Chapter 6

With an opportunity like that right in front of him, everyone thought his choice was obvious.

I lowered my eyes. I did not want to look at him.

Shen Yan refused anyway.

10

“Thank you for thinking so highly of me, Your Highness. I am a man of humble status. How could I ask Your Highness to break an old rule for my sake?”

Shen Yan’s voice was calm and unwavering.

My sister frowned and complained, “You two really are made for each other. One refuses to go to the capital and enjoy a life of comfort; the other doesn’t even want to become an official.”

Xiao Chengjun kept his eyes fixed on me.

“Why won’t you come to the capital?”

At last, our parents noticed the strange atmosphere and hurried to smooth things over.

“Qinghe has always been a little unconventional, Your Highness. Please don’t take it to heart.”

After that, my sister was the only one who kept the conversation lively at the table.

Under the table, Shen Yan quietly took my hand. The warmth of his palm eased my nerves.

Xiao Chengjun and my sister stayed only one night. The next day, they set out for the capital again.

My sister was reluctant to leave our parents, but now that she was Crown Princess, she could not stay long.

Before leaving, Xiao Chengjun said nothing more to me. He only left our parents a painting he had made himself.

In it, two swallows flew in opposite directions, a symbol of parting.

Mother held the scroll, her face full of worry.

“What does His Highness mean by painting this?”

“Aren’t His Highness and Mingzhu in love?”

I rolled up the painting and put it away without explaining.

The marriage between Xiao Chengjun and me had ended in my previous life. There was no need to speak of it again in this one.

After they had gone far away, I finally asked Shen Yan why he had given up the chance to take the civil service examinations.

“You truly have the ability to help govern the world.”

Shen Yan drew me into his arms. His laughter sounded beside my ear.

“There are countless talented people in the world. The realm won’t go unguided just because I’m not there.”

“Besides, if he truly wanted to recruit talent, he shouldn’t have kept looking at my wife while making his offer.”

Had Xiao Chengjun been an enlightened ruler?

The histories of my previous life had certainly called him one.

During his reign, the court had been stable, the harem peaceful, and the realm more or less at peace.

In this life, I no longer dared say so for certain.

Shen Yan understood it all so clearly. At last, I stopped worrying. But another question had been troubling me.

“You said I was the most beautiful woman you’d ever met. Now that you’ve seen my sister, do you still think so?”

Shen Yan answered without hesitation.

“Of course.”

It was only after we were married and I began helping him manage his business that I truly understood what he meant.

He traveled north and south and met countless beauties. When he spoke of beauty, he had never meant only a face.

Half a year later, we set up a household of our own and opened one shop after another.

News from the capital kept arriving.

Xiao Chengjun welcomed two side consorts into the Eastern Palace at the same time: one was the legitimate daughter of the Duke Protector, and the other was the chancellor’s second daughter.

The scale of their welcoming ceremonies nearly matched the Crown Princess’s own wedding.

My sister sent ten letters in a row, every word steeped in grievance.

She complained that Xiao Chengjun had taken concubines less than a year after their wedding. She cried and made a scene, but he still insisted on bringing the women into the palace.

From then on, the two of them grew cold toward each other.

Mother worried herself thin. She wrote to tell my sister she had to show the generosity expected of a Crown Princess.

My sister had no intention of putting up with it.

She said that when the two consorts entered the Eastern Palace, she would teach them the rules herself.

After reading her letter, I could only sigh.

Neither of those women was an ordinary concubine. The daughter of the Duke Protector, in particular, was the most overbearing Noble Consort in my previous life.

11

From the day the two side consorts entered the Eastern Palace, there was not a single peaceful day there.

Shen Yan was not part of official circles, but he had remarkably good sources.

Even as his business grew, however, he refused to open a shop in the capital.

When I became pregnant with our first child, news of a pregnancy came from the Eastern Palace, too.

One of the two side consorts was expecting.

My sister still had not conceived.

She had been pregnant once before, but miscarried before the third month. She had not even known she was pregnant before it happened.

The letter she sent was soaked with tears.

Xiao Chengjun punished the Eastern Palace’s female physicians and replaced them with a new group, because they had not even diagnosed the Crown Princess’s pregnancy.

Yet those female physicians were all plainly skilled in medicine.

The more women entered the Eastern Palace, the thicker my sister’s letters became.

She complained that Father’s official rank was too low, and that her maiden family had no one in the capital to support her.

The palace matron the Empress had once assigned to her was also withdrawn. The inner household of the Eastern Palace passed into the hands of Consort Xu.

My sister ended one letter with bitter self-mockery:

“Here I am, the Crown Princess, and now I’ve become the most idle person in the palace.”

Still, she had not given up hope. She believed that everything would improve once Xiao Chengjun ascended the throne.

The year I gave birth to a daughter, the late Emperor died and the new Emperor took the throne. At last, my sister wore the phoenix crown.

But winning that crown had not been easy.

The families behind the two side consorts refused to accept her. Court officials submitted memorial after memorial urging Xiao Chengjun to appoint someone else as Empress.

Perhaps he had truly loved my sister, or perhaps he simply thought of their years together as husband and wife. In the end, he withstood the pressure and formally installed her as Empress.

Our parents immediately moved to the capital.

Father was promoted, and Mother received an honorific title.

Only Shen Yan and I declined every reward and stayed in Chengzhou.

Shen Yan became even more cautious than before and suggested that the whole family move to Liangzhou.

“Liangzhou may be a border region, but its scenery is beautiful. Would you like to go with me, my wife?”

Even before he asked, I had already been thinking the same thing.

The land there was broad and sparsely settled, and it was far enough from the capital.

After we moved, letters from home became harder to send, and news from the capital grew less frequent.