Chapter 38

Chapter 38: We’ll Be Getting Married Tomorrow As she recalled the events of the past, Shaoyin also remembered the words her Aunt had spoken. She remembered that day when she had asked Xiao Heng what he and her father had said during their final meeting, and how Xiao Heng had answered vaguely, avoiding her gaze. Now, Shaoyin asked once more, “That year, at the Qiuyuan Hunting Grounds, what exactly did Father say to Your Majesty?” She simply felt the urge to ask at this moment. She had not expected Xiao Heng to answer, but this time, he did. He neither avoided the question nor hesitated in silence. Xiao Heng spoke slowly. “That day, we talked about you. You know that your father loved you dearly. And I had always treated you so poorly. How could a father not feel distressed over that?” “That day at the hunting grounds, I had originally been asking your father about matters concerning the frontier—about Xirong and about Shuobei. Your father was a famed general who had fought on countless battlefields, while I, as the Crown Prince, spent all day in the Eastern Palace. Although I practiced martial arts and had read many military texts, knowledge gained from books was ultimately shallow. There were many things I needed to ask your father about.” “After we gradually finished discussing those matters, your father and I were quiet for a while. Then your father suddenly asked whether I had nothing else to ask.” “He asked me why I did not ask about you—what you did at home, whether you had been well lately, and why you had not entered the palace for several days.” “At the time, I naturally said… that I did not care.” “Your father did not lose his temper. He did not say anything improper for his status, nor did he do anything improper. He simply… looked at me with eyes that were terribly, terribly cold.” “After a long silence, your father said that the reason you had not entered the palace for several days was because you were angry with me. He said that the reason you had been listless and unhappy at home was because you wanted to enter the palace to see me, yet you were hurt and angry and refused to lower your head, hoping that I would leave the palace to see you.” “He said that you had not told him any of these thoughts. Ever since you had grown to eleven or twelve, you had stopped telling your father the thoughts in your daughter’s heart, as you had when you were little. Yet even though you did not say a single word, a father could still see it all—could see it clearly.” “That day, your father let out a long sigh and bowed deeply to me. He said he would always be grateful that I had saved you back then, but he also hoped… that I would let you go.” “Your father said that he did not want you to become the Crown Princess or the future Empress. He only hoped that you could be happy every day. Whether you married someone you truly loved in the future, or never married at all and remained at home your whole life as his carefree darling daughter, either would be fine. So long as you lived a peaceful and happy life, that was enough. He did not want to use his daughter to climb the imperial ladder.” “Your father asked me to make things clear to you. If I truly had no feelings for you at all, he asked me to be more ruthless when speaking to you, so that you would completely give up hope, rather than remain unwilling to let go while constantly growing angry and constantly being hurt, as you had all these years.” Listening to Xiao Heng’s words, Shaoyin could almost imagine the scene at the time. The Great General, stern and rigid in front of others, had become nothing more than an ordinary father when speaking of his daughter. For his daughter’s sake, he had endured his resentment and earnestly pleaded with the Crown Prince of the realm, lowering his head to beg him. It was only because Xiao Heng had been the Crown Prince that Father had lowered himself to plead. If Xiao Heng had merely been some family’s young master, then given Xiao Heng’s attitude toward her in those years, Father would probably have come to his door with a sword long ago, to teach that stinking brat who always made his precious daughter angry and miserable a proper lesson. But what had she done back then? At that time, she had grown older and developed the thoughts of a young girl. She was no longer willing to sit on her father’s lap and tell him every thought in her heart as she had when she was little. As for the bitterness, jealousy, and resentment she felt toward Xiao Heng, she had always kept them bottled up inside, never saying a word to Father. She had simply remained sullen and unhappy at home, never realizing that her appearance would likewise cause her father pain and worry. Sometimes, when Father took the initiative to ask her about it, she would be unable to release the irritation in her heart and would instead shout at him to stop bothering her, then run off angrily, leaving him far behind. People always seemed most accustomed to hurting those closest to them—just as she had hurt her father back then, and just as Xiao Heng had hurt her. In the night, Shaoyin’s eyes reddened silently. She did not look toward Xiao Heng, continuing to gaze at the people and lanterns ahead of them. Enduring the sob caught in her throat, she asked Xiao Heng beside her, “What did Your Majesty say back then?” “I was… muddleheaded in the past. Whenever something concerned you, I was so confused that even I did not know what I truly thought. That day, when faced with your father’s words, I said some… utterly foolish things.” Xiao Heng said, “That day, I told your father that I had never deliberately strung his daughter along. I had never given his daughter the slightest hope. It was his daughter… who insisted on entangling herself with me. It was his daughter… who was merely indulging in unrequited love.” “What father in this world would be willing to hear someone speak of his daughter that way? Your father naturally became angry when he heard me say those things. He simply could not vent his anger on the spot because of my status.” “When I saw the fury he was suppressing in his eyes, I felt somewhat regretful that I had said those things. But I did not take them back. Back then, my temperament was like ice and stone. Seeing the look on your father’s face, I said nothing to make amends and left.” “Yet after leaving, it was as though I had a matter tied around my heart. I felt uneasy, and so I eventually returned to that place. I saw that your father still had not left. He was still standing alone in that Boxwood Grove.” “When I walked toward your father, he suddenly collapsed. The Imperial Physicians diagnosed him with a ‘stroke,’ saying that it had been caused by a sudden surge of qi and blood, resulting in the upward reversal of qi and blood and a sudden attack of extreme apoplexy.” Xiao Heng gradually came to a stop. The people around them moved past like shadows, and his voice seemed to sink heavily to the bottom of a well. “…Perhaps… I bear responsibility for your father’s death.” Shaoyin had initially harbored doubts about her Aunt’s words. She believed in her Aunt’s kindness toward her and believed that her Aunt held the Xue family in her heart. Yet she had never been able to fully trust everything her Aunt had said. She had always felt that her Aunt might be concealing something from her, that she might not have told her the complete truth about certain matters. And yet at this very moment, Xiao Heng seemed to be admitting to her that he bore responsibility for the cause of her father’s death—just as… her Aunt had said. The resentment in her heart had originally been surrounded by heavy confusion. She did not know the truth of the past, did not know how much of her Aunt’s words she could believe, and did not know whether she should hate or whether she should avenge her father and her family. But tonight, at this moment, Xiao Heng’s words seemed to have personally parted the thick fog of confusion in her heart. His actions seemed almost to be urging her to hate him with greater clarity and decisiveness. Though turbulent currents churned in her heart, Shaoyin’s voice remained calm and cool. “Why tell me this tonight? When I asked you before, Your Majesty did not say anything.” “Because… we are getting married tomorrow.” Xiao Heng said, “I think that between husband and wife, there are many things that should not be concealed.” “Although I have several consorts in the Imperial Harem, Father forced them upon me when he was gravely ill. At a time when I could not even see myself clearly, Father had already seen through me. He feared that I would truly become a lonely old man in the future, so he forcibly issued an edict to fill my harem.” “It was also meant to stabilize the court and reward meritorious officials. You know what the situation was like at the time. The fires of war had not yet died down, and people throughout the court and the common lands were panic-stricken.” “But Father still miscalculated. Although he personally chose quite a few women for me, these past several years I have remained a lonely old man all the same. I have not become the husband of any one of those women.” “So in terms of being a husband, I am a blank sheet of paper. Although after we marry tomorrow, I will do everything in my power to be a good husband, I may still do poorly in many matters. You will have to guide me and teach me how to be a good husband.” Xiao Heng said, “Do you know what a truly good husband should be like?” “I know,” Shaoyin replied. As she said this, it was as though she could see Helan’s figure beyond the lantern light, watching her from afar—watching… her and Xiao Heng. Before nightfall today, Older Brother had come to Yurong Court and spoken with her for a long while. Knowing that she would not tell him the truth, Older Brother had not insisted on questioning her to the end. He had merely asked her one question: after marrying His Majesty tomorrow, would she be happy in the future? Would she feel as at ease as she had in Shuobei, when she had been with Helan? She could not answer him. Older Brother had begged her. He had asked her to think it through carefully, saying that no matter what the truth of the past had been, her deceased father would certainly want her to live in peace, free from worry. He certainly would not want her to become embroiled in any suffering or danger for his sake. Older Brother said that he had originally intended to find a way to stop the wedding, but he was unwilling to oppose his own sister behind her back. In the end, he could only beg her and urge her to call off the marriage, to claim illness and delay it so that tomorrow’s wedding could not take place, and then find a way to cancel the marriage completely. Older Brother said that Father did not need her to do anything for him. He only hoped that she would live a safe and happy life. Nothing more. Those words had made her already confused state of mind even more troubled. As time passed minute by minute and the date of tomorrow’s wedding drew ever closer, her heart had grown increasingly lost and restless. She did not know whether the step she had taken so rashly was right or wrong. And now, after hearing Xiao Heng’s words tonight, the lantern light within her view seemed to fall into her heart. Together with all the things her Aunt had said, it burned within her. Her hesitation and confusion from tonight and before seemed to have been cast into this dark flame. Beyond the firelight, Helan’s figure seemed to be growing farther and farther away from her. The few children who had kicked a woven rattan ball past her and Xiao Heng earlier now kicked the ball again as they ran laughing into the distance—boys and girls, childhood sweethearts, innocent and carefree. Xiao Heng said, “Do you remember that year, when I accidentally kicked that child’s ball into a tree? The child began crying anxiously, and you hurried to comfort them, while I leapt up the tree and retrieved the ball.” “It was a tall apricot tree. When I picked up the ball from the branches, I looked down through the apricot blossoms and saw you and that child gazing up at me together. For some reason, I suddenly wanted to place an apricot blossom in your hair, like the ones I had seen in the tree.” “That night, I really did pluck a branch of apricot blossoms from the tree. But until we parted that evening, I kept the blossoms hidden in my sleeve and never took them out. Later, they withered.” As he spoke, Xiao Heng’s gaze fell upon a flower stall by the roadside. The apricot blossoms displayed on the stall were lightly tinged with a blush of pink, their stamens red as vermilion. “Then give me one now,” Shaoyin heard herself say.