Chapter 28: I... I Can’t Bear to Let You Go
Page 1 of 3
On that lonely, rainy night, she lost the child in her womb and used her ruined fingers to dig a grave for Xue Zhao, bit by bit.
Blood and tears wound through the earth and seeped into its cracks.
The person who should have died in the woods of Nine Yang Mountain was her.
Jiang Yao.
Those two brief sentences left Pei Ji feeling as though ants were gnawing at his heart.
In an instant, grief surged up from his chest, and every place it passed throbbed with pain.
“A-Yuan…”
“The Madam Pei I respected did indeed give me two peaceful years. I have never forgotten that great kindness.”
A single hot tear slid silently from the corner of Shen Yuan’s eye, scorching Pei Ji into utter panic.
“But she was also the one who handed me a bowl of pregnancy-preserving medicine before I left the estate, insisting again and again that it was for the sake of the child in my womb. Yet not long after I departed from the Pei estate, the medicine took effect. It gnawed at me like poisonous worms, leaving me in agony!”
She raised a hand and caressed her calm, flat belly.
Once, a warm little heartbeat had fluttered there.
In the end, it had died on the road of escape.
Shen Yuan tilted her head slightly upward. Her resilient nature would not allow her to sob helplessly before Pei Ji.
She was nothing like Shen Wanning.
Pei Ji’s heart seemed to be suffering a slow, merciless execution, flayed by a thousand blades.
He wanted to reach out and hold Shen Yuan back, to beg for even the slightest measure of forgiveness.
The words with which he might win her back rose to his lips, yet he could not utter them.
It was his mother’s fault. The Pei estate’s fault. His fault!
“Commander Pei, you and I are like sunlight and moonlight. No matter what happens, we can never meet.”
“Stop wasting your strength.”
Shen Yuan’s voice was like a cold arrow, extinguishing all the fervor that had surged within Pei Ji and driving it mercilessly into the dust.
Even so, he refused to give up.
“There is nothing in this world that cannot be changed.”
Pei Ji endured the suffocating pain in his chest. A forceful, predatory gleam entered his deep-set eyes.
“I told you—we will begin again. Whether it is a wall I must dash myself against or a haven of tenderness, even if I must bleed until my head is broken, I will still try!”
Shen Yuan’s brows drew together slightly. She turned her back to him and said flatly, “Do as you please.”
Page 1 of 3
Page 2 of 3
“The men who assassinated Xue Zhao back then were specially trained imperial guards. Their bodies were dug up the day after you left. So I suspect that he did not die at all, but has been living well somewhere beyond our knowledge.”
Pei Ji simply had yet to discover what kind of person an insignificant servant from Qingzhou City could be—what sort of figure would be important enough for someone to dispatch specially trained assassins to kill him?
Shen Yuan’s thoughts returned to that night.
The killers, each armed with a sharp blade, had indeed been highly trained.
She had once believed they were people sent by Madam Pei to silence her.
It was only when she saw that their target was not her but the utterly unremarkable Xue Zhao that she realized the assassination had not been arranged by Madam Pei.
Now, even knowing that Madam Pei had not ordered it, what could that change?
“All I know is that it is enough for me to know he is still alive.”
Leaving those words behind, Shen Yuan took Liuyan with her and departed without looking back.
Once she stepped beyond the garden, her heart began to churn, and it remained unsettled for a long while.
Xue Zhao… was he truly still alive?
Only the silent Pei Ji and the stunned Song Lin remained in the courtyard.
A gust of wind swept past.
Song Lin shivered and tightened his collar. Somewhat uncertainly, he asked, “Could the Third Miss Shen be…”
Pei Ji glanced at him and said lightly, “Your second master.”
Song Lin was genuinely struck dumb.
That fellow Xue Zhao was not dead, and Madam Jiang was still alive as well!
No wonder that during the farce involving Miss Zhang and the Third Miss Shen falling into the lake, the Commander had appeared at the Zhang residence as a guest. So there had been this hidden reason behind it?
The carriage wandered aimlessly through the city until Shen Yuan grew tired of sitting. Only then did it turn around and return to the Shen residence.
At Autumn Water Court, Shen Lang had already been waiting for a long time.
When he saw Shen Yuan return, he almost instinctively scolded her. “What respectable household allows its young ladies to disguise themselves and go out frolicking? You are not engaged yet, so you must not ruin your reputation. If no one wants to marry you later, do not blame me when you worry yourself to death!”
Accustomed to his sharp tongue, Shen Yuan was not the least bit surprised.
When she ignored him and brushed past as though she had not seen him, the agitation in Shen Lang’s heart became increasingly difficult to conceal. “Shen Yuan, did you not hear me? I am speaking to you! I am your brother, at least—why will you not answer me?”
Shen Yuan really did stop. She turned back with a perfectly practiced smile. “Second Brother, are you truly worried that I will not be able to marry, or are you anxious about what will happen to Wanning if I ruin the family’s reputation?”
In aristocratic families, any noble young lady with sisters was expected to keep herself pure, behave properly, and never overstep the bounds of propriety.
Once one girl lost her good name, all the sisters in the family would be cursed and reviled by the world along with her.
The fall from lofty heights to utter disgrace could happen in the blink of an eye.
Page 2 of 3
Page 3 of 3
Shen Yuan could already imagine it: if Shen Lang and the others in the Shen residence learned that she had once been married and had suffered a miscarriage, would they be so furious that they would simply collapse from the shock?
“Why do you keep dragging Wanning into this? She is engaged to Commander Pei, so naturally I have no need to worry about her marriage. It is you who have me…and our parents…deeply concerned.”
Even Shen Lang himself failed to notice that his voice had begun to tremble.
Looking at the Second Brother who was clearly trying to protect her, Shen Yuan pressed her lips together and bowed slightly. “You are right to reprimand me, Second Brother. I will listen to you. Tomorrow, I shall find someone and get married.”
“Do not be ridiculous!” Shen Lang rarely adopted such a serious expression. After hesitating for two seconds, he asked, “Did you truly…meet Lu Chengyuan in secret?”
“You do not believe Wanning’s words either, Second Brother?”
“It is not that I do not believe her. I simply think…” He hesitated, his evasive gaze lingering on Shen Yuan for a moment before he hurriedly continued, “I did once think that marrying Lu Chengyuan would be a good choice for you. But he is crippled. If you marry him, you will have to endure the cold stares and ridicule of others. You are, after all, the younger sister I watched grow up with my own eyes. I…I cannot bear to see you marry him.”
This was the first time Shen Lang had spoken so much to Shen Yuan since her return.
He had always been somewhat awkward when expressing his feelings.
He hastily looked away, too afraid to meet Shen Yuan’s eyes.
“One moment you urge me to marry soon, and the next you urge me not to marry. Should I marry or not?” she asked.
“I am telling you to choose carefully. Choose carefully—do you understand?”
“Do you have a list of candidates for me to choose from? Let me see it,” she asked again.
“I…” Shen Lang was left speechless.
Everyone in the capital knew that Shen Yuan had only recently been found after disappearing for many years. Even if they did not know what she had endured during those missing years, could they not guess?
Thus, no one wished to ask for her hand in marriage.
A list of candidates for her to choose from was out of the question.
Shen Lang slapped his forehead, somewhat vexed that he had brought up the subject before her. All his words had been utterly pointless.
“Marry whoever you want. Do whatever you like! I will not interfere, all right?”
He shouted as he turned to leave.
Shen Yuan indulged him and immediately went back to her room.
When no one called out to stop him, Shen Lang turned around, only to find that the spot behind him was already empty.
He was beside himself with anger.
After saying so much and wasting so many words, he had thought he might at least receive a word of thanks from Shen Yuan. Instead, she had simply walked away with that indifferent expression.
She had just walked away?