Never Merely a Stand-In

The Crown Prince’s sweetheart was a swordswoman who loved to gallop the roads of the jianghu, to repay kindness and vengeance alike, and to right the world’s wrongs.

For three years I was her stand-in, holding the title of Crown Princess in her place.

Then she tired of the jianghu and came back to the palace, and I withdrew as tactfully as I could.

In gratitude for those three years, the Crown Prince granted me three wishes.

The first: he chose me a respectable match himself, a family of solid means that would keep me fed and clothed for the rest of my life.

The second: he cleared away my parents, who kept turning up to sponge off me.

They doted on my eldest sister, and once they saw I had married well they wanted to funnel my money to her. One word from the Crown Prince, and they never dared knock on my door again.

The third: I never named it.

Not until my husband’s family was seized did I learn that their grand fortune had come out of embezzlement.

The whole household was thrown into prison, and I did not escape it.

So I sent out my last request.

“Your Highness, fish me out. Please.”

The one who answered was a female official from the Crown Princess’s household, her tone cool and distant.

“His Highness says the two of you are long since even. There is no need to come again.”

Two years later, word came that the Crown Prince had been deposed, ambushed on the road into exile, his life or death unknown.

I found him in an abandoned animal trap in the hills behind the village.

He looked at me, and he smiled.

“Xiangrong, fish me out. Please.”