1
I sat in the carriage, sobbing loudly.
Feng Mo silently handed me a handkerchief.
“Stop crying.”
I wiped my nose and sniffled. “I’m not crying.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“I’m crying because I’ve lost my father’s love.”
Just two hours earlier, Feng Mo had said he was taking me away. My father silently reclaimed his six-and-a-half-foot saber and earnestly told him, “Take good care of Tang’er.”
From that moment on, I realized I seemed to have lost my father’s love.
A fresh wave of sorrow welled up in me, and I couldn’t help crying again. “I’m definitely not my father’s daughter.”
Feng Mo pressed my head against his shoulder and gently comforted me. “Don’t be sad. You weren’t your father’s daughter to begin with.”
I would’ve been better off without the comfort. That only made me cry harder.
“You’re talking nonsense! If I’m not my father’s daughter, then did you give birth to me?!”
“I couldn’t give birth to a nuisance like you, but if you don’t mind, I’d be willing to have a child with you.”
2
Feng Mo had gone mad—mad enough to say whatever nonsense came into his head.
I didn’t like the Crown Prince’s residence, and I liked this welcome banquet even less.
The Emperor and Empress treated me kindly, and Feng Mo took very good care of me.
But there were always some young ladies I didn’t know who made snide remarks about me.
The Crown Prince’s residence was grander than Liuyun Stronghold, but I couldn’t even get enough to eat.
I lay alone on a little bridge in the garden, feeling aggrieved.
The moon was so round tonight, just like…the mooncake I hadn’t gotten to eat earlier.
I wonder if Feng Mo wrapped it up for me.
Footsteps approached, and a girl with picture-perfect eyes came over to me.
Pretty. The girls in the capital really are beautiful.
“Miss, are you out here enjoying the breeze too? My name is…”
Before I could finish, the girl fell off the bridge.
Quick as a flash, I grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back.
“Thank goodness, thank goodness her hair was long…”
I patted my chest, still shaken. Looks like martial arts training really does come in handy.
But why was the beautiful girl glaring at me with such hatred?
I got it. She must be mad because I messed up her hair.
I hurriedly fixed her bun. “Don’t be mad, don’t be mad. See? Isn’t it all right now? You’re still as pretty as ever.”
I kept babbling, but the girl only pointed at me as if she’d seen a ghost. Crying, she said, “Miss Su, why did you push me?”
Huh? Did I push her?
Could I have hit her when I raised my hand just now?
Girls in the capital are so delicate.
They’re nothing like the women in our stronghold, who wouldn’t budge even if you tried to drag them away with an ox.
Oh well. When in Rome. I should apologize. I’m the young mistress of Liuyun Stronghold, and I’ve always known when to yield.
Before I could open my mouth, a familiar, icy voice came from behind me:
“Miss Lin, you give her far too much credit. If a dog bit her, she’d be too lazy to bite back. Why would she bother pushing you?”
Feng Mo stood with his arms crossed not far away, looking coldly in our direction.
The girl named Miss Lin looked flustered and stammered, “If Your Highness says so, then I must have misunderstood.”
Miss Lin, Wan’er…
Those names sounded familiar. I felt like I’d heard them somewhere.
I remembered!
“You’re Lin Wan’er! I saw Feng Mo write your name!”
3
Lin Wan’er ran off shyly.
I was left utterly confused as Feng Mo grabbed me by the ear.
“Su Beitang, what is wrong with you?! You read what someone wrote, but couldn’t be bothered to read the whole thing?!”
When Feng Mo returned from the palace, he tossed me a letter from home.
The letter read: “Lin Wan’er is not the woman my heart belongs to. I beseech Father and Mother to revoke the imperial decree.”
I remembered hearing my father say around that time that the Emperor and Empress wanted to arrange a marriage for Feng Mo.
“Take the letter and explain everything clearly to Lin Wan’er.”
I lay motionless on the bed and lazily replied, “Whoever’s business it is can handle it themselves.”
“You caused the trouble, so you go!”
“I’m not going.”
“You’re not going?” Feng Mo ordered the people outside the door, “Someone make sure the whole capital knows before the day is out that Su Beitang isn’t her father’s daughter.”
I stood anxiously outside the Duke of Lin’s residence, imagining Lin Wan’er in tears.
What a mess I’d made. Now there was another heartbroken person in the world.
But the person who came out was only a maid.
“Miss Su, my young lady says that before she’s married, it wouldn’t be proper for her to meet anyone from the Crown Prince’s residence. Please pass this to His Highness the Crown Prince for her.”
The maid pressed a handkerchief into my hand, blushed, and hurried back into the duke’s residence.
Were the young lady and the Lin family’s maids all trained the same way?
How could their blushing and their fleeing look exactly alike?
When I set the handkerchief on the desk, Feng Mo leaped straight up into the air.
“Su Beitang, are you having another episode?! You can’t just accept a young lady’s handkerchief!”
I picked up the untouched bowl of snow pear soup on the desk and drank it all down. Smacking my lips, I looked at Feng Mo making such a fuss. “It’s just a handkerchief. Is it really that precious?”
Feng Mo curled his little finger and pinched a corner of the handkerchief. “It’s embroidered with mandarin ducks. That makes it a token of love!”
I snatched up the handkerchief in surprise and examined it carefully for a long while.
“These are mandarin ducks? They look exactly like the ducks I embroidered…”
Feng Mo looked as if he’d been struck by lightning. Trembling, he pulled an old, yellowed handkerchief from inside his robe.
“The handkerchief you gave Me was embroidered with ducks?”
“So what?” I looked at Feng Mo sincerely. “I spent seven whole days embroidering it for your birthday.”
Feng Mo stared blankly at the pair of vaguely duck-shaped figures, his eyes darting around in dismay.
“No, I don’t believe it. How could anyone embroider ducks on a handkerchief…”
I pressed the emotionally unstable Feng Mo back into his chair and gently comforted him. “You didn’t like talking back then. You were like a mute, so I embroidered ducks. But don’t be sad. That was in the past. You’re not mute anymore.”
The Crown Prince, usually as cold as ice and as steady as Mount Tai, suddenly had a clear tear slip from the corner of his eye.
I panicked.
I’d seen him with a runny nose, seen him sneeze, seen him drool in his sleep, but I’d never seen him cry.
I held his head, racking my brains for something comforting to say, but all I could manage was a cautious, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you hated ducks that much…”
“You don’t hate ducks. You hate the ducks I embroidered…”
Were my ducks really that ugly? Ugly enough to make someone cry?
I was unconvinced, but I still tried to comfort him. “All right, all right. How about I embroider mandarin ducks for you next time?”
His heart had been empty, but the dejected look on his face instantly blossomed into a smile.
Feng Mo held out his pinky. “Then it’s settled. Pinky promise.”
If the emperor saw his Crown Prince making a pinky promise with me, would he have me executed?!
Feng Mo personally brought a letter from home and a handkerchief to the Duke of Guo’s residence.
Before he left, I asked curiously, “Why do you want to go yourself this time?”
Feng Mo’s face was ice-cold as he ground out, “If I let you go again, I’ll have to get married tomorrow.”
I heard that after that day, the Duke of Guo’s legitimate daughter cried for three days straight.
I didn’t hear about it because Feng Mo locked me up for three days to learn how to embroider mandarin ducks.
Just as I managed to embroider another duck, word came from the palace.
The Empress summoned me to the palace.
4
I had barely stepped into Lân Phượng Hall when Feng Mo arrived right behind me.
Tiny beads of sweat dotted his forehead.
The Empress covered her mouth with a soft laugh. “I wasn’t going to do anything to Tang’er. Look how anxious you are.”
Tang’er… The Empress was so familiar with me. It scared me to hear her call me that.
The Empress beckoned me forward.
“Tang’er, come here to me. I even held you when you were just a month old.”
Huh?
Could someone as exalted as the Empress really have visited a bandit’s den?
Feng Mo gripped my hand and shielded me behind him.
“Mother, why did you summon her?”
“Do I need your permission to meet my future daughter-in-law?”
Wait, future daughter-in-law? Did I agree to that?
Feng Mo really was the Empress’s own son. They were of one mind.
“Your Majesty, I don’t want to be your daughter-in-law.”
I was a bandit, the daughter of a wanted criminal. I feared neither Heaven nor Earth.
The Empress was a woman of experience. She only paused for a moment before teasingly glancing at Feng Mo. “Did you hear that? You made the whole thing up yourself.”
Feng Mo glared at me and said, enunciating every word, “Stop making trouble. We’ll talk about this at home.”
The Empress pulled me over to her and stroked the back of my hand, gently reassuring me. “Good girl, don’t be afraid. If you’ve been wronged, you can tell me.”
I wasn’t afraid. I just didn’t understand why Feng Mo insisted on making me Crown Princess.
Was it because I’d bullied him as a child, and he wanted to torment me on purpose?
No, apart from him and those bandits, I’d never met another man. I didn’t want to hang myself on a single tree.
I tearfully told the Empress about my tragic life.
The Empress said she understood and respected my wishes, but then she gave me a condition.
She would let me marry someone else, but only if I brought my father to the capital.
My father was at the top of the wanted list. How could I put him in danger?
But I agreed anyway.
There were plenty of handsome men in the capital. I’d look around first.
If I found someone I liked, I’d knock him out and take him straight back to the mountain stronghold. If I couldn’t find anyone, I’d marry Feng Mo. If I married Feng Mo, my father wouldn’t have to come to the capital and meet his death.
Feng Mo muttered, “Your little scheme is about to hit me in the face.”
A new trend swept through the capital overnight.
Every man who thought himself handsome started wearing a mask.
Wang Da Zui, who sold wontons in the north of the city, felt his face and asked the younger sister scooping wontons beside him, “Do you think I should wear a mask to avoid trouble?”
His younger sister silently smacked him once. “Your biggest problem is that you don’t have any problems.”
My search for a husband was thwarted before it even began.
Me: “Is this fate?”
Fate: “No, the Crown Prince has gone crazy.”
Me: “You know how to rhyme.”
When I rudely flipped up the mask of my tenth young man, the local authorities arrested me.
My charge: harassing a respectable young man.