Chapter 30: You Forced Her to Marry You!

Shen Yuezhuang spent the entire night trapped in a nightmare, pinned beneath Five Fingers Mountain, unable to move. When she finally woke, the sun was already high in the sky.

Still half-asleep and irritable, she kicked off the covers with morning grumpiness. Hearing the commotion, A Sang poked her head out from behind the screen, chewing on something as she mumbled indistinctly, “You’re awake?”

At the sound of A Sang’s voice, fragments of the previous night began to surface. But Shen Yuezhuang had no energy to dwell on it. Her head throbbed terribly. Groaning softly, she sat up and slumped back against the headboard, looking utterly drained of life, like a soul had been sucked right out of her.

A Sang walked in carrying a small bowl.

It was a bowl of brown sugar eggs. A Sang gulped down the remaining half of a poached egg, eyeing Shen Yuezhuang’s listless expression. Her tone was casual, like she was catching up over tea. She leaned against the edge of the bed opposite Shen Yuezhuang and said, “The Empress Dowager left.”

“Left?” Shen Yuezhuang cracked one eye open. “She came here?”

It was only then that Shen Yuezhuang realized this wasn’t the room she had been sleeping in before. But she had absolutely no memory of how she’d gotten here!

She asked again, “Did Uncle Yang tell you that?”

A Sang shook her head, looking puzzled. “No. Didn’t you see her last night, too?”

Last night? The only thing Shen Yuezhuang remembered from the previous evening was getting A Sang to drink with her, the two of them egging each other on. As for what role they had been playing… she instinctively reached behind her for her story scripts.

Her hand grasped at empty air, of course. Seeing her movement, A Sang scooted over to sit on the edge of the bed, her face bright with interest. “What, are we performing again today?”

A Sang’s tone was nothing like the maids she used to drag into her games. They would always look at her the next day with faces full of tragic reproach, as if she had forced them to do something unspeakable.

A Sang’s eager expression immediately changed Shen Yuezhuang’s mind. She grabbed A Sang’s hand, her voice solemn and brimming with emotion.

“You like it too? I’ve finally found a kindred spirit!”

A Sang nodded happily. “You said yesterday that today we’d do ‘Three Strikes on the White Bone Demon!’”

The White Bone Demon? That wasn’t a bad choice.

That story was famous. Shen Yuezhuang practically had it memorized.

【The Pilgrim opened his fiery golden eyes and recognized the woman as a demon. He set down his alms bowl, drew his iron staff, and struck at her head.】

Shen Yuezhuang was about to start speaking when A Sang continued, “This time, I get to play Sun Wukong!”

Shen Yuezhuang suddenly recalled the day she first met A Sang. The sunlight had been beautiful that day, and thanks to her, the alley had been in an uproar of squawking chickens and barking dogs. There, standing tall and valiant in front of the courtyard gate, was A Sang, gripping a red-tasseled spear taller than herself…

Shen Yuezhuang’s warm smile froze instantly. The hand she had been holding tightly slowly withdrew. She let out a dry laugh, her eyes darting to the bowl in A Sang’s hands.

“What delicious thing is that you have there?”

A Sang silently pulled her own hand back, covering the bowl and edging away. “Is your head still hurting?”

“……”

With a mutual, unspoken understanding, they launched into a new topic. But as the contents of A Sang’s bowl dwindled, she brought back her obsession with “Three Strikes on the White Bone Demon.”

“Next time, we could invite Her Grace the Empress Dowager to join us. The more, the merrier! And she played a part with you last night, you know.”

In A Sang’s opinion, the Empress Dowager’s half-dead, furious performance last night had been excellent!

Shen Yuezhuang strongly suspected that A Sang just found beating her up alone unsatisfying and wanted a few more people for “fun.” But curiosity got the better of her. “What did the Empress Dowager play?”

“She played Miss Gao!” A Sang thought for a moment, then corrected herself, “No, wait. At first, she played Miss Gao. But then you couldn’t do it—you couldn’t carry her—so she ended up playing Zhu Bajie. And you made her carry you all the way to Cloud Stack Cave.”

Shen Yuezhuang was speechless. “… She carried me?”

Wasn’t it a beating, followed by being grabbed by the ankle and dragged all the way here?

A Sang nodded very affirmatively. “You made her carry you. You even forced her to marry you, and said that if she didn’t dare, she wasn’t human!”

Shen Yuezhuang: “…”

Seeing her dumbfounded expression, A Sang looked confused. “What’s wrong?”

Shen Yuezhuang shook her head. “I’m just cursing my father in my heart.”

A Sang: “???”

Shen Yuezhuang let out a long sigh. “If he weren’t pressuring me to get married every single day, I wouldn’t be forcing people to marry me even when I’m just acting out a story script!”

A Sang was silent for a moment. Then she sighed too, patting Shen Yuezhuang’s shoulder familiarly. “Then tonight, we can…”

The resistance in Shen Yuezhuang’s eyes was too obvious. A Sang mimicked her tone. “It’s okay. If you’re shy, just have a drink.”

“…” Shen Yuezhuang said, “I’m afraid you’ll be too unrestrained tonight!”

“And also! How can you still remember what happened when you’re drunk!?”

How could anyone have such an inconvenient flaw!

Shen Yuezhuang looked accusing. “From now on, our friendship as drinking buddies is over, effective immediately. I will never drink with you again in this lifetime!”

~~~

Shen Yuezhuang didn’t drink again, and Liu Yun didn’t come back either. She spent three lively days at home with A Sang, full of fun and games. Then, early on the morning of the twenty-fourth, she was secretly sent back to Precious Flower Temple by carriage.

That day marked the return of the Empress Dowager’s grand procession to the palace. Shen Yuezhuang, who had come to the temple with the Empress Dowager to copy scriptures and pray for her maternal grandfather’s well-being, naturally had to return with her as well.

Perhaps the temple’s recent fame had grown too great, for their procession back to the city was far grander than the one that had brought them there.

The Emperor had personally dispatched a contingent of troops to welcome them. The bright yellow palanquin, symbol of imperial status, was embroidered with dragons and phoenixes, adorned with precious gems and golden hooks, radiating authority!

Shen Yuezhuang was initially following behind Liu Yun. She was being watched closely, and every time she tried to slip away, Ruixue would subtly block her. It wasn’t until Abbot Yuanhui saw them off that Shen Yuezhuang, seizing the moment while they were discussing sutras, managed to slip away from the crowd with A Sang.

The two ran all the way to A Sang’s “happy tree.” Shen Yuezhuang tossed a piece of loose silver onto the table and picked up a prayer plaque.

This time, there was no time to wait for the ink to dry. She hastily wrote “Liu Yun” on the front, then turned the plaque over in her palm and wrote “Peace and Health” on the back.

She handed the prayer plaque to A Sang.

“A Sang, find a thick branch and tie it tight. We are our own masters!”

~~~

In the carriage back to the city, the sound of hooves echoed rhythmically.

Shen Yuezhuang and A Sang were in a small, unremarkable carriage following the Empress Dowager’s palanquin.

Shen Yuezhuang was still trying to catch her breath from the frantic run, lounging lazily in the carriage.

Although Precious Flower Temple was just outside the capital, traveling in such a grand procession was inevitably slow.

Shen Yuezhuang had woken up late that morning, having climbed the mountain on an empty stomach. Now, she was instinctively searching the carriage for food and soft cushions.

The food had been prepared according to her preferences. The charcoal fire beneath the food box kept it warm, and by now, it was just the right temperature—no longer hot, but perfectly warm.

There was no surprise on Shen Yuezhuang’s face, only a sense of entitlement. She said, “A Sang, come live with me after we get back to the city. Sister Pei is in the palace. It must be so boring living all by yourself!”

As she spoke, she looked up, only to find A Sang staring intently at her.

“Miss says you fell out with the Empress Dowager years ago.” A Sang’s face showed obvious confusion. “But watching you two now, I think you’re strange. Did you make up? And why did you fall out in the first place?”

“Who made up with her!”

Shen Yuezhuang rolled her eyes and yanked open the lid of the food box.

The wooden lid landed in the carriage with a dull, heavy thud.

“I’m still angry!”

A Sang slid off the bench, crouched in front of the small table, and took her portion, eating as she looked at Shen Yuezhuang. “What did she do to make you this angry?”

A Sang paused, then added, “Is it… because she didn’t want to marry you?”