Chapter 9.2

After the meal, someone came to the door to announce that a lady had come to visit, and Mother Su went out to receive her.

Before long, Father Su also finished eating and rose from his seat. He looked at the husband and wife with a smile.

“I still have some matters to attend to. Jiao Jiao, why don’t you take His Highness to rest in the courtyard.”

Su Jiao kept her eyes down, picking at the food in her bowl. Xie Yan didn’t so much as raise his head.

Once again thoroughly ignored, Father Su finally lost the ability to keep his smile in place. Beneath his sleeve, his hand clenched into a fist.

No matter what others said about this match, it was still a marriage into the imperial family. No matter how little favor Xie Yan held, he was still the Emperor’s son. If the intelligence he had received was correct, it was not impossible that the Third Prince could one day ascend the throne — and then everything he was enduring now would be worth it.

And if he couldn’t ascend the throne… then he would follow that other party to success, and the change of dynasty would cost him nothing more than the sacrifice of one daughter.

After hastily murmuring his leave, Father Su turned and walked out of the courtyard.

Su Jiao, having finished picking at her food, stood and moved to leave as well.

“Cough, cough…”

Xie Yan’s coughing stopped her. Su Jiao turned back.

“Does Your Highness wish to rest for a while?”

Xie Yan’s gaze swept over her, then drifted — barely perceptibly — in the direction of Father Su’s study.

“Let’s go over to that courtyard. It’s quieter there.”

The courtyard beside the study had originally been Father Su’s private resting spot, but the moment word came that Xie Yan wished to go there, he hurried to have another room tidied up at once.

Su Jiao supported him as they walked toward the courtyard. They happened to cross paths with her mother returning from outside, and the group strolled along together in easy conversation. Xie Yan was leaning a good portion of his weight on Su Jiao, and the two of them were pressed quite close — then someone said something, though it wasn’t clear who, and Su Jiao suddenly turned her head and broke into a bright, flower-like smile.

Clatter.

Beneath a tree in the courtyard ahead, a pair of cool, detached eyes took in the whole scene. A layer of shadow gathered across those pupils.

After seeing Xie Yan back to the room, with only two servants left in the courtyard, Su Jiao turned and headed out to find her mother again.

The moment her footsteps faded, the door swung open without a sound. The servants felt nothing more than a gust of wind — and after that, the space behind the folding screen fell perfectly, endlessly still.

Su Jiao was turning over in her mind how to slip past her father and take a look inside his study. She rounded a covered walkway and ran — without any warning — straight into the person coming the other way.

“Ah—!”

She collided squarely with the newcomer’s chest, the tip of her nose smarting red from the impact. Su Jiao stumbled back, rubbing her nose.

“I’m sorry…”

Before she could finish, a cool, gentle hand lightly touched the tip of her nose, and the person caught her by the wrist and drew her a little closer.

“Jiao Jiao — are you hurt?”

Su Jiao looked up and met a pair of eyes — clear and cool, yet threaded through with worry.

The newcomer was dressed in robes of cloud-patterned white brocade, his bearing as fine and elegant as carved jade. He had evidently been on his way somewhere in a hurry, yet the instant he laid eyes on her, he stopped in his tracks.

“Brother?”

A flash of delighted surprise lit Su Jiao’s eyes, and she called out to him again.

“I’m not hurt.”

She made to step back, but Su Wei held onto her wrist without releasing it, looking her over from head to toe with a warm, indulgent gaze, before at last letting fall a single tender remark.

“A few days apart, and Jiao Jiao has grown thinner again.”

His slender hand moved to rest lightly against her cheek, carrying with it an almost imperceptible tenderness. The emotions in his eyes surged and swelled — and then, just as Su Jiao was about to speak, Su Wei lowered his head, his gaze fixed on her and never wavering.

“Is Jiao Jiao happy in the palace?

“If you are not happy — do you want to leave?”

****

Past the midday hour, the courtyard lay hushed and still. Su Jiao peered out from beside her father’s study, then eased the door open and slipped inside.

The study was neatly arranged. Beyond official documents and a few books, there was nothing else to be found. Su Jiao carefully searched through it all, and then her gaze settled on the wall.

On the night her father had defected to the enemy in her past life, the capital had been awash with rumors — people whispered that he had been in contact with the rebels years prior, serving as their mole at court, working on their behalf behind the scenes, and that the placement of his very own daughter beside the young Emperor had likely been deliberate.

Based on that, Su Jiao suspected that if it had truly begun that early, it must have been before she entered the palace. And something of that nature would never be left out in the open — but there had to be a hidden compartment somewhere in the study.

Recalling the technique Su Wei had taught her years ago for finding hidden compartments, Su Jiao pressed her hand flat against the wall and began feeling her way along, inch by inch.

In no time at all, her fingers found a raised spot behind one of the wall paintings. A gleam lit her eyes. She pressed it.

Click.

The wall painting swung open, and a small, square compartment popped out from behind it.

Su Jiao leaned in eagerly. The instant she made out what was inside, a flash of astonishment crossed her face.

“Master, the Eldest Young Master is waiting for you up front.”

The chaotic sound of a servant’s approaching footsteps jolted her back to awareness. In the same motion as she pushed the hidden compartment shut, Su Jiao pulled several sheets of paper from inside, turned, and pushed the door open to step out.

Thud.

She walked headlong into the person striding rapidly toward her. The collision left her head spinning; she stumbled back two steps and braced herself against the wall.

“You… Xie Yan?”

The moment husband and wife’s eyes met, Su Jiao’s held guilt. Xie Yan’s sharp gaze narrowed in response.

“What are you doing here?”

His eyes traveled to the study behind her.

Su Jiao instinctively stepped back, one hand slipping behind her to pull the door shut.

“Nothing — I was just passing by.”

“Passing by your father’s study — how does one manage that?”

Xie Yan moved forward, advancing on her one step at a time.

His tall frame completely enveloped her, and it was only when she came back to her senses that Su Jiao realized she had already backed into a corner, the door ajar behind her.

Xie Yan lowered his head — and in an instant his gaze caught the furtive movements she was making.

Her wide, pale-blue sleeves swayed in the breeze, and within them, shapes and shadows shifted vaguely.

“You—”

“I came here because of Your Highness!”

Su Jiao abruptly stepped forward and wrapped herself around his arm — catching, with perfect timing, the motion of Xie Yan’s hand reaching for her wrist.

The sudden closeness gave Xie Yan a momentary jolt of surprise. In that brief window, Su Jiao swiftly gathered the items in her sleeve, pressed herself against his arm, and spoke without missing a beat.

“I went for a walk outside after the meal and came back to find you gone. I asked the servants but they didn’t know either — I thought you’d gone and gotten lost somewhere in the Su estate, so I rushed out to look for you, and happened to spot you just as I reached Father’s study. That’s why I gave such a start.”

“This Su estate is only so large — not even a twentieth of the palace. I would get lost?”

“Who can ever say for certain? After all, this is your first time at the Su estate, and you’re injured on top of that. I worried terribly. I’d already told the servants to keep watch and still couldn’t put my mind at ease. Knowing you’d come outside, I was afraid you might lose your way in the estate, afraid that the cold outside might chill you through.”

As she spoke, Su Jiao took his icy hands in hers and rubbed them gently. She shifted her position, stepping between Xie Yan and the line of sight to the study door.

What met his eyes was a pair of bright, lively, guileless pupils. Xie Yan’s throat moved.

“You were really afraid of that?”

“Of course I was.”

Su Jiao breathed warm air onto his hands and tilted her head up to blink at him.

“You are my husband — even in the palace, the two of us couldn’t be apart for a moment without something going wrong. If something were to happen to you here at the Su estate, wouldn’t I be worried sick?”

The gentle, soft words were like water breaking through a sheet of ice. The hand Xie Yan had raised toward the study door paused. Su Jiao took the opportunity to tuck her arm through his and steer him away.

“It’s too cold out here — let’s go back. I won’t have you catching a chill.”

Before the two of them had even made it off the covered walkway, the sound of approaching footsteps grew from distant to near, and then both Father Su and Su Wei stepped through the gate.

The four of them looked at one another. The instant Su Wei’s gaze fell on Su Jiao’s arm linked through Xie Yan’s, his expression shifted — freezing over in an instant like fallen snow.

“Jiao Jiao, come here.”

Su Jiao took the opening to let go of Xie Yan’s arm, tucked the items deeper into her sleeve, and trotted over with a bright smile.

“Brother!”

The sudden release left Xie Yan lurching unsteadily — he nearly stumbled. He stared in disbelief at the person who had been murmuring sweet, worried words about him one second and had flung herself toward someone else the next.

Still smiling. Still calling out brother.

Xie Yan braced a hand against a pillar to steady himself, and his gaze passed over Su Jiao with an expression that was almost a smile — and almost was not.

Fine. Very well.

A woman with a honeyed tongue.

And that one…

In the moment that his gaze locked with Su Wei’s frost-cold expression, a shadow gathered across Xie Yan’s eyes as well.

And that one — who shared not a drop of blood with her, yet had spent seventeen years plus five more clinging to her side under the name of “brother” in her past life…

A deeply calculating old schemer.