Chapter 39 It's all fate

The ashes of the burnt sandalwood fell into the copper furnace. Lady Changning listened in a daze to Jiang Xi's heart-wrenching words, and suddenly she felt a fishy and sweet taste in her throat.

She turned her head tremblingly to look at Aunt Ai. The other person's disheveled hair was reflected in the candlelight on the altar, distorted like a demon.

"Husband... Madam..." As soon as Aunt Ai opened her mouth, Ling Ji knocked her jaw off her feet.

The wife of the Earl of Changning stood up, holding the incense table. Her armor scraped against the red lacquer surface with a sharp sound. The paulownia figurine on display suddenly tumbled to the ground and cracked in two—the crack splitting right through the cinnabar talisman inscribed with the words "Pei Ji."

"lady!"

When Lord Changning rushed into the courtyard, he saw his wife kneeling in the mess on the ground.

Her apricot-colored floral jacket was stained with incense ash, and her cheeks, which had been round ten days ago, were now frighteningly sunken. Uncle's heart was pounding, but the moment he picked up the doll, he felt like he was falling into an icy cave.

"The seventh day of the seventh month of the Dingyou year..." He trembled as he recited his son's birth date. The dark red ink on the yellow talisman pierced his eyes, causing them to ache. Behind him, the clang of the Imperial Guards' armor clashing grew closer. Ye Shengwei, wearing his dark official boots, stepped over the strewn paper money and reached out to pull the puppet from his hand.

Jiang Xi handed over another piece of talisman paper at the right moment: "This is handwritten by Madam."

Earl Changning stared at the handwriting on the talisman paper, which was exactly the same as the handwriting on the marriage certificate, and suddenly remembered the lotus purse his wife insisted on embroidering for Jier last month.

It turned out that she had sewn the talisman into the lining of her purse at that time!

"Madam, please accompany me to see the emperor." Ye Sheng raised his hand slightly, and the imperial guards immediately presented the shackles.

"No!" Earl Changning suddenly opened his arms to block his wife. "Commander Ye, my wife started having nightmares half a month ago. These witchcraft things must be a frame-up!" He said, pulling his wife's sleeve. "Ayuan, say something!"

The wife of the Earl of Changning glanced blankly at the peacock patch on her husband's official robe. She had embroidered it herself, and hidden among the stitches was a peace charm she had obtained from Daxiangguo Temple. But now...

"Master, please be careful with your words." Ye Shengwei put the puppet into the sandalwood box. "The emperor received a secret report this morning that Pei Shaoqing has been detained in the imperial study by the emperor in the palace because of this matter."

It was as if thunder struck his ears, and Lord Changning staggered and held onto the incense table.

The portrait of the Three Pure Ones was suddenly blown down by the draft and covered his wife's pale face.

"Half an incense stick." Ye Shengwei suddenly said, "I'll be waiting outside the courtyard."

When the footsteps faded away, Chang Ningbo held his wife's face in his hands, trembling, and said, "Ayuan, you are confused! Ji'er is our only child!"

The late spring wind blew the withered tangerine leaves past the window lattice. Lord Changning knelt on the blue brick floor, holding his wife's hand.

The hand was as withered as an autumn leaf, with sawdust still between the nails from scratching Pei Ji's coffin.

"Madam..." His throat rolled, and tears fell on the burn scar on the back of Madam's hand. It was left by Madam when she overturned the eternal lamp in her madness on Pei Ji's birthday last year.

Suddenly, the sound of children playing filled the air outside the diamond-shaped window, as if it were a scene from thirty years ago. That year, his half-brother was reciting "National Policy" in the corridor, while he hid behind the rockery, chewing on a candy painting. His father patted his half-brother's head and praised him, "My son is smart." When he turned and glanced at him, his eyes were like those of a broken pottery jar gathering dust in the corner of the corridor.

"That night when Ji'er had a high fever, he grabbed my fingers and cried out, 'I'm cold.'" The lady suddenly spoke, her eyes fixed on the spider weaving a web on the beam. "You held your new, skinny foal and said, 'Don't get over your illness.'"

Earl Changning shuddered. That Western horse later earned him great honor at the autumn hunt, but Ji'er, wrapped in three layers of quilts, was still shaking. He remembered peeking through the crack in the door and seeing the wet nurse pouring bitter medicine into the child's mouth.

"When the current 'Ji'er' called you father for the first time," the lady suddenly dug her fingertips into his palm, "the corners of your mouth almost stretched to your ears."

Drops of blood rolled down his palms, but Earl Changning felt no pain. That day, Pei Ji composed "Song of the Frontier" at a poetry gathering, and the Imperial Censor personally poured him wine, praising the saying, "A tiger father cannot have a dog son." He drank the entire cup with a carefree air, and on his way home, he made a detour to the West Market to buy ten kilograms of fine Huizhou ink.

The iron horses on the eaves clanged, and he seemed to see the silly child stumbling towards him again, holding a candied haws. His dark official uniform was stained with sugar, and he raised his hand to push the child, causing him to stumble. Little Ji'er fell and sat on the moss, and the candied haws rolled into the gutter, but he still smiled at him with his dusty little face.

"That year you broke two of his ribs," the lady said in a voice as soft as drifting catkins, "because he wet his pants at the banquet."

Changning Bo suddenly began to dry heave, a bitter taste of bile rising in his throat. The teasing looks from the guests that day were like a thorn in his flesh. He dragged the child by the collar into the woodshed. Five-year-old Ji'er curled up in the straw, tugging at the hem of his clothes: "Daddy, don't be angry..."

Outside the window, thunder roared, and a torrential downpour descended. Earl Changning gazed at the rosewood penholder on his desk, which Pei Ji had sent him. The other day, the child had said, "Father's study needs new furnishings." Why hadn't he asked then how his son, who had been mentally retarded for over a decade, could suddenly master the Four Treasures of the Study?

"Actually, you already knew." The lady suddenly chuckled, a mad light flashing in her cloudy eyes. "That night, you were guarding his bedside, and you heard him wake up and shout 'cell phone', 'time travel'..."

Earl Changning trembled all over. That was the deepest poison in his heart—when the imposter displayed his astonishing talent, when his colleagues clapped him on the shoulder with envy, when the emperor personally bestowed the plaque "Excellent Parenting", he personally smeared gold powder on the wound and pretended not to smell the stench.

Torrential rain washed over the bluestone slabs of the courtyard, and a vague image of little Ji'er crouched on the ground, drawing candy stains. That day, the child dipped his saliva in honey and, with a twisted hand, wrote the word "father." Disgusted, he raised his foot to smear the candy letter, but it couldn't erase the gnawing pain in his heart.

"The night he left, he was clutching the small peach wood sword you gave him." Madam pulled out a half-burned piece of wood from under her pillow. "He said Daddy gave it to me, and it can drive away monsters that eat children."

The Earl of Changning finally collapsed to the ground. He had carved that crudely made mahogany sword for Ji'er's fifth birthday.

He held the child in his arms every night as if he were a treasure, until one day, when he was drunk, he stepped on the child and crushed him. The sharp thorns of the splintered wood pierced his palm, and the pain was a hundred times more painful than the beating from the imperial cane.

In the sound of the night watch, he seemed to see little Ji'er standing in the rain, his red coat, like a candied haws, faded to a pale white. The child tilted his head and smiled at him, black blood slowly flowing from all his orifices: "Daddy, Ji'er is not cold anymore."

The candlelight flickered into distorted spots in Lady Changning's eyes. She looked at her husband, weeping on his knees, and suddenly felt that the face she had slept with for twenty years was terribly unfamiliar.

The moonlight filtering through the carved window lattices wove spider-web-like shadows on the floor tiles, just like the shattered first half of her life at this moment.

"You knew he wasn't Ji'er." Her nail-dyed fingers brushed across her husband's trembling shoulders, the gold-thread peacock patch pricking her fingertips. "That New Year's Eve, when he had a high fever and you hugged him and said, 'My son has suffered,' I should have understood."

Earl Changning's tears fell on the blue bricks, leaving dark stains. He recalled that snowy night when a farmer knocked on the corner gate, holding a swaddled baby boy. The cinnabar mole between the child's eyebrows was exactly the same as the one Ji'er had at birth.

"Madam, back then Ji'er did..."

"Really what?" Lady Changning suddenly grabbed the bronze chime from the altar and slammed it down at her husband's feet with a clang. "Do you think I didn't hear the midwife's drunken nonsense? 'The little boy is not pregnant, I'm afraid he won't survive the full month'—"

Memories flooded back. At that spring banquet, three-year-old Ji'er clutched the hem of her apricot-colored skirt, his glass-like eyes misty, "Mother, Ji'er's back hurts." Busy dealing with the wife of the Marquis of Yongchang, she casually pushed the child to the nanny and said, "Take the young master back to the room to rest."

When Ji'er finally grabbed the corner of her sleeve, his fingertips were still stained with the pine nut candy he had peeled for her.

"Madam! The young master is coughing up blood!"

That exclamation, mingled with the thrum of the troupe's gongs and drums, was like a stone dropped into a deep pond. When she rushed back to the west courtyard, she saw only a pale little face beneath the brocade quilt. Ji'er clutched half a piece of candy, the melted syrup clinging to the peach wood talisman on her palm—the one she had obtained from Daxiangguo Temple last month.

"Later," Lady Changning stroked her husband's wet face, "I fed him cinnabar water every day and pricked his feet with silver needles, thinking that maybe I could call Ji'er's soul back."

The night watch drum outside the window startled night crows. She suddenly remembered that when Pei Ji was thirteen, she had locked him up in the ancestral hall for three days and three nights. The young man curled up on the mat, clutching half a cold, hard cake in his hand, his eyes frighteningly clear: "Mother, the ancestral hall is leaking."

That night, a torrential downpour poured down. Standing in the corridor, listening to the crackling of tiles, she suddenly remembered that Ji'er was most afraid of thunderstorms. When she rushed into the ancestral hall, Pei Ji was wrapping the shivering little maidservant in the yellow cloth from the altar.

"Later I discovered that he had carved the word 'Ji' on his wrist." Lady Changning opened the birthday gift Pei Ji had given her last year. Inside the brocade box lay a string of agarwood Buddhist beads, each bead engraved with the mantra for rebirth. "This fool..."

The sound of Ye Shengwei's sword clashing came from outside the courtyard.

The wife of the Marquis of Changning took off her Nine-Phoenix Pearl Hairpin and slowly inserted it into her bun. "If I had looked back that year, Ji'er might still be holding onto the hem of my skirt." She suddenly chuckled. "Now, look what's happened. I've lost my child."

The bronze mirror reflected a strand of white hair on her temples, and the candle wick popped. Lady Changning looked at the incense ashes all over the ground and suddenly felt that the shackles on her shoulders were broken.

The celadon candlestick flickered in the draft, and the knuckles of Lady Changning's fingers, clutching the Buddhist beads, turned white.

She recounted the strange things that happened in Xiangguo Temple. Her speech was as steady as if she was reciting scriptures, but the cold Junshan silver needle on the table was trembling violently.

"That day the old monk said he could summon spirits." Before she finished speaking, she suddenly coughed violently, and dark red spots appeared on the handkerchief.

Chang Ningbo reached out to help her, but she dodged him. In the candlelight, the face that had once been the most beautiful in Beijing was now as withered and yellow as a fallen leaf in late autumn.

The sound of armor clashing could be heard from outside the courtyard. The scabbard of the Imperial Guards commander, Ye Shengwei, tapped against the bluestone steps. "Master, it's three quarters past midnight."

Earl Changning stared at his wife's white hair, remembering her mumbling to herself last night while holding Pei Ji's childhood tiger-head shoes. The gold thread on the shoes had long since faded, but they were a hundred times more vivid than the look in her eyes at that moment.

"Go." The lady suddenly opened the window, and dusk wrapped in locust flowers rushed in. "Since he has prepared a backup plan, he will definitely be able to..." Before she finished speaking, she coughed again, and blood foam splashed on the window frame, just like the cinnabar that Pei Ji vomited when he had a high fever that year.

Earl Changning stumbled out two steps. His wife looked back and smiled, a look reminiscent of their wedding night. Back then, under the bright red candlelight, she had said timidly, "From now on, I am a member of the Pei family." Now, with the bloodstains still etched on her lips, she said, "It's all fate."

As the sound of horse hooves faded away, four maids came in one after another.

Jiang Xi gripped the short blade in his sleeve tightly, and the young master's instructions before leaving rang in his ears: "If the lady touches the third layer of the dressing box, knock her out immediately!"

The people who were watching the excitement outside the mansion stood on tiptoe to look, and suddenly saw the vermilion lacquered gate wide open.

The tied-up old woman was thrown into the prison van, and someone recognized her as Master Hui Jing, who often distributed amulets from Xiangguo Temple.

On the second floor of the teahouse, Luo Zhaohan's almond tea had gone cold, and his fingertips unconsciously stroked the jade hairpin.

"Go back home." She had just lowered the curtain when her stomach suddenly ached - she had also had the same sudden heart palpitations on the night when Madam Pei hanged herself in her previous life.

"Turn around!" she shouted, lifting the curtain. "Go to the Marquis of Changning's mansion!"

The wheels rolled over dried blood in the cracks of the bluestone slabs. It was the wound left by the hidden arrow when Pei Ji left the house three days ago. Luo Zhaohan clutched the carriage curtain, remembering what Pei Ji said in the rain that night: "This time I must protect my mother."

At that moment, inside the ancestral hall of the Marquisate of Changning, the Marquis' wife was combing her hair in front of Pei Ji's tablet. The teeth of the mahogany comb were tangled with graying hair. She hummed a nursery rhyme she had used to lull herself to sleep as she removed a porcelain vase from the third tier of her dressing table.

The bottle is painted with twin lotus flowers and was made by Pei Ji himself in the year he first learned to read.

"Madam!" When Jiang Xi broke through the door, the porcelain bottle had tilted. He raised his hand and threw the short blade, knocking over the poison. The brown liquid seeped into the cracks between the blue bricks, hissing and emitting white smoke.

There was a sudden commotion in the front yard. Luo Zhaohan rushed in, holding up her skirt, and saw his wife slumped on the futon.

In addition to Pei Ji's tablet on the altar, there was also a faded cloth tiger - it was the old thing she had seen in Pei Ji's study in her previous life.

"Do you know what's hidden inside this cloth tiger?" Luo Zhaohan panted as he pried open the tiger's head, letting the yellowed paper fall out. "It's 'Mother, May You Be Well' written to you by Master Pei when you were ten years old."

The lady picked up the paper tremblingly, her tears blurring the childish handwriting.

…

The Earl of Changning followed Ye Shengwei as they hurried through the palace aisle, the clatter of horse hooves pounding the bluestone slabs in a rapid rhythm. As they rounded the last vermilion palace wall, they ran into another group of imperial guards, escorting a gray carriage.

"Commander!" The leading captain dismounted, his armor clanging against his horse. "The prisoner has been brought in!"

Earl Changning stood on tiptoe to peer, only to see three gray-robed monks being dragged off the carriage, chained to their waists. The round-faced monk in the lead, with bloodstains on his forehead, was the monk who had come to the mansion to lecture his wife the day before.

He clenched his fists in anger, his nails digging deep into his palms: "Underneath the vegan exterior lies a heart of a snake and a scorpion!"

Ye Sheng waved his hand swiftly, and the two teams merged into a single column, rushing towards the imperial study. The soles of Lord Changning's boots practically rubbed sparks, the fear he'd felt upon seeing the puppet in the mansion just now boiling over like hot oil in his heart—now, he just wanted to confirm with his own eyes whether the figure, always dressed in azure, was alright.

For ten years, ever since his eldest son had insisted on moving to a separate courtyard on the outskirts of the city, they had always been separated by a distance of three meters. But when he saw the two words "Pei Ji" written crookedly on the doll, he actually crushed the teacup in his hand.

"Xuan——"

The sharp sound of the communication startled the Earl of Changning. He hurriedly straightened his crooked jade belt and nearly tripped over the threshold as he stepped into the imperial study. The golden brick floor was freezing cold, yet he could feel the sweat on his back soaking through his shirt. Last year at the New Year's Eve palace banquet, he had crouched on the ground counting the cracks between the bricks as the emperor passed by, not daring to even look up to examine the twelve emblems on his dragon robe.