, if you don’t have enough sense, you have to use your legs. Being able to run fast is a skill, too.”

Pei Yanchu didn’t smile.

“As for Lingge marrying your father…” He chose his words carefully. “She wasn’t driven away. Huaijin arranged it himself.”

My heart gave a sharp twinge.

“The Eldest Young Master took her away? Why?”

Pei Yanchu stood and walked to the window.

The old man’s back had grown weary—not the steady, dignified posture of an aging official, but the stoop of someone truly old. His shoulders slumped, his spine slightly bent.

“Because his mother… meant to do something to Lingge.”

“What did she intend to do?”

“Lingge was pregnant by then.” His voice was very soft. “The Old Madam wanted to force her to take an abortifacient.”

An abortifacient.

Without thinking, I rubbed my belly.

“Did Huaijin know?”

“Huaijin’s page saw someone preparing medicine in the kitchen. He secretly tasted a little and found the flavor wrong, so he told Huaijin. Huaijin studied the prescription that night and realized it was an abortifacient.”

“What happened after that?”

“Then he made a choice.”

Pei Yanchu turned around.

His eyes were red-rimmed.

But his voice remained steady.

“Huaijin didn’t go argue with his mother. He knew it would be useless. His mother was a daughter of the Wang clan of Taiyuan. She had married into the Pei family twenty years earlier, and no one could change her mind. If she said Lingge was unworthy of staying in the household, then Lingge could not stay.”

“So he took her away.”

“He arranged a carriage through the night and had Lingge leave by the back gate.”

“Where did he send her?”

“He had planned to take her back to Jiangnan, to her hometown. But it was a long journey, and Lingge was far along in her pregnancy. She couldn’t endure the rough road.”

“By chance, a wandering Taoist had come to the residence that day, saying he was passing through the capital and offering fortunes. He was young and dirt poor, but his eyes were bright. Huaijin studied his face for a long time and decided he didn’t seem like a bad man.”

My nose suddenly stung.

That young, dirt-poor Taoist was my father.

Later, I confirmed Pei Yanchu’s story several times through other people.

Pei Yuanbai knew part of it.

By the time he came to seek refuge at the Grand Preceptor’s residence, Pei Huaijin was already gravely ill. Huaijin himself had told him, “Look after my father for me.” Pei Yuanbai pieced together what he knew about Lingge from the delirious things Huaijin said at his sickbed.

Matron Zhou knew another part.

She was on night watch the night Lingge left. She saw the light at the back gate, but didn’t go to look. Earlier that day, Madam had flown into a rage and smashed a teacup. None of the servants in the main courtyard dared take a single step out of line.

The next day, the dry well had been sealed.

But the blood beneath the floorboards in Lingge’s little room—it hadn’t been menstrual blood.

It had come from a wound.

The night Pei Huaijin arranged Lingge’s escape, one of Madam’s trusted maids had gone to Lingge’s room.

Through a crack in the side door, Matron Zhou saw the maid leave with a pair of scissors in her hand.

“Were they bloody?”

“I couldn’t tell. It was too dark.”

“What happened to that maid afterward?”