After Being Betrothed to a Powerful Minister, I Found Him Mourning Me - Chapter 9

Chapter 9

After leaving Shen Manor, I didn’t say a word the entire way.

Pei Yanzhi didn’t urge me to, either.

The carriage was very quiet. The only sound was the wheels rolling over the bluestone road.

I lowered my head and looked at my wrist.

The place he had held just now was still faintly warm.

I had meant to pretend I felt nothing.

But people really were hopeless like that.

After being protected in public by a cold-faced powerful minister, that useless little part of my heart started stirring again.

I forced it back down.

“Pei Yanzhi.”

“Mm.”

“Three years ago, at North Mountain, were you the one who carried me back?”

He was silent for a moment.

“Yes.”

“And the cloak? You were the one who tied it around me?”

“Mm.”

“What about the Silver Bell?”

He looked at me.

“You shoved it into my hand yourself.”

I froze.

Pei Yanzhi took the cracked Silver Bell from his sleeve.

“You were delirious with fever at the time. You clung to me and wouldn’t let go. You said that if you died, I had to remember Liu Fuchun for you.”

My eyes instantly burned.

I didn’t remember that part.

But all of a sudden, I felt that perhaps my fourteen-year-old self hadn’t been quite so useless after all.

At the very least, she had known that the person who saved her could not be allowed to die for nothing.

“Then why did you live like a widower?” I asked softly.

Pei Yanzhi lowered his eyes to the Silver Bell.

“Because I promised you.”

“Promised me what?”

“You said that if no one dared to acknowledge Liu Fuchun, then Shen Zhaoning would.”

I stared at him in a daze.

Pei Yanzhi’s voice dropped a little.

“But as long as Shen Zhaoning was alive, she couldn’t acknowledge a dead person. So I could only let the dead Shen Zhaoning acknowledge her.”

It felt as if something were lodged in my throat.

So that memorial tablet had not been erected for me.

It had been erected for Liu Fuchun.

The words “deceased wife Zhaoning” were written on it so that anyone investigating would think Pei Yanzhi was mourning his dead fiancée.

And also so that a nameless maid could borrow my name and leave behind some trace of herself in this world.

“Then why write ‘deceased wife’?” My voice was a little hoarse.

Pei Yanzhi raised his head and looked at me.

“Because no one would investigate the deceased wife of a powerful minister.”

“And?”

His thin lips pressed together.

I stared at him.

“Lord Pei, you’d best tell me the truth.”

The carriage jolted.

He reached out to steady my shoulder, then quickly withdrew his hand.

“And because, at the time, I thought you were dead.”

He said, “I mourned you for three months.”

Not three years.

But those three words landed heavier than three years ever could.

I looked at him and suddenly wanted to ask how, during those three months, a nineteen-year-old boy had secretly kept vigil for a girl he had only met a few times while the Pei family was under investigation, his father had just died, and the court was full of political strife.

But when the words reached my lips, I didn’t ask.

I only reached out and took the Silver Bell.

“Don’t keep it with you anymore.”

Pei Yanzhi’s fingers were suddenly empty, and for an instant, his gaze seemed to empty with them.

I tied the Silver Bell to my waist.

“This is mine.”

He looked at me, then suddenly gave a very faint smile.

It was so brief, like snow falling into one’s palm, melting in the blink of an eye.

“All right.”