The carriage pulled up at Prince Ning’s residence and stopped by the side gate.
Song Nanxin was the first to step down. Song Yihuan lingered until her elder sister’s feet touched the ground before she followed. Preoccupied, Song Nanxin paid no attention to her sister and led the way through the side entrance with her attendants.
It was a rare moment of freedom; Song Yihuan didn’t want to rush back into that gilded cage. She stayed outside a little longer, savoring the brief taste of liberty.
Only when Bai Zhi nudged her did Song Nanxin notice her absence. She turned and called out, “Yihuan, what are you waiting for?”
Hearing her sister’s voice, Song Yihuan hastily lifted her skirt and slipped into Prince Ning’s compound.
At that very instant, a horseman rounded the corner. Ji Lingchuan was there, and he watched the cloud-embroidered hem vanish through the side gate. He paused, then nudged his mount forward.
Back at Jingtao Court, Fuzhou came to meet him. “My lord, you’re home.”
Ji sat in his study chair, idly flipping through the manuscripts with his uninjured left hand and asked, as if by chance, “Well? What have you turned up?”
Fuzhou answered, “By the heir’s orders I checked into it. Miss Song of the fourth household never attended the Imperial Academy.”
The question of schooling made Ji stop mid-motion. He sat a moment as if chewing something over, then said, “Is that so?”
Fuzhou hesitated, then added, “I found other things about Miss Song and Master Song—if you wish to hear them.”
Ji’s expression hardened; Fuzhou couldn’t quite tell how far the heir’s concern for those two siblings ran. When Ji finally said, “Tell me,” Fuzhou steadied himself and spoke what he’d heard.
“Word has it the fourth miss and the fifth master were born of a concubine called Rou. She used to be a maid to the Marchioness of Ding’an and was much favored by her. Later…” Fuzhou’s voice faltered; the rest was harder to say.
Ji looked up. “Why stop?”
Fuzhou sighed. “When the old Marchioness fell ill, this Rou—standing at the bedside—seduced the Marquis. That was how the fourth miss came about. The Marchioness died not long after, and they say she could not rest in peace, that she must have died angry, unable to accept that such shameless behavior could have happened under her roof.”
Ji’s eyes narrowed. “Who told you this? Is it true?”
Fuzhou knew his lord was methodical; without firm proof, Ji wouldn’t draw conclusions. “I heard it from carriage drivers and grooms who often deal with the Marquis’s household. I even asked one of their servants—he said it’s common gossip in the mansion. In short, because Rou behaved so scandalously, the Marquis did not take kindly to the fourth miss. She was not favored; she couldn’t even get into ordinary schools, let alone the Imperial Academy. It was the heir’s wife who, out of pity and sisterly feeling, quietly looked after her, making sure she didn’t suffer too much at the Marquis’s place.”
Ji Lingchuan folded his hands and thought. The truth behind the Marchioness’s death might never be known; whether Rou had truly done what the rumors claimed was impossible to verify. Rou herself was dead—said to have died in childbirth—so the entanglement should have faded with her. Yet people still looked upon the siblings as if the stain remained.
If Song Yihuan had been raised in that atmosphere, if she had been forced to claw her way out of a lowly birth, if she had tried to attach herself to power to secure a better life—who could blame her? It was hardly shameful to want more.
And she did have merits. In the brief time Ji had observed her, he’d seen a memory like a steel trap; she taught her brother by her own study and could imitate his handwriting almost perfectly. Such cleverness suggested that, given the same chance as Song Nanxin, she might have shone in the capital.
Moreover, at the market earlier she had risked herself to save a child from being trampled by a spooked horse. It was a clumsy courage, but, as Ji Zihuan had said, courage ought to be commended.
She should not have singled him out, though—least of all once he had married her elder sister.
“Very well,” Ji said finally. “I understand. You may go.”
Fuzhou bowed and took his leave. Ji remained, brows knitted, mulling over what he had been told. He had encountered many who tried to win him over with coquetry; he had not seen anyone so brazen as this Rou was rumored to have been. If the stories were true, the siblings’ misfortune was not of their making, and yet they paid the price in cold stares wherever they went.
…
In Pine-and-Crane Hall the air felt thick and leaden. Incense curled upwards. Prince Ning’s wife sat on the dais, rosary beads in her hand, her face blank, her presence a quiet authority that made those kneeling before her tremble.
Madam Hu jabbed a finger at the girl bowed on the floor. “Repeat what you just said to the princess.”
The young maid’s voice shook. “The fourth miss and the fifth young master’s mother was a low-born concubine—a maidservant to the Ding’an Marchioness. When the Marchioness grew ill, she feared losing her protector and, at the bedside…she seduced the Marquis. The Marchioness saw it with her own eyes and was so furious she died from it—she couldn’t find peace, they say, because of that wretched woman’s filthy act.”
Silence fell so complete that a pin could be heard drop.
After a long beat, Prince Ning’s wife asked softly, “How did you come by this knowledge?”
The maid, sobbing, answered, “I have a relative who works at the Marquis’s house. We met by chance the other day, and they told me that now the fourth miss is staying at our manor, so I spoke of it.”
The princess lifted an eyebrow. “Even if it is true, they are guests lodged here by marriage ties. You gossip in the household and disrupt the rank and order of Prince Ning’s manor. We cannot have that. Prepare five strokes with the wooden board. Then be thrown out of the household.”
The girl cried, “Princess, mercy—” but Madam Hu waved a hand. Two housemen seized the maid and dragged her from Pine-and-Crane Hall as she wailed for pity.