The rain outside had long stopped. Yet, Shen Zhen had the impression a dark cloud had settled above her and was pouring a bucket of water over her. Lightning and thunder raged in her ears. There was but one thought that crossed her mind — ‘Shen Zhen, everything is over. Everything … is over.’
Suddenly, Moyue’s anxious voice filtered through the door’s fine screen paper.
“Madam, please. You cannot go in!”
“You get out of the way!”
“Madam!”
Eldest sister’s voice! That most beloved voice that used to coo to Shen Zhen, to console her from her little chagrins and that was now dyed in anger, anxiety, fear and a point of craziness Shen Zhen had never known her. Panic made her clumsy. She scrambled to her feet, almost falling face-first to the ground. Her frantic, incoherent desire for survival made her look around the room in horror for a hole to push Lu Yan into!
He was too tall to fit in the closet. There was no room for hiding under the bed. She invested all of her hopes into the luxuriant scented rosewood screen on the side. Shrugging into her nightshift, Shen Zhen presumptuously grabbed onto Lu Yan’s arm, pulling him off the bed and dragging him, dazed and disconcerted, behind the screen. Shoving his clothes into Lu Yan’s arms, she quickly spoke to him, always looking behind herself in the fear her sister would kick the door in.
“Your Lordship must promise he will not step out, whatever may happen!”
Lu Yan, dishevelled, groggy and having expected to laze around with Shen Zhen in bed for most of the morning, frowned down at her, but spoke in a calm voice nonetheless:
“Do you know what you are doing?”
Shen Zhen’s eyes were already filling with tears. Grabbing onto the sleeve of his nightshift, she pulled at it pleadingly.
“Your Lordship, everything is my fault.”
Lu Yan’s face was contorted in rage. The honest truth was that she was not at fault at all. It is just that Lu Yan, for all his foresight, had never imagined, in twenty-four years, that he would ever face such a situation. He was flustered. However, his own feelings of guilt did not arise from the same source as Shen Zhen’s.
The Shen family was of no true interest to him. He did not owe them any particular consideration. However, the woman who shared his bed was the younger sister of the one who was threatening to cut his peace up. He had brought this situation upon himself and had no right to kick up a dust and have that shrew swept out of Chengyuan.
However, there were limits to everything! It was the first time in his life someone was demanding that he hid like a thief. In his own home! But looking at those big, tear-filled eyes, pleading silently, Lu Yan knew he could not do anything to embarrass Shen Zhen.
“Can you handle it by yourself?”, he whispered with some regret.
She had no choice but to nod, though she had never been less sure of herself.
“Of course. Your Lordship rest assured.”
When Shen Ran finally made her way into her youngest sister’s bedroom, Shen Zhen had already had the time to hide under the sheets. Whether it was out of shock of guilt or because of a frail constitution, she started coughing uncontrollably at the sight of her elder sister …
These Shen girls were unique to say the least. Wherever they went, they could not but provoke admiration, envy … an all-consuming desire. Worthy to be compared to crimson plum blossoms flowering in the middle of winter. No man could tear his eyes away when facing any one of them.
Shen Zhen was still young and tender. Her youth accounted much for her charm. But Shen Ran? The twenty-year old Shen Ran was tantalizing. She wore the bun of the married woman with such carelessness, revealing the whiteness of her neck that taunted the world to leave its mark along her soft flesh. Her full lips were always upturned the slightest bit, suggesting a contempt towards those who worshipped at her feet. Her waist was vertiginously narrow, making every man’s hand itch with the desire to hold it. And when she walked, always at a leisurely pace, her hips swayed at a slow rhythm only she could feel but that drove all those who crossed her path insane.
There were no sisters more alike than the Shen girls. If one were to tell the other apart simply from appearance, one would be hard-pressed. The most nit-picking of critics might have suggested that Shen Ran’s features were less harmonious, that her body was too buoyant and the envious would say that she was immodest. As similar as they were, the feeling they conjured could not be more different.
On was a clear mountain spring, on the surface as pliable and as lithe as water, but in her midst, as cold and trenchant as ice. The other was like the scorching sun, luminous and amenable, but she could burn one to the bone.
Walking step by step towards the bed, Shen Ran finally stopped in front of it, her chin kicked up, her eyes glistening with a dangerous light from beneath her thick, black eyelashes. She was majestic. But one would have been surprised to find out the turmoil of emotions, each more contradictory from the other, raging in her heart.
“Shen Zhen, explain yourself. What are you doing here?”
When Shen Zhen finally mustered the courage to raise her head, she could not bring herself to lie to the eldest sister who had always been by her side as she had growing up, teaching her, advising her and loving her so dearly. The tears in her eyes threatened to fall.
“Big Sister … I can’t tell you”, she whispered in a breaking voice.
The white hands on her knees clenched. She was nauseous and dying of nervousness. Shen Ran looked at her like this, beaten into a corner, silent and fearful. She felt as if insects had crawled under her flesh, traveling through her blood and into her heart to eat it from the inside out. Her breath caught in her throat.
On the seventh of March, it had been their mother’s death day. She had gone to the Daxingshan Temple to light some incense and pray for their mother’s peace. There had been few people on that day. She had been kneeling on a mattress for a long time, chanting sutras and worshipping at Majushri’s feet. Desperately begging for the blessing of seeing Zhen’er and Hong’er as soon as possible. The Buddha must have heard her prayer.
After she had stepped out of the hall, she had heard the wind bell of Longye Tower. Shen Ran had at once turned her head in the direction of the sound, catching a glimpse of a slim girl standing and waiting. Although she had been wearing a drapery hat, her slender back, her posture and the way she held her dress as she had stepped up the stairs, led by that hellish monk, had convinced Shen Ran that it was Shen Zhen she had seen.
She had wanted to rush forward, to call for her, to bring her into an elder sister’s loving arms, but then … she had seen her enter the room reserved for guests of consideration in the world. Ordinary people could not step into it. And this included the fallen daughters of a criminal. They were no more the Misses Shen of the past.
Shen Ran had suspiciously stared at the door leading to that damned guest room. However, as she had tried to walk through, she had been stopped by the guest-welcoming monk. In desperation, she had gotten no better idea but to throw the ludicrous tantrum a middle-class merchant wife would have been proud of. Grabbing onto the monk’s bound notebook she had pretended to look for the amount of money one had to invest to have the Great Monk chant a prayer. And when her eyes had fallen on those words, ‘sixty copper coins’, she had known though no name had be written beside them.
How could she not recognize her own youngest sister’s handwriting?! Shen Ran had been the one who had made Shen Zhen practice her calligraphy during grueling hours and late into the night between the day of their mother’s death and her own marriage. Thus, she had decided to follow Shen Zhen back all the way to Chengyuan.
Shen Ran had not known peace in the Li Household ever since her father’s imprisonment. She had not dared check the courtyard, in fear she would attract unwanted attention. Therefore, she passed by as naturally as she could, not turning her head and going to buy some unnecessary knick-knacks to give herself an excuse. And every day, she came back, walking by the inconspicuous gates of Chengyuan, marvelling at how they never opened and no one stepped through the threshold once.
Until one day, a carriage had driven by, stopping right in front of Chengyuan. A tall man had bent out of the carriage, holding a lacquered umbrella over his head. As soon as he had reached the knocker on the gates, they were thrown open to let him pass. The rain had poured over Shen Ran, drenching her, seeping into her flesh, into her bones, into her soul, making her cold from the inside out.
The man had not even come out at the beating of the curfew drums.
Shen Ran could not veil her eyes any longer. A man entering the courtyard inhabited by a single woman and staying the night could not be more blatantly clear. That is when she understood why no one in Chang’an could uncover her youngest sister’s whereabouts.
Shen Ran had cosseted Shen Zhen to death. Taught her, dressed her, loved her. Raised her to become some unscrupulous man’s mistress … Thinking about this, bile rushed into Shen Ran’s mouth.
“Shen Zhen, in whose name is this yard?”
It was difficult to say whether her voice trembling in horror or in rage. As soon as she heard her eldest sister question, Shen Zhen could nope but scramble to her knees, trying to reach for her sister’s hands, though it was impossible.
“Big Sister, can you not ask? Give Zhen’er some time. Zhen’er promises to tell you everything in the future.”
However, the moment Shen Zhen came closer, Shen Ran got a good, hard look of the red marks on her neck. She had been married for four years. How could she not recognize the marks a man left on a woman in the throes of passion?! It was if a thousand arrows had pierced through her heart.
“He stayed the night?”
Shen Zhen remained silent, tears slowly streaming down her cheeks and falling on the top of her hand.
“He paid that money the Jin Moneylending Business demanded?!”
Seeing as Shen Zhen could not find the words to refute, the last string that held Shen Ran’s heart in place broke and her heart fell to the ground, shattered into a million pieces. Shen Zhen’s silence was suffocating. It drove her eldest sister insane, it drove her insane. Tilting her head to the side and mustering a sad smile, she opened her mouth, tentatively trying to explain.
“Big Sister, he is not only very good to me, he also sent Shen Hong to Yangzhou. He is living with Master Chu Xun, alongside Retainer An and Qingxi. All are together and well.”
The man hiding behind the screen swallowed his saliva with difficulty. So, this was all the good she saw in him?
Shen Ran looked down at the sobbing Shen Zhen, each one of her tears feeling like a rusty nail being stuck into her skull. Every word her youngest sister spoke got stuck in Shen Ran’s throat. That pale little face stained with tears only made the elder sister more frantic. It is with a shrill voice that she let the scream of a wounded beast escape her.
“Good?! What kind of good is all of this?! Is it good that he keeps you as a mistress?! Shen Zhen!”
Her voice broke, filling with the choking hoarseness of tears.
“Who allowed you?! Who allowed you to ruin yourself for Shen Hong?! How could you be so cruel to yourself ..? You are not seventeen years old … Not seventeen years old and not married …”
Shen Ran could no longer contain her own suffering, hugging her arms and doubling over.
“What will you do in the future ..? How am I to face father and mother ..? I could not protect you. I could not …”
Defeated, wrecked, ruined, Shen Ran looked up.
“What should Big Sister do ..? Please tell me, Zhen’er, what should Big Sister do ..?”
Lu Yan could not bear the pathos any longer. He was irate.
Mistress. Ruined. Married.
He admitted it. He could not bear any more of Shen Ran’s accusations. Maybe because he knew them to be justified but simply aimed at the wrong person.
Shen Zhen was choking on her tears on the other side of the screen.
“Big Sister, please, don’t be angry with Zhen’er …”
Hearing the sorrow in her voice, Lu Yan threw his vow to keep out of the Shen sisters’ business through the window. He could stand it no longer. Staring at the multitude of fine landscapes etched into the scented rosewood screen, he could not but sneer at himself, as he shrugged into his clothes and walked out. He had brought this mess upon himself. It would only be fair if he now cleaned it up. Bracing himself for the impending storm, he walked out heroically.
“Eldest Miss Shen.”
Shen Zhen, horrified at seeing him appear behind her sister’s back, whispered:
“Your Lordship, what are you doing out?!”
At once, as if a someone had hit her back viciously, Shen Ran straightened up and passed a cruel hand over her eyes, leaving unsightly red blotches on her skin but at the very least concealing traces of her embarrassment. Turning around, her eyes widened in disbelief and her fine, long nails bit into the tender flesh of her palm.
The heir to the Zhen Duchy. Princess Royal Jing’an’s only son. There was not one soul in Chang’an, from the lowly beggar in the street to the grand imperial prince in the Palace, who did not know of him.
No matter how she thought about it, Shen Ran could simply not believe it was him … Him who had caused all this anguish, all this fright, who had robbed her sister of her future, reduced her to the rank of plaything, trampled her underfoot. Him!
Lu Yan, proud son of heaven, cold and arrogant, made a fourth-ranked official at the age of twenty! Who would have ever thought this embodiment of rigid, intransigent justice would be the one to torture a girl as pure as Shen Zhen, a girl with a soul made of the clearest of crystals?!
How could Shen Zhen ever have had the power to fight back his assaults?!
Lu Yan, only too able to imagine what the eldest sister was thinking, still took a few, self-assured steps forward, trying to conceal the fact that these might have been the heaviest steps he had taken in his life. At the sight of this older, more self-assured and more seductive version of Shen Zhen, Lu Yan felt himself losing his means, and not because he was attracted by her. He preferred his very own one. And by far.
Bypassing Shen Ran, he squatted down in front of Shen Zhen and reached out to wipe the tears hanging from her long eyelashes.
“All is well. Don’t cry, eh?”
Yet, every time his thumb moved, another tear fell from her eyes. Stabbing at his heart silently.
He rubbed at his heart resentfully. Sighing, he turned his head to look up at Shen Ran.
“If the Eldest Miss Shen has something to say, she better just say it to me.”
Shen Ran stared down at him in turn, full of venom, anger, guilt. She wanted to cut the whole world deep in her helplessness.
“I assume Her Highness, Princess Royal Jing’an knows the Young Master is keeping my third sister as a mistress, so well-hidden as she is!”
“She does not know”, Lu Yan spat, staring directly into Shen Ran’s magnificent eyes, so like Shen Zhen’s.
Gritting her teeth, Shen Ran forsook all of her pride, her dignity, trampling even her sister and herself underfoot, knowing full well that they were fallen women with no protection.
“My younger sister has done wrong in provoking the Young Master. I shall pay him back everything she owes him …”
“She did not provoke me.”
Lu Yan was more than aware of what she was preparing to say, cutting her off before she could get insane ideas into her head.
“No one gave her the choice.”
