Chapter 7

Chapter 7

On the day I returned to the Shen Family, I wore the clothes Pei Yanzhi had picked out for me.

The fabric was moon-white, threaded with subtle silver patterns. At first glance it looked plain, but up close, you could see the cuffs were embroidered with exquisitely fine cloud motifs.

I said, “Lord Pei, are you afraid people won’t know I belong to you?”

His hands paused as he was tying my cloak.

“Yes.”

He answered so directly that I was the one left speechless.

Pei Yanzhi lifted his eyes to look at me.

“The Shen Family will not let you enter their gates peacefully today.”

“I know,” I said.

“Don’t try to force yourself.”

“I know that too.”

He lowered his head and tied the cloak strings into a knot.

I couldn’t help saying, “You’re rather practiced at that.”

Pei Yanzhi looked at the knot and fell silent for a moment.

“Three years ago, North Mountain was very cold.”

My heart clenched hard.

He did not continue. He only drew the cloak tighter around me.

“Ask me when we return.”

This man was truly infuriating.

Every time he spoke only half a sentence, it was like he had thrown an unlit firecracker straight into someone’s heart.

Sure enough, the entrance of the Shen Family residence was bustling.

Father stood there with my legal mother and a crowd of brothers and sisters, smiles on their faces and calculation filling their eyes.

When my legitimate elder sister, Shen Mingzhu, saw me step down from the Pei family’s carriage, she nearly failed to keep her expression in place.

She had originally been meant to marry the Second Prince as a side consort.

But after I was granted in marriage to Pei Yanzhi, the Shen Family had suddenly become a prize both the Crown Prince and the Second Prince wanted to win over.

Naturally, she was unwilling to accept it.

“Third Sister truly is blessed.”

She affectionately looped her arm through mine.

“You have only been newly married for a few days, yet the Grand Secretary is already willing to accompany you on your return visit.”

I glanced at her hand.

Her nails were dyed with balsam juice, the red so vivid it stung the eye.

“Second Sister is blessed as well. I heard the position of side consort in the Second Prince’s household is still vacant. Why haven’t you gone yet?”

Shen Mingzhu’s smile froze.

My legal mother immediately smoothed things over. “Sisters are only teasing each other. Hurry inside.”

The ancestral hall was still the same as ever.

Cold, dark, thick with the smell of incense ash.

The prayer mat I had once knelt on had been replaced with a new one, but the thin crack in the floor tile was still there.

When I was little, I would always stare at that crack and count the hours.

Once I began counting, it would last until midnight.

Father said we should pay respects to the ancestors first.

I had just picked up a stick of incense when my legal mother suddenly began to cry.

“Zhaoning, now that you have married well, you must not forget the grace the Shen Family showed in raising you.”

I looked at her.

“What is it you wish to say, Mother?”

She wiped her tears. “You have been disobedient since childhood. If I had not kept you in check, you would have caused disaster long ago. Now people outside are saying your fate is too hard, and it pains me to hear it, but there is nothing I can do.”

I understood.

She wanted to confirm, right in front of Pei Yanzhi, that I was an ill-omened person.

Shen Mingzhu immediately picked up the thread. “Exactly. After the autumn hunt that year, Third Sister often spoke nonsense and kept dreaming of dead people. If Lord Pei does not believe it, he may ask the old servants in the residence.”

Pei Yanzhi stood behind me without saying a word.

I placed the incense into the burner.

“I did dream of a dead person.”

My legal mother’s eyes lit up.

I turned to look at her.

“She said she died unjustly.”

A gust of wind suddenly swept in from outside the ancestral hall, making the incense flames flicker.

My legal mother’s face turned pale.

I lowered my gaze to the cracked floor tile beside the prayer mat.

“Mother, why don’t you guess whether she also said the item is right here?”