Extra: Mitsui Family Daughter: Sokage Sokōwa
Jing Bai remembered that when she was eight years old, her mother held her in her arms and told her that she would marry someone in the future.
"Who is that person?" she asked naively.
The mother then quietly pointed it out to her.
Outside her grandfather's study, through a clump of green bamboo, she caught a glimpse of a boy sitting upright, listening to her grandfather lecture.
He was thinner than she had imagined, and his profile looked a little frail in the shadows of the bamboo.
She was still too young to know the difference between beauty and ugliness. She only vaguely felt that the boy looked... a little pitiful.
However, this thought only flashed through my mind.
The world of an eight-year-old child cannot hold too much heaviness.
Her life did not change at all because of this marriage. She continued to follow the routine path of a lady from a noble family: reading, practicing calligraphy, learning the piano, and painting.
Occasionally, she would follow her mother in a small carriage with green curtains, traveling through the deep alleys and mansions of Suzhou City, attending flower banquets and poetry gatherings. Through the raised corner of the carriage curtain, she could catch a glimpse of the vivid lights and shadows of the city outside, a world completely different from the exquisite cage she was in.
In this way, two years passed quietly.
The boy was leaving for the distant capital, and after careful consideration, the Jing family decided to take her with him.
This time, the mother was more blunt: "Bai'er, you will be the queen in the future."
"Queen? What's that?" she asked, looking up.
Her mother gently stroked her cheek and said softly, "The Queen is the most noble woman in the world."
The most noble woman... She suddenly thought of the boy she had only met a few times.
Was it because of him? Was it because of him that she would become that kind of person in the future? She felt nothing in her heart, as if she were listening to a story that had nothing to do with her.
Since I was born this way, I'll just do it, she thought calmly.
Her father took her and the boy all the way north and arrived at the unfamiliar capital.
She lived in Jing Mansion in the capital, and the boy was sent to the deep palace with red walls and yellow tiles. Since then, she has never seen him again.
In fact, when she was in Suzhou, she hardly saw him.
But because of her status as the future queen, everyone in the palace, including her parents, looked at her differently. There was cautious speculation amidst their respect, and unspeakable calculations mixed in with their closeness.
She began to be taught how to be a queen.
She was a voracious reader, and she couldn't help but come across chapters in history books about relatives by marriage, how their power was so great, but it vanished in the blink of an eye, and how the rise and fall of a family depended on one person...
But she told no one about these vague thoughts.
Because she gradually realized that since some time, her father and mother seemed to no longer be just her parents, but more like an existence that she could not describe.
In short, she began to feel that she was all alone, surrounded by people.
When I was fourteen years old, my grandfather came to the capital in person.
Not long after, that boy, no, now the young prince Ning Yanhe, was also taken out of the palace by his grandfather and moved into the Jing Mansion.
Suddenly, the entire Jing Mansion began to revolve around him, with her also tied to him.
She had secretly seen him several times.
He had grown a lot taller and had the tall and straight features of a young boy, but there was always a layer of gloom lingering between his brows, and the look in his eyes was exactly the same as in her memory, so pitiful.
That day, she saw him walking alone through the courtyard again.
Still very pitiful.
She made the first bold decision in her life.
She went to ask to see her parents: "My daughter... wants to play a piece of music for him."
Her father was stunned and looked at her for a long time, and finally went to report to her grandfather.
Grandfather pondered for a moment, then nodded, his tone unfathomable: "Young couples should always have some affection for each other."
So, in that secluded pavilion, she burned incense, washed her hands, and played a piece of "High Mountains and Flowing Water" for him.
The sound of the piano was murmuring, and she wondered if he could understand the meaning of finding a soulmate in the song. She just thought that he must be grieving for his sister whose life or death was uncertain.
When the song ended, she quietly raised her eyes and saw his figure standing in the shadow of the tree downstairs, listening. Their eyes met for a moment, even though they were separated by space.
She quickly embraced the zither and disappeared into the depths of the pavilion.
Later, her mother happily told her that His Royal Highness Prince Qing had decided to officially enthrone her as queen at the coronation ceremony.
My mother said that this was proof that His Highness loved her.
She listened quietly, without much joy in her heart. She said to herself, since that's the case, then I will try my best to be a good queen, and in the future... stay by his side.
On the day of her enthronement, she dressed in her best, waiting for the moment to become the mother of the country.
What awaited him was the upheaval of heaven and earth.
When my grandfather went out in the early morning, he was still worried, but when he came back in the evening, his face was as pale as death.
Her mother rushed in crying and hugged her: "It's over! Bai'er, our Jing family is finished!"
Sure enough, the wrath of thunder arrived in an instant.
All male members of the Jing family who participated in the treason, including her father, were convicted and executed.
Although the women managed to save their lives, they fell from the clouds in an instant, and their former glory vanished into thin air.
In the blink of an eye, the huge Jing family was reduced to only her grandfather who was imprisoned in the mansion and her, the "queen".
The next day, my grandfather also passed away, having drunk a cup of poisoned wine.
In the huge Jing family, she is the only one left.
She was led to Prince Qing's mansion and listened to the eunuch announcing the decree: She was canonized as Empress Zhaoxi, and was honored and granted the right to marry on her own in the future. Regardless of her children's origins, they would inherit the title of Prince Qing.
That young man ascended the throne and left the stage in the most tragic way possible, but before he died, he paved a seemingly honorable path for his wife.
She was wearing the queen's gown and sitting in a dazzling red brocade.
After a long time, a warm tear finally slid down from the corner of his eye.
It turns out that this is the queen.
*
Ten years have passed like water flowing over bluestone, silently and without a trace.
In the seventh year of Taichu, time seemed to have stopped in Prince Qing's mansion.
In addition to her, there were some women from the Jing family who had survived by chance and relied on her status to survive. She was 24 years old and had been trapped in this gorgeous and lonely cage for ten years.
She thought about it for a long, long time, a full ten years.
Finally, he picked up his pen and wrote the first memorial, presenting it to the boy's sister, the current Emperor Taichu, Ning Lingyi.
The content of the memorial was very simple, she wanted to go for a walk outside.
The imperial edict came down quickly, and the expected approval was given.
When she set foot on Suzhou again, her hometown had changed a lot.
The Jing family, once a prominent family for a thousand years, has fallen into disrepair, becoming a vague memory in the streets and alleys. People may still remember the legend of Ning Yanhe, the "One-Day Emperor," but few mention the once-prominent Jing family anymore.
In the Jing family, she is the only one left with the empty title of "Queen Zhaoxi".
She walked alone in the streets, looking at the lively faces of passers-by. Returning to the house where she was temporarily staying, she took out the golden seal that represented the queen's honor and looked at it for a long time under the lamp.
What did this golden seal bring her?
"I'm not the queen," she whispered to the young figure in the air who had been silent for many years, "I'm Jing Bai."
Afterwards, a secret letter was delivered to the capital by express horse and placed on Ning Lingyi's desk.
Ning Lingyi looked at the secret letter and pondered for a long time. Finally, she wrote a word in red ink:
allow.
*
In the eighth year of Taichu, sad news came from Prince Qing's Mansion. Empress Zhaoxi Jing had been ill for a long time and no medicine could cure her. She passed away suddenly.
Before her death, she submitted a petition to the court with earnest words: As the wife of Emperor Zhaoxi, Ning Yanhe, she did not want anyone other than the Ning family to inherit the title of Prince Qing in the future and tarnish the good reputation of Emperor Zhaoxi after his death. Therefore, she earnestly requested that the title of Prince Qing be removed to ensure the peace of the emperor's spirit.
Ning Lingyi was moved by her loyalty and loyalty, and issued an edict to grant her request, and ordered that she be buried in the imperial mausoleum with her brother Ning Yanhe to fulfill her name.
*
Many years later.
In the backyard of a small but elegantly maintained embroidery shop in a street market in Suzhou, Jing Bai, who is already middle-aged, neatly counted the accounts for the day and told the clerk to close the shop.
She returned to the quiet inner room and took out a portrait of Emperor Zhaoxi that she had copied privately from the bottom of the box. The young man in the painting had handsome features, but his eyes carried the familiar melancholy in her memory.
She looked at it quietly for a long time, and finally, just shook her head slightly.
"You," she said to the person in the painting, "are not that great either."
"I don't want to sacrifice my life for you."
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