Chapter 18

“Open the coffin.”

Su Jiao’s voice was so faint it was nearly inaudible. Xie Yan thought he had misheard.

“What?”

“Open it.”

She had just tried pushing it herself, but the coffin lid was far too heavy, and she had not a shred of strength left in her body.

Xie Yan pulled Su Jiao back, gathered his qi into his hands, and in an instant forced the coffin lid open.

Su Jiao pushed him aside and rushed forward. The moment she saw her mother, tears threatened to fall from her eyes again.

Her trembling hands reached down and touched Mother Su’s ice-cold body, then continued downward, feeling along her back.

A moment later, her hand came upon a patch of dry roughness.

She withdrew her hand and looked — sure enough, there was a trace of blood, nearly dried.

In the light of the hall’s eternal lamp, Su Jiao’s complexion turned suddenly, deathly pale.

So this blood had indeed… seeped out from inside the coffin.

The coffin had been personally sent by her brother — it must have been new wood. Then this blood could only have come from…

Su Jiao reached to touch the clothing and feel around, and as she bowed her head, she noticed several small wounds at her mother’s wrists.

Su Wei had said Mother Su had fallen from a cliff to her death — it was only natural there would be some injuries on her body.

Su Jiao gazed at that trace of blood and those wounds on the body, her eyes growing hot again.

She dared not imagine how much pain her mother must have been in when she fell from that cliff.

But angina…

Su Jiao did not believe it.

She simply did not believe her mother had fallen from that cliff due to a sudden angina attack.

“Huguo Temple…”

Su Jiao murmured the words, then abruptly turned and made to dash outside.

“Su Jiao.”

Xie Yan grabbed her wrist.

“Where are you going?”

Su Jiao’s lips moved. She met his gaze.

“It’s noth—”

The words died halfway as their eyes met. Xie Yan looked at her quietly, and in the silence there was nothing but a contest of wills.

Without quite knowing why, she swallowed the rest of the sentence back down.

The hand gripping her wrist tightened, and tightened again. Beneath the scrutiny of those pale eyes, she instinctively opened her mouth.

“Huguo Temple.”

In the quiet room, only the two of them stood beneath the eternal lamp, together peering at the strangeness beneath the coffin lid, together tasting a wordless grief.

A carriage slipped out of the Su residence under cover of night and raced toward Huguo Temple.

The heavy lacquered gates were knocked open, and Su Jiao ran all the way to her mother’s courtyard.

The courtyard looked no different from when she had left it. Su Jiao turned every inch of it over and found nothing amiss.

She turned and headed toward Su Wei’s courtyard.

Her mother had been an exceptionally quiet woman of few words, who rarely kept close company with friends. When she came here, she spent her time either paying respects to the Buddha or talking with Su Jiao — or visiting her son, who was always busy in the Emperor’s service.

This time, her mother had fallen from a cliff — right behind Su Wei’s courtyard, on the rear hill of Huguo Temple.

Su Jiao ran all the way to Su Wei’s courtyard and pushed the door open, gasping for breath.

Su Wei’s courtyard was even tidier — it seemed to have been thoroughly cleaned before his departure. Everything was arranged in perfect order. Su Jiao turned this courtyard over just the same. Her ragged breathing made her head swim, and the moment she crossed the threshold of the inner room, she stumbled.

“Careful.”

Su Jiao instinctively caught herself on the door frame. The instant she steadied and let go, something made her bow her head, as though she had sensed something.

“Bring a light.”

Her trembling voice told Xie Yan that he too had sensed something. In a moment, he brought a lamp over from the table.

The dim, yellowish light illuminated the door frame — and there, carved into the wood in varying depths, were scratches stained with blood.

Su Jiao reached out and touched them.

“This blood is recent…”

How could someone have died in her brother’s courtyard?

Was it an assassin?

Su Jiao’s expression shifted again and again. She turned to go outside —

“This way.”

Xie Yan seized her wrist and led her back into the room, all the way to the window.

Su Wei’s courtyard was the westernmost one; beyond the window lay the rear hill.

There, Su Jiao caught the scent of blood again — faint, but unmistakable.

The dim light cast the two figures’ shadows across the rear hill behind the courtyard. But that hill, too, seemed to have been deliberately swept clean — even the fallen leaves on the ground were pitifully scarce.

No matter how carefully Su Jiao looked, she could find not the slightest trace of anything amiss — not even the spot where her mother had fallen bore any irregularity.

Yet those two bloody scratches left her deeply unsettled. Perhaps it was the bond of blood — she kept feeling that there was still something to be found in her mother’s courtyard.

The more she dwelled on it, the more anxious she grew. By the time she made her way back from the rear hill, a faint sheen of sweat had broken out across her brow despite the spring night. Su Jiao turned slightly, raised her hand, and pushed the window open, looking out at the bright, round moon.

This had been Su Jiao’s habit since childhood. When she had faced some problem she could not solve, her mother would teach her.

“The moon outside the window is the brightest thing there is. Jiao Jiao, look at it a little longer — look long enough, and your heart will grow bright too.”

Su Jiao could not help but tilt her head back to look, her hands resting against the windowsill.

“Hiss—”

A splinter on the windowsill caught the pad of her finger and drew a sharp pain, then a bead of blood welled up. As Su Jiao pressed her handkerchief to it, her eyes suddenly froze.

Why would there be a splinter beneath the windowsill?

She held the lamp close and looked — and there, beneath the wooden window, a line of twisted, hurried characters met her eyes.

Five short characters.

“Jiao Jiao, do not leave the palace.”

This was… her mother’s handwriting!

Su Jiao’s breath caught in her throat. The hand holding the lamp trembled uncontrollably.

“Su Jiao.”

Xie Yan’s voice came from beyond the door. Su Jiao hastily wiped her tears away, but committed every character to memory with perfect clarity.

That was her mother’s handwriting — there was no mistaking it.

Why had her mother left these words in her brother’s courtyard? Were the bloody scratches at the door hers?

Why was it in… her brother’s courtyard?

“Dawn is coming.”

Xie Yan walked in.

“It’s time to go back.”

Su Jiao said nothing. She held the lamp up and examined every window in the room one more time. When she found nothing further, she finally set the lamp down, as though every last drop of her strength had been spent.

“Let’s go.”

The two bloody scratches, and those inexplicable characters, had left her utterly certain of the suspicion in her heart.

The fall from the cliff had another cause. The angina was surely a fabrication.

The carriage raced back in the direction of the Su residence. And at that very moment, inside the Su residence, a servant was looking at Su Wei with a helpless expression.

“The young lady has gone somewhere and hasn’t returned yet. Perhaps we should wait until she comes back before sealing the coffin…”

Su Wei glanced over with cold indifference, his tone brooking no argument.

“Now.”

Su Jiao pushed the gate open with her hand. The first nail was just about to be driven in.

“Stop—”

Su Jiao cried out sharply and sprinted forward.

The moment Su Wei’s eyes fell upon her and Xie Yan together, a shadow crossed his face — and then it shifted into an expression of deep, heavy sorrow.

“Jiao Jiao.”

“Do not seal the coffin.”

She reached him, still breathless, and spoke urgently.

“Why not?”

“By proper rites, Mother’s body is to be laid in state for three days before burial. Why such haste?”

Su Wei pressed his lips together.

“Mother died falling from a cliff. Everything has been rushed. I have already discussed it with Father — we seal the coffin and bury her today.”

Today?

“Brother, why are you in such a hurry?”

Su Jiao looked at him, and that strange feeling rose in her again.

“Mother’s passing was so sudden. Father and I agreed to invite the abbot from Huguo Temple to perform the rites. The abbot has already chosen an auspicious date, and says today is the most suitable day for burial.”

Not a single thing about Su Wei’s expression was off. Standing not far behind him was the renowned abbot of Huguo Temple himself.

“Amitabha. Benefactor Su, this old monk has already selected the date. If Madam Su is buried today, she will be able to enjoy peace and comfort in the next world.”

As a child, what one hopes for most after a parent’s passing is exactly this — and on any ordinary day, Su Jiao would have agreed. But today…

“Mother has passed on. I wish to see these rites carried out with all due ceremony — if only for the sake of propriety. I hope the abbot will understand.”

Su Jiao gave a slight bow. The abbot stepped back behind Su Wei and said no more.

“Jiao Jiao…”

“Brother, by proper rites it is three days. There will be auspicious days after three days as well, and it is still spring — Mother…”

Su Jiao looked at Su Wei with eyes red-rimmed from weeping.

She very much wanted to know why her brother was in such a rush to seal the coffin.

Su Wei gazed into her eyes. Just as Su Jiao braced herself to argue at length, he gently ruffled her hair.

“All right.”

“I wish to stay here and keep Mother company — alone.”

The relatives who had come yesterday had already paid their respects and gone. The family had agreed to keep things simple, and so by now only the Su household’s closest kin remained.

Su Jiao said as much. Su Wei cast an impassive glance around, and the remaining people withdrew one by one.

“Brother.”

She looked at Su Wei.

“Am I to go out as well?”

Su Wei was visibly surprised.

Su Jiao pressed her lips together and said nothing.

Their eyes met. He held her gaze for a long moment, then turned and left.

After the mourning hall was empty and Su Jiao was certain no one remained, she gritted her teeth and pushed the coffin lid open.

Her mother was gone. By now, she had even been dressed in her burial clothes — only the sealing and interment remained. For a daughter to reopen the coffin after her mother’s death was a deeply unfilial act.

And yet what she had found at Huguo Temple on her way back had made her understand: she had to open it.

The coffin lid came off. Her mother’s body had long grown cold and stiff. Su Jiao’s trembling hands — never in all her life had it been this difficult — painstakingly touched her fingers.

But there were no excessive wounds on her fingers. The coroner had already examined the body, and had confirmed it was indeed death from a fall off a cliff. These injuries were nothing like what she had expected — they seemed to be exactly what Su Wei had described.

“Mother suffered an angina attack and fell from the cliff’s edge — her hands sustained some injuries in the fall.”

These small wounds bore no connection whatsoever to the bloody scratches at Huguo Temple.

Could she have guessed wrong? Perhaps those scratches had not been left by her mother at all?

Su Jiao silently replaced the lid of her mother’s coffin and said nothing more.

She kept vigil in the mourning hall for nearly another full day, and by the latter half of the day, the rest of the Su household had come to keep watch as well.

Only when dusk gathered did Su Jiao finally relent, agreeing to the burial on the third day.

The Su household was busy with the remaining arrangements. She was at last persuaded by Xie Yan and Su Wei to go and rest for a little while.

The room was quiet and still. Su Jiao leaned against the side of the bed, and before long, she sensed a figure standing before her.

She opened her eyes. Su Wei stood tall before her, his eyes red, looking at her with tender concern.

“Jiao Jiao has worked herself to exhaustion.”

Su Jiao was about to shake her head when something was pressed into her palm — a small bottle.

Su Wei lowered his voice.

“Before she died, Mother was still thinking of this marriage of yours. Since Jiao Jiao has no wish to remain in the palace, your brother has already prepared a way out.

Mother’s death came so suddenly. You have kept vigil in the mourning hall for days — the whole world knows it. This is a pill… one that causes a person to appear dead without anyone noticing…

Jiao Jiao, you…”

Su Jiao gripped the porcelain vial as a storm surged in her heart.

She had never imagined that the plan Su Wei had in mind would be a feigned death.

“Take it, and the Su household will prepare your coffin themselves. Even if you must be buried in the Imperial Mausoleum, your brother has a way. Jiao Jiao — do you trust me?”

Seeing that she did not speak, Su Wei clasped her wrist, and his voice took on an urgency rare for him.

“How would Brother have any means of entering the Imperial Mausoleum?”

Su Jiao felt something was off.

Su Wei was silent for a moment.

“For you, even if there is no way, your brother will find one. Have you forgotten? You said you were not happy in the palace — that being at his side was nothing but trouble. Mother had long been hoping you could leave… Jiao Jiao, come out. Your brother misses you terribly.”

He spoke on and on, but the fierce desire to leave the palace that had burned in her just yesterday now gave her pause.

The bloody scratches in Su Wei’s courtyard. His sworn insistence that Mother had died of angina. The frantic bloodstains at the window. How had Mother known she wanted to leave the palace?

And… her brother. He was far too strange.

Two lifetimes of trust spanning decades now left her hesitating. She would never have suspected Su Wei even for her own sake — even in her past life, when she had died within the palace walls. But her mother’s death…

“Jiao Jiao.”

A sharp pain in her palm — Su Wei had tightened his grip.

“Well? What do you say?”

She looked into his eyes. Before her lay the freedom she had longed for across two lifetimes, and perhaps a chance that would come only once in a lifetime. Yet behind her were the characters her mother had left on the windowsill, and… the instinct that ran bone-deep through shared blood.

Silence. Deeper and deeper silence.

“Jiao Jiao?”

Su Wei’s heart began to grow uneasy.

“Didn’t you tell your brother on the day you returned home that you were determined to leave the palace?”

Her palm was growing clammy in his grip. Su Jiao closed her eyes, her thoughts in turmoil.

“Brother, let me think.”

On the other side of the wall, Xie Yan was carrying a bowl of calming broth when he abruptly stopped in his tracks.

Along the corridor stood a pot of flowers growing in fine health. He gripped the spoon, his hand bearing down harder and harder until he snapped it in two.

The fragments cut into his palm, drawing blood.

“Now that I am married to Your Highness, wherever Your Highness is, I shall be. We are to be husband and wife for a lifetime. Separation was nothing but words spoken without thought — how could I bear to part from my husband?”

“Husband. Husband.”

Those honeyed words coiled around his ears, and the soft warmth of her body curled in his arms as she smiled and spoke — knocking to pieces, one by one, all the thoughts of revenge he had harbored since his rebirth.

He knew this woman. She was perhaps full of lies, pretending to submit, doing everything for wealth and glory. But no matter — as long as he rose to the highest seat of power, as long as he was the most exalted person in the realm, everything she wanted could only be given to her by him.

But…

“You had long prepared to leave the palace, hadn’t you, Jiao Jiao? You said you were not happy there. On the day you returned home, you asked your brother to find a way…”

“You have no wish to remain in the palace. This is a feigned-death pill.”

“Brother, let me think.”

That soft, gentle voice fell against his ear — in tone no different from when she had spoken those sweet words — yet it was arsenic wrapped in honey, intent on piercing every beautiful dream, cruelly trampling all his immersion and all his illusions, to tell him—

I was lying to you. I had wanted to leave from the very beginning.

“Lying to me…”

Scalding broth poured down over his hand. The fragments dug into his flesh as his grip tightened, tightening until the blood ran freely.

Sunlight fell across that handsome face. His eyes were dark and cold and brooding, touched with a glint of madness and shadow.

The sweet words had been false. She had no desire for wealth or glory — she had wanted only to leave. That was the truth.

She had deceived him. From the very day of her rebirth, she had been deceiving him.