“Just tell me. I won’t punish you,” I insisted.
“My lady, the prince, each time he met with Qinglian, his nose would itch, and he sneezed and shed tears, so he thought Qinglian was not good for him. But he forbade us to speak this truth; since Qinglian was gifted by the precious junior concubine, he would not make trouble. Only me and Aunt Su know this. Please, my lady, don’t send me to the wash house.”
Was my husband hiding some difficulty from me？
“Good! I won’t, since you have told me the truth.” I let her go.
Though I had more questions and doubts, none of them could not be answered by Mingzhu. I knew someday I would find out the truth in its entirety.
I wrote down a poem from the Jin Dynasty:
The green lotus covering the green river, the red flowers covering the red roots. The roots were connected to each other, as were the flowers.
If he could love me for my whole life, I would have no regrets. Suddenly my brush pen was taken by someone. I was pleasantly surprised to see it was him.
His eyes were full of affection toward me, even the blind one. I became drunk on his adorable smile. I had no words in this moment. He embraced me; my heart missed a beat.
The brush pen was writing on the paper,
Afield the creeping grass
With crystal dew overspread,
There's a beautiful lass
With clear eyes and fine forehead.
When I meet the clear-eyed,
My desire's satisfied.
Afield the creeping grass
With dewdrops overspread,
There's a beautiful lass
With clear eyes and fine forehead.
When I meet the clear-eyed,
Amid the grass let's hide!
My face turned red because of the bold poem, but my heart had been kidnapped by his sweet words. “Why are you free to come back today? In any event, this is my first time seeing your handwriting, which is quite nice indeed.”
He smiled and murmured to me, “I just finished writing the memorial. And I missed you a lot, so I came back.”
“What kind of memorial?”
He was mysterious. “You will learn of it soon.”
Though I had questions, it was not suitable for me to ask more. Suddenly he sneezed and rubbed his nose for a while. “What’s wrong with me? I smelled something familiar, but I can’t figure out what it is.”
I thought of the explanation given by Mingzhu. Was the conflict of their birth characters so miraculous?
“Have you got a cold? It is chilling outside. Why not put on more clothing? It is all my fault.”
“No, I do not feel cold. It is just a strange feeling that . . . ”
“My prince, why not allow me to knead your points? I am good at this and used to do it for my mom to release her from illness.” I smiled at him to help him forget the smell.
I used my fingers to massage the acupressure points on his head, which could heal coldness, one by one, from the top to the neck, down to the hands. When I finished the entire set of points, his nervousness turned to ease.
“What’s your feeling now, my prince?” I asked. I’d enjoyed reading medicinal books since childhood. And my mom had testified to my skill at massage. I was expecting his praise, but his eyebrows twisted again. What was wrong? I couldn’t have made a mistake on such a common illness.
He became even more serious.
“How do you feel now, my prince? Do you feel any discomfort?”
“Pei, call my nickname, Qifu.” He smiled at me again, his face relaxed.
He was unhappy that I had called him “prince.”
“Your skill is great! I feel much better! I never thought that you would be good at medicine.” Finally he praised me—more praise than I expected.
“This is but the simplest skill; I don’t dare boast that I am good at medicine.” I turned to read the poem on the folding screen to hide my embarrassment. “She was Like a dragon hiding in the clouds, and I got a chance to glimpse at her slim and soft body. It was like the blooming chrysanthemum, as young as a green pine tree, or a curved moon hiding behind the colorful clouds, the clean and adorable snow in winter. . . "
“Zijian is a talented poet. His gifts surpassed his peers,” my husband said.
“Xie Lingyun, the famous poet of the Song Dynasty, also gave him high marks.” I did not hide my admiration of this favorite poet. (Note: this Song Dynasty was a dynasty of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, two dynasties before the Liang Dynasty in which our characters lived.)
“Don’t you think your husband is better than Zijian?” Xiao Yi pretended to be unhappy again.
“You are from a poet’s family. Every member of the royal family is good at literature. No need to be jealous.”
“At least I have one point better than him. He had no chance to be with his favorite woman. I have you with me right now,” he said with a laugh.
“What a pity for Zijian. He had political ambitions, and he loved Zhenfu so much, but they weren’t lucky enough to end up together; the beauty married his brother.”
“I won’t miss you as Zijian did Zhenfu.”
“In fact, the prince of our dynasty is also talented and with good character,” I murmured.
His face changed the moment I mentioned the prince, but soon became normal again.
He came to me to hold my hands and said, “Pei, I have told you, I will give you everything I have. And more in the future. . . ” He kissed my neck slightly, from the left to the right, and then turned back; I was following the feeling, forgetting to listen to him or think of the meaning behind those promises. I even forgot that I had tried to commit suicide because I hadn’t wanted to marry him. “Pei, let’s have a little prince. . . ”