Hearing the commotion outside, the Crown Prince hurriedly shoved Yun Jichu behind the screen. “Don’t come out.”
Yun Jichu felt helpless. She wanted to point out that with the imperial procession right here, failing to pay her respects would be a grave offense—something she had only learned five days earlier.
But the Little Crown Prince gave her no chance to speak. He pressed his index finger to his lips, mimicking her earlier gesture. “Shh!”
Before striding off, he didn’t forget to remind her one last time. “Think carefully about this prince’s advice to you.”
With that, he flicked his sleeve and departed.
The moment the Crown Prince pushed open the door and emerged, the selection candidates all dropped to their knees, their hearts pounding with shock and suspicion.
Lady Shuxiu kowtowed frantically. “This servant failed to watch over His Highness the Crown Prince properly. I deserve ten thousand deaths!”
Helian Jin’s gaze darkened as he swept it across the assembled group, finally settling on the Crown Prince. He squatted down and opened his arms.
The Little Crown Prince dashed into his father’s embrace. One arm wrapped around his father’s neck while the other hand extended outward. “Imperial Father, look.”
It was a butterfly hairpin, its tiny pearls trembling like fluttering butterfly wings.
Helian Jin glanced at the door the Crown Prince had just pulled shut behind him, then fixed his eyes on the hairpin.
A woman’s ornament.
“Why are you here, Ah Nian?”
The Crown Prince’s voice carried neither too softly nor too loudly—just enough for Lady Shuxiu to hear every word clearly. “Today, while chasing a paper kite, I spotted this hairpin by chance. Ah Huan likes it, so I came to ask for it.”
Lady Shuxiu’s eyes flew wide. She suddenly grasped the Crown Prince’s meaning.
Helian Jin spared the hairpin only a single glance before turning his gaze back to the securely closed door nearby. “Whose hairpin is this?”
Lady Shuxiu shot a fierce glare at Li Wenzhu, who looked as if she wanted to speak but held back. The latter bit her lip and prostrated herself once more.
She answered, “Your Majesty, this hairpin is a common item from Chengxiang Hall. Many of the selection candidates possess one.”
Helian Jin said nothing, merely looking at the Crown Prince.
The Crown Prince nodded, clutching the hairpin tightly as he hugged his father with both arms. His voice turned uncharacteristically soft. “Imperial Father, I’m tired. Let’s go back.”
“Very well.”
Late that night, a second bowl of medicinal soup was delivered to Zichen Hall.
Cui Cheng knelt before the imperial couch, not daring to lift his eyes. Beyond his line of sight, the young emperor—who loomed like an insurmountable peak by day—now lay pale and frail against a pile of soft pillows. His eyes burned red, beads of sweat glistening on his straight nose, his lashes dark as crow feathers and his brows sharp as sword edges. His nightclothes hung open in disarray, revealing a fresh red wound on his chest, half-obscured by strands of inky hair.
He tossed back the bowl in one gulp. Cui Cheng took the empty vessel and murmured, “Your Majesty, please take the utmost care of your imperial health!”
“Get out.”
Cui Cheng scrambled away at once.
Ever since Helian Jin had left the palace as a youth to take up residence in the Prince’s Mansion, Cui Cheng had served at his side. Back then, Helian Jin had been gentle and scholarly. Even when the mansion’s servants overstepped, he never scolded them harshly.
But all that changed after the Late Empress’s death.
Helian Jin had first led troops in person to wipe out the Xuluo Clan. Then he plunged into the bloody maelstrom of the battle for the throne, ascending it atop the blood of his brothers.
In his first year as emperor, he executed dozens of eunuchs. For months, the bloodstains lingered along the shores of Taiye Pool, and palace servants feared walking alone at night.
Later, during the selection of consorts, he had even drawn his sword on one of the candidates. Though he spared her life, her entire family was exiled, and she herself withered away in despair—all because she bore a resemblance to the Late Empress.
Cui Cheng shivered in the chill night air. Helian Jin telling him merely to get out had actually been quite mild by recent standards.
A moaning cold wind swept past the front of Zichen Hall, a few scattered raindrops striking Cui Cheng’s face. He wiped them away and said to Xue Gui, “Go inform Meng Dong, who serves the Empress Dowager, that His Majesty is indisposed and will not be visiting her tonight.”
Inside the hall, Helian Jin’s headache eased somewhat after downing the medicine. He rose from the couch and strode to the desk.
He gently unrolled a painted scroll. Beneath the pale moonlight, the woman wore gossamer silks and a butterfly hairpin. One hand held a wine cup while the other controlled the string of a paper kite. Her face evoked a blooming lotus, her figure a slender willow—but her features remained slightly blurred, indistinct even upon close inspection.
Another stab of excruciating pain tore through his skull. Helian Jin strained to recall his late wife’s face, but he could not.
He had fallen gravely ill once, and ever since, Ah Chu’s features had grown hazy in his memory. Perhaps his mind truly was damaged; how else could he have forgotten even Ah Chu’s face?
No painter, however masterful, could capture so much as a tenth of Ah Chu’s beauty.
“Ah Chu…”
He carefully rerolled the scroll and picked up another painting.
These portraits had been rendered with clear, precise features to aid the Empress Dowager and the Emperor in their selections: eyes rippling like spring waters, lips curved in a half-smile, a petite and delicate nose.
This was the selection candidate the Crown Prince had sought out in Chengxiang Hall that day—Yun Jichu. Not only did her looks resemble Ah Chu’s, but even her name echoed it.
“Excellent.” Helian Jin tore the portrait to shreds.
Evidently, the selection three years prior had failed to quell the restless ambitions of these people. “Courting death.”
Peace returned to Zichen Hall, broken only by the occasional breeze rustling the scraps of paper across the floor. Upon the imperial couch, Helian Jin’s elegant fingers traced the characters “Chu Chu”—the name of his late wife. He closed his eyes, his voice laced with pain and lingering tenderness.
“Ah Chu… come into my dreams.”
Half a month slipped by in the blink of an eye. Yun Jichu had spent these days quietly confined to Chengxiang Hall, never once venturing outside. The flowers by her door had all withered and fallen.
Lady Shuxiu had not been overly harsh with her. At first, she assigned Yun Jichu to copy scriptures, but upon seeing her utterly atrocious handwriting, she simply waived the task altogether. From then on, Yun Jichu needed only to recite them each day.
For ten taels of silver, Yun Jichu bought a few sheets of paper and two boxes of rouge from a young palace maid.
Over those days, she painted many scenes of the spring vista beyond her window. Unfortunately, she had only red and black pigments at her disposal, and the ink and rouge bled differently across the paper. The results were paintings too hideous to behold.
With no electronic devices to distract her and nothing but moral treatises for company, Yun Jichu scrutinized every decorative pattern in her room until she had memorized them all. At last, the day of the consort selection arrived.
Incense smoke curled lazily through Zilan Hall as Yun Jichu and the other candidates waited in the side hall.
Word had it that Li Wenzhu had also been confined by Lady Shuxiu during this time—though whether on the Crown Prince’s orders remained unclear.
Yun Jichu lingered in the corner, but Li Wenzhu spotted her immediately. Lifting her skirts, the girl strode over and tilted her chin up in a haughty glare.
“You’re bolder than I thought.”
In the past, before her true colors showed, Li Wenzhu had always been soft-spoken and demure. Now, she didn’t even bother pretending.
Yun Jichu turned to leave, only for Li Wenzhu to grab her arm.
“The Empress Dowager is my blood aunt. Even if you catch someone’s eye and enter the palace on your looks, you’ll always rank beneath me. We’ve got a long road ahead.”
Yun Jichu replied coolly, “The Empress Dowager has no blood sisters. Your mother was a personal maidservant whom the Empress Dowager released from the palace to marry. Out of pity, Her Majesty summons her for chats now and then. You’ve earned the Empress Dowager’s favor, so she permits you to call her ‘aunt’ in private. But you cannot claim her as a blood relation.”
“…” Li Wenzhu despised Yun Jichu’s feigned serenity and earnestness above all else. “So what of it!” she snapped.
Yun Jichu kept the thought to herself: Nothing much—close kin can’t wed. I’m only clarifying things for your own good.
But one look at Li Wenzhu’s face, red with fury, told her she had offended the girl again. Yun Jichu clamped her mouth shut with an awkward smile.
With no outlet for her rage and Lady Shuxiu arriving just then to deliver instructions, Li Wenzhu could only swallow her anger and bow her head to listen.
“In a moment, Eunuch Cui will escort you all inside. Mind your manners.”
“Yes,” chorused Yun Jichu and the others.
Yun Jichu slipped her hand into her sleeve for reassurance. All 340 taels in banknotes were tucked there. She wondered if it would be enough to sway Cui Cheng.
Five years prior, she had relied on silver to enlist his help.
Pastries delivered: ten taels.
A “chance” encounter in the back garden: fifteen taels.
Serving ink in the study: twenty taels.
~~~
Cui Cheng was as greedy as they came. She wondered if that was still true.
Yun Jichu’s gaze drifted to Li Wenzhu. Game characters’ personalities must run pretty stable, after all.
Before long, a familiar face emerged from the front hall. No longer the timid underling of five years ago, Cui Cheng now carried himself with authority. He strode out imposingly, first sweeping his eyes over the assembled girls before slowing his pace to inspect them one by one.
Cui Cheng walked on while grumbling inwardly: Slower… even slower.
The consort selection was underway, yet His Majesty remained tied up in council at Yanying Hall. The Empress Dowager sat stone-faced in the front hall, and Cui Cheng had been dispatched to stall for time.
It was a task more impossible than ascending to the heavens.
Cui Cheng grew ever more anxious with each step, just as Yun Jichu fidgeted in her corner.
Why hasn’t he reached me yet? At this rate, the selection will begin without him.
At last, Cui Cheng arrived before her. Already preoccupied, he glanced her way on instinct—and recoiled in shock.
“Which household’s young lady are you?”
Yun Jichu checked her periphery. No one nearby; those ahead stood with heads bowed, paying no heed. Seizing the moment, she swiftly pressed two banknotes into his palm.
“In reply to Eunuch Cui, this humble maiden is Yun Jichu, daughter of Yun Shen, Transport Commissioner of Minzhou.”
Cui Cheng had already been struck dumb by her beauty. Now, with the banknotes thrust upon him… whether in countenance or this brazen bribery, she was the spitting image of the Late Empress!
His hands shook as he thrust the notes back into her grasp. “Do you have any sisters at home?”
Yun Jichu knew the routine all too well—Cui Cheng loved this pretense of reluctance, just as he had five years ago. She withdrew another note from her sleeve, pressing all three hundred taels into his hand at once.
“This humble maiden is her parents’ only child. No sisters.”
No sisters!
To Cui Cheng, those three banknotes burned like hot coals. He shoved them back in haste.
If the selection candidate from three years past had only faintly resembled the Late Empress, then this Lady Yun was a perfect match of the finest caliber.
If the Late Empress hadn’t truly been summoned back by His Majesty, then it had to be an extraordinary stroke of fate.
His Majesty might take a liking to her. Should she win his favor, this young lady’s future would be limitless. Cui Cheng didn’t dare accept her bribe.
Five years ago, he’d taken a hefty sum of silver from the Late Empress. When His Majesty doted on her exclusively, Cui Cheng suffered through several nightmares of her seeking revenge on him.
Fortunately, the Late Empress had a benevolent heart and never made trouble for him.
He absolutely could not repeat that mistake.
Cui Cheng resolutely stepped back, putting plenty of distance between himself and those three hundred taels.
“……” Yun Jichu hadn’t expected that in just five short years, Cui Cheng’s moral integrity had soared to heights she could never reach!
Watching his retreating figure, Yun Jichu felt herself inching one step closer to death.
If Helian Jin really came at her with a sword, it would be…
The thought made Yun Jichu a little sad.
Cui Cheng made a trip to the front hall and returned, his expression grave. “Ladies, Selection Candidates, please proceed.”
Li Wenzhu adjusted her cloud-like coiffure and took the lead at the front. Yun Jichu couldn’t budge her feet; she stood frozen in the corner, her hands and feet turning ice-cold.
What difference was there from marching to the execution ground?
Suddenly, Lady Shuxiu whispered at her side, “Stay at the very tail end. Don’t draw any attention, or your life might be forfeit.”
Yun Jichu nodded frantically, clutching at this final lifeline, and fell in at the end of the procession.