“What a cursed Vice Minister. What an insufferable nuisance!”
Along the covered walkway of a shared courtyard, a County Magistrate tore off his official robes in one furious yank. “A mere bookworm who knows nothing of officialdom, a paper strategist with no real skill… Let him fuss about in the Court of Judicial Review. What business does he have coming to our remote little town?! Huh?!”
“Besides,” he went on, “among the witnesses, that Nanny Zhao from the Zou Manor already made it clear that everything was the doing of that seizure-ridden Young Master, that no one else was involved… She even said that the Xu girl was a pitiful soul forced into the marriage, and that fleeing in a panic was perfectly understandable…”
Beside him, another minor official nodded along eagerly. “Exactly. An Evil Ghost appears out of nowhere, an old illness flares up, and a joyful wedding turns into a funeral. Any one of those would be enough to close the case. Everyone wanted to wash their hands of it, yet the Vice Minister just had to investigate. Investigate, investigate. Investigate my ass!”
“Hah, some Vice Minister. And he still has the nerve to throw his weight around. Just a spineless leech living off a woman.” The Magistrate snickered a few times, slander coming to him as easily as breathing. “If he hadn’t caught the Eldest Princess’s eye at the Hundred Flowers Banquet, would the post of Vice Minister of Judicial Review ever have landed on him? A poor scholar from a humble family who couldn’t even secure a letter of recommendation?”
“Likely so…”
The other man’s tone turned sly, his expression lewd. “I mean, in that department, haha, he must have impressive skills, no?”
The two officials exchanged a look and burst into knowing laughter.
But the laughter did not last long.
From behind them came a woman’s teasing voice. “You’re not wrong, you know.”
The woman wore a bright crimson Flowing Fairy Skirt, her beauty striking, her every smile and frown carrying a mix of arrogance and effortless grace. “How wonderful that the likes of you get to wag your tongues about my Prince Consort…”
“A spineless leech, was it?”
Her vermilion lips pressed together lightly, her lovely phoenix eyes refined, her crescent brows gently arched, and her voice, too, held a smile.
Yet a chill crawled up the spines of both officials.
“El-, El-, Eldest Princess!”
Pale with terror, their tongues tangled hopelessly, and they dropped to their knees with a thud. “This humble one, this humble one meant no offense, truly, tru…”
“What are you afraid of? Do you think I’d swallow you whole?” The Eldest Princess’s smile remained warm as she waved a hand, and when she spoke again, her tone was as casual as a chat between neighbors.
“An Evil Ghost, an old illness, a wedding turned funeral. A case that makes my spineless Prince Consort so attentive actually sounds rather interesting.”
“Gentlemen, would you allow This Princess a look as well?”
The Zou family’s wedding banquet had been staged on a lavish scale, with fanfare beginning a full month in advance. As a result, learning who Xu Liangdi was, where her family lived, and how many people were in her household was no difficult task.
Luo Jiao had pawned pieces of her dowry at a few out-of-the-way pawnshops, and only barely scraped together enough to hire bearers and a cook for the journey back to her home village, Little Mo Fishing Village.
Throughout the pawning, Luo Jiao had shouted loudly within the Sea of Consciousness, but Xu Liangdi never said a word. Luo Jiao took the silence as tacit approval.
By the time dusk fell the following day, Luo Jiao had only just managed to reach the village.
The fields stretched quiet in every direction, paths crisscrossing between them. Luo Jiao trudged along unsteadily until, at last, Xu Liangdi, silent for three days within the Sea of Consciousness, finally spoke.
“Will the Zou family’s Young Master… die?”
Startled by the sudden voice, Luo Jiao nearly tumbled headfirst into the grass. “Are you trying to scare a ghost to death?!” She picked herself up, brushing off her plain skirt and grumbling, “Why do you care whether he lives or dies? You’re the one who’s dead!”
Xu Liangdi fell silent again.
Luo Jiao couldn’t be bothered to continue.
The incantation she had cast on the Zou family’s fool that day was nothing more than to enjoy pleasures he never dared enjoy, to do deeds he never dared do. All things considered, she didn’t believe the curse itself contained anything truly wicked. As for whether the fool lived or died, that came down to fate. If the fool wasn’t a man who reveled in evil, if someone happened to intervene, and if… in short, that single incantation alone would not inevitably lead to a tragic end.
Fate. Fate. Good and evil hung on a single thought, life and death on a single thread. It all came down to fate.
Luo Jiao sighed. She had never claimed to be a good person. In her previous life, she’d had every advantage for a free and unfettered existence, yet she had cared too much about what others thought and about the world’s rules, and it had ended in absurdity. Truthfully, in both lives, she had never placed much stock in morality. It was the world’s chatter that left her hesitating, caught in a bind.
As wisps of cooking smoke drew near on the horizon, Luo Jiao stopped beside a thick tree stump to rest a while.
Not far off, along the fishing village’s riverbank, children played and roughhoused in little clusters.
Luo Jiao had been quietly watching the small bridge and flowing stream when a pellet struck her in the back.
She whirled around to see a boy holding up a slingshot, shouting at the top of his lungs, “The Xu family’s Little Wretch is back! The Xu family’s Little Wretch is back! The Xu…”
“Stop, stop talking nonsense!” Beside him, an older boy panicked at once. “That’s my sister!”
With that, he shot Luo Jiao an awkward smile and came hobbling over on a lame leg, swaying as he walked. “Sis… why are you back? Did the Zou family…”
From within the Sea of Consciousness, Luo Jiao heard Xu Liangdi cry out anxiously, ‘Siwei!’
Xu Siwei? Luo Jiao scoffed inwardly. Your brother’s name carries quite the meaningful wish. So why is it that you were named Liangdi? I assumed your parents were simply uneducated. Now it’s clear. They had the education. They just refused to spend it on you.
‘You, what is that supposed to mean!’
Xu Liangdi didn’t understand, yet she bristled with agitation all the same. ‘Mother and Father may not have much learning, but, but Siwei’s name was chosen by the finest storyteller for ten miles around!’
Luo Jiao faltered. That’s… not what I meant at all…
But before the two of them could argue it out, Xu Siwei reached out and grabbed Luo Jiao’s hand. “Sister! Were they cruel to you?” His lame leg couldn’t manage the last few steps, so he simply hopped forward on his strength alone. “I told you the Zou family was trouble. The Young Master is a fool and the housekeeper is a tyrant. Whoever married into that place was doomed to suffer for nothing.”
Luo Jiao frowned. Then who exactly was Xu Liangdi married off for?
The question slipped out before she could stop it. “Do you genuinely not understand, or are you pretending?”
Xu Siwei looked utterly bewildered. “Understand what?”
‘Don’t you dare say anything reckless!’ Xu Liangdi shouted within the Sea of Consciousness.
Under Xu Siwei’s probing gaze, Luo Jiao shook off his hand in irritation. “…Never mind. It’s nothing. Xu Liangdi wants to go back…” Realizing her slip, she stopped at once, waving a hand and raising her voice. “Ahem. I want to go home.”
Xu Siwei nodded hurriedly. “Mother and Father missed you too!”
Watching him, Luo Jiao felt a sting of irony in her chest. But she could at least sense Xu Liangdi’s surge of joy within the Sea of Consciousness, so she let it go and argued with no one.
Idle words breed discord, as they say.
The two made their way back to the Xu household with small talk all the way. Xu Siwei chattered brightly, asking about everything, while inside the Sea of Consciousness Xu Liangdi answered each question with delight. Luo Jiao, listless, picked out only a few of the answers to repeat aloud, brushing the rest off at random.
Xu Liangdi noticed her lack of enthusiasm but asked nothing. Xu Siwei, seemingly oblivious, never once lost his warmth.
The moment Luo Jiao stepped through the Xu family’s gate, she heard the crash of pots and pans tumbling from the stove.
“Liangdi?” It was a woman’s voice, shrill with disbelief. “You, what is going on?!”
Luo Jiao turned toward the sound, and a man dressed as a fisherman hurried out after the voice. “Xu Liangdi?”
“Why are you back?” The two set down their work and rushed over. “What in the world happened?”
Xu Siwei was only a child, eight or nine years old, easily fobbed off with a few vague words. Mother Xu and Father Xu were another matter entirely.
Luo Jiao had no choice but to improvise wildly: from the hired bearers carrying the sedan to A-Bao’s seizure, from the faint hope of survival to her narrow escape. At the emotional peaks she wept real tears, delivering her embellished tale with utter sincerity.
Mother Xu and Father Xu listened, stunned. “Then… what of the Zou Manor now?”
“I don’t know.” Luo Jiao wiped her tears. “All I remember is that when I left the Zou Manor, flames were raging into the sky. Whether it was real, or whether I imagined it…”
She paused, choking up at just the right moment. “I remember nothing else of the road. I dragged my broken body along, and only by some miracle made it back to this village…”
Mother Xu hurried to hold her tight, patting her back. “You’re home, that’s all that matters! You’re home! None of the rest is yours to worry about. If the sky falls, your mother will hold it up!”
Beside them, Xu Siwei grinned. “Good thing you’re back! Mother’s been doing all the sweeping and cleaning on her own lately. I thought she’d work herself to death!”
The remark grated on Luo Jiao, and her brow knit sharply.
“Don’t say such things!” Mother Xu hastily cut off her son, then turned to Luo Jiao with an awkward smile. “Liangdi, you’ve only just settled in today. You won’t lift a finger. Rest, you understand? And what luck, your father caught a big yellow croaker this morning. Mother will make you soup.”
Luo Jiao gave a soft “mm.”
She had long since shed the wedding robes, dressed now in coarse gray-white cloth, her hair bound up in a strange, hasty twist, her whole demeanor listless. Naturally, Mother Xu and Father Xu assumed she had suffered every hardship imaginable. This was a child they had watched grow up. However much they might deny it, their hearts ached for her.
Little Mo Fishing Village had never known wealth, and the aroma of the yellow croaker drifted through four lanes, drawing inquiries from the neighbors. Mother Xu and Father Xu gave a few careless answers, shut the door, and returned to the table, where, for the first time in memory, they piled nearly all of the tender fish meat into Xu Liangdi’s bowl.
Stripped of his share, Xu Siwei began to sulk, but a sharp look from Father Xu swatted the expression right off his face. “Xu Liangdi, eat more. Look how thin you’ve become.” Father Xu picked bones from the fish, then glanced over at Mother Xu. “Was Xu Liangdi always this thin?”
Mother Xu froze, then nodded again and again, a tear slipping from the corner of her eye. “These days of travel have made her thinner still.”
The lunch of concern and coaxing stretched until nearly mid-afternoon, when Luo Jiao was ushered back to her room.
“You didn’t sleep a wink last night. You must be exhausted.” Mother Xu smiled warmly. “Go on, rest early.”
Luo Jiao answered with a sound of assent.
