Chapter 4

Mother still wanted to take me to the capital so I could keep living my life around my sister.

I nodded.

“Then move.”

Mother’s eyes lit up.

“Qinghe, I knew you were the most sensible one.”

I waited until she had finished smiling, then completed the rest of my sentence.

“You and Father can go. I’ll stay in Chengzhou.”

Her smile froze.

“What nonsense are you talking about? We’re all doing perfectly well together. Why split up? You’re a young woman…”

“Once I marry someone who joins our family, I’ll have my own household. I won’t be a young woman with no one to depend on.”

That night, the conversation between mother and daughter did not end well.

From then on, perhaps Mother no longer saw me as her sweet, obedient, sensible little girl.

That was all right.

I had fulfilled my duty as a filial daughter in my previous life.

In this life, I owed them nothing.

Father and Mother both said I had changed, while my sister came by every few days to sound me out.

“Are you making all this fuss on purpose so Father and Mother will pity you and give my marriage to you?”

She asked so often that I developed a headache.

“The imperial decree has already been issued. No one can steal your marriage.”

Besides, I no longer wanted the belated affection our parents might offer.

Before my sister set out for the capital, our parents finally agreed to let me stay in Chengzhou and handed over the land deeds they had set aside for me.

Mother wanted to smooth things over. She took my hand and said, “Once Mingzhu enters the Eastern Palace, I’ll find you a truly good husband.”

Father added, “I know exactly which poor young scholars in Chengzhou are talented.”

My sister still thought Chengzhou was beneath me.

“What outstanding gentlemen could there be here? Come to the capital with me. You can choose from all the scholars in the city.”

None of them knew I had never intended to find a poor scholar to marry into our family.

The man I wanted to choose was a merchant’s son.

7

My sister’s wedding was approaching. Father was granted seven days off, so our whole family went to the capital for the ceremony.

On the way, Mother held my hand tightly and kept repeating the same worries.

“Mingzhu has to spend a month in the palace learning the rules before the wedding. I wonder how she’ll manage.”

“Will the palace matrons be too harsh with her?”

They would.

In my previous life, when I learned the rules, their teaching rulers came down hard on my waist and back.

It did not matter how much it hurt. My face still had to wear a proper smile, because every word and gesture of the Crown Princess reflected on the imperial house.

I had nowhere to confide those hardships.

Later, there was someone who could have listened. But by then I had already grown used to enduring everything in silence.

To Mother’s anxious questions, I gave only one answer.

“She’ll get used to it.”

Mother did not see my sister until the day of the wedding.

At the sight of her, my sister’s eyes immediately reddened.

“Mother…”

She had barely managed to say one word when the female official beside her reminded her of the rules.

My sister swallowed the rest of what she wanted to say, her tears on the verge of falling.

Throughout the wedding, she and Mother could not exchange another word.

On the carriage ride back to Chengzhou, Mother cried the whole way, and Father sighed again and again.

Only I watched the capital grow smaller in the distance and felt a long-lost lightness in my shoulders.

Seeing how sad they were, I still did my duty as a daughter.

“My sister has gotten what she wanted. She wanted to rise to the highest branch of the parasol tree, and now her wish has come true.”

Mother cried as she objected.

“She’s only seventeen. How can she tell what’s truly good for her from what only looks good?”

“She may be trapped behind those palace walls for the rest of her life.”

Father immediately cut her off.

“Don’t ever say such things again.”

A familiar ache suddenly rose in my chest.

Hadn’t I stopped caring about this long ago?

Still, I could not help wondering: if I were the one entering the Eastern Palace today, would they be this worried?

I already knew the answer.

No.

They would only feel reassured, because I was sensible, knew how to endure, and would not cause trouble for the Gu family.

When we returned to Chengzhou, I began meeting prospective husbands who might join our family.

I rejected all the poor scholars Father and Mother favored. In the end, I chose Shen Yan, the second son of the Shen merchant family.

My parents thought I had gone mad.

“A merchant’s son can’t sit the civil service examinations. How can you choose someone like that to marry into our family?”

“Even if you picked any poor scholar, with your sister’s support, he might become successful one day.”

That was precisely why I had not chosen a scholar.

Every consort in Xiao Chengjun’s harem had a family behind her.

If they could not touch the Empress, they would strike at her birth family instead.

My sister was not capable of managing the imperial harem. And even if we lived in the capital, she might not be able to protect us.

In that case, staying out of officialdom was the safest path. It would keep us from becoming targets in the political struggles at court.

Our parents could not talk me out of it and had no choice but to agree.

In my previous life, I had heard of Shen Yan.

He was a good scholar and an even better businessman, but his merchant status barred him from the examination halls.

At forty, he donated half his family’s fortune to replenish the national treasury. Only then did Xiao Chengjun make a special exception and allow him to take the examinations.

Although he was past the usual age, that year he placed first in the highest tier.

Xiao Chengjun had once sighed to me, “If he hadn’t been born into a merchant family, he wouldn’t have wasted more than twenty years.”

If the Emperor had regretted it that much in my previous life, Shen Yan must have been exceptionally talented.

He might not be allowed to sit the civil service examinations, but our children would be.

8

Father sent people to investigate Shen Yan carefully. He was the second son of the Shen family and had no engagement.

“Even if his family are merchants, we can’t use our influence to force him to marry into ours.”

I could tell Father still hoped Shen Yan would refuse on his own.

So he arbitrarily picked a day for us to meet at Qushui Pavilion.

That suited me just fine.