Obsessively Raised by My Doll 7

Chapter 7

Zheng Xuening had seen many people cry, but not a single one had dared to do so in front of her with such abandon and ease.

It was as if the girl had bottled up a day’s worth of grievances, holding them in until she finally returned. Then, she released it all in front of her, the tears falling without reservation, as if washing her entire body.

Yesterday, after she had fainted in the Library Pavilion and woken up, Matron Zhang had wept by her bed, her old face a mess of wrinkled ravines. But even those tears had been restrained, a momentary lapse brought on by panic.

But the little palace maid who held her on her lap was different.

The soft, fragmented sobs and falling tears were like countless pearls dropping from her eyes. She cried so delicately, as if her whole body were trembling, causing the wooden doll on her lap to tremble gently along with her.

Zheng Xuening sighed internally, unable to bear it.

How could such a person exist in this world?

Just crying.

Crying until one’s heart grew flustered.

She didn’t know what this little palace maid looked like, but from these two encounters, just from listening to her weep, she knew the girl was a soft-hearted one.

In this world, the victor becomes the king and the loser, the bandit. Crying was the act of the weak. It solved nothing and only showed others you had no armor, inviting them to bully and tear at you even more viciously next time.

How could someone be so easy to bully?

And what was it about?

Zheng Xuening had no desire to meddle in this little palace maid’s affairs. Unfortunately, the girl’s crying was right next to her ear, and she wasn’t the Crown Princess right now, just a wooden doll that couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, and didn’t even have the right to open its eyes and see.

It was truly… she could only endure.

Just as the fire in her heart was burning hotter and hotter, she finally heard the little palace maid, in that tender voice of hers, confide in her through her sobs.

“Today, I went to line up to sell embroidery to Auntie Fang. She recognized me, called me out alone, and even gave me two taels of silver…”

At the mention of the two taels of silver, Lu Dieqing pressed her lips together and started crying again.

“They asked me what I was earning money for, and I… I said I was saving up to buy materials for a doll…”

Hearing this, Zheng Xuening knew why the girl was crying.

It was most likely that this soft-persimmon-like girl had said she wanted to be a puppeteer and had been laughed at.

Even as a member of the Chaoying royal family, privy to more secrets than commoners, Zheng Xuening knew what the average person’s attitude toward puppeteers was.

—An absurd fantasy, a fool’s dream.

Puppeteers had indeed existed, but in the last few hundred years, almost no orthodox puppeteers had appeared. As a result, the “puppeteer” had slowly become a legend.

It was like… a normal person suddenly telling you one day that they were going to become a celestial immortal.

Of course, no one would believe them. They would only think the person who said it had gone mad.

Remembering the looks from the others earlier, Lu Dieqing’s heart shattered.

The young girl sobbed and hiccuped, as if her entire world had collapsed. “…When Auntie Fang and the others heard what I said, they all laughed.”

The little girl just couldn’t understand. It was something that had truly existed. She was only treating it seriously, wanting to change her fate, so why did it provoke others’ laughter?

Why?

The Library Pavilion even had puppetry manuals. Since the great nation of Chaoying had collected them in its library, there must have been puppeteers for them to be preserved like this.

But everyone thought that becoming a puppeteer was just a daydream of hers.

It felt awful.

In truth, as a princess of the Shan Kingdom, she should have long grown accustomed to others’ scorn, ridicule, and various forms of contempt and difficulty…

But becoming a puppeteer was her dream.

She had placed almost all of her hopes on creating a doll. That way, the future would have something to look forward to and be less sorrowful.

This hope was tied to her and her parents’ situation, to whether her future could be even a little better than her present, to… everything.

After crying to her little wooden doll for a while, Lu Dieqing’s mood visibly eased.

“I’m sorry, little doll.”

The girl, her eyes red from crying, apologized to the wooden doll held in her hands, her voice soft and tender.

Zheng Xuening: “?”

What is this little palace maid apologizing to me for?

Her Highness the Crown Princess’s temper had already been worn down by this weepy little palace maid. For a moment, she didn’t even know how to react.

Oh, right. No need to react.

The little palace maid can’t hear what I’m saying anyway, Zheng Xuening thought with self-deprecation.

“Little doll, I won’t give up on you. In the future, even if others don’t believe me and laugh at me, I won’t waver.”

She held the wooden doll up high, examining it closely before her.

Lu Dieqing gently kissed the little doll’s cheek and made a solemn promise.

The soul of Zheng Xuening within trembled, so annoyed she almost wanted to scold the girl.

Audacious! You!

As the heir apparent, no one had ever dared to be so close to her. No, this little palace maid’s actions were an offense!

But the next moment, the words that came from Lu Dieqing’s mouth extinguished Zheng Xuening’s anger and shifted her attention.

“Little doll, let me carve your facial features. You don’t have eyes, a nose, or a mouth yet. Is that why you can’t see me or hear me speak?”

As Lu Dieqing spoke these gentle words, she tenderly stroked the little doll’s head with her fingers.

Zheng Xuening forcefully suppressed all her agitation and the trembling of her soul.

A mix of confusion and anticipation grew in her heart. If she were truly carved with facial features, would this wooden doll body of hers really be able to see the other girl’s face?

Lu Dieqing didn’t delay.

She took a deep breath, wiped all the tears from her face, and even went out to fetch a basin of water to wash her face and hands clean.

From a simple makeup box on her bedside table, she took out a short stick of incense and carefully lit it.

Zheng Xuening desperately wished for a pair of eyes to grow at that very moment so she could see what this little palace maid was doing.

Instead, a fragrance drifted to her nose. The scent was so serene and gentle, as if it held a hypnotic power.

Zheng Xuening unknowingly drifted off to sleep.

Before she fell into a deep slumber, she vaguely heard the little palace maid’s voice, full of apology and tenderness.

“Little doll, the manuals say that every time you perfect a doll, you must burn this special incense to prevent the spirit within from being accidentally damaged during the carving.”

Lu Dieqing had a habit of explaining everything to her little doll.

More than anyone else in this world, she believed that all things had a spirit.

Amidst the curling smoke in the room, Lu Dieqing, wrapped in her thin clothes, bowed to place the incense properly.

She sat on the edge of the bed and quietly began to carve the little doll’s facial features.

…

Zheng Xuening felt as if she had had a long, long dream.

She seemed to have slept for a very long time, so long that every part of her body had relaxed, achieving a truly full rest.

Ever since she could remember, Zheng Xuening had almost never felt so comfortable.

She had never been so relaxed.

There was nothing in the dream, only…

Wait.

As her consciousness returned, Zheng Xuening’s eyes snapped open.

She saw the familiar furnishings around her. This was her bedchamber.

She was back again?

Zheng Xuening sat up. She saw Matron Zhang keeping watch outside the hall. Hearing the noise, Matron Zhang hurried in, her old face unable to hide her worry.

“Your Highness, you’re awake.”

What Matron Zhang really wanted to ask was, Why did Your Highness suddenly fall into a deep sleep again?

But fortunately, after the previous experience, Matron Zhang was a little more prepared. She knew that Her Highness was just sleeping soundly and would wake up on her own after a while.

It was just… this kind of situation was so rare for Her Highness.

Zheng Xuening had been named Crown Princess since birth, but perhaps because her status was too noble, she had to bear too much. Ever since the former Empress passed away, her Highness had become a motherless child. From then on, she had developed her headaches and couldn’t even sleep well.

For the past two days, for two nights in a row, Her Highness had fallen into a deep sleep at a certain time.

Matron Zhang felt both worried and relieved. Her emotions were complex, and her gaze towards Zheng Xuening was tinged with heartache.

Zheng Xuening rubbed her temples.

“Matron, what time is it now?”

Matron Zhang replied, “The hour of Chen.”

Zheng Xuening fell into silent contemplation.

Both times she had entered the little palace maid’s wooden doll, it had been at night. By the next morning, she would be back in her own body.

She had a theory: perhaps her soul was only drawn over at night.

If that was the case… then there was no rush to deal with this matter.

She couldn’t rest well at night anyway, often staying up all night with a headache before forcing herself to wake up and handle memorials. But after returning from the wooden doll these two times, her headache symptoms had eased significantly, even more effectively than the prescriptions from the imperial physician.

But clearly, when she was with that little palace maid, Zheng Xuening was often so angry she nearly left her body.

She found her too soft, too prone to crying, and too fond of talking to herself.

So easy to bully. Could it be that the little palace maid is too plain-looking?

Zheng Xuening fell into deep thought.

“Your Highness? Your Highness?”

Matron Zhang called out twice before the Crown Princess came back to her senses.

That face, usually too brilliant and sharp, now held a rare trace of daze from being lost in thought.

Matron Zhang worried, “Your Highness, please don’t stay up so late anymore. Your health is important.”

She guessed that Her Highness had been working too hard before, often handling political affairs without rest, and her body had finally broken down, causing her to fall into an exhausted sleep these past two days.

Seeing Matron Zhang about to start nagging, Zheng Xuening’s expression had already changed. She then thought of the little palace maid’s murmuring and tears.

“Matron, you need not worry. You may leave. I have my own plans.”

Matron Zhang could only swallow her worries and retreat, her heart filling with nostalgia for the long-departed Empress.

A motherless child is so pitiful.

Even though she is the Crown Princess living in a vast bedchamber, it feels empty, without a human touch.

And yet, the outside world portrays Her Highness as… as a ruthless demon.

What nonsense about flying into a murderous rage because of a headache. Bah! All baseless rumors. If she ever met the people who spread such slander, she would tear their mouths apart.

Her Highness isn’t that scary at all.

It’s those people with ill intentions, plotting for Her Highness’s position, who met a bad end when their schemes failed.

*

When Lu Dieqing woke up today, there were faint bluish circles under her beautiful almond eyes.

The moment Lu He saw her daughter’s appearance, she guessed she must have been secretly embroidering at night.

“I’ve told you not to touch that embroidery work. We can always survive. Why are you doing that? Don’t ruin your eyes at such a young age.”

In her youth, Lu He had lived a life of wealth and privilege in the Shan Kingdom.

It was just that, among all the princesses of Shan, she had the most unremarkable personality.

Because she was unremarkable, her marriage was unremarkable. Because she was unremarkable, she was sent off to the Chaoying Kingdom to be a hostage.

In short, her unremarkable youth had nearly ruined the lives of her, her husband, and her child.

Lu He had resented her mother, the Empress, for her cruelty.

Her mother had so many daughters, why did she give up on only her?

For so many years, had her mother not thought of her even once?

Lu He had always held onto a sliver of hope, the hope that she could still return with her daughter and husband.

But after so many years of enduring day after day in a foreign land, all her expectations had slowly been worn away.

There were even many times she forgot her own origins. Although she often returned to the Shan Kingdom in her dreams, the moment she opened her eyes to the dilapidated side-palace, she knew that her fate was most likely to grow old and die here.

But her daughter was still so vibrant.

She wanted to send her daughter back to the Shan Kingdom.

Even if there was only a sliver of hope.

Even if her daughter couldn’t become a dazzling existence like the Crown Princess of Chaoying, being a carefree princess was better than living under someone else’s roof here.

Watching Qingqing pour all her efforts into making dolls, she couldn’t help but feel a little sad.

For hundreds of years, so many people had failed to do this. How could her daughter possibly succeed?

She told Qingqing the stories of their ancestors only to make the child a little happier.