06
The Crown Prince didn’t return until evening.
He wore a black robe edged with dark gold patterns. His bearing was extraordinary, and his features were far more upright than Riley Johnson’s. He truly was worthy of being the heir.
“You? Riley Johnson’s secondary consort, wanting to surrender to me?” He turned his face toward Riley Brooks and asked.
“This woman says she knows Prince Sheng’s weakness.” Riley Brooks clasped his hands and answered respectfully.
“Actually, you can’t really call it a weakness. I just wanted to make something up so you’d take me away.” I suddenly spoke up.
“…” Riley Brooks’s expression froze. After a long pause, he managed to say, “Your Highness, she says she knows who the woman in Prince Sheng’s heart is.”
I nodded. “I know who she is. If Your Highness will help me leave Prince Sheng’s residence, I’ll tell you.”
Morgan Carter said, “Oh,” then smiled and asked me, “Tell me first, and I’ll see whether I’m interested in helping you.”
“Her name is Taylor Anderson.” I immediately blurted out the most important piece of information.
Oh, no, oh, no. He asks, and I answer. At this rate, how am I supposed to negotiate? I’m really not cut out for bargaining.
Morgan Carter glanced at Riley Brooks and asked, “Have you heard of her?”
Riley Brooks shook his head. “I haven’t heard of anyone named Taylor Anderson among the daughters of the prominent families in the capital.”
“Her features look a lot like mine, but she isn’t as beautiful. You can look for her based on my appearance,” I added.
“…” The corner of Riley Brooks’s eye twitched. He reminded me, “His Highness hasn’t agreed to your terms yet.”
Did I not know that? But I couldn’t control my mouth.
Morgan Carter gave a cold laugh. “What you’ve said doesn’t seem very useful. There are probably plenty of women who look like you.”
I looked up at him for a moment. Like me… there were lots of…
This Crown Prince must be blind.
I was just about to risk asking whether the Crown Prince was blind when Riley Brooks gave a quiet cough. “Your Highness, it shouldn’t be difficult to find other women who look like her.”
“Then leave it to you to handle,” Morgan Carter ordered.
“Then what am I supposed to do?” I asked softly.
“Find this woman somewhere to stay.” Morgan Carter gave me a cold glance, then instructed Riley Brooks, “Once you find the woman named Taylor Anderson, just find somewhere and deal with her.”
Just? Somewhere? Deal with her?
I hadn’t expected the Crown Prince to fall for me at first sight, but the least he could do was understand the basic idea of treating a woman gently, right? How could he just “deal with me” like that?
07
I was kept under guard in the Eastern Palace for ten whole days before I was finally released.
Riley Brooks had found the woman named Taylor Anderson five days earlier. Taylor’s mother was Han, while her father was a Hu general who commanded tens of thousands of troops.
Riley Johnson and Taylor Anderson had been deeply in love, and the military power in her father’s hands was the greatest threat to the Crown Prince’s path to the throne.
Riley Johnson was immediately placed under house arrest. It was called house arrest, but in practice it was no different from stripping him of his title and keeping him confined.
The letters exchanged between him and Taylor Anderson were intercepted, proving that he had colluded with the enemy. The emperor wanted to save face for the royal family, so he didn’t deal with the matter publicly.
Who would’ve thought that a secret I’d let slip by accident would help Morgan Carter bring down Riley Johnson?
What surprised me even more was that the Crown Prince didn’t release me until five days later because he’d forgotten I existed.
“Forgotten?” I stared at Riley Brooks in astonishment, my eyes wide.
I wouldn’t claim to be so breathtakingly beautiful that I could topple kingdoms, but I was at least the kind of person people couldn’t forget. And yet the Crown Prince had simply forgotten about me.
Riley Brooks glanced up at me, then lowered his eyes again and gave a quiet cough. “The Crown Prince has no interest in women.”
I thought it over. It was probably a good thing the Crown Prince had no interest in women. At least once he took the throne, he wouldn’t throw the court into chaos over a harem. But what did that have to do with me?
“If I’ve earned merit, what will His Highness the Crown Prince reward me with?” I went on asking Riley Brooks.
The Crown Prince was the heir to the throne. He’d surely be generous with his rewards.
Riley Brooks let out a cold laugh. “His Highness the Crown Prince has already forgotten who you are. What makes you think he’ll remember to reward you?”
“Is your Crown Prince’s head messed up from a blow, too, like mine?”
At that, Riley Brooks hurriedly clapped a hand over my mouth. “Miss, watch what you say! Aren’t you afraid of dying?”
I gave a little “hmph.” “Right now, all I want is a quick death. If you take me back to Prince Sheng’s residence, I’ll die even more miserably.”
“His Highness the Crown Prince may have forgotten you, but every civil and military official knows we found Taylor Anderson thanks to you. If someone who’s earned merit dies, who’ll dare remain loyal to the Crown Prince?”
And so Riley Brooks took me straight home.
08
I’d been married off, but it was as if I’d never married at all. Since I’d worked for the Crown Prince, my father didn’t dare say a word and let me cross the threshold of our home.
Tô Mộ Lan stood in the courtyard, looking at me with a contemptuous smile. “A wife abandoned by her husband.”
I walked up to her and stopped in front of her, curling my lips into a smile. “I’ve had a look around Prince Sheng’s residence and the Eastern Palace, while you’re still stuck at home?”
Tô Mộ Lan bit her lip and said nothing, twisting the handkerchief in her hand until it was taut as a rope.
I stayed at the estate for the days that followed. The people there might not have liked me, but they didn’t dare mistreat me. After all, I was someone who’d worked for the Crown Prince.
Some even said my father had arranged the whole thing. Even the time he cut off our father-daughter relationship was part of the plan.
My father had spent his whole life as an unremarkable, uninspired official. The first time anyone praised him for his cleverness was thanks to me—a lowborn daughter who was nothing but trouble.
For a long time, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Tô Mộ Lan still disliked me, but now, if I made one cutting remark, she’d be furious for three days, so she stopped coming around to pick fights with me.
Life at the estate was much more comfortable than before. Suddenly, I felt that my illness—the inability to tell anything but the truth—wasn’t such a big deal after all.
As Tô Mộ Lan grew older, her marriage became the most pressing matter at the estate. Apart from her ordinary looks, she had every advantage: she was a renowned, widely admired beauty of learning, a noble and beloved legitimate daughter.
As her nursemaid put it, I was nothing but “an empty vase.”
Ever since I returned to the estate, people had come one after another to ask for my hand. The matchmakers had nearly trampled the doorstep to pieces.
Tô Mộ Lan was so furious her face turned green, but when she learned they only wanted to take me as a concubine, she felt better.
Actually, people had also come to seek Tô Mộ Lan’s hand, but she was devoted to Morgan Carter. No matter how distinguished or powerful the family, she wouldn’t give them a second look. So the matter dragged on, and she grew older without marrying.
That day, a matchmaker came to discuss a marriage proposal for Morgan Miller, the son of the Minister of Rites. Morgan Miller had just placed second in the imperial examinations, and of all the suitors, he was the one Tô Mộ Lan liked best.
I sat in the back courtyard, peeling a tangerine as I looked over a marriage proposal: Young Master Charles, son of the prefect of Jiangning, wanted to take me as a secondary wife. The offer was suitably proper, and seemed like a decent match.
I didn’t know when Tô Mộ Lan had appeared behind me.
“A secondary wife? Isn’t that just a concubine?” She glanced at the proposal in my hand and sneered. “Wait a few years, until your looks fade. With that mouth of yours, you’ll be hated before long.”
I folded up the proposal and nodded. “You’re right, so I won’t get married. I’ll stay home and keep annoying you instead.”
“You…” Tô Mộ Lan’s lips trembled. She was so furious she couldn’t get another word out.
“What are you mad about?” My mouth once again ignored my brain. “It’s rare for you to say something sensible. I was just complimenting you.”
Tô Mộ Lan flicked her sleeve, suddenly sounding rather smug. “Don’t get cocky. Someone like you has nothing but a pretty face. You’ll never be a primary wife.”
“Right, right, right.” I didn’t expect a legitimate daughter like me, who’d already been married off, to become a primary wife anyway. I popped a tangerine segment into my mouth and smiled at her. “You say a tangerine has segments, but you’re a learned lady with a head full of books and still don’t have a partner. How strange.”
Tô Mộ Lan clutched her chest, nearly spitting blood from rage.
Just then, the steward came to invite her to the front hall to discuss the marriage. She hadn’t even had time to gloat before the steward’s next words left her frozen.
“The Second Miss should come along, too.”
I had no idea what he meant by that, either.
“Do you need my approval for her marriage?”
The steward hesitated, then said, “Young Master Morgan Miller says that, to keep the two sisters on good terms, he wants to take the Second Miss as a concubine as well. He wants you both to enter his household together.”
I laughed, at a loss for words. “Young Master Morgan Miller certainly knows how to have fun.”
When Tô Mộ Lan heard that, she fainted on the spot from sheer fury.
When she came to, she refused to agree to the marriage no matter what. Aside from Morgan Carter, Morgan Miller was the only man she’d ever taken an interest in. She’d never expected him to be such a shallow, beauty-obsessed opportunist.
From that day on, Tô Mộ Lan seemed like a different person. She bought makeup and heaps of gold and silver jewelry, and her clothes grew more and more garish. She no longer had any of the quiet elegance she’d once possessed.