Wei Shufen was stunned, tears streaming down her face once more. Her mother, Madam Pei, looked at her daughter with equal sorrow:
"I know, but what can we do... The Cui family has been pressing urgently. If we don’t finalize the marriage next month, they’ll betroth their daughter to another family. Your father simply can’t bear this humiliation... It shouldn’t have come to this. We’ve been diligently saving, thinking we could borrow and scrape together enough to reach thirty thousand bolts for A-Yu..."
Her parents had never indulged in extravagance, and the frequent gifts from the Emperor and Empress had all been set aside for their children’s marriages—Wei Shufen knew this well. From her mother’s tone, it seemed their savings over the years had nearly amounted to thirty thousand bolts, yet...
"But?"
Madam Pei wiped her tears. "A few days ago, your father was summoned by His Majesty to continue investigating the death of Princess Linfen. Your father said he had received the Empress’s decree and would no longer handle the case, but His Majesty refused to let it go. He said many things—your father recounted them, but I didn’t remember all. In the end, His Majesty mentioned that he’d heard the Wei family’s eldest son was to be married and that the palace intended to gift thirty thousand bolts to assist with the betrothal..."
"Ah? Such good fortune?" Wei Shufen was astonished. Wasn’t this a windfall from heaven?
The Emperor was truly well-informed...
"Good fortune?" Madam Pei gave a bitter smile. "Your father immediately lost his temper and even said some harsh words about how a Sage Ruler shouldn’t use wealth to bribe his ministers, which naturally displeased the Son of Heaven... Your father thought our family had its own savings and didn’t need to bow and scrape for money. But who could have guessed that not two days later..."
"What happened?"
"Our family’s storehouse in the northern Wei estate caught fire... No one was hurt, but all the grain, rice, and textiles accumulated over the years were..."
Her mother began weeping again. Wei Shufen sat silently, her mind in turmoil.
For a ruler of the realm, could he not at least maintain some dignity...
"So the family couldn’t gather thirty thousand bolts," she said slowly. "And Father went to negotiate with General Cheng again, offering another daughter in marriage and reducing the betrothal gift from fifty thousand to thirty thousand bolts? He’d rather do this than obey the imperial order to reinvestigate Princess Linfen’s case?"
"Ah, child, what do you take your father for?" Madam Pei sighed. "Ever since you ran away that day, your father hasn’t mentioned marrying off any daughter. Forced marriages bear no sweetness—who doesn’t understand that? It was me, seeing him sighing night after night, his beard turning half-white, who couldn’t bear it and invited Aunt Cui to discuss. After much persuasion, Aunt Cui came up with this idea. It was she who went to the Cheng residence and spoke directly with General Cheng."
"General Cheng said he wanted to marry my younger sister?" That day outside the Purple Void Monastery, why hadn’t she stabbed Cheng Yaojin in his big belly?
Madam Pei smiled bitterly. "According to Aunt Cui’s message, the person General Cheng actually has in mind is... you."
"Ah?" Wei Shufen’s jaw dropped in shock."Aunt Cui said that General Cheng, somehow, despite having just returned to the capital from outside, has already met you twice and speaks quite highly of you. He says you're clever and courageous, well-read and literate, capable of writing essays, from a good family background, and that your father is an old acquaintance of his—making you a suitable match. The two of them, one civil and one military, are now even jointly handling some matter under the Son of Heaven's decree. Becoming family would mean mutual support..."
"What matter?" Wei Shufen repeated absently. Her mother, thinking she was asking, frowned and pondered for a moment.
"It's still related to the case of Princess Linfen's death. It seems Prince Wu, who was supposed to preside over the wedding, caused some major uproar that threw Great Peace Palace into chaos. I heard you and the High Truth Master were also dragged into it? The Emperor originally intended for your father to continue investigating the princess's death, but with this big incident, he changed his mind. According to your father, because it involves the Supreme Emperor and will be recorded in the imperial annals, the Emperor wants him to take charge of Prince Wu's case but also doesn’t want him interrogating anyone yet. The suspects are currently under General Cheng's custody, something like that... Ah, I don’t really understand these things. They’re men’s business anyway."
Wei Shufen’s ears buzzed as if swarmed by a thousand wasps, her heart already clogged with suffocating thoughts. Seeing her state, Madam Pei sighed. "Let’s not talk about irrelevant matters. Just focus on our family. General Cheng has been recalled to the capital to take command of the imperial guards, and it seems he’ll be stationed here long-term. During festivals and court ceremonies, it’s too inconvenient for a household to lack a presentable mistress. Aunt Cui meant well—she mentioned you... that you’re currently at Purple Void Monastery cultivating virtue and praying, and you’ve even received the Empress’s imperial decree to assist the High Truth Master in compiling medical texts. Since you might not be able to marry for another year or so, she persuaded General Cheng to consider your younger sister Shuyao instead. The general agreed... After all, she’s also a daughter of the Wei family, with the same lineage and status. A-Yao isn’t foolish either..."
"She’s not even thirteen yet," Wei Shufen murmured. "She’s more obedient than me, mild-tempered, always doing exactly as our parents say, never voicing her own thoughts. Since childhood, she’s worn my hand-me-downs and played with my discarded dolls. Now even the suitor I rejected is being passed to her..."
She couldn’t continue, raising a hand to cover her mouth, stifling the sour bitterness rising in her chest. Her mother sat opposite her, equally silent and somber.
Suddenly, Wei Shufen fully understood Li Yuangui’s desperate determination to save his sister. It might not have been out of deep affection for his sibling—it was his burning indignation, his refusal to tolerate such injustice and unfairness.
Whether it was the Seventeenth Princess or her own younger sister Shuyao, they were both innocent and vulnerable girls. Their only mistake was being born to the wrong parents, into the wrong families, treated as mere tools to be used without any ability to resist. They too had those in power who should have protected them—the Supreme Emperor, the Emperor and Empress, the Crown Prince, their parents... Yet in the end, the only ones who truly shielded them were their slightly older siblings.
What I am fated to bear, what I brought upon myself—none of it should fall upon my younger sister’s shoulders. Through tear-blurred vision, Wei Shufen quietly reflected.She had to do something. She didn’t know what or how to act in order to steer the treacherous undercurrents of the court toward the outcome she desired. Perhaps she was once again being willfully reckless, perhaps her rash actions would backfire, perhaps she would be the one to bury herself and those she truly cared about, perhaps...
But she had to do something. She couldn’t just sit idly in the dim, sunless room, weeping and praying to the heavens, drifting with the tide, hoping everything would resolve itself.
She thought of the aged, wooden-faced walking corpses in the Temple of Myriad Virtuous Nuns, the hollow detachment of the last empresses of the Zhou and Sui dynasties, the ashen despair of the former Crown Princess Zheng Guanyin. She also thought of the portrait of Empress Dowager Dou enshrined in the main hall of the Xingsheng Temple outside, and the vivid, smiling image of Princess Pingyang in the small courtyard of Prince Consort Chai’s residence. She thought of Chai Yingluo, the White Tiger demon who had brought death to three imperial grandsons, yet still moved gracefully among the nobility with radiant charm and clear eyes; of Consort Yang, Princess of Hailing, who after nine years of widowhood had conceived an incestuous bastard, her delicate yet resolute voice saying:
“I made my own bet, and I’ll bear the consequences, win or lose…”
“A Niang,” Wei Shufen lifted her face toward her mother, the world before her nothing but a shimmer of tears:
“I will marry General Cheng… Let A Yao stay at home for two more years.”
She was willing, even if it meant facing death nine times without regret. Whether Cheng Yaojin was the World-Mixing Demon King or a man-eating beast, she would bear it alone.
And yet… she secretly laughed at herself. Chai Yingluo had learned days ago that Prince Wu Yuan-gui was being held in the tower above the Black Tortoise Gate, while Yang Xinzhi was imprisoned in the barracks, both under the watch of General Cheng’s men. It was likely that any future decisions regarding their fates would also be handled by Cheng Yaojin.
“The crimes committed by Fourteenth Uncle, if handed over to the Ministry of Justice for trial and judged strictly by law, would undoubtedly be punishable by death,” the female Daoist told Wei Shufen bluntly, her face showing a rare expression of defeat. “His Majesty does wish to protect him. But with the Supreme Emperor critically ill and on the verge of death, the news of Fourteenth Uncle’s misfortune must not reach the old man’s ears. Even if it doesn’t, if the youngest son of the Supreme Emperor is executed just before his passing, it would look terrible in the historical records… Ah, but who knows how long this imprisonment will drag on…”
How long could it last? Could it last long enough… for someone to find a way to deceive General Cheng and his men, to secretly release Li Yuangui and let him flee far away?
Earlier, her mother had revealed that the Son of Heaven intended for her father, Chancellor Wei, to oversee this case. If Wei Shufen obeyed her father’s wishes and dutifully married into the Cheng family, reconciling with him, perhaps she could whisper pleas for mercy into the ears of her father and… her husband, striving to help Prince Wu escape this life-threatening calamity?
If she could truly do this—if she could truly help that unfortunate yet pure-hearted youth lessen his charges, free him from prison, and restore him to the noble life he was born to—then what more could she possibly resent or lament?
Shouldn’t her marriage as Wei of the Cheng clan be blessed by all the gods above and below?
In her mother’s tear-soaked embrace, Wei Shufen smiled up at the heavens—her fate sealed from this moment onward.
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