Chapter 7.1

Su Jiao crossed through the hanging-flower gate and made her way toward the rear hall. She had only just passed by the pond beside the rear hall when her footsteps faltered, and she recalled what had happened just after her rebirth.

She had thought herself still in her previous life back then, and had shoved Zhang Momo into the water.

Her heart gave a violent lurch. Su Jiao glanced around in all directions, saw no one, and quietly made her way to the very spot where she had pushed Zhang Momo into the pond.

The rain had cleared and the sky had brightened, washing away every last trace completely. Only the edge of the pond retained some faint scratch marks that were easy to miss.

Su Jiao pressed some mud underfoot to cover those marks, then turned and headed toward the rear hall.

She sat down at the rear hall’s plain, simple writing desk and lifted her brush, meaning to write a letter.

This marriage between her and Xie Yan had never been one that many people looked upon favorably. Within the entire Su family, no one was pleased about it save her father — her mother had been dejected and melancholy over the matter, and her elder brother Su Wei had quarreled with their father time and again over it, even going so far as to kneel outside Qianqing Palace and nearly losing half his life, all in hopes of having her betrothal canceled.

In her previous life, at this same point in time, she had just come as a new bride to the imperial household. Emperor Jia had no fondness for Xie Yan, and so not even the three-day return visit to her family home had been arranged for them. The first time she saw her brother again after her marriage was half a year later — and even then, her brother had pressed her insistently, asking whether she wished to leave.

She had agreed without a moment’s hesitation, and Su Wei told her he already had a way to rescue her from the imperial household, and bade her wait patiently inside the palace.

Yet not long after that, her mother had fallen gravely ill and passed away without warning. Her relationship with Xie Yan had also changed — she was no longer set on leaving — and so when her brother said the moment had come, she made her intentions clear to him.

Her brother had been furious with her for many days after that and refused to speak to her, yet in the end the bond between siblings ran too deep. Even later, when Xie Yan ascended the throne and first took in a Noble Consort, Su Wei had still strode into the Golden Throne Hall and quarreled with the emperor, nearly coming to blows. And even at the very last, from a thousand li away, he had sent men to the imperial palace to receive her, saying he would take her out.

Though Prime Minister Yun had insisted over and over in his final moments that her brother had never come to save her, Su Jiao and Su Wei shared decades of sibling affection — and even though the two of them were not bound by blood, she would not let a few words from Prime Minister Yun make her doubt her own brother.

Because she had given up on leaving, she had never learned in the end what Su Wei’s plan had been — a plan that, in the span of a mere half month, had been ready to let her separate from her husband and leave the palace.

And now…

Su Jiao gripped the vermilion brush in her hand and swiftly set down two lines.

****

The night was dark and the wind was strong. The hour for the evening meal had passed. Su Jiao came out to the front of the rear hall and set eyes upon the tall, long-neglected ladder she remembered so well.

In her previous life, when she had first come to Yongning Hall, she had not been able to adapt to the life here. She had resented the sky hemmed in on all four sides, and had felt uneasy around the husband who was unfamiliar to her and always occupied with affairs of state. Her courage back then was nothing like what it became later — she would always retreat alone to the rear hall to weep. Then one day Xie Yan happened to see her, and he ordered Chang Lin to repair the ladder there. He had cradled her in his arms as they sat on the top of the wall, and pointed toward the west.

“To the east along the long avenue is the Prime Minister’s residence. Further ahead are the Six Ministries. And there — that is your Su family’s home.”

The spring night breeze was just right, soothing even the bitterness and soreness in her heart. Day after day, whenever he had nothing pressing, he would sit with her like that on the ladder — his gentle voice unhurried and steady beside her ear, telling her about the Su family, about her mother, about every place Su Jiao could see from atop the ladder. Those were among the rare days when the two of them had lived in harmony with one another.

Not like the estrangement of their earliest days as husband and wife, and not like the growing distance between them that came later.

Su Jiao climbed the ladder with great care, peeking out just enough to show a pair of eyes as she looked toward the palace road below.

She was waiting for someone.

It was nearly the hour of Xu by now. The night patrol guards on this side were sparse and scattered. She stuck her head out over the wall.

(TL: 7-9 PM)

In her previous life, at this same hour, she had waited here too — and it was here that she had met the palace maid Xiao Tang.

Xiao Tang served in the Laundry Bureau, and was often bullied and made to work late into the night before she could go back to rest. In her previous life, Su Jiao had happened to spot her from the top of the wall one night as she was heading back, and called out to warn her that a garment had slipped out of the basin she was carrying and trailed behind her. The next day, Xiao Tang brought half a piece of flatbread as thanks. After that, the two of them often ran into each other at this same spot and gradually grew close.

Xiao Tang was a clever and sharp-witted palace maid. After Su Jiao left the Cold Palace in her previous life, she had her transferred to serve at her side, attending to her together with Zhang Momo, loyal and steadfast to the very end.

Tonight, she had come here for the sole purpose of waiting for her.

She clutched a letter and half an ingot of silver in her palm, her gaze fixed unblinkingly on the space below.

****

“You say she’s up on the ladder — and you don’t know who she’s waiting for?”

Xie Yan looked toward Chang Lin.

“That’s right.”

“The ladder at the rear hall?”

Chang Lin dipped his head again in confirmation.

A look of understanding flickered through Xie Yan’s eyes.

If she’s gone to that ladder, I happen to know what she is doing.

The Su Jiao who had just gotten married was, after all, only seventeen. In her previous life, she used to hide up there just like that, gazing in the direction of the Su family home.

“Though… this subordinate noticed that My Lady the Prince’s Consort seems to be holding something in her hands. She spent the entire afternoon in the rear hall — no telling what she was pondering over.”

Pondering over?

Based on Xie Yan’s knowledge of her from their previous life, in all likelihood it was a letter home.

In her previous life she had liked to write letters home at first as well — and even though she had no way of sending them out, it at least gave her some relief from the tedium.

Xie Yan idly stirred the clear water in the basin with one hand.

“The matter of Zhang Momo — I had you look into it. What did you find?”

Someone who should not have died at this point in the previous life had suddenly died. Xie Yan had always felt something was not quite right.

“I’ve looked into it. She did indeed fall in by herself.”

That answer caught Xie Yan somewhat off guard.

Ever since he had been reborn, there had been several incidents that had never occurred in his previous life — Zhang Momo, the venomous snake, and now this.

As he thought on it, a figure suddenly surfaced in his mind.

From bringing up separation inside Yongning Hall, to stepping forward in the courtyard today to stop him — none of that had happened in his previous life either.

The Su Jiao of his previous life, at this same point in time, had still been a timid woman. Given her temperament, if she had witnessed such a scene, she should have been so frightened that she retreated as far away as possible — not, clearly afraid as she was, stepped forward anyway to stop him from killing a man.

Had his own rebirth altered the original course of events? Or was it… that someone else had changed them?

Xie Yan was silent for a moment.

“Have there been any visitors to Yongning Hall these past few days?”

Had someone come and said something to her?

“What do you mean, Your Highness?”

Ever since Zhang Momo’s death, Yongning Hall had been left with only Chang Lin as a guard. After the incident at the Buddhist hall, Emperor Jia had ordered the palace gates sealed even more tightly — how could anyone else possibly have come?

Xie Yan almost immediately recognized the impossibility of it, shook his head, and let the matter drop.

“Never mind.”

“This subordinate has already dealt with the guard cleanly.”