Chapter 14
Page 1 of 3
When Jiang Yunchan first entered the Marquis’s residence, she was only six years old, yet the makings of her breathtaking beauty were already apparent.
The young servants often teased her for amusement, and even the Marquis’s two sons would frequently climb over the wall to visit her.
Fearing they might play some trick on her, Jiang Yunchan affected the demeanor of a devout Buddhist and spent most of her time at the Benevolent Heart Nunnery, chanting sutras and paying homage to the Buddha. In truth, she was merely trying to ward off trouble.
One day, while copying scriptures in the main prayer hall, she happened to hear the sound of things being smashed in the courtyard. She took a furtive glance through the lattice window.
The two young masters were kicking and beating a bare-chested boy together with their servants.
The boy lay curled up amid dozens of people. His back was a bloody mess; not a single patch of uninjured flesh remained.
He endured it in silence, not daring to cry out. Clutching his head, he pleaded timidly, “Not the head, please. Don’t hit my head…”
The two young masters could not tolerate being defied. They forcibly pried his arms apart.
The boy was thin and frail, and his arms seemed almost ready to snap, yet he refused to let go.
This infuriated the elder brother, Xie Jin. He seized a nearby shovel and brought it crashing down upon the boy’s spine. Blood sprayed through the air.
The boy collapsed into a pool of blood, trembling violently as blood continued to spill from the corners of his mouth.
Realizing they had caused serious trouble, the two young masters hastily dropped the shovel and fled.
The gruesome sight nearly made Jiang Yunchan faint. She leaned against the window, clutching her chest, afraid to look again.
Yet the panic she expected in the courtyard never came. Instead, she heard the boy’s feeble, broken voice.
“You promised… after you had your fun, you’d give me a meat pie…”
His voice sounded as though he had not eaten for several days.
A flicker passed through Jiang Yunchan’s eyes, and she looked out once more.
The boy’s bloodstained hand clutched Xie Jin’s robe, staining the fine brocade worn by the young master red.
Xie Jin kicked him in disgust. “A meat pie, is it? Here you are!”
He pulled the meat pie from his robes and threw it straight at the yellow dog guarding the gate.
The snarling dog leapt into the air, and the boy lunged forward almost at the same instant.
He shielded the pie beneath his body. No matter how fiercely the dog tore at his flesh, he refused to rise.
His back was a chaotic ruin of bruises from fists, marks from the shovel, and the dog’s claw and bite wounds. Blood and flesh flew in every direction.
Page 1 of 3
Page 2 of 3
Xie Jin and the others seemed to find the sight nauseating and soon dispersed in sour-faced disgust.
After quite some time, when the yellow dog had finally left, the boy staggered to his feet.
The ten-year-old boy neither cried nor raged. There was not the slightest trace of the turmoil one might expect from a child his age.
He quietly washed the blood from himself beside the well, put his clothes back on, then placed the corners of the meat pie that had been bitten by the dog into his mouth and chewed them slowly and carefully.
She had heard that when one was starving, chewing each bite more times made it easier to feel full.
Jiang Yunchan sat alone beneath the covered walkway for a long while before finally calming herself. Then she tucked the remaining clean pieces of pie into her robes and returned to the meditation room.
The door stood slightly ajar. Through the gap, Jiang Yunchan could make out a middle-aged woman lying on a straw pallet. She struggled weakly to sit up.
“Yan’er, where have you been?”
The boy hurried over and helped her sit upright. “The young master gave us something to eat.”
“Mother, look—a meat pie!” He brought the pie to the woman’s lips and stiffly forced a smile. “Once you’ve eaten some meat, you’ll get better very soon.”
“I know my Yan’er is a filial child.” The woman raised a hand and stroked the boy’s cheek. “Did you eat any yourself?”
“Of course! The young master has always been kind.” The boy pointed to the tooth marks along the edge of the pie. “I even stole a bite of your pie, Mother! You won’t blame me, will you?”
“You silly child!”
Amused by him, the woman’s heart eased. She struggled to open her mouth and took a bite of the pie, but before she could swallow, she began coughing violently.
“I’ll fetch some hot water!” The boy sniffed and hurried out.
Perhaps because she felt the woman’s suffering as though it were her own, Jiang Yunchan found herself walking unconsciously to the meditation room. There, she saw the woman holding a jade pendant and murmuring the poem engraved upon it.
By coincidence, the poem was the Jiangnan love ballad that had once sealed her parents’ affection.
Suspicion stirred in Jiang Yunchan’s heart. For a moment, she forgot herself and nearly stepped inside to ask about it.
Suddenly, a hand clamped over her mouth from behind and dragged her toward the well.
The force was immense, and Jiang Yunchan nearly suffocated.
“What are you doing?”
The boy’s eyes gleamed with ferocity as he glared fiercely at her.
He was a wounded beast; anyone who drew near might be torn apart by him.
Unable to break free, Jiang Yunchan struggled to pull a packet of peach-blossom pastries from her robes and held it before his eyes.
The fragrance of peach blossoms mingled with the scent of face powder clinging to the girl, drifting into the boy’s nose.
Soft. Sweet.
Page 2 of 3
Page 3 of 3
After hesitating for a moment, he released Jiang Yunchan.
“I don’t want it. Go away!”
Jiang Yunchan clearly saw his throat bob with hunger. She opened the waxed-paper wrapping, took out a peach-blossom pastry, and held it toward him.
“Eat it! I made it myself!”
The pastry was delicate and dainty, pale pink in color, matching the rouge on the girl’s fingertips and catching the eye at once.
The boy simply turned his head away.
Jiang Yunchan puffed out her cheeks and muttered, “If you don’t eat it, I’ll tell your mother that you got beaten!”
“You!”
The boy glared at her furiously, only to find a plump little rice cake of a girl filling his vision.
He could not beat her either. All he could do was snatch up a peach-blossom pastry and bite down hard, as if he were crunching Jiang Yunchan’s bones between his teeth.
“You’re really annoying!”
Before the words had even left his mouth, a sweet fragrance spread across his tongue.
The boy pressed his lips together and mumbled, “Thank you. And… it’s very sweet.”
…
Jiang Yunchan and the boy had known each other since childhood.
Later, the boy rose step by step from the Benevolent Heart Nunnery to the very pinnacle of the Marquis’s household, becoming the widely praised heir apparent, Xie Yan.
Jiang Yunchan knew that those had been the darkest days of his life and that she ought never mention them again.
But today was different. She had no choice but to call in the favor he owed her.
“Heir Apparent, do you still remember what happened between us when we were children?”
“What happened when we were children?”
A faint ripple stirred in Xie Yan’s eyes. His deep, unfathomable gaze met hers.
“There were many things that happened in our childhood. Which one are you referring to, little sister?”
A tranquil light seemed to envelop Jiang Yunchan, as though it could pierce straight through her.
Back then, at the Benevolent Heart Nunnery, they had indeed shared a period of mutual support. But afterward, an unspeakable change had occurred between them.
Jiang Yunchan did not wish to remember it. She did not dare remember it.
Silently, she withdrew her hand from Xie Yan’s palm, her gaze darting about in confusion.
Page 3 of 3