Chapter 8

Seeing that I would not stop, Madam Lu sent Granny Qian to provoke me again.

She deliberately threw herself against my carriage on a crowded street and shouted sarcastically,

“Some people really think that climbing a high branch will turn them into phoenixes?”

“Born servants, always servants. No matter how high they rise, they can never scrub the baseness out of their bones!”

I got down and slapped her.

She flung herself at me instead.

“This old servant’s worthless life can’t bear to watch Eldest Miss being bullied any longer.”

“Why not let Your Ladyship beat me to death right here in the street? At least I’d die in style!”

She leaned close to my ear and spat out a sentence.

I immediately pulled out my hairpin and stabbed her in the side of the neck.

Granny Qian was taken to the Ministry of Justice. Later, word came that she had died.

Even though the Emperor wanted to protect Xiao Che,

he could not suppress the outcry across the court.

We were sentenced to exile and sent thousands of miles away to the freezing frontier.

While the people cheered and applauded, Gu Jingchuan came to visit me in prison.

“I asked Xiao Che. He’s willing to take full responsibility for Granny Qian’s death.”

“She was still alive when they brought her to the Ministry of Justice, so you shouldn’t be charged with murder.”

“At most, you wounded her. I can ask His Majesty to show you mercy.”

“If the Duke’s household intervenes and you divorce Xiao Che, you can remain in the capital.”

“Endure the prison for now. I’ll find a way to get you released.”

Chapter 7

Through the prison bars, I smiled at him mockingly.

“Young Duke, you’ve gone to so much trouble. Could it be you’ve finally realized you still have feelings for your former sister-in-law?”

This time, he remained calm and did not rush to deny it.

“Lu Yao, I just don’t think you deserve to end up like this.”

“I’ve thought for a long time about what you said to me that night.”

“If I were in your place, I might not have accepted my fate either.”

I told him to take that belated sympathy and keep it.

“Young Duke Gu, please take that condescending kindness of yours home.”

“I don’t need anyone’s pity.”

Gu Jingchuan shook his head again.

“You said that if anyone had to judge you right or wrong, good or bad, it should be you.”

“I came today because I’m following my own heart, too.”

“I believe you aren’t a bad person. I believe you don’t deserve to rot in a place like this.”

He even fell out with the Duke’s household and the Lu family in order to save me.

Lu Yunchu, already pregnant, even knelt and begged him.

“I’m carrying your child!”

“Jingchuan, do you want our baby to be born into a family where its parents have turned against each other?”

In the end, I still followed Xiao Che onto the road to exile.

Whether that road was good or bad was mine alone to decide.

In the first year, the Lu family sent a letter severing ties with me.

My sister gave birth to a daughter.

That same year, she won the title of “Women’s Top Scholar”

and was summoned by the Empress to serve as a female official.

Every now and then, someone would mention me.

“If Second Miss Lu were still in the capital, with her abilities, she might have entered the palace, too.”

Outsiders would curse them as jinxes and ill omens.

Lu Yunchu helped the Empress gradually take power from the Empress Dowager.

The old ministers at court who had relied on the Empress Dowager were demoted one after another.

After the Emperor consolidated his power, he embezzled military funds,

lavishly overhauled the court rites, and posthumously honored his birth mother by placing her in the imperial mausoleum.

Gu Jingchuan angered the Emperor by remonstrating with him and was demoted twice in quick succession.

As soon as the decree came down, Lu Yunchu proposed a divorce.

“You’ve offended His Majesty. It seems you’ll never rise again in this life.”

“Jingchuan, surely you don’t want to drag me down with you?”

He agreed to the divorce and kept only their daughter.

In the second year, the frontier fell in battle again and again.

The veteran generals who knew how to fight had long since been transferred away.

Not one of the court’s new nobles dared go out and meet the enemy.

The Emperor had no choice but to remember Xiao Che, still in exile.

He sent three golden decrees in quick succession, then delivered a military tally into Xiao Che’s hands.

Xiao Che accepted the title of Great General Who Guards the Nation

and led the army to put down the rebellion within a year.

On the day we returned to the capital, every official below the first rank knelt outside the city gates.

In the crowd, I recognized Father at a glance, head bowed.

In the throne hall, the Emperor asked what rewards we wanted.

I bowed.

“I ask for the Lu family, Your Majesty.”

“A murderer must pay for a life taken. Debts incurred should be repaid, one by one.”

9.

The words Granny Qian whispered in my ear that day

were the true cause of Qinghe’s death.

“Your mother was strangled to death on Madam’s orders!”

Before all the civil and military officials, I recounted one by one the things Father and Madam Lu had done over the years.

Father refused to admit it,

but he could not offer a single defense that would stand up.

Madam Lu hurriedly begged the Empress to intervene and save her.