Fuchun had provided such useful information. Without Xie Yuzhang even needing to give a sign, Lin Fei had already retrieved the finest gratuity envelope. Fuchun demurred for a moment, but in the end accepted it.
His willingness to accept meant it was a benefit for both parties.
Since it was not suitable to approach the Emperor just now, Xie Yuzhang thought it over and went to the Eastern Palace instead. The Crown Prince had evidently returned not long before, had just changed into informal house clothes, and still had the fresh, clean look of having recently washed his face.
“Elder brother, I have heard that the roster for my escort attendants has been finalized?” Xie Yuzhang asked.
The Crown Prince was somewhat surprised. “Your news travels quickly.”
In truth, this was entirely normal conduct in the palace. Noble Consort Chen always managed to receive word of anything she wanted to know at the very first moment. The difference was that in the past Xie Yuzhang had been so favored she had never done anything of the sort, and everyone knew her naïvety was genuine naïvety, not an affectation put on deliberately, as some others did. So the Crown Prince was somewhat surprised now.
But for Xie Yuzhang to learn these skills before her departure was not necessarily a bad thing, the Crown Prince thought. After all, the place where she would be living in the future was somewhere her family’s reach would be too short to help.
“I had intended to go ask Father Emperor about it, but then I heard Father Emperor was in poor spirits…” Xie Yuzhang looked down.
“Understood.” The Crown Prince felt tender pity for her and agreed. “I will see to this matter tomorrow.”
Xie Yuzhang raised her head and saw the tenderness in the Crown Prince’s eyes. They were not born of the same mother, yet they were still blood kin. Thinking of the hollow, dejected state he would fall into later, and of his early death, leaving Lady Yu behind, she lowered her head again, and quietly clenched her fist.
The following day, nine days having passed since the great banquet, Xie Yuzhang obtained the roster she had been waiting for.
This was only a preliminary selection. That Xie Yuzhang could receive the roster now meant that many of the people on it could also learn at this time that their names had been included. What would follow was a desperate scramble — each person employing whatever means they had to remove their own name from the list.
Mid-seventh month. The heat of summer was at its peak. In the inner chamber of Zhaoxia Palace, ice basins had been placed in all four corners, and a thin thread of coolness permeated the air.
Xie Yuzhang dipped a brush in vermillion ink and found Attendant Xu’s name.
Attendant Xu was her head palace nurse and Palace Directress. Despite having run about making entreaties and sending gifts everywhere, she had still failed to escape the fate of being sent with Xie Yuzhang to the distant land. She had died of illness on the grasslands, still longing for her elder brother and sister-in-law and nephews in the capital, unable to return to her native soil, dying in bitter resentment in that land of the alien north.
The bonds between people were subject to fate, and should not be forced. The first half of Attendant Xu’s life had been one of harmonious service between mistress and servant — it had been a beautiful thing in its own right. When the thread had reached its proper end, let it be cut.
Xie Yuzhang drew a vivid red cross through Attendant Xu’s name, the very first.
Lin Fei sat at her side, slowly grinding the ink for her. Seeing that bright red cross, her lips moved slightly, but in the end she said nothing.
Her little princess had grown up. She had begun to arrange and plan for her own life, to make decisions for herself. At a time like this, Lin Fei should not be interfering too much.
Xie Yuzhang called upon her memories, going through the beloved palace maids at her side and marking off those whose bodies had been weakest, whose natures had been too yielding — the ones who had faded and perished early on the grasslands, each marked one by one.
Those not strong enough in body, or not resolute enough in spirit, would likely not be able to endure the storms ahead. Better to give them a path to life.
When it came to the palace staff, Xie Yuzhang crossed off two who had been particularly smooth-tongued and did nothing of real substance.
After that came scholars, doctors, tradesmen of various crafts, farmers, and even monks and Taoist priests. In her past life she had never given any of these a second thought, but now she knew that some of them were very useful indeed, while others were of no practical use whatsoever.
She added a note in red beside the physicians and veterinarians: Increase as many as possible.
She added a note beside the florists and gardeners: Unnecessary — reduce numbers.
Then turning the pages, she came to her five hundred personal guards.
The first name was the man leading the unit: Ma Jianye. Several years had passed, and Xie Yuzhang still remembered that unsavory face of his well. Nothing but a captain, and yet he wore a look of smug satisfaction whenever someone addressed him as “General.”
Xie Yuzhang gripped the brush tightly and glared with deep loathing at this name she despised — but forced herself to swallow that bitterness back down.
This position was too important. If she replaced him with someone whose true nature she did not know, the variables ahead would be too unpredictable. Better to leave Ma Jianye where he was for now and deal with him gradually in due course.
She went through the roster of five hundred names, reading each one carefully.
Lin Fei was puzzled.
She could understand the additions and removals among the palace staff — after all, Xie Yuzhang knew many of those people personally. But these five hundred guards — what was there to look at? Could the princess actually recognize any of these men?
She was still puzzling over this when she suddenly heard Xie Yuzhang emit a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a murmur.
Lin Fei raised her gaze and saw that a shimmer of moisture had gathered in Xie Yuzhang’s eyes, and a single tear fell onto the paper, soaking into a name.
—Wang Shitou.
A plain, unadorned name. One look at it, and you would know it belonged to someone from the countryside.
I have found you at last, Wang Shitou.
Xie Yuzhang’s slender, pale fingers rested on that name. Everything before her eyes blurred.
She felt as though she was carried back to that day — guards stationed outside the tent, she and Lin Fei huddled together, trembling with fear at an uncertain fate. And then they heard Wang Shitou’s bellowing voice —
Your Highness! Princess Baohua — ! Where are you — ?
The two of them had gone rigid.
This was Da Mu’s army camp. Li Gu’s most trusted general, Jiang Jingye, commanded one hundred thousand strong. How many men did Wang Shitou have? How had he dared to force his way in?
How had he dared to come and save her?
Wang Shitou and his companions’ voices had been like those of beasts trapped in an iron cage — carrying desperation and a tragic, doomed courage.
Their voices had fallen silent later.
They had been kept under guard, and did not know what had happened to those men. They had been escorted all the way back to Yunjing. Yunjing still looked as it always had — bright moon, red towers — only it had become the Yunjing of Da Mu now.
Later — in a much later later — they had been living at Xiaoyao Marquis’s residence, and Lin Fei had by chance encountered one of the guards who had come in the wedding retinue. She had gone to ask about them, and had come back to tell her several names.
Wang Shitou.
Li A’da.
Zhao Niuwa.