Chapter 6

The next year, Madam released her and married her off. The match was far away, all the way in Hebei.”

The evidence wasn’t conclusive.

But pieced together, the picture was clear—

Lingge was pregnant. Madam wanted her to abort the child. Pei Huaijin acted first and arranged for her to leave, but Madam’s people had already laid hands on her. Lingge had left with an injury.

The land deed was money Pei Huaijin had arranged to give Lingge so she could support herself.

But Lingge never used it.

She followed a wandering Taoist for the rest of her life, enduring hardship all the way.

She would rather live in poverty in the countryside than touch the deed.

Why?

I thought about it for a long time, then found an answer.

The land deed was in the Grand Preceptor’s name.

If she used it, she would be stepping back into the sphere of the Grand Preceptor’s household.

She would rather starve than have anything to do with the place that had nearly taken her life.

And my father knew everything.

He knew where the deed came from, knew Lingge’s true identity, and knew I wasn’t his biological daughter.

He knew it all.

But he never said it out loud in his entire life.

He simply hid the deed in the cover of his book of divination and tucked Lingge’s portrait between its pages.

He had turned the life of a fake Taoist into the life of a real father.

After piecing everything together, I went to the eastern courtyard study.

This time I wasn’t there to inspect the feng shui. I was there to search.

Pei Huaijin had hundreds of books on his shelves. I went through them one by one.

On the third day, I found a letter tucked into a copy of A New Account of Tales of the World.

The paper had yellowed and grown brittle. Its corners curled.

The handwriting looked just like the poem on the inside cover of my father’s book—neat and elegant, written by a woman.

No, that was wrong.

The handwriting on the letter was a man’s.

It didn’t match the writing on the inside cover.

This was Pei Huaijin’s hand.

The letter was very short, only a few lines:

“To Lingge. I have asked Uncle Zhang to deliver this letter. I hope you are somewhere safe by the time you receive it. You know my mother’s temper. She will not stop. If you don’t leave, she will come after you again—this time, not with an abortifacient, but for your life. I cannot let you die here. I have enclosed the land deed. I bought the house in Anle Ward with my own savings and put it in my father’s name so my mother wouldn’t find out. If you don’t wish to return to the capital, sell it and use the money to live. If you want to return—no, don’t come back. Forget this place. Huaijin, my final letter.”

My final letter.

When he wrote it, he hadn’t planned to go on living.

But the letter had never been sent.

It had remained inside his book.

The deed had reached Lingge, which meant Uncle Zhang had indeed delivered it to her.

But the letter hadn’t gone with it.

Had Pei Huaijin changed his mind after writing it? Had he not wanted Lingge to know she’d been driven away by his mother?

Or had the letter been intercepted?

I turned it over.

Near the bottom-right corner of the back was a tiny dot of ink. It didn’t look accidental. It looked as though someone had pressed a pen tip against the paper.

The mark formed a character:

“Keep.”

Keep it?

Who had kept the letter from being sent?

I took it to Pei Yanchu.

The old man was writing in his study.

The moment he saw the letter, his brush slipped from his hand.

Ink splashed across the xuan paper, spreading into a large blot.

“Where… did you find this?”

“In the eastern courtyard study, tucked into a copy of A New Account of Tales of the World.”

Pei Yanchu took the letter with trembling hands.

He read it once, then again.

“Huaijin never sent this. He told Uncle Zhang to send only the deed and the bangle. He kept the letter.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t want Lingge to know that his mother had forced her to leave. He was afraid she would hate his mother and come back to settle the score. What would happen to the child then?”

The “child” he meant was me.

“He knew Lingge was pregnant?”

“He did. That’s why he did it.” Pei Yanchu closed his eyes. “He told me that as long as the child was safe, he didn’t care about anything else.”

“What about him?”

“From the moment Lingge left, he never recovered. It wasn’t a physical illness, but a sickness of the heart. He felt he had ruined Lingge’s life, that he hadn’t been capable of protecting her. He hated his mother, and he hated himself.”

Pei Yanchu’s voice grew lower and lower.

“I tried to talk him out of it. I told him he was young and had a long life ahead. He said, ‘Father, if I can’t even protect the person I love, what’s the point of living?’”

The words left my chest tight.

But I didn’t cry.

Because I had thought of something.

“There’s a character on the back of the letter. ‘Keep.’”

Pei Yanchu turned the paper over.

The moment he saw the character, his whole body stiffened.

“That isn’t Huaijin’s handwriting.”

“Whose is it, then?”

He didn’t answer.

But I had already guessed.

Aside from Pei Huaijin and the servants, there was only one other person who could enter the eastern courtyard study.

The Grand Preceptor’s wife.

She had found the letter.

She had kept it from being sent.