Spring Returns to Me

But now I pleaded illness and deliberately stayed behind closed doors.

I heard that Princess Pei Yunzhao spent every day at the heir’s bedside. She even gave up her favorite game of polo.

She personally supervised the brewing of his medicine in the small kitchen, then clumsily burned her fingertip.

I kept to myself in my guest courtyard.

I practiced calligraphy by day and listened to the rain at night.

It had never belonged to me.

In this life, I didn’t want to keep fighting and scheming for it.

I had deliberately avoided Shen Xingyi these past few days, but in the end I still ran into him.

He wore a pale blue-purple cloak. He had grown much thinner and was talking happily with Pei Yunzhao.

Princess Pei Yunzhao smiled like a flower, radiant as spring in March.

That was how the two of them were meant to be.

Childhood sweethearts, carefree together.

Without me interfering, they were a far better match.

I stopped and quietly turned back the way I had come.

I didn’t notice Shen Xingyi’s gaze following me all the way, until my figure disappeared among the flowers in full bloom.

07

The early-spring rain fell endlessly, tiny drops veiling the whole world.

For more than half a month, I had barely stepped outside my guest courtyard.

I sat by the window, bored, flipping through a travelogue from a previous dynasty.

Then an unexpected visitor arrived.

My maid, Autumn Sparrow, was embroidering beneath the eaves. At the sound, she lifted the bamboo curtain, then gasped in surprise. “Heir, why have you left your bed? It’s still cold in early spring…”

Shen Xingyi stood beneath the eaves.

Today he wore an ivory Hangzhou-silk robe and a pale cloak. His handsome face still showed the weariness of someone recovering from a serious illness.

“Why has the heir come here?”

I bent my knees in greeting, eyes lowered.

My voice was so calm it surprised even me.

Shen Xingyi frowned slightly and raised a hand, seeming to want to help me up.

I straightened before he could, stepping back to widen the distance between us.

Shen Xingyi paused, apparently surprised by my aloofness, but in the end he withdrew his hand.

“I heard that Miss Du… has also been ill these past few days.”

“I’ve wanted to visit for some time, but I was afraid of infecting you. Today I finally thought I could stop by.”

I lowered my eyes to the mud on the hem of his cloak.

“Thank you for your concern, Heir. I only caught a little chill. I’m well now.”

Autumn Sparrow knew how to read the room. She quickly brought hot tea, then slipped outside and closed the door behind her.

We were alone in the room.

Steam drifted from the white porcelain cups, blurring Shen Xingyi’s features.

For a time, neither of us spoke.

After a long while, Shen Xingyi took a sandalwood box from his sleeve and gently pushed it toward me.

Inside lay a set of the finest water-resistant pigments.

Malachite, cinnabar, gamboge, red ochre…

I was surprised to recognize them as tribute gifts from the Kingdom of Liang at last New Year’s Eve banquet.

That night, I had stood behind the beaded curtain in the flower hall, staring at the set for a long time.

But in the end, I hadn’t dared ask for it.

As a dependent in someone else’s home, I had to know my place. How could I ask for a tribute gift, something even Princess Pei Yunzhao hadn’t asked for?

I looked away. “Thank you, Heir, but I don’t dare accept this.”

“Princess Pei Yunzhao was the one who risked herself to save you that day. I only stood on the bank, worrying. I don’t deserve anything so precious.”

Shen Xingyi watched me intently.

The rain outside seemed to grow heavier. Fine streams struck the window frame at an angle, murmuring without end.

“I asked people to find these pigments after that banquet.”

He spoke softly. “I was afraid that giving them to you out of the blue would make you uneasy, so I waited for a suitable occasion.”

I paused.

So Shen Xingyi had noticed my gaze lingering on the set from behind the beaded curtain that night.

Shen Xingyi lowered his head, looking at the tea leaves rising and falling in his cup.

“Zhao’er saved my life. Of course I’ll repay her.”

“But I’ve wanted to give you the things in this box for a long time.”

He opened a compartment at the bottom of the sandalwood box. There was another layer beneath the pigments.

At its bottom lay a gold hairpin set with a ruby, exquisitely crafted and shaped like a winding phoenix.

I recognized it at once.

It had belonged to the Marchioness. At the New Year’s Eve banquet, she had smiled and said the hairpin would be passed to the next mistress of the Marquis’s household.

In my previous life, that precious hairpin had once adorned my hair on our wedding night.

“Yuning…”

Shen Xingyi said my name softly, with a tremor in his voice that was almost impossible to notice.

“If there’s something you want from now on, just tell me.”

“You don’t have to avoid me all the time. And you don’t have to… keep using those tricks.”

My breath caught.

Sorrow rose to my eyes.

So he had known about my schemes from the very beginning.

This man was compassionate toward every blade of grass and every branch in the world. He had even been so tolerant toward a calculating cousin like me.

I had mistaken that tolerance for a special love meant only for me.

But Shen Xingyi and I had never been on the same path.

Princess Pei Yunzhao was the one who belonged at his side.