Chapter 27: Xue-furen
Just two days after Li Wei left Ganzhou, Cao Dening came knocking at the door of Blind Alley. He had received a letter from Duan Jinke, asking him to check on Chun Tian and inquire about her situation. He rushed to the Li household with his servants, only to find the doors and windows shut tight. It was Aunt Zhao who answered the door, and upon questioning, he learned that Chun Tian had already left Ganzhou a few days prior–and Li Wei had followed after her.
He slapped his thigh with a groan and sighed, “Now this is trouble.”..
…
In Prince Jing’s manor in Chang’an—
The baby prince, Suiguan, now over four months old, had grown fair and plump, with especially lively eyes that followed people wherever they went. He gurgled and waved his chubby fists in greeting. As the Prince’s only grandson, the Old Dowager Princess doted on him endlessly. Every day she delighted in playing with him, even neglecting Prince Jing himself. The baby had been living in the Old Dowager Princess’s Heavenly Water Pavilion ever since his birth, surrounded by three or four wet nurses and seven or eight maids. Even the Empress Dowager in the palace adored this little grandson–his meals, clothing, and daily care were no less than that of a palace-born child.
Xue-furen had suffered terribly through pregnancy and childbirth, and only in recent months had she slowly regained her health. Her complexion was just beginning to resemble what it had once been. After the new year, Prince Jing had gone to great lengths to request a secondary consort title for her, but she declined to accept it. She continued to live by the same standards as before, staying in the Lychee Grace Pavilion, and once she could walk again, she resumed her routine of greeting the Princess and the Old Dowager Princess with a lowered gaze and calm demeanor. Occasionally, she helped the wet nurses and nannies look after the baby prince. Other than that, she kept completely to herself. Even when others stirred up trouble, she endured it all in silence.
The Old Dowager Princess observed Madam Xue coldly. Though she came from a humble background and had a less-than-flawless reputation in terms of virtue, at least she bore no ill intent. She knew how to keep her place, never stirred up unnecessary trouble, and didn’t annoy others with petty manipulations. Eventually, the Old Dowager Princess tacitly allowed her to carry the title of secondary consort and quietly fulfill her role as the mother of the manor’s first-born son.
The Lychee Grace Pavilion stood atop a waterside pavilion and had originally been a few meditation chambers adjacent to Prince Jing’s study. Though quiet and secluded, it offered only three small rooms, truly cramped, with not even a proper chamber for attendants to keep night watch. Yet Xue-furen refused to relocate. Prince Jing thought better than to press her; after all, it was only a few steps from his own study and convenient for daily visits.
The begonia-pink gauze canopy of the crabapple trees was perfectly suited for the season. Warm breath stirred its delicate folds, flowers like rain, poised between drifting and falling, creating a scene of graceful charm. Outside, Qiukui, seated with warm towels and cloths at the ready, was beginning to doze off.
The Lychee Grace Pavilion was small, and being perched over water, even the slightest sound could not be hidden. From the tightly closed inner chamber came the soft, trembling sound of Xue furen’s weeping, like scented smoke curling from the incense burner, winding and lingering, as if breaking yet not quite gone.
Prince Jing was utterly obsessed with her delicate, jade-like feet–madly so. At that time, he had just rescued her and was hiding her away in a secluded residence. Trusted confidantes tended to Xue-furen, dressing and grooming her with great care. She wore a sky-blue gauze skirt made from ten layers and panels of fine fabric. Beneath it, her legs were bare, with no undergarments, the soft contours faintly visible through the sheer fabric. Standing barefoot, those snow-white, flawless feet placed delicately on lacquered red wooden floors, she captivated him at first sight and enraptured him at the second. Seeing her like this, he lost all sense of propriety, throwing caution to the wind to share a moment of passion, making love with her on the veranda, tarnishing the reputation of the once-pure and dignified Prince Jing.
“Miao Miao, let me dote on you properly.”
Prince Jing had always favored the delicate and tender sort of woman, the kind who swayed like spring water, who nestled against him like a timid bird.
Xue-furen was exactly that. She was too fragile, too naive and so delicate she stirred a desire to possess, so innocent she invited protection. It had been like this with one man, then another. Prince Jing was no exception.
The golden hook on the gauze canopy swayed gently with the rise and fall of the drapery, making soft, crisp sounds. Outside, Qiukui still tended the brazier and hot water, yawning discreetly, hands covering her mouth, drowsy with weariness.
At daybreak the next morning, Prince Jing rose refreshed in body and mind. Xue-furen struggled to rise and dress him properly. As she straightened his collar, she asked in a timid yet hopeful voice, “Your Highness, is there any word of Niuniu?”
Prince Jing had been staring in a daze at the faint red mark left on her chest from the night before. Snapped from his thoughts, he replied, “There’s business to attend to outside. Go back and rest a while. As for paying respects to Mother today, let that pass.”
Stepping out of the room, he exhaled slowly and made his way toward the study.
On the desk lay an open book, within it a letter already unsealed. He had read it yesterday, but now lifted it again and reread it carefully. This was the letter that Duan Jinke had brought when he visited, sent from a household servant in Ganzhou, Hexi. Duan Jinke had recounted the contents in full, detailing the movements and circumstances of the person in question.
Duan Jinke had vaguely heard that the favored Xue-furen of the Prince Jing Residence was someone the Prince had brought back from the Wei household, a younger sister of Xue da-ren. But the girl he encountered that day at Red Ravine Valley, how could she possibly be Lady Xue’s niece? That, too, was a puzzling matter.
When Prince Jing heard Duan Jinke describe the girl’s appearance and then did a rough calculation of the timeline, a few things clicked into place. But even so, he was startled and stunned. Who could have imagined that a fifteen-year-old girl from a secluded boudoir, under whose urging or manipulation, would travel three thousand li to Hexi, even trying to cross the Yumen Pass into Beiting? How had she managed such a journey? And how had the Xue family raised their daughter?
Miaomiao’s daughter left behind in the Xue household was, for the sake of preserving the reputation of the Prince’s household, claimed publicly to be the youngest daughter of Xue Guangxiao, as Xue furen’s niece. But whenever she visited the palace, it was either the Xue family’s matriarch, Cao-shi, who brought her in, or someone sent by Xue-furen to quietly escort her to the residence for a short visit. This daughter, Prince Jing mostly avoided. After all, he had taken a girl’s mother as his own; there was little dignity in that, and he always felt a shadow of shame on his face.
He had run into the girl once or twice before. As she got older, she spoke little, her manner reserved, her expression cold and distant. Though she shared some of Miaomiao’s features, she bore none of her mother’s softness or charming vivacity.
At the end of the year before last, Xue-furen had once been pregnant. The news had not yet been made public when she suffered a miscarriage. With Prince Jing’s residence long without an heir, the Prince had always felt a kind of quiet sorrow. All the more, he cherished Miaomiao, arranging for her to rest and recuperate in a garden residence. At one point, a fortune-teller was brought to the household, who divined that a child would surely come in the near future. Sure enough, the following March, Xue-furen conceived again. Overjoyed, Prince Jing handled everything with utmost care. While Miaomiao lay on bedrest for the sake of the unborn child, in April, Xue Guangxiao stammered his way into the residence to report: the girl was gone.
It had happened on the day Cao-shi took the children of the household to the temple to offer incense. Midway through the outing, Chun Tian began to feel unwell, so Cao-shi instructed an old family servant to escort her back home to rest. But when the family returned to the residence, the girl was already gone. The maids and old attendants had assumed the young lady had gone with the mistress to the temple, while those outside believed she had returned home. It wasn’t until several days had passed without a trace of her that the household, panicked, came to inquire at the Prince Jing Residence.
At first, Prince Jing concealed the matter from Xue-furen, sending people out to search every corner of the capital. Chang’an was vast, and after a long time with no news, word eventually leaked, and someone told Xue-furen. Upon hearing that her daughter had disappeared, Lady Xue fainted on the spot.
Later, there was a lead. Someone from a household now living in the residence where Xue-furen had once stayed reported having seen a girl like her. She had come in, sat for a while, asked for a drink of water, then left. That house had once been rented by Xue-furen and her late husband, Chun Yue after their marriage, and it was also where Chun Tian had been born.
Later still, it was discovered that jewelry once sent from the Prince Jing Residence to the Xue household had turned up in a pawnshop. It became clear that Chun Tian had discreetly exchanged them for silver notes, purchased a horse, travel gear, and even hired an elderly servant. Yet without a travel permit, it remained a mystery how she had managed to leave the city.
Eventually, that elderly servant she had bought was found, already old and had returned to his ancestral village. He recounted that he had accompanied Chun Tian from Chang’an, traveling unimpeded with valid documents up to Qinzhou. One day, while fetching water, he returned to find her gone. After searching for two days without success and unwilling to report to the authorities, he simply fled back to his hometown.
Beyond Qinzhou lay the unending Longshan Mountains and the roaring Yellow River. More people were sent to search, and while there were some leads, they were vague and unverified. After chasing the matter up and down, nothing conclusive was ever found.
But one thing could be said for certain: the girl had left of her own volition. She had not been coerced or abducted.
After learning the truth, Xue-furen was in a daze for several days, her spirit lost. She said to him, “I know, I know Niuniu resents me. She blames me for abandoning her, for forgetting her father, for choosing to survive and submitting myself to another.” At the time, she was inconsolable, speaking of death and determined to end her life. The child in her womb nearly perished again.
That was his child! Prince Jing was so furious he could scarcely contain himself, enraged to the point of madness, with nowhere to direct his fury. He lashed out by kicking the messenger several times. Xue furen was pregnant, how could she bear such a blow? As for her daughter, he vowed to dig up heaven and earth to find her, to bring her back and place her properly before her mother.
Could something have happened along the way? Some misfortune or disaster? How else could there be no word at all? Even if she had died, how was it that not even her remains were found?
And yet, who could have imagined? Three thousand li from Chang’an, how did she make it there on foot? Who else could have done such a thing?
Then, as his thoughts turned, Prince Jing recalled a small incident from years past and couldn’t help but let out a dry, incredulous laugh. Could it be that this young girl had gone to Beiting to recover her father’s bones?
He knew of Miaomiao’s first husband. The families had been acquaintances. Miaomiao’s father had been a pedantic scholar of some repute, though inflexible and bookish, he spent his life copying documents for the Chang’an county offices. The husband was a neighbor to the Xue family, holding a minor civil post in the same county, later joining the army. It had been seven or eight years since he died. Miaomiao, more likely than not, still remembered him in her heart.
It had taken so much for her to turn her affections toward him, and now she had given birth to his child. But if this incident stirred up old feelings in her, and she insisted on making a scene, it would become rather unseemly.
How, then, was he to tell Miaomiao this news?
TN: Hope everyone is doing well! I’m not sure I really like Prince Jing…In those days, I don’t think women had much freedom or the freedom to make the choices they desired.
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