The moment she walked out of Chengyuan, raindrops welcomed her and a thick fog rose from the street, making Chang’an look like something out of a sad, hazy dream. It was beautiful nonetheless. These streets had brought them so much pain, and yet they had retained their beauty even in her eyes. A pretty servant, no older than her mistress, rushed out from a corner, opening a lacquered umbrella over Shen Ran’s head.
“Has the Miss seen her?”
Turning her head to look at Qingli, Shen Ran quickly pulled her under the umbrella. Silly girl, after all these years, she had still not learned her mistress could not bear to be served at the expensive of her own health and wellbeing.
“Yes, I have. Let’s go.”
When they finally found their way back to the Li Residence, Shen Ran let herself fall onto a red sandalwood stool, throwing her head back in fatigue and looking at the beams of her own courtyard. Repeating Lu Yan’s words over and over again under her breath, the corners of her mouth were pulled up in a wry smile, openly mocking herself once more.
A brilliant. A truly brilliant man.
The breeze whistled by the windows to her courtyard as she recalled the conversation in full.
The expression of his eyes, the choice of tone, the use of his naturally bewitching deep voice, everything had been laid out in the best play Shen Ran had ever seen! Everything about Lu Yan had been meant to convey ambiguousness and let his interlocutor draw her own conclusions about his meaning. His words made one dream endlessly about emotions he might have for Shen Zhen. One was called on to coo, sigh and blush at the possibility of such an intense attachment.
However …
He had actually not made one tangible promise.
Who would ever believe the heir to the Grand Duchy of Zhen would participate in struggles between political factions for the sake of a fallen minister’s daughter? That he had brought back a doctor, she understood. The Emperor wanted to use the Crown Prince as a grand equalizer between the other imperial princes. He was after all the steadiest of the lot, and by far. Lu Yan had, so to speak, simply done what he had always been known to do. He had obeyed, even foreseen, his imperial uncle’s wishes and desires. He had gone with the flow, as the vulgar would say.
Shen Ran grabbed onto the cup of hot tea Qingli passed her way, her fingers turning white from the strain. A girl with Shen Zhen’s pliant temperament becoming such a deep man’s mistress was no different from a sheep entering a tiger’s den!
Oh, but society warned Shen Ran against blaming the likes of Lu Yan! After all, his position made it almost legal for him to be as lawless as he saw fit. Let alone taking advantage of a weak, abandoned little girl, he could choose to go into a house of his choosing and slaughter a family without facing the smallest consequence. And truth be said, in whoever hands Shen Zhen had fallen, she would not have met a better fate. At the very least, she was well-dressed, well-fed, warm in winter and cool in summer. What more could a lowly woman wish for?!
Hah.
Shen Ran laughed at herself. At the stupid ideals she had long ago cherished. At her vapid little girl’s dreams. At her own wishful outlook on life that reality had trampled underfoot. It was her fault. Everything was her fault.
As night fell, Qingli brought a heavy basin of water into her Miss’s room.
“Miss, the curfew drums have been beaten. The Master should not be back tonight.”
Those words had been spoken with immeasurable relief. There was nothing Qingli feared more than The Master. Oh, if he could but break his neck! Or get kicked in the head by a rabid horse! Or any such thing. Qingli would not be picky, if only he could disappear from her Miss’s life. Shen Ran, for her part, waved an indifferent hand at her.
“Please help me change clothes.”
As her sleeves slid down her arms, she was left startled. The hideous bruises on her arms took her aback. That Li Di had grown violent in his unruliness was a fact. However, he had never actually left marks on her. Generally, he would go no further than pulling at her hair and pushing her around at the height of his rage. No wonder he did not have the courage to come back home after such a display of his spirits. He was a strange mixture of bouts of courage when attacking the weak and deep pusillanimity when facing the strong. And unfortunately, his dear wife was both weak and strong. Weak as per her father’s downfall. Strong as per her own uncontrollable disposition.
Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she observed the shadows the swaying candlelight cast throughout her room, remembering everything that had happened five year ago.
She had only been sixteen years old. It had been a hot summer and she had been called by a group of girls to accompany them to the Shumi Pavilion on Mulan Lake’s shore. Frolicking about, they enjoyed the humid perfume that arose from the flowers all around, gossiping and laughing.
Shen Ran did not know whether the bluestone road had been too slippery after a rainfall, whether she had been clumsy or whether there had been an ill-intentioned girl among her group, but before she knew what had happened to her, she found herself flapping for dear life, attempting to expel herself out of the water, dragged back down at every instant. Towards the deepest, darkest bottom of the lake. The water had been rushing into her nose and mouth. At some point, she must have heard the sound of another body falling into the water. Under the eyes of a whole congregation of tittering little boudoir misses, a poor student, an unknown, a shabby Li Di dragged Shen Ran out of the water.
Even a fool could guess what had happened next— Li Di had gone to the Shen Mansion to demand Shen Ran’s hand in marriage. Shen Ran might have been young, but she had never been stupid.
What a charming coincidence that was! That day, the Shumi Pavilion had been full of high society maidens. How could a poor scholar have passed through a sea of guards, fond mothers, loyal retainers and energetic maidservants?! Reciting poems, admiring flowers, and saving beauties who fell into the water?! Such picturesque pastimes! And of course, what a great noise the whole affair had made! That all of the boudoirs in the city were alive with it was one thing, but that even inn servants and brothel girls partook in the hilarity was a bit much! Shen Ran had never liked for her intelligence to be underestimated!
The Marquis Yunyang had quickly sent his men to carefully review all of Li Di’s life, from the day he had been expelled out of his mother to the day of his appearance at Mulan Lake. The news that had come back had not been extraordinary in the least. A poor student who had come to the capital to pass the imperial examination. Most importantly, he had had no backing. Whatever the case, Shen Ran had charmingly made it known that she would shave her head and become a nun if anyone dared as much as suggest she married Li Di. And if there was one thing Marquis Yunyang was known never to suggest was that his daughters to marry.
Who would have imagined a nobody like Li Di would refuse to give up? He actually spend his days under the scorching sun, waiting in front of the Shen Mansion’s gates. And in the winter, he let himself be swallowed by masses of snow, still standing in front of the Shen Mansion’s gates. He begged to marry Shen Ran for a whole year, unrelenting, obsessed, his ablaze with a frightening fire no one could truly grasp.
And on the day of the Lantern Festival, five years ago, Shen Ran who had taken her two younger sisters out to witness the parade had sustained a shock she had not expected. When the three of them had stepped foot into the main street they had been welcomed by two rows lighted by hundreds of red lanterns on which only one and the same character could be read.
‘Ran’.
Had it stopped at that, she might have sustained the shock with some composure. But on the lake, thousands of small laterns had been released to float on which only one and the same character could be read.
‘Ran’.
His words still resounded in her ears.
“Shen Ran, I, Li Di, promise that you will never have reason to repent if you accept to become my wife. I will never disappoint you, trust my words.”
Shen Ran might have been young, but she had never been stupid. At least so she had thought then. And now? Even now, she did not know. Had she been stupid? Or had Li Di truly been so treacherous? Silly her, when he had made her such a promise, she had actually believed him. She had believed that there could be one man in this world who could love her sincerely, unwaveringly, with loyalty and as far as disinterestedness could truly take anyone!
The year Li Di had passed the imperial examination, Shen Ran had been seventeen. She remembered how desperately she had stood in front of the list of newly appointed officials, looking for his name, her beautiful eyelashes fluttering up and the multitude of ridiculous courtesy and even more ridiculous family names. Until she had finally caught his. The stifling joy she had felt, to the point she had walked onto the foot of the man behind her, with the sugar man in her hand sticking to his jacket. But her ecstasy had made her give the poor devil a most charming smile before she had fluttered away, never retrieving that pretty sugar man in the shape of a bird. Anyone would have mistaken her elation for the expression of a most passionate love.
And when Li Di’s sedan chair had stopped in front of the great, red gates of Marquis Yunyang’s residence, all of Chang’an’s menfolk, the elderly as the young, the married as the unmarried, had sighed in unison because the Shen Household’s Eldest Miss had finally been married.
But she, wearing her phoenix crown and a red wedding dress, had not felt the smallest emotion disturb the serenity of her soul. Naively, innocently, she had believed that love was unimportant. And even his passing the imperial examinations had been a simple guarantee that she was not being sent into a lazy man’s house. His duties would keep him away from home most of the time and she would be left to live her life as she pleased. What mattered to her was that he treated her well and that she did not suffer the grievances other women had to contend with.
This marriage had been the fruit of an immature calculation on her part, but one devoid of malice, of ill-intent, of cruelty. She was a Shen daughter. She had been reared to love her paternal and maternal families first, herself second, a very few select family friends third and no one forth. Relying on outsiders was a necessary evil for a woman. But Shen Ran, at the very least, wanted its negative effects to be alleviated by something. And a man’s love would do as well as anything else!
And for the next four years, Li Di had truly not disappointed. He came from a poor family. But he was not inferior to others in appearance, though he had not been the type Shen Ran had had a particular liking for. But those who had likened him to a fine breeze passing through the leaves of a jade tree had not been exaggerating. In addition, he let Shen Ran roam freely and visit her family as much as she wanted and she wanted, to the point all of Chang’an’s married ladies could not but envy her. Which one would not have married lower if that had meant love and leniency?! Luxurious jade bracelets could cover bruises, heavy, thick silks could conceal the marks of anger and hatred, but there was no balm for a wounded pride.
(Translator’s Note: 玉树临风, literally “a jade tree facing the wind”, from Du Fu’s “Drinking Song among Eight Immortals”. This idiomatic expression describes a very handsome man.)
“Shen Ran, marrying me has truly wounded your position in society.”
“Do you feel ashamed? I promise to always treat you well as to make you up for all the loss you have endured in marrying me!”
Such words he had spoken to hear! They had made her heart tremble in a strange mixture of pleasure and sadness. She would swiftly cover his mouth with her soft palm. He studied so hard every night and worked so diligently every day to gain a better standing in society in her name! She could not bear him devaluating himself in such a way. She went as far as to forbid him to speak such words under the threat she would not let him under the covers of the bed.
But the past was like smoke, carried away by the wind.
The twenty-year old Shen Ran sometimes turned around and sadly looked at her seventeen-year old self, speaking silent words to hear, hoping she could read from her lips and not make this mistake in the past, so that she could wake up one day and realize it had all been but a nightmare.
He had held her in his palm like the most precious of pearls for four years. But in the end, his wolf-like ambition had been revealed. Where here calculations had been devoid of malice, ill-intent and cruelty, his were full of them! Love? What love?! A man like him could not feel love. But he could recognize a miss of the high society when he saw one, and such a beautiful sultry one, at that, and use her as a ladder to reach new heights.
All these secrets he had drowned in the deepest, darkest bottom of Mulan Lake resurfaced one after the other the moment the Shen family had fallen …
Marquis Yunyang had been imprisoned on the September tenth, fifteenth year of Qingyuan. Shen Ran had anxiously been reading through the letters scattered throughout her table. Pacing back and forth, she had been wondering how to get a letter to the border.
就在这时，李棣回府，行至她身边，拿起信件道：“这是给谁的？”
At this point, Li Di back to the House, to visit her, picked up the letter and said: “This is for who?”
At that point, Li Di had walked into her courtyard, wishing to visit his dearest wife. Picking up a letter that bore her handwriting, he had waved it in the air.
“Who is this for?”
“For Marquis Changping, Su Lian.”
Albeit Su Lian had been a great general, and Shen Wenqi a civil servant, the two had grown up together. And what a childhood they had had. Su Lian always getting into scrapes and Shen Wenqi always telling on him or getting dragged into one of his crazy adventures that ended up with their butts being beaten raw. Or Shen Wenqi impatiently trying to teach Su Lian to write like a man of standing and driving the poor boy more insane than any preceptor ever could. They had been the closest and best of friends, to the point Su Lian, who had had but one son, had viewed the Shen girls as his own, forcing them to charmingly call him ‘Uncle Su’ and teasing them about their conquests and lovers to the great exasperation of their father.
The Su family had been Shen Ran’s last hope.
“The Marquis Changping?”
It had made Li Di frown.
“Have I not told you, my soul?”
“What?!”
“The Marquis Changping had been sent to conquer Goguryeo. But he has fallen into an ambush.”
Shen Ran had felt herself becoming faint.
“An ambush? What happened to General Su?!”
Li Di had sadly shaken his head.
“His Majesty has already given him a posthumous title and sealed him. I am most sorry to be the bearer of such bad news to you, my poor love.”
Shen Ran’s eyes had filled with tears.
“No … Impossible … How could this …”
Not their ‘Uncle Su’. Not the kind ‘Uncle Su’ who would throw them up in the air, making their mother blanch in worry. Who would pull at their ears and make Shen Yao, his secret favorite, fly up in a wild pelter or tell Shen Zhen scary ghost stories that would make her unable to sleep at night.
Li Di had twirled the letter between his fingers, silently enjoying how innocently his dearest wife, the strong, the unwavering, Shen Ran, had let him savor her discomfiture. He had spoken solemnly nonetheless.
“I have heard the heir to the Changping Marquisate, Su Heng, is about to march on his father’s footsteps. He will be leaving with his uncle for the front to avenge Marquis Changping’s death. Does my wife wish to have the lettered delivered to him? She better make haste, otherwise it might be too late.”
“Let us go to the mail immediately”, Li Di urged on.
Although she had been aware of how crass it would appear to send a mourning son a plea for help when he had just freshly lost a loved father, and what a father, Shen Ran could not but be selfish. If she had not attempted it, it is Shen Hong who would have lost a father!
She had shaken her head slowly.
“No, the people at the mail cannot be trusted. They might get intercepted before they reach him.”
Li Di had narrowed his eyes like a snake.
“Then my wife should give me the letter. I will have it sent.”
Shen Ran had looked at him with hope.
“Who is Husband going to entrust the letter to?”
“I know some people who are willing to reliably carry out any task for the right remuneration”, he had seriously retorted, as if secure in his own knowledge of the world.
Shen Ran had trusted him. He had been the husband who had loved her with unwavering constancy for four years. Why should she not have trusted him?! She had given him the letter …
Of course, misfortune never comes alone. One wave had not settled that another had risen to smash their lives.
On September fifteenth, Jin’s Moneylending Business had produced a document bearing the seal of the Shen family. Shen Ran had felt like she had been stabbed in the heart. Eight thousand copper coins. How could she ever pay such an amount?!
She had been seated, her eyes vacant, barely breathing, for a whole day and night. No one had come to see her. It was not until dawn that a staggering Li Di had walked into her courtyard leisurely. Shen Ran had moved forward, supporting him to her bed.
“Where has Husband gone yesterday?”, she had asked in her most trembling voice.
Li Di had spayed the pestilent smell of wine into her face.
“Shen Ran, don’t ask things that are none of your business.”
Never, in four years, had he used such a tone to address her. Shen Ran’s face become unsightly at once. Certain thoughts, thoughts she did not wish to believe, flashed through her mind. However, it was not the first time had had come back from a late night out …
Shen Ran had straightened her back, leaving him to stagger about the room as he could by himself.
“Where have you been?”
“Shen Ran, I hate this high and might look of yours the most.”
His hand had shot out with an impressive precision, grabbing onto her jaw.
“Whenever we make love, this is the expression you have, making me wonder every time whether the Eldest Miss Shen is not enduring me out of charity.”
They had been a loving couple for four years. How could Shen Ran not regard his words as the incoherent speech of a drunkard. Slapping his hand off her face, she sneered at him with all the arrogance of a Shen girl.
“What is it with you? Is it the first time you have gotten drunk? It has gotten to your head and is making you crazy, Li Di.”
“Hah!”
Li Di had almost fallen on his back.
“Don’t you know, Wife? The truth comes out after drinking!”
Shen Ran’s heart, that was warm at best, tepid most of the time, had rapidly been cooling down. She had finally admitted it to herself. Something had gone wrong, terribly wrong.
“If you have something to tell me, just speak.”
Li Di’s smile had been hideous.
“Your Shen family has fallen and you are still pretending you are so much above me?! What is the point of playing such a masquerade?! I, Li Di, have never cared about you!”
What a loss of time it was, talking to drunkards. She had given him an indifferent glance before walking out, leaving him to stew in his wine if he so wished. It is only later that she understood that every word Li Di had spoken on that fatidic morning had had nothing to do with the ravings of a drunkard. He had indeed never cared for her. In fact, he had already married a legitimate wife before he had come to the capital. Some cousin from Jingzhou.
He had not been betrothed. But actually had had a main wife!
His wife’s name was He Wanru. At the age of fourteen, she had saved him mother from a fatal accident which had left her limping. For the sake of his official career, the Li Household had hidden He Wanru in some dark corner of Jingzhou and used some underhanded means to erase all traces of her in the family records!
After she had found out, Shen Ran had immediately gone to her mother-in-law, Née Wen, to demand her dowry be restored to her in full. She would have rather died and be buried with Li Di in the same coffin than have her poor Shen Zhen shoulder the debt of the Shen family, knowing full well what it would entail.
Unsurprisingly, her mother-in-law who had always been so very kind, so very understanding, had changed her disposition at the first opportunity.
“Shen Ran, you are a wife of my Li family. Naturally, anything you brought with you is now a belonging of the Li Household. Ziheng is about to be promoted! Do you think I will have you drag him down?! What obligation do we, the Li, have in feeding your younger siblings?”
Shameless.
The first word that had crossed Shen Ran’s mind at this display of the lowliest, most vulgar form of greed. No market shrew would ever grab for her daughter-in-law’s dowry with such viciousness. Shen Ran had graciously sat in front of Née Wen, smiling as sweetly as she ever had.
“Could it be that the poor Cousin He does not have money for a wedding dress and needs the pecuniary assistance my dowry can produce to slide into Ziheng’s bed?”
Née Wen had panicked at once, simple, illiterate village woman that she was.
“What did you say?!”
Shen Ran had slowly taken a sip of tea, marvelling at its strong taste and remembering her dear mother-in-law was as elegant as a cow in the field. She had kept all the dignity of a woman of good breeding, even facing such an old witch. She impressed herself.
“It must not have been easy for him to climb so high. And he is the type to enjoy the taste of it too. It will hurt him so when he falls. But whoever climbs high must be prepared to fall low, does Mother not agree?”
Née Wen had slapped the table, screaming in a fit of hysteria:
“What are you planning to do?”
“My dowry.”
Shen Ran’s fine, white fingers had tapped against the mahogany wood of the table.
“As long as Mother Dearest gives me back my dowry, I am most willing to be amiable and as pliable as a weeping willow’s branch. I have no problem of giving up the position of Madam Li to our poor Cousin He, what does Mother-in-Law say?”
Née Wen’s hands had started to tremble by that point.
“Do you dare threaten me?! Shen Ran, our Li Household, has been willing to keep you, a criminal’s daughter, under its roof! Is this how you repay our, my, kindness?!”
Her whole life, Shen Ran’s arrogance had held a point of cruelty, one she had never been called on to use, but that had simmered under the beautiful surface of her fleshly husk. Nonetheless, the likes of Née Wen were no opponents for her.
“Criminal?”
Shen Ran had not been able to stifle the laughter that had made her whole face glow with amazing beauty.
“You Li people are really the lowest of the low. Not all the poor families of this world get fascinated by shiny trinkets, but the Li family had to! Wait till all of Chang’an’s high society finds out how you, a mother-in-law, hold onto your daughter-in-law’s dowry as if it were some precious baby, worth of being lulled to sleep at night!”
Née Wen’s whole body had been shaking with anger. Shen Ran knew Née Wen’s most intimate pain. Ever since her mother-in-law had come to live in the capital, what she had feared most was ridicule. She had so pathetically tried to imitate the dresses of the noble ladies of Chang’an, forcing herself to conceal her Jingzhou accent and to entertain other families, drinking tea and reciting poems. She had made herself ridiculous more than once. And more than once had an ill-willed matron marvelled at how she did not feel shame in dragging down the heavenly Eldest Miss Shen when her son had already had the chance to marry so high. Shen Ran had spent innumerable hours running after her mother-in-law to remove peacock hairpins that not even the showiest merchant family servants would have worn, teaching her the capital’s dialect, and shielding her fragile ego from any wounds. She had patiently, over a cup of tea, tried to mould her mother-in-law into something she, herself, would like. And never had she done it in a haughty, mocking manner. Rather, she had tried to influence Née Wen through her own example.
What had she gotten in return?
Née Wen’s lower lip had been shaking as she had pointed at Shen Ran’s face.
“You have been married for four years and yet, you have not given birth to one child! Have I ever mentioned it?! But you dare come and teach me better! Look at me make Ziheng divorce you! I will sweep you out and we will see where you will go!”
With her dowry? But to the nearest cheap courtyard to be bought once that horrid debt had been repaid!
“Hah!”
Shen Ran had done her best to conceal her laughter behind her hand.
“Why do we not ask the lords of the Supreme Court to preside over a final judgment?! Let us see which crime, in the eyes of the law, is most reprehensible. Contradicting one’s mother-in-law, who unlawfully grabs a daughter-in-law’s dowry, let it be said, or marrying two main wives?!”
Shen Ran, seeing as Née Wen could not retort, rushed in with more violence, tasting blood and savouring it.
“Let the world know that Ziheng married his Cousin He as a main wife, abandoned her, forged a fake household registration, turned around and married Shen Ran of the fallen, the criminal Shen Household! Let us wreck Li Di’s official career! I am all for it!”
“Shut up”, Née Wen had shrieked in horror, throwing herself over the table, making the tea set fly around and still not reaching Shen Ran’s throat.
Wonderful! It had been wonderful! Shen Ran had been overtaken by unending hilarity! Why had her parents kept her from such lowly displays of wild emotions?! But this was amusing! She had laughed, she had laughed, she had laughed herself to tears.
“What?! You dare commit such shameless acts but are afraid for the world to know?!”
As soon as such words had escaped Shen Ran’s lips, Née Wen had doubled over, whining in pain. Not a very good rendition. Not interesting enough as play for a girl who loved plays as much as Shen Ran. However, the mirror at the front gave Shen Ran a glimpse of Li Di standing behind her. He had thrown herself onto his mother, bringing her up and shielding her.
“Vixen, who gave you the courage?!”
Why had this play become so boring all of a sudden? Too melodramatic and common by half! She would have preferred the variant with the Supreme Court. Standing up, Shen Ran rolled her eyes at them and left, her hips swaying enticingly. She had thought he simply had a new love, not that he had no conscience!
On September twentieth, news of Li Di’s promotion as Deputy Minister of Engineering had spread through the capital. When they had reached Shen Ran, she had not found cause to laugh, she who dearly loved a good laugh.
Rain had been shaking treetops all around her courtyard and she had kept a light burning specially. Oh, she knew he would come back. He was the type to gloat. And she wanted to hear what he had to say. And Li Di was not one to disappoint! He had pushed the door to her bedroom aside, admiring the beauty on the bed. That magnificent face, full of spice and charm, had been irate, more magnificent than ever.
Shen Ran had rushed forward, readily raising her hand and slapping him with all the strength of anger.
“Are you at fault for the Western Canal’s collapse?! Have you ever sent that letter I handed over to you?!”
She was screaming all her rage, her pain, her fright for her family at him. Li Di slowly brought his fingers to his wounded cheek, stunned by this unexpected development.
“I have burned the letter”, he admitted in a daze, not an ounce of shame in his words.
“What about the Western Canal?!”
“Do not ask.”
Grabbing onto a cup full of cold tea, she threw it at his head with surprising precision, collapsing on the ground and sobbing as a wounded beast.
“My family. My beloved family. Destroyed by a demon like you!”
Li Di wiped the tea stains off his body in a dismissive movement, indifferently glancing at Shen Ran.
“Shen Ran, be reasonable. Struggles between political parties can either be won or lost. Father-in-law was stupid enough to bet on that dying waste of a Crown Prince. Two years in prison is a lenient sentence. He will at the very least keep his life which is more than many could boast of in such a situation.”
Shen Ran’s nails had sunk into the fine flesh of her palm, helping her suppress the quiver of rage that had threatened to come out in her voice.
“Li Di, you and I have been married for four years. Not once have I done anything against you. Give me back my dowry and I will amiably let you divorce me. I will make way for your cousin and all your secrets will rot in the pit of my stomach.”
Li Di had smilingly looked down at this silly wife of his.
“You are in no position to negotiate with me.”
Shen Ran had hissed her next words under her breath:
“Hear my words, Li Di. I promise to drag you to your death.”
Staring right into her eyes with a demon’s hunger, he had enunciated every worn in anticipation of her pain.
“Do you know why Chief Examiner Lu Si of the Imperial Academy resigned as soon as your Shen family fell?”
Shen Ran had clenched her fists in suspicion. Why had this mongrel mentioned ‘Uncle Lu’ all of a sudden?! Leaning over, Li Di had whispered against her lips:
“The year I married you, I had no chance to make it through the imperial examination. However, your dear father could not bear the idea of marrying you off to someone of such low standing as myself. So he reached out to Chief Examiner Lu Si.”
Shen Ran struggled in his arms, breathing with difficult and pounding at his chest vehemently.
“What are you saying, you lunatic?! Father would have never done such a thing!”
Li Di, grabbing onto her waist, had brought her close enough she could feel his breath rushing into her ear.
“Listen carefully, now. The year I took the imperial examination, the Emperor had created a naming system that should have prevented anyone from cheating. Father-in-law had had no other choice but to write an article in advance and stuff it into Master Lu’s sleeve.”
Shen Ran had stiffened, cold sweat rolling down her spine.
“On the day of the examination, I simply wrote the article I had learned by heart by that time. And you see? I was made an official at the first try. Do you understand, darling? That is your great father breaking the law for you!”
“Do you have a conscience?!”, Shen Ran had roared at him.
Li Di had laughed with mirth.
“Don’t even think about leaving me or stealing any money from my Li family. If you were to kick up a dust, I might indeed lose my position but your dear father will lose his life! And won’t you think a bit about your little Shen Hong?”
“According to the laws of Jin, three generations of a family that has been found cheating in the imperial examination are barred from participating. Shen Ran, do you wish to destroy your beloved Shen family for petty revenge?”
As she remembered everything, Shen Ran reached for Qingli’s soft hand, her only source of support, the only presence in this deafening silence that had become her life that kept her from insanity.
“Qingli, let’s go to the Western Market tomorrow.”
“Does the Miss wish to put the plan into action?”, Qingli asked with surprising firmness, tightening her hold on her mistress’s hand.
Shen Ran looked up at the only friendly face she had seen in so long.
“All the affection is long gone.”
