Just a Wet Nurse, Just a Plaything? Everyone Wept After My Death - Chapter 85
Chapter 85
The Winter Solstice was as important as the New Year, and an auspicious snowfall promised a bountiful harvest.
Qianqing Palace glittered with gold and splendor. The underfloor heating burned fiercely, while hundreds of red candles adorned with dragons and phoenixes illuminated the grand hall as brightly as day. The music of strings and woodwinds filled the air without pause. Amid curling clouds of incense, the dancers’ flowing sleeves fluttered like the Mystic Maiden of the Nine Heavens descending to the mortal realm.
According to the ancestral customs of Great Liang, the Winter Solstice palace banquet was a grand occasion. All officials of the fourth rank or above stationed in the capital, as well as the esteemed scholars of the Hanlin Academy, were permitted to attend.
At the front of the civil officials’ section, Xie Lanzhou sat with perfect composure in a blue official robe embroidered with a qilin rank badge. With his jade-like features and refined bearing, he was both the Heir Apparent of the Marquis of Dingyuan’s Manor and last year’s Third-Ranked Scholar.
“Lord Xie, allow this humble official to offer you a toast.”
The Vice Minister of Rites leaned toward him with a fawning smile. “By my count, it has nearly been a full year since your wedding to Minister Lin’s daughter, has it not? You have truly enjoyed double blessings this past year, with your career flourishing and a lovely wife by your side. How enviable!”
Xie Lanzhou raised his cup in a restrained return toast, a courteous smile on his lips. “You flatter me, my lord.”
The wine burned as it slid down his throat, leaving behind a faint bitterness.
A year ago…
Xie Lanzhou’s gaze grew distant. Yes, it had almost been a year.
His fingers absently rubbed the thumb ring he wore, but his mind uncontrollably returned to that snowy wedding night.
Reeking of wine, he had pushed open the doors to Listening Rain Pavilion, expecting to find a woman waiting for whatever scraps of affection he deigned to bestow upon her.
Instead, he had been greeted by an empty room and a bed cold enough to chill him to the bone.
He still remembered his shock when he threw back the brocade quilt. There had been no warm, fragrant woman beneath it, only two pillows arranged to resemble a human figure.
It had been Shen Yingyue’s little empty-room stratagem.
And the two objects she had left on the table still haunted his nightmares to this day.
A lock of black hair, severed in one clean cut.
A baby’s shoe, charred black until only half of its tiger-head design remained.
“With our hair bound, we became husband and wife, our love beyond all doubt.”
“Now that I have cut my hair… our bond is severed, our love is over, and never again shall we meet in life or death!”
That night, as he stared at the severed lock of hair and the charred tiger-head shoe that seemed to mock him, he had suffered the unprecedented humiliation of realizing he had been played for a fool. In a frenzy, he ordered the city gates sealed, determined to drag back the wretched woman who had dared betray him and tear her limb from limb.
But she had vanished from the face of the earth.
Later, he decided that a helpless woman traveling with a child in such bitter cold had most likely frozen to death in some desolate wilderness.
Perhaps it was better that she was dead.
Any woman ruthless enough to sever her hair and burn away her past could only bring disaster if allowed to live.
“His Majesty has arrived!”
The eunuch’s shrill, piercing announcement instantly dragged Xie Lanzhou back to the present.
Every civil and military official in the hall rose, then knelt reverently toward the imperial dais and cried out wishes for His Majesty’s eternal reign.
Xie Lanzhou knelt with the rest.
Steady footsteps sounded along the imperial walkway as Xiao Jingheng approached in a brilliant yellow dragon robe, his majesty too overwhelming to gaze upon directly.
“You may all rise.”
After expressing his thanks, Xie Lanzhou stood and returned to his seat with the others. He instinctively raised his head to behold the imperial countenance. Yet the instant his gaze fell upon the figure beside the sovereign, his entire body went rigid, as though all the blood in his veins had frozen at once.
Seated beside Xiao Jingheng at a small carved rosewood table was a woman dressed in a moon-white satin Manchu-style court robe, a cloak of pure white fox fur draped over her shoulders.
She wore little makeup, with only a white jade plum-blossom hairpin adorning her hair. Against the flawless white fox fur, her face looked almost translucent. Ethereal and exquisitely beautiful, she resembled a goddess of snow.
Xie Lanzhou’s pupils contracted violently, and the wine cup in his hand jerked.
Those eyes… that figure…
Shen Yingyue?!
No… How was that possible?!
That lowly wet nurse who had left behind her severed hair and the burned tiger-head shoe before fleeing the Marquis of Dingyuan’s Manor on their wedding night a year ago…
The woman he had assumed long dead in the snowstorm…
Why had she appeared a year later in Qianqing Palace, at the very heart of imperial power? Why was she wearing ceremonial attire reserved for imperial consorts? Why was she seated closer to the Emperor than anyone else?!
As if to confirm his suspicions, a fellow official beside him murmured in amazement, “So that is Second Attendant Shen, newly appointed by the Emperor? I heard she was once the Ninth Prince’s wet nurse. Who would have imagined she possessed such extraordinary beauty? In only a few short months, she rose from palace maid to the Emperor’s bed, and even now, his favor toward her shows no sign of fading.”
“Second Attendant Shen… the wet nurse…”
The words seared themselves into Xie Lanzhou’s heart like a red-hot branding iron.
It really was her!
High on the dais, Xiao Jingheng appeared to be in excellent spirits. He raised his cup and took a sip of wine, then glanced at the woman beside him. In full view of the assembled civil and military officials, he personally peeled one of the tribute mandarins.
The mandarin was plump and golden. With his long, slender fingers, Xiao Jingheng carefully removed every strand of white pith before holding a segment affectionately to Shen Yingyue’s lips.
“Try it. It has just arrived as tribute from Lingnan.”
Shen Yingyue lowered her eyes slightly and took a bite from his hand. Then she looked up and gave Xiao Jingheng a faint yet captivating smile.
“Thank you, Your Majesty. It is very sweet.”
That smile was alluring beyond measure, yet possessed of incomparable dignity.
At the sight, Xie Lanzhou felt his blood surge violently in his chest.
He remembered that night in the empty Listening Rain Pavilion, and the anger and disdain he had felt upon seeing that severed lock of hair.
He had thought it was a sign of her despair after being driven into a dead end.
He had thought the charred tiger-head shoe represented her surrender to fate.
He had thought leaving the marquis’s estate would leave her with no path but death.
But now, he finally understood. That had not been despair at all. It had been rebirth!
What she had severed was not merely her hair, but every tie binding her to Xie Lanzhou and their shared past!
What she had burned was not merely a shoe, but the lowly identity that had reduced her to a servant in the marquis’s estate!
With the resolve she had shown that night, she had climbed step by step into the clouds, reaching heights where even he, her former master, now had to look up at her!
Crack!
A sharp sound burst from Xie Lanzhou’s palm.
He had crushed the delicate white porcelain wine cup in his hand.
Razor-sharp shards instantly pierced his soft palm. Bright red blood mingled with the spilled wine and dripped through his fingers, staining the spotless white tablecloth before him in a ghastly display.
A hiss sounded nearby.
“Lord Xie! Your hand!” a colleague exclaimed.
But Xie Lanzhou seemed unable to feel the pain. His face was as pale as paper, his eyes bloodshot as he stared fixedly at the figure on the dais.
Regret, fear, jealousy, resentment…
Countless emotions sprouted like weeds run wild, instantly choking the heart that had once been so proud and conceited.
He regretted it! If he had not gone to lift his bride’s veil that night, but had immediately taken men after Shen Yingyue instead… If he had known that his little “plaything” was capable of such things…
He was afraid! For the past year, he and Lin Wanyue had lived in carefree bliss within the marquis’s estate, never knowing how this woman had maneuvered her way through the palace, one calculated step at a time. That severed lock of hair had been her declaration that all bonds between them were broken. Now that she had returned, had she come to collect the blood debt he owed her?
“It is nothing…”
Xie Lanzhou’s voice trembled. He hurriedly covered his bleeding hand with his sleeve, trying to hide his loss of composure as cold sweat beaded across his forehead. “The cup was simply… too fragile… It was an accident…”
Though the commotion was quickly suppressed, it still drew the attention of those above.
Shen Yingyue was dabbing the corner of her mouth with a handkerchief when her movements paused.
As if sensing something, she slowly turned her head. Her clear, cool eyes swept idly over the hall below.
Her gaze passed over countless heads before landing with unerring precision on Xie Lanzhou, huddled in a corner with a deathly pale face and a hand covered in blood.
Their eyes met.
Between them lay a year of separation, the empty bed from that night, and the charred tiger-head shoe.
Xie Lanzhou’s heart clenched violently, nearly ceasing to beat.
But Shen Yingyue’s gaze was terrifyingly calm.
There was no anger, no hatred, not even the slightest ripple of emotion upon seeing her “former master.”
She looked at him as though he were one of the pillars in the hall, or perhaps… an ant struggling in the gutter.
That utter disregard was the greatest humiliation she could have inflicted upon him.
It lasted only an instant.
Shen Yingyue calmly withdrew her gaze and turned back to Xiao Jingheng, her eyes curving with a radiant smile.
Xie Lanzhou collapsed against his chair. Staring at the blood streaming from his palm, he felt that it was not merely the wound that hurt. His snobbish, vain heart was being sliced apart by a thousand cuts.
