Chapter 63 #2
The interior lived up to the rumours. Cool light spilled through latticed screens carved with magnolia blossoms, washing over polished floors of pale porcelain.
A hand-painted screen stood behind the central divan, inked with cranes in flight over a misty lake.
She recognized the brushwork—delicate, fluid—a style Princess MinLuo favoured.
JingYi sat on one of the divans and folded her hands before her. This wasn’t just a receiving room—it was a space meant for solitary peace, for poems read aloud in the hush between seasons. A place built for someone who’d once chosen ink over a crown.
And now, it was hers.
The maids served tea and autumn confections—rice cakes shaped like maple leaves; scents of stewed red bean and lotus paste curled through the still air. When the final cup was set down, the attendants withdrew to the side, hands folded, gazes lowered, waiting.
JingYi glanced toward them, uncertain, until LinXin delicately cleared her throat.
Ah. They were waiting for her.
It took a breath to remember that she could. That it was her place now.
“Leave us,” she told them. The words felt strange in her mouth. For a moment she half-expected someone to laugh, or correct her, or strike her for presuming.
No one did. The maids simply bowed and slipped from the room.
The silent moment that followed was awkward. They sipped their tea, letting it fill the space where words could not yet reach. The cakes remained untouched on their delicate porcelain plates, more ornamental than appetizing.
At last, ShunLi set his cup down with a clink on the lacquered table.
“It must be confusing for you,” he said, his tone measured—tentative, even. “To return here. To all this. To us.”
JingYi met his gaze without flinching. Confusing. The word sat wrong in her mouth, too soft for what she actually felt.
“Confusing isn’t quite the word I would use,” she said.
ShunLi arched a brow. “Disorienting, perhaps? Even unwelcome.”
She let the silence stretch. Let him feel the weight of it. “That, at least, would be honest.”
LinXin toyed with the embroidered edge of her sleeve. “We don’t expect you to forget what was done to you, JingYi.”
A laugh nearly escaped her. She swallowed it down and flicked her eyes to meet her sister’s. “Good. Because I haven’t.”
ShunLi nodded, accepting her words without argument. “Even so, this is your home. You are not here as a guest. The Magnolia Palace belongs to you, as it once belonged to Princess MinLuo. You may appoint your own staff, alter the chambers as you wish. Nothing is off limits to you here.”
“I won’t pretend this isn’t disorienting.” JingYi lowered her gaze to her cup. The tea had gone lukewarm, but she held it between her palms anyway. “To be offered tea and silk cushions when for most of my life, I was treated as little more than a blemish to be scrubbed out of sight.”
She placed her cup on its saucer, then set her eyes on ShunLi. Every word trembled off her tongue. She would not silence them again. This time, she’d let them bleed.
“You arranged my marriage,” she went on. “You sent me away, possibly to protect me, or put me out of the way. But before that, you did . . . nothing.” Her fingers curled around her knees. “For years I suffered, and you did nothing.”
It hurt to share this—a raw, scraping ache. Degrading, even. But the words kept coming anyway, as if they’d been waiting years for permission to leave.
“I was six when my mother died. When the kitchen staff stopped bringing food. Wu Mā found me and took me to the Jade and Mortar Hall. She told me I could be useful there. So, I worked. I cleaned. I learned. Because it was the only way not to starve.”
With each pain, something shifted. The shame didn’t vanish, but it loosened its grip, just enough for her to breathe past it.
“When I was fifteen, one of the Dispensary attendants touched me. He told me I should be grateful anyone would want a broken, disgusting Omega like me.”
Her voice broke, but she kept speaking, “I ran and told the royal physician. He stripped me naked in the courtyard and beat me. Called me a liar and a slut. Slapped me so hard, I couldn’t chew for a week. He said someone like me should watch her tongue if I wanted to stay.”
The silence throbs the way her right leg did when the weather turns. She looked at ShunLi now, heart open and bare.
“And still,” she said, “I let myself believe when you stopped those Alpha boys by the courtyard, and I left that peach on your porch. . . maybe I wasn’t forgotten. Maybe you saw me.” She shook her head. “But you didn’t come. You never came. And I learned not to expect rescue.”
JingYi paused and bit the inside of her cheek, keeping away the tears burning to escape, turning her sorrow into bitterness.
“So imagine what it felt like when Xū Haorán came to my prison cell with a peach, and why it is difficult to reconcile your past indifference with your sudden kindness. Did our father’s death truly change so much between us? ”
The room fell silent. The only sound was the soft crackle of incense ash crumbling in its bronze dish. A breeze slipped through the latticed window.
Then, ShunLi said, quietly, “His death changed everything.”
JingYi tilted her head. “Did it? Or did it simply make it easier to look at me? To face what you let happen?”
LinXin’s lips trembled, her eyes glassy. “You don’t know—”
“I know you were the one they still called ‘Princess.’ I know you had new gowns and tutors and your name and status untouched.”
For a moment, there was only silence.
“It is true,” LinXin finally whispered, her fingers rubbing across her throat. “On the surface, I had privilege. But never freedom. Or kindness. Or peace.”
Her voice cracked. JingYi watched her sister’s composure splinter—the same mask she herself had worn for years, finally breaking.
Then LinXin’s jaw tightened. The softness in her eyes hardened, not into anger at JingYi, but into something older, more bitter, held back for years.
“You think I was safe?” The whisper became a rush, fierce and low. “He kept my mother under lock and key for most of my life. Every lesson, every smile, every time I stepped out of line, he punished her. And when I asked to help you—” Her voice caught. “He made it clear you’d be next.”
LinXin sat back, her hands gripping the arms of her chair. Her breathing was fast, shallow.
“He turned us all into weapons,” she whispered. The fire was still there, but it had banked. “Even against each other.”
The words rang like cold bells in JingYi’s ears. She looked at them both—ShunLi, still as a carved figure, his gaze fixed somewhere past her shoulder. LinXin, her hands pressed flat against her thighs, knuckles white. They were waiting. Braced.
She could wound them here.
“So we were all made into bargaining chips.” She let the words settle, watched LinXin’s throat move in a swallow. “Still. Why send me away?”
ShunLi finally looked at her. His voice was low, but there was no defence in it, only weariness.
“Because the palace was about to drown in blood and you had no protection. I was going to overthrow our father. I knew the people I was about to betray would not go quietly. They would’ve used you. Strung you up like a warning. I saw it happening every time I closed my eyes.”
JingYi stared at him. The words landed one by one, each a small, sharp blow.
His hands curled around his knees. “I did the only thing I could think of to save you. I brokered your marriage, sent you to a kingdom ruled by laws and honour, to an Alpha who, I prayed, would treat you better than we ever did. It wasn’t noble. It wasn’t selfless.”