The imperial mountain estate was built against the mountain, vast and spacious. However, its architectural style was not as grand as the palace, nor as luxurious as the temporary imperial residence. Instead, it was modeled after an ordinary farmhouse.
The rear of the estate was a large expanse of fruit trees. The front part consisted of simple, rustic cottages. To the east were divided fields and rows, an endless spread of melons, vegetables, beans, and fruits. To the west were the living quarters of the estate’s farmers.
The hot spring the Empress Dowager had mentioned was located halfway down the mountain. There was a spring about the size of a fist, with water gushing out continuously, releasing plumes of steaming white vapor.
After three hours of bumpy carriage ride, Shen Yuezhuang felt like her bones were falling apart. When she saw the pointed rooftops peeking out from behind the verdant trees, her eyes lit up.
“Manager Han.” Shen Yuezhuang poked her head out of the sedan chair, pointing. “Is that the spring over there?”
The man called Manager Han was around thirty, with a kind and honest face. He walked with a slight limp, but he was quick and efficient in his speech and actions.
Hearing Shen Yuezhuang’s question, he puffed out his chest a little and replied with some pride, “Yes, Your Grace. You’ve probably heard that this estate is famous in the capital because of that hot spring.”
“It’s good for regulating the spirit and qi, calming the mind and promoting sleep, and it’s especially effective for various pains and ailments.”
Ailments—well, that’s exactly why they were here.
Thinking this, Shen Yuezhuang turned back to look at Liu Yun, who had been dozing with her eyes closed the whole way.
She wasn’t sure if it was the dim light inside the carriage or her own imagination, but Shen Yuezhuang felt that Liu Yun looked very pale.
After all, tomorrow was the fifteenth. The fifteenth of the eighth lunar month. Autumn had arrived!
Still, it should be fine. A month of soaking in the hot spring, as long as the Princess and Liu Lusheng could make things work before the fifteenth of next month, then Liu Yun would become the Princess’s sister-in-law, and asking the Princess for the antidote would be a sure thing!
Shen Yuezhuang let out a relaxed smile. She reached out and took Liu Yun’s cool hand, pulling it towards her, warming it between her own two palms. Then she continued listening eagerly to the manager’s introduction.
“Thanks to the hot spring, the fruit and vegetables on our estate are available all year round!”
“Flowers? Oh yes, we have them! We’ve planted a large area on the south side. They might not be as rare as the ones in the palace, but we have every kind imaginable!”
“No, you can’t soak in it yet, Your Grace. You arrived in a bit of a hurry today; the whole estate has only been roughly tidied up. It would be better to wait until tomorrow.”
“Yes, that’s right. After a long journey, you should rest first. Tonight, you can try some of the game and fruits from our estate.”
Shen Yuezhuang’s curiosity about everything and her bright, lively appearance immediately won over the older manager. Before anyone could discover her talent for causing catastrophic trouble, the two of them were getting along famously.
Inside the carriage, Liu Yun’s eyelids lifted just a crack. She looked at her own hand, held within Shen Yuezhuang’s.
The warmth from the hand flowed steadily to her heart. The light in Liu Yun’s eyes was deep and heavy. Slowly, her gaze moved upwards, resting on Shen Yuezhuang’s profile, illuminated by the afternoon sun.
Unlike her earlier hesitation and indecision, Liu Yun’s eyes were now filled with a dark, unyielding determination.
And unlike Shen Yuezhuang’s simple joy, Liu Yun was acutely aware of her own purpose for this trip.
It was precisely because of this that she had never felt her own baseness and cunning so clearly.
All those so-called considerations and hesitations were just self-deceptive hypocrisy, built on the premise that Shen Yuezhuang would never leave her.
She would think about Shen Yuezhuang’s future, her reputation, her family, her loved ones.
But the moment her animalistic instincts detected that her bottom line was about to be breached, she completely revealed her true nature.
The words “marry far away” clearly showed the Old Marquis’s stance. Liu Yun didn’t give herself any room for wishful thinking. She just wanted to add as many winning chips to her own hand as possible, while she still had Shen Yuezhuang within reach.
This was a battle raging under her very nose, and by the eyes of the secular world, it was doomed from the start to have no winner.
All Liu Yun could do was try her best to minimize her losses, and most importantly, not to lose Shen Yuezhuang!
That was why she had made up her mind the moment the carrier pigeon returned. If the hunting grounds hadn’t been so crowded with prying eyes, she probably wouldn’t have been able to wait even a few days. Now, the look in her eyes when she turned to Shen Yuezhuang held no more hesitation.
In the end, she was not good by nature. Deception and lies were the most skilled weapons in her arsenal. Now, she was fully armed, waiting only to solidify things during the few days at the estate…
It seemed that the hand holding hers had clenched until the bones hurt. Shen Yuezhuang looked back at her again, then hugged Liu Yun’s arm, pressing herself close.
“Is it hurting already?”
Shen Yuezhuang’s voice was very low, but her pursed lips showed her worry. “I’ll go with the manager to make the arrangements, then.” She wrapped her other hand around Liu Yun’s. “You keep Ruixue and Cuizhu here and get some good rest.”
“It’s fine,” Liu Yun said softly. She reached up and gently touched Shen Yuezhuang’s side of the face, still warm from the sun, and gave a very light, shallow smile.
“I’m not so ill that I can’t get out of bed. Besides, everyone knows I’m here at the estate. Not showing my face would raise suspicion.”
She didn’t continue to play the victim. After all, there was no need for the Empress Dowager herself to personally manage the day-to-day settling in. This was just an excuse to give Ruixue some instructions.
If Shen Yuezhuang took Ruixue away, wouldn’t this whole trip be for nothing?
“I’ll have Cuizhu go with you. After you’ve eaten, you can take a stroll around the estate.”
“Tonight… remember to come back early.”
After the meal, Liu Yun, Ruixue, and Manager Han went out to discuss the arrangements for the next few days. Shen Yuezhuang, finding herself with nothing to do, went exploring with Cuizhu.
The two of them followed Manager Han’s young daughter. First, they made an excited trip to the north garden, filling several baskets with flower petals. Then they went to the eastern fields, picking and playing until the sky grew dark.
The day had been too short; Shen Yuezhuang hadn’t had her fill of fun. But she remembered Liu Yun’s words about coming back early, so she didn’t linger. They took a small path back.
Their lodgings were very close. When Shen Yuezhuang returned, Liu Yun and the others weren’t back yet. At least, the door looked untouched.
Thinking about the arrangements for the afternoon, Shen Yuezhuang thought it wasn’t a good time to go inside. She wandered around the courtyard instead.
Then, her eyes landed on the millstone in the yard.
Manager Han’s daughter had already left. Shen Yuezhuang touched the handle of the millstone and asked, with a meaningful tone, “Cuizhu, do you remember what I told you in the palace? That a ghost navigates by the direction of a shoe?”
As she spoke, the bright moon hung high in the sky, but a gust of night wind made Cuizhu shiver.
Cuizhu immediately crouched down, covering her shoes. “Miss Shen, you tried it in the palace that day. It didn’t work!”
Shen Yuezhuang wagged her finger, crouching down beside Cuizhu. “That might not be the case. At the time, the toes of my shoes were pointing towards the desk, but they were also pointing towards the door and window! Maybe the ghost followed one of those directions and left?”
Cuizhu felt a chill run down her spine. “So what are you saying?”
Shen Yuezhuang looked at the millstone beside her with great satisfaction and patted it. “A millstone is different! It goes round and round! Think about it. If we arrange our shoes in a circle around the millstone… then the ghost really would be…”
Cuizhu finished the thought: “… Doomed.”
“…” Shen Yuezhuang glared at her. “What are you talking about!”
Shen Yuezhuang’s gaze dropped. “I just need your shoes.”
And so, a quarter-hour later, the two of them were barefoot, squatting by the millstone, sincerely hoping that shoes could make the ghost turn the mill.
Unlike Shen Yuezhuang, Cuizhu was afraid of ghosts. But right now, she was more afraid of death.
Death was scarier than ghosts, because when you die, you become a ghost. And becoming a ghost meant getting bossed around by Miss Shen. So, in the end, Miss Shen was the scariest. Even as a ghost, you’d be tricked into turning a millstone!
In this absurd atmosphere, Cuizhu didn’t feel particularly terrified. But the moment she heard a thud behind her, her hair stood on end, and her eyes went wide.
It couldn’t be… could it actually be coming?
“Miss, Miss Shen.” Cuizhu swallowed a dry, rough gulp. “I think I heard… footsteps.”
Her voice was trembling. She gripped Shen Yuezhuang’s clothes tightly. By the end of her sentence, she was almost in tears. “It’s getting closer!”
Cuizhu didn’t have to say it; Shen Yuezhuang had heard it too.
In the silence of the night, those footsteps were far too loud. Even though she was used to being bold, leaving her back exposed to a “ghost” made a cold sweat break out on her forehead.
Still, Shen Yuezhuang was braver than Cuizhu, whose legs had turned to jelly. As the footsteps drew nearer, she snatched up the shoes from beside the millstone, twisted her waist, and flung them out.
A shoe landed squarely on the “ghost’s” chest, the toe pointing directly at its chin.
Good, good. Shen Yuezhuang breathed a sigh of relief and pulled Cuizhu. “Don’t worry, the toe isn’t pointing at us… Dad?”
Her final “Dad” twisted into a peculiar, strangled note. Almost at the same time, the embroidered shoe, covered in mud from the fields, fell from the Old Marquis’s chest.
