escape
Chapter 1
At the age of sixteen, with the strong support of my uncles, aunts, brothers and sisters, I finally managed to secretly leave the capital without my mother's knowledge.
If I don't escape now, I'll surely be drowned by the matchmaker my mother found, the matchmaker's spittle, and the birthday invitations she brought.
My mother is the one who least wants me to leave home. If possible, I would prefer to stay by her side, get married in style, have children, be a good wife and mother, and take the children back to my parents' home every now and then. In the end, I will become a grandmother of a large family, a noble lady of the court, and look on with a kind face and a happy smile as I admire the bunch of ugly children under my knees.
I don't want to get married, not even if the other person is the emperor.
Of course, the emperor wouldn't be interested in me. In a sense, I'm a member of the imperial family, and such a thing that goes against the laws of nature and human sentiment would never happen. I just—don't want to get married.
My mother herself was never formally married. I took her surname, Zhao, but it seems that because of this, she felt even more that as her daughter, I should make up for her regret by wearing a phoenix coronet and embroidered robes and sharing life and death with a man she had never met but knew only by his name and birth date.
This dream often chills me to the bone. The cold rain startles me from my dream, as if I have wasted half my life, with only my children by my side, and my husband, whose face is blurred, saying affectionately: "My wife, you have suffered a lifetime."
No!
My wails came from the bottom of my heart.
Fortunately, I did have supportive elders in my family, such as my uncle.
My uncle is my mother's older brother. Whenever he hears my mother complaining about my extreme views, he always gently advises her that children and grandchildren have their own blessings. Xiao Xi is still young and very intelligent. She is quite opinionated and there is no need to worry too much. My mother's response to my uncle, this persuader, is to remain silent and then let out a sigh of deep sorrow.
This tactic worked immediately; my uncle would quickly switch sides and start scolding me.
Then, to demonstrate their stance, they would send someone to deliver the name and birth date of the suitable candidate another day.
I have mixed feelings about this kind of uncle.
Aunt Fairy is different.
She was the only one among my elders who dared to yell at my mother: "So what if Xiaoxi never gets married? Will she suffer? Are you suffering now?"
However, her mother had a trick for dealing with Aunt Xian, though she didn't use it often: She silently lowered her head, her brows furrowed with a melancholy reminiscent of Xi Shi, her eyes sparkling and red-rimmed. After hesitating twice, she said softly, "What you said is true... I'm just afraid that if we go, Xiao Xi will be all alone, without anyone to support her. She'll be like a 'legless shrimp,' what will we do then?"
Every time I hear this, I can't help but secretly roll my eyes. I don't understand the reasoning behind my mother's words. Why do I have to find a pillar of support? I'm not a shrimp, and I clearly have two legs to run on.
However, this not-so-clever trick left Aunt Xian speechless time and time again. She would look at me with affection, just like my uncle, and pat my head. The only difference was that she wouldn't "shamelessly" turn against me. She would just hold back for a while and say, "Let's take it slow. There's no rush. We need to find someone who is a good match. Besides, Xiao Xi is still young."
I'm still young.
The fact is that my cousins are all older than me, with my eldest cousin being nine years older than me, and he hasn't officially gotten married yet. I really don't understand why my mother is so anxious about it, as if if she waits any longer, I will become a thing of the past and no one will want me.
"You're a girl," the young woman comforted me, but under my angry glare, she still managed an awkward smile. "I'm not married either, but... but my family's wishes..."
As she spoke, her voice would fade away, and often two blushes, like the color of the morning sun, would appear on her cheeks.
well!
After my sixteenth birthday, my mother became even more insistent. Even if I didn't get married this year, she insisted on finding a suitable person to be engaged to. I was terrified and secretly contacted Aunt Xian. I also went to the palace alone to find my uncle and declared to them with righteous indignation: If you force me to marry, I will become a nun!
To prove my sincerity, I even took out the ordination certificate that my older brother had secretly given me. But this was a miscalculation. Not only was the certificate confiscated by my uncle, but my older brother also got a severe scolding from him.
My uncle asked me, "Xiaoxi, if you don't want to get married, what are your plans?"
I was in high spirits, my eyes shining: "I want to leave the capital! If I get married, I'll never be able to leave the city again! Uncle, I also want to visit the place where you were once enfeoffed as a prince!"
The uncle was stunned, then smiled helplessly: "Lingnan is not some blessed land. The climate there is hot and humid, and mosquitoes breed everywhere. It has always been a place where the imperial court exiled criminals. Why do you want to go there?"
“I want to see elephants,” I said.
It is said that when I was a child, the Southern Yue Kingdom presented two elephants as tribute. The enormous creatures caused a sensation throughout the city. My mother held me in her arms to see them, but I can't recall a single detail about them.
By the time I could remember, those two elephants were already enjoying their old age in the royal garden and were rarely seen. After some time, they passed away peacefully, and I naturally had no chance to see them again.
After they died, their ivory was removed and made into various ornaments. The emperor bestowed them upon many people, and I received one of the rings. My mother strung it with red thread and hung it around my neck as a necklace.
Of course, this is only one of the reasons.
My second reason is that I just want to go anywhere, anywhere—the sky is high and the sea is wide, the snow-capped mountains are vast and the desert is vast—it's all more desirable and something to look forward to than staying at home waiting to get married and marrying into another family.
My uncle didn't scold me for my wild idea. He nodded, accepted my statement, and after pondering for a while, he actually said to me, "If I grant you this wish, you can go out for a while and come back, but you must not mention marriage again, nor can you disobey your mother at will. Choose a good family for yourself. Is that alright?"
I was overjoyed and nodded eagerly, asking incredulously, "Really? Is that possible?"
“You,” Uncle sighed with a smile, “I’m just afraid you’ll really cause trouble and leave the family. Then things will get chaotic, and your mother will be heartbroken and blame herself.”
I understand my mother's feelings, and hearing my uncle say that made me feel very bad: "It's not my mother's fault that Dad is gone, and I've been disciplined by everyone."
“Xiao Xi is a good child,” my uncle patted my head again, as if I were six years old instead of sixteen. “Uncle believes you know what you’re doing.”
I was instantly moved to tears, and I wanted to hug my uncle and cry my heart out. My uncle was like a spring breeze; just listening to him speak could invigorate one's spirits, not to mention that his support was not just lip service.
My uncle's idea was to let me blend into my older brother's procession as he made a southern tour on behalf of the emperor, and to reward the tribal kings and chieftains of various barbarian tribes. I would travel to the south with the procession and return with it.
Aunt Xian approved of the idea. Although my older brother thought I was a hot potato, he obviously didn't have the authority to make a decision on this matter.
The problem lies with the mother.
Nobody wanted to discuss this with her, because they knew she would absolutely not agree.
After much hesitation and back and forth, the uncle finally mustered the courage to suggest, "Why don't we keep it from Chang Le for now?"
Aunt Xian was definitely waiting for these words, and she immediately clapped her hands and said, "Okay! It's settled then!"
Looking at my two respected elders, I suddenly realized what to do when faced with a bottomless pit—just go around it.
And so the matter was settled. First, the young lady formally invited me to the palace to renew our sisterly bond.
My mother couldn't object, of course, and this kind of thing happened often. My older sister and I were close in age and had been playmates since childhood. We weren't childhood sweethearts, but we were childhood friends.
Once you enter the palace gates, it's like entering a deep sea...
I felt like a fish in water, a bird returning to its nest. On the day I set off, as I stepped out of the palace gate and looked back, all I wanted to do was laugh out loud three times.
My "running away from home," which was originally scheduled to take two months, or at the latest three months, was completely ruined by a sudden uproar. I was involuntarily drawn into a vortex and sank deeper and deeper.
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