Princess Songyi - Chapter 4

Word spread that the crown prince and I had fallen out. Punished and publicly humiliated, he dared not take his anger out on me directly. Instead, he poured it into making sure the marriage with Beirong went ahead. At his prompting, his supporters repeatedly urged Father to approve it. Before long, my departure was formally settled.

Before I left, Father summoned me and granted me the right to choose my husband. “My Songyi,” he said, full of love and guilt, “even if you must marry far away, you should marry someone you can at least find agreeable.”

He entrusted me with the agents he had spent years cultivating in Beirong, and gave me several palace maids trained in martial arts and medicine. The ladies of the inner palace came to add to my dowry. Gold, silver, jewels, rare books, and treasures poured into my residence. Mother held my hand through her tears.

“Remember what I tell you. Do not give your heart away too easily after you marry. But if he proves worthy of your trust, don’t shut yourself off from him out of principle. All I want is for you to be well.”

I nodded obediently, though I had already made my own plans. After saying goodbye to everyone, I boarded the marriage carriage. It swayed along the road to Beirong.

When we reached the capital, our envoys settled us at a guest residence to rest. The following day, the Beirong emperor received me in the palace. He seemed remarkably amiable. “Princess, your arrival is a blessing to both kingdoms. Beirong has many fine young men. Take your time choosing, and you are sure to find a worthy husband.”

I lowered my eyes and played the shy, docile maiden. I gave no answer then. Back at the guest residence, I openly sent my maids to ask about the princes’ reputations. In secret, I made contact with Father’s agents and gave them the same task. Soon two booklets lay on my desk.

The first praised the Beirong princes as brave, virtuous, and brilliant. That was no failure on my maids’ part: their booklet was intended for Beirong eyes. It declared the third prince the finest of them all, a man of astonishing gifts, equally skilled in letters and arms. It was impossible to find a single flaw in him. Reading its lavish descriptions, one could almost imagine meeting a gentleman so wonderful that no one else would ever compare.

I gave a short laugh. Could such a flawless man exist? If he did, the perfection was likely a carefully polished illusion.

Once, I had been naive enough to believe that Shen Qingci was the finest man in the world.

That year, I slipped out of the palace for fun and became separated from my guards. While I was panicking, several men surrounded me with leering smiles and filthy words. I backed away, terrified, and tried to tell them I was a princess, that Father would punish them. One grinned. “Who are you trying to fool, pretty girl? If you were a princess, why would you be here alone?” He reached for me with mud packed beneath his nails.

Cold dread seized me. Who had lured my guards away and sent these thugs to ruin my reputation? An ordinary person would have hesitated at the word princess. These men did not pause at all. Someone clearly meant for me to be destroyed there.

Trembling, I pulled out my gold hairpin and waved it wildly. I squeezed my eyes shut. But the touch I feared never came. Instead, I found myself in a warm embrace that smelled faintly clean and cool. My rescuer seemed to have dropped from the sky. He swiftly taught the men a brutal lesson.

“You’re safe now,” he said. His voice was stern but held a trace of pity.

My guards arrived at last, frantic with worry. As the fear ebbed, I noticed that my rescuer was handsome and carried himself with quiet nobility. Heat rose in my face. “I can never repay you for saving me. My… my father will reward you generously.”

The criminals had to be taken back to the palace for questioning, so Shen Qingci accompanied me. When Father learned what he had done, he showered the household of the Marquis of Yongning with honors.

Back in the palace, I could not stop thinking of him. I painted his portrait and, after a shy pause, wrote a few lines of lovesick poetry beside it. Mother noticed my daydreams and asked why. Blushing, I told her about Shen Qingci. She teased me fondly. “My little Songyi has grown up and fallen in love. I suppose I can’t keep a daughter forever.”

Father thought the rescue was a match made by heaven and offered to arrange our marriage. Shen Qingci refused. He was already betrothed to the daughter of the Marquis of Zhenbei, he said. They had grown up together, he had loved her for years, and he had sworn to marry no one else. Father had no wish to break an engagement, so he let the matter drop.

My heart sank when I heard, but Father counseled me gently. “Songyi, you are Daqian’s most honored princess. I could force him to marry you, but I am a man too. Never marry a man whose heart belongs to someone else. He may come to resent and hate you. You deserve a man who gives you his whole heart.”

I nodded. I was disappointed, but this had been my first crush, and my feelings were still shallow. I hid the portrait and poems at the bottom of a chest. I admired Shen Qingci’s character and had no wish to come between him and his betrothed. From then on, I merely followed news of him from afar.

He inherited his marquisate and rose to high rank while still young. Though Lu Yan’s family had fallen into decline, he observed every wedding custom and married her in splendid fashion. The more I saw, the more I believed he was loyal and honorable, a man a woman could entrust her life to.

People in the capital assumed I must despise Lu Yan because Shen Qingci had refused me for her. In fact, I had met her at banquets. She was talented and forthright, and she bore me no ill will over Father’s former marriage proposal. We would exchange polite nods whenever we met. On their wedding day, I even sent a carefully chosen gift.

I never expected Beirong to attack the border just then, or for the order appointing Shen Qingci to the campaign to arrive on his wedding night. Rumors erupted in the capital. People whispered that I could not bear to see the couple happy and had persuaded Father to send him away.

I scorned the gossip, but I still felt our imperial family had wronged Lu Yan by separating her from her husband on the night they married. I asked Mother to grant her the honorific rank of a titled lady. I wanted the capital’s opportunists to know that even in her husband’s absence, Lu Yan was still to be treated with respect.

After Shen Qingci left, Mother tried several times to find me another husband. Yet his image lingered in my mind, and no other young man stirred the same feeling. I told her innocently, “One day, I want to find someone I love.”

I did not mean Shen Qingci. He had Lu Yan. I was simply waiting for someone of my own, someone who would love me in return. Father and Mother loved me enough to let me stay with them a few years more. Seeing how stubborn I was, they indulged me. To my surprise, the crown prince, who had never been close to me, spoke in support of my foolish, romantic wish. I felt a little warmth toward him. Perhaps he simply struggled to show that he cared for his sister.

When I learned that Shen Qingci had died on the battlefield, I sat stunned in my residence for a long time. Grief tightened my chest, and finally I wept. How could someone so good be gone? Dressed in plain mourning clothes, I quietly attended the funeral at the marquis’s estate.

Lu Yan somehow learned that I had helped secure her title. She found a private moment to thank me. After that, we saw each other often and gradually became friends.

Five years passed. In memory, Shen Qingci grew ever more perfect: a bright moon beyond reach, a lotus untouched by snow, a hazy, painful mark of what might have been. Everyone had accepted his death. Then, against all expectation, he returned alive—with another woman beside him, insisting he would make her his lawful wife.