·
The Meng household did indeed have thoughts of marrying off a daughter — but not Meng Tujin. It was the second daughter, born of the second wife.
When the invitation from the Marquess Manor arrived, the whole family was overjoyed, seeing it as an extraordinary opportunity, and cheerfully dressed up the second daughter and set off.
Tujin watched from a corner, her envy quiet and soft.
How wonderful it would be, she thought, if Father loved and protected me like that too.
The lively procession of carriages disappeared into the distance. She went back to her little courtyard and sat down in silence, opening her book.
She didn’t know how much time had passed when a commotion suddenly broke out outside.
Back so soon?
Tujin frowned faintly, set her book down, and went to look.
A crowd of people had appeared at the mouth of the narrow lane. The warm glow of lanterns spilled out from an ornate carriage, falling across the Meng family’s gate.
Tujin scrambled back in alarm — but before she could retreat, a hand came down firmly on her shoulder.
“Running away again?” Zhang Zaixin was breathing hard, his eyes red at the corners. “Do you absolutely have to avoid me?”
Tujin stared at him, struck speechless.
“Even someone condemned to execution gets a chance to speak in their defense before the verdict is carried out. Yet you’ve already passed sentence on me without asking a single question.” He said this with growing exasperation, then grabbed her hand and started pulling. “Come with me.”
“Don’t——” Tujin was flustered. “I still have to read.”
“How are you reading in the dark? Come to the Manor — you can read as much as you like there.”
Before she could respond, she had been lifted and placed inside the carriage. She sat there, dazed.
Across from her, he had turned his head away, jaw tight — working out his temper at something she couldn’t identify, his throat bobbing. Even in profile, his expression was rigid.
She’d already stopped hovering around him so as not to cause him trouble with rumors — and yet here he was, looking no more pleased with her than before.
Tujin shook her head.
If she had a mother as wonderful and warm as Lady Chen to look after her, she thought, she would wake up happy every single day.
·
Tujin had imagined the banquet would be the kind where everyone mingled freely — in which case arriving late wouldn’t matter much, so long as she kept close to the walls and didn’t draw attention.
She stepped through the door and found every pair of eyes in the room turning toward her.
The hair on the back of her neck stood up.
“Found her at last?” Chen Baoxiang was seated at the head of the table, her smile easy and warm. “I was just saying — a living person can’t simply vanish without a trace. Isn’t that right, Master Meng?”
Meng Tujin’s father, seated nearby, had gone slightly pale: “Yes… this girl, truly, one doesn’t know where she wanders off to — not even a word to let the family know. Very worrying.”
“Now that everyone is here, let’s begin.” Chen Baoxiang gestured for the meal to start.
The kitchens stirred into motion, and course after course began to appear on the table. The other guests turned back to their own conversations, the buzz of voices filling the room once more.
Tujin was guided to a seat beside Chen Baoxiang.
She sat there in a daze as dish after dish was placed in her bowl; she sat there in a daze as the gentleman beside Chen Baoxiang asked after her with warm, genuine concern. She felt like a traveler who had been stumbling through a blizzard and suddenly stepped into a warm, lantern-lit cabin — flooded with something wonderful, and utterly at a loss for what to do with it.
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