Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I stared at the memorial tablet for a long time without moving.

The wedding candles were still burning outside. I clutched the red bridal veil in my hand, the gold-embroidered tassels digging painfully into my palm.

Before the tablet sat a plate of osmanthus cakes. Three sticks of incense had just burned down, and the smoke had yet to fully disperse.

I could even smell Pear Blossom White.

It was faint, like someone had just poured a cup of wine, then, afraid of disturbing someone, had only dared to set it on the corner of the table.

“Madam.”

Someone spoke softly behind me.

I turned back and saw Pei Yanzhi standing by the door.

He was still dressed in his red wedding robe, but his features were cool and indifferent, as if he had only just come from court. Not even the wedding attire could suppress that distant, unapproachable air about him.

I pointed at the memorial tablet.

“What is the meaning of this?”

He did not answer at once.

The wind outside swept in, lifting one corner of the old red paper beside the tablet.

My eyes were sharp. I saw what seemed to be my birth date and time written on it.

It was not the version the Shen Family had submitted to the Ministry of Rites.

That version was fake.

They were afraid my reputation for “bringing death to my husband” would reach the palace, so they had deliberately shifted my birth date back by two months.

But the date on this red paper was accurate to the smallest detail.

Pei Yanzhi walked over and pressed the paper back under the incense burner.

“You should not have come into the study.”

I laughed once.

“On our wedding night, my husband isn’t in the bridal chamber. I came looking for him. Did I go to the wrong place?”

He lowered his eyes to look at me.

Those eyes were too still, like a pool of water glazed with thin ice-yet beneath the ice, something was moving.

“Shen Zhaoning.”

When he called my name, his voice dropped slightly.

“If you want to live, don’t ask.”

The spark of anger in my heart flared up at once.

“I didn’t marry into this family to make room for a dead person.”

He said, “I know.”

“What do you know?”

I pointed at the memorial tablet and asked in a low, strained voice, “Do you know there is a tablet for me in your study? Do you know I am standing here, alive and breathing? Or do you know the entire capital is waiting to see how I die tonight?”

Pei Yanzhi looked at me for a very long time.

So long that the wedding matron outside urged us for the third time. So long that I thought he would never speak.

Only then did he raise his hand and turn the memorial tablet on the altar around.

A line of small characters was carved on the back.

Three years ago, during the autumn hunt on North Mountain, Shen Zhaoning of the Shen Family died beneath a storm of arrows.

I froze.

Three years ago, during the autumn hunt, I had indeed been on North Mountain.

I was fourteen that year. I had gone with my legitimate elder sister to watch the excitement, only to run into bandits halfway there. After I returned, I burned with fever for seven days, and when I woke, I had forgotten many things.

The Shen Family said I had been frightened out of my wits and told me never to mention it again.

But no one had ever said I had died.

Pei Yanzhi reached out and placed the tablet upright again.

“This memorial tablet was delivered to me by someone else.”

My throat tightened.

“Who?”

He looked toward the window.

On the paper-covered pane, the shadow of a maid in red happened to flash past in a hurry.

Pei Yanzhi said flatly, “I cannot tell you yet.”

I followed his gaze. Suddenly, I remembered my personal maid, Bitao, who had accompanied me here for the wedding tonight.

She had been missing since just now.