Chapter 17

“What?”

Su Jiao spun around sharply, her mind not yet fully catching up.

“Word from the Su household — Madam Su suffered a cardiac episode and fell from a cliff. She has already passed…”

“Impossible!”

In an instant, Su Jiao felt as though a bucket of ice water had been poured over her entire body, freezing her blood solid.

She stumbled out of Xie Yan’s arms and rushed toward Chang Lin, her eyes red in a way that was frightening to behold.

“Don’t talk nonsense — my mother was perfectly fine, how could she…”

“There’s no mistake. Su Daren has already gone to the imperial palace to report the death. The coffin has been brought back by the young master of the Su household.”

Clatter——

Before Chang Lin had even finished speaking, Su Jiao’s grip loosened, and the jar she had been holding dropped to the ground. Her vision went dark and she swayed backward.

“Su Jiao!”

Xie Yan caught her with swift reflexes. Su Jiao’s entire body trembled violently. Her face drained of all color as she shoved Xie Yan away and ran for the door.

“No… I don’t believe it!”

On the day she had returned home after the wedding, she had already taken her mother’s pulse — everything had been perfectly fine. How could she have suddenly suffered a cardiac episode?

It was absolutely impossible!

She ran outside in a daze. A fine misty rain was falling. She ran all the way to the palace gate, where a cold sword was thrust across her path.

“By His Majesty’s order…”

“Get out of my way.”

Su Jiao shoved the guard aside with a ferocious look in her eyes, disregarding the sword before her as she tried to force her way out.

The guard stumbled back from her push. With a sweep of his arm, the guards below swarmed forward to shut the great doors.

Su Jiao seized the edge of one door with both hands, straining with all her strength to get through.

“Let me out — I need to leave the palace…”

“By His Majesty’s order, no one from Yongning Hall is permitted to go out…”

Su Jiao tore the hairpin from her head and slashed it through the air, heedless of everything as she crashed through the crowd and made for the exit again.

The guards restrained her and threw her hairpin to the ground. With a reverse shove, they pushed Su Jiao back, and with a sweep of an arm, dozens of drawn bows and arrows trained themselves on her.

“My Lady the Prince’s Consort would do well to think through the consequences of defying an imperial edict.”

The cold words struck Su Jiao like stones hurled through the rain. Her dazed eyes were filled entirely with tears. She gritted her teeth and rose to her feet once more, pressing forward.

“Whoosh——”

An arrow shot into the ground at her feet, tripping Su Jiao mid-stride and sending her crashing to the stone-paved ground. The moment her palms scraped across the bluestone slabs, blood welled from the broken skin.

Su Jiao fought to get back up again——

“Whoosh——”

A second arrow followed close behind, shooting straight toward her shoulder. This time there was nothing to stop it. In the instant she dodged aside, the gates before her slowly swung shut.

Su Jiao collapsed heavily to the ground. Tears fell from her eyes like beads snapping from a broken string.

She had lived her life over again — and yet she was not even to be given the chance to claim her mother’s body?

She sat numbly in the falling rain, and an immense grief and helplessness swept over her all at once——

“Come!”

Xie Yan, who had come rushing after her, seized her around the waist in the rain and hauled her upright, raising his hand to force open the gates that were about to close shut.

His sword flashed with cold light before the guards. They had not even had time to react before they were hurled to the ground by the force of his deep internal energy.

“Xie Yan, Xie Yan!”

She came back to herself and threw her arms around his with a sudden, broken cry of grief.

Without a word, Xie Yan took her by the hand and walked with her across the threshold and forward.

“Third Prince, you dare defy the imperial edict! This is a capital offense!”

The guards snatched up their swords and came sprinting forward again. Before they could reach him, another surge of overbearing sword energy sent them flying back to the ground.

Su Jiao’s hurrying footsteps faltered for a moment, and the blankness in her expression slowly receded.

She had just begun to loosen her grip on his arm——

Xie Yan caught her hand in return, and pressed a box into it.

“Leave the palace.”

He met her eyes and spoke again, his tone brooking no argument.

It seemed almost as though he was also speaking to the guards behind them.

“Every charge and consequence — I will bear them all.”

****

By the time Su Jiao ran back to the Su family home, the outside of the house was already draped in white mourning cloth.

Her body went weak and she half-fell to the ground, stumbling her way into the main hall.

Inside, the black lacquered coffin had already been set in place. With trembling hands, she reached out and pushed open the lid. The moment she saw Madam Su’s face, all the emotions she had held in check throughout the journey shattered completely — her last thread of hope collapsed — and she dropped to her knees before the mourning hall, sobbing with heartbroken abandon.

Madam Su’s face was no different from the last time they had seen each other before the parting. She even wore a faint smile as she had passed, and Su Jiao remembered that before she left, her mother had urged her to take care of her health. Madam Su had watched her leave with tender, loving eyes — who could have imagined it would be a farewell forever?

“Mother… Mother… your daughter has come back. Won’t you look at me…”

She pressed her hands against the coffin with a heart-rending cry, nearly weeping herself into unconsciousness right there before the mourning altar.

Xie Yan stood behind her and listened, and even his habitually languid brow was heavy with grief.

“Didn’t I tell you to take care of your health? And you still smiled and said you’d wait for me to come home someday… Mother, how could you leave your daughter just like this?”

The ice-cold coffin severed the last thread connecting her to Madam Su as surely as a blade. Su Jiao collapsed against it, weeping.

“Mother… how am I to go on living…”

“Jiao Jiao, Jiao Jiao…”

Su Wei, dressed in white mourning clothes, came running from behind her and gently placed his hands on her shoulders.

He too had not slept for an entire night — his eyes were terribly red.

“Brother, what happened? What on earth happened?”

Su Jiao clutched his arm tightly, still unable to believe it.

“Mother suffered a sudden cardiac episode. On the way down the mountain, she stepped out of the carriage to get some air — and lost her footing and fell from the cliff…”

“How could it be a sudden cardiac episode? That’s absolutely impossible!”

Su Jiao refuted him the moment she heard his words.

No one knew Madam Su’s condition better than she did.

“It was indeed a cardiac episode.”

Su Wei’s face was heavy with grief. He assumed she simply could not accept the sudden terrible news.

His tone was slow but certain.

“Mother had been falling ill time and again ever since you entered the palace. She was extremely worried about your marriage — she wept through whole nights. At some point she must have developed the condition.”

“Who said so? Who said it was a cardiac episode?”

“When I had my people search for Mother’s body and bring it back, I had someone examine her. It was a cardiac episode — there’s no mistake.”

“It couldn’t be.”

Su Jiao could only find it absurd as she listened, and refuted him again.

If it had been her past self, she might still have misread the pulse. But having served as Empress and studied under that elder court physician for so many years, she could not possibly have made such a mistake in her diagnosis.

“Jiao Jiao… you’re exhausted.”

Her sudden vehemence left Su Wei momentarily taken aback. He then took hold of her shoulders.

“Rest for a while and compose yourself. If Mother were alive, she would certainly not want to see you like this.”

Su Jiao sank down before the mourning altar.

“I’ll stay here with Mother.”

Her mind drifted through memories of the time she had spent with Madam Su — from when she had stumbled about learning to walk, to when her mother had seen her into the wedding palanquin, to that final meeting in front of Huguo Temple.

She had watched her leave through the doorway, her tender gaze as warm and full of love as it had always been.

“Mother hoped you would be happy, and yet feared you would open your heart and be hurt.”

“Clatter——”

The box that Xie Yan had pressed into her hands at the palace gate — which she had clutched all the way here — fell from her slackened grip. A porcelain bottle rolled out from inside.

It was the life-saving medicine she had gone to such lengths trying to obtain from Xie Yan. And now there was no longer even a chance to give it away.

She buried her face in her hands and knelt before the mourning altar. A single clear tear slid down and skimmed across the cold floor.

Mother — why did you not… wait a little longer for me.

****

Su Jiao sat just like that before the mourning altar, keeping vigil. No matter how many people came to persuade her, she would not move so much as an inch.

She sat from daylight until dark, her hand resting on the ice-cold coffin, recounting Madam Su’s kindness over and over again.

She still could not understand it — how could it have been so sudden?

Her mother’s constitution could absolutely not have given way to a cardiac episode, yet Su Wei had sworn with certainty that a coroner and an imperial physician had both examined her pulse.

The road down from Huguo Temple was one along which the Emperor had passed — it would certainly have been cleared and guarded early on. The weather had been so bitterly cold. Why would her mother have stepped out of the carriage for air?

How could she have fallen down the mountain at just that moment?

Heaven was so cruel. She had lived her life over again, and it would not even grant her this much — this small chance to make up for one of her regrets.

It had even taken her mother… sooner than it had in her previous life.

Su Jiao pressed her forehead to the ground before the mourning altar, and the anguish in her chest overwhelmed all other grief. She curled her body in on itself, enduring again and again the agony of separation from her mother.

Until the sound of footsteps drew near from behind her.

A broad, warm hand settled gently on her shoulder, almost forcibly straightening her upright.

“Jiao Jiao.”

Su Wei’s face was even paler than it had been during the day. Countless servants waited outside the mourning hall. Within it, only the two siblings remained — facing each other in silence, and yet somehow sharing the same grief without words.

“Brother.”

“The Third Prince has entered the palace.”

Su Jiao gave a murmur of acknowledgment.

They had forced their way out together. While she had been kneeling here, she had heard eunuchs come to summon her several times already. Sooner or later, someone would have to go back to the palace and give an account of themselves.

“Don’t push yourself so hard. Your brother is here for whatever may come.”

Su Wei clasped her hands in his, as if hoping to pass some warmth from his body into hers — and to let Su Jiao know that she was never alone.

He let out a long sigh.

“Mother is gone. From now on it will be just the two of us. Jiao Jiao, no matter what your brother will…”

“Brother.”

Su Jiao cut him off, calling his name — softly and unsteadily, yet in the silent and empty mourning hall, it was utterly clear.

Su Wei heard her say:

“I want to leave the palace.”

Her mother’s death was by no means simple. She did not believe she had simply died of a sudden cardiac episode. She wanted to leave the palace — she wanted to get to the bottom of this.

Before, the Huishui Condensed Dew Pill had still given her some pause, constrained her steps to some degree. Now the thing was of no further use to her, and she had no wish to remain any longer in the imperial palace.

What she wanted, more than anything, was to keep watch beside her mother’s grave. Whatever came of it, that was all she wished for.

In that instant, Su Wei’s grip on her shoulder tightened. Through her daze, Su Jiao thought she detected the faintest tremor in his voice.

“All right.”

He worked his throat, and in the darkness his eyes gathered a silent, quiet smile.

“Just these next two days, Jiao Jiao.”

Su Wei left the mourning hall. Su Jiao slumped against the coffin as if all the strength had drained from her.

She had wept for an entire day. By now there were no more tears left in her eyes, yet she still had no wish to leave.

The eternal flame burned at her side. She had not eaten or drunk a single thing all day or night. She kept vigil just like this until nearly dawn.

A shaft of light slanted in through the window outside. Xie Yan came limping into the room and came to stand before her.

Su Jiao did not rise. Xie Yan walked to her, knelt before the mourning altar in a bow of respect, then gathered her hands into his.

Su Jiao tried to pull her hands away, but he held them fast, gently parting her fingers to expose her palms — raw and bloody.

“They need to be cleaned.”

He had brought a basin of clean water and a bottle of medicine and set them behind him. Su Jiao struggled again.

“It’s fine.”

What was the point of medicine now? Her mind was lost in thoughts of her mother, and in that daze she even thought it might not be so bad if they both simply died and were done with it.

She had lived her life over again, and she had not been able to protect the person she cared about most.

But Xie Yan would not let her pull away. He half-knelt before her, dipped a cloth in the water little by little, and following the same motions she had once used to dress his wounds, carefully cleansed her palms again and again.

A layer of cold frost still clung to him — it was easy enough to imagine he had only just come from the palace. She did not know how he had accounted for himself to Emperor Jia.

That Emperor who despised him so.

Su Jiao wanted to ask, wanted to offer some word of thanks. But there was not a shred of strength left in her body.

Xie Yan had forced his way out of the palace with her, and before they had even cleared the gate he had given her without hesitation the Huishui Condensed Dew Pill she had spent so long trying to obtain. In all honesty, he had been truly good to her.

The Huishui Condensed Dew Pill was a kindness he had bestowed on her. Then she would leave him a letter telling him about the First Prince’s affair — that could be how she repaid the debt.

Su Jiao closed her eyes. Xie Yan bandaged her injured hands with care. He rose to pour water, and Su Jiao settled back into her former spot.

She had not eaten all day. When she sat down, her vision went dark and she swayed. Su Jiao instinctively reached out to steady herself against the coffin.

She leaned close against it, and was just reaching up to wipe the tears from her face when her gaze fell on the fresh bloodstain on the bandage — and her body went rigid.

This blood was…

Su Jiao’s heartbeat shot to a frantic pace. She lowered her head and, with a trembling hand, touched again the spot on the coffin she had steadied herself against just moments before.

This time, far more blood came away on her hand — enough to stain nearly the whole of her palm red.

The black lacquered wood of the coffin showed no trace of any bloodstain. And the coffin itself had only just been delivered. So why… was there blood beneath it?

Had her brother not said that their mother had suffered a cardiac episode and fallen from the cliff?

The expression in Su Jiao’s eyes shifted again and again. After a moment’s hesitation, she made up her mind and threw open the coffin lid.

****

After pouring the water, Xie Yan came back from the covered walkway outside. At a glance he saw the slight figure seated before the coffin.

She seemed to have grown even thinner than when they had left together earlier that day, her entire person suffused with the ashen pallor of defeat.

Others assumed she could not bear the sudden loss of her mother. Only Xie Yan knew that a greater part of her grief was powerlessness.

She was, after all, someone who had lived a life over again.

He walked quickly inside and gently turned her by the shoulders.

Su Jiao looked up at him and slowly opened her mouth to speak. Before she could get a word out, she suddenly bowed her head and coughed twice.

“——”

A mouthful of fresh blood poured from her lips.

“Su Jiao!”

Xie Yan was immediately overcome with alarm. Only now did he notice that her expression was not what it had been when he left — she seemed as if she had sunk into something, trapped in a stupor, her eyes utterly devoid of life.

A surge of panic rose in his chest. Moving almost without thinking, he reached into his robes, pulled out a porcelain bottle, hastily tipped the Huishui Condensed Dew Pill out into his palm, gripped her jaw, and pressed it into her mouth.

“Jiao Jiao, Jiao Jiao!”

He called out to her urgently twice. When she did not respond, he gathered her up at once to carry her outside.

“Xie Yan!”

She called his name from within his arms, her voice barely a breath.

“Don’t fetch a physician. Let me go back.”

He lowered his head abruptly, and the moment he saw her gaunt and ravaged face clearly, something caught in his throat.

He knew full well that Su Jiao, as she was now, was hanging on by a single thread. Yet he did not want her to die.

Xie Yan held her slight body in his arms — it felt as weightless as a single sheet of paper.

Floating in his arms, yet cutting into his heart like a blade.

He did not know why she had died in her previous life. But never before this moment had he understood so clearly — he did not want her to die.

To be reborn was a great gift from Heaven. The Huishui Condensed Dew Pill was nothing in comparison.

He held her tightly and called out to her once more, his voice rough.

“Jiao Jiao.”

He did not merely want her to live. He wanted her to live well.