Ever since that day when Xiao Ye reprimanded her, Xueya no longer liked running to him for fear of offending him and suffering the consequences. Now that the heir had undergone such a drastic change in temperament, even Yunfu, who had served by his side since childhood, was punished without hesitation. A few days ago, she overheard the servants of the Earl Manor mentioning that after Yunfu was taken away by human traffickers, she was resold to a wealthy household. The master of that house took a liking to her, but the man’s legal wife was notorious for being a shrew. As soon as Yunfu entered the household, she was beaten several times. By now, no one knew whether she was alive or dead.
So when Gu Qing went to find Xiao Ye today, Xueya did not follow.
She sat in her room embroidering, but midway through, her right eyelid began to twitch uncontrollably. It was said that a twitching left eye signified fortune, while a twitching right eye foretold disaster. Thinking about the heir’s recent behavior, Xueya had a bad feeling that something unfortunate was about to happen. She suddenly recalled that her mistress was currently in the heir’s room, and unease gripped her heart.
Her eyelid kept twitching, and her mind felt restless. In her distraction, the embroidery needle pricked her fingertip.
Blood seeped into the white silk, ruining the pattern she had painstakingly embroidered that day. But Xueya had no time to feel distressed about it. She was flustered, mumbling to herself, “No, it can’t be,” while sucking on her injured finger to stop the bleeding. Suddenly, she heard voices outside calling, “Lady Fang.” Realizing that her mistress had returned, she quickly put down her embroidery hoop and stood up.
Just as she was about to lift the curtain and go out to greet her, the curtain suddenly moved, and a woman dressed in white rushed inside, clutching her face in distress.
Before Xueya could react, Gu Qing had already passed the screen and entered the inner chamber. When she snapped back to her senses, she heard the sound of suppressed sobbing from within.
Hearing the muffled cries, Xueya’s heart tightened, and her earlier premonition struck her with full force. She hurried after her mistress and saw Gu Qing collapsed over the brocade quilt, trembling with sobs.
Seeing her mistress in such a state, Xueya felt deeply unsettled. She sat on the bed, bent forward slightly, and gently patted Gu Qing’s back in comfort, her voice soft as she asked, “Mistress, what happened?”
Before being consoled, Gu Qing had still been trying to suppress her grief.
But upon hearing the voice of someone close to her, she could no longer hold back. Turning around, she threw herself into Xueya’s arms, her voice choked with sobs as she cried out, “Xueya, Ah Ye… he doesn’t want me anymore!”
Although she had already suspected this, hearing it from her mistress’s own lips still made Xueya’s heart pound violently. She let Gu Qing cling to her, her expression dazed, murmuring in disbelief, “But why… why would the heir suddenly…”
“Sister is coming back.” Gu Qing sobbed as she recounted what Xiao Ye had told her tonight. “Ah Ye said Sister took the initiative to meet him. He also said that from now on, he will treat Sister well.”
“He… he doesn’t want me anymore.”
Gu Qing wept so bitterly it was unbearable to watch.
She had once been so confident that she was the one in Ah Ye’s heart. Now, she only felt utterly humiliated. She could not understand how things had come to this. Clearly, Ah Ye had liked her. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have traveled thousands of miles to Lin’an to see her just because of a single letter from her. He also wouldn’t have stood by her side and rebuked Sister when she said those things.
But why? Why had everything changed after Sister left?
Even though Ah Ye had kept his promise and allowed her to stay in the residence, Gu Qing felt that everything was different now. In the past, even when they were separated by thousands of miles, she had always felt that Ah Ye’s heart was with her. But now, though they lived under the same roof and were only a few steps away from each other, she felt as though an insurmountable distance had formed between them.
Worse still, she was starting to feel that, to him, she had become a burden—something he wanted to discard but couldn’t.
She couldn’t help but wonder: If she told Ah Ye that she wanted to leave, would he breathe a sigh of relief?
With that thought, Gu Qing’s sobs grew even more intense.
She had always been a beauty, but due to her illness and distress, she now appeared even more fragile and pitiful. As she lay against Xueya’s shoulder, her jet-black hair was disheveled, and her face was so pale it was almost translucent. Only her eyes, reddened from weeping, retained any trace of vivid color.
Unlike Lanyin’s dignified elegance, Gu Qing’s beauty was delicate and vulnerable.
Perhaps it was human nature to pity the weak. Looking at her mistress in this state, Xueya, for the first time, felt a surge of resentment toward Lanyin. She could not understand—since the young lady had already chosen to leave, why did she have to come back and ruin everything?
But there was nothing Xueya could do about Lanyin. Other than cursing her silently in her heart, she was powerless.
But she couldn’t just do nothing.
If the young lady returned, given the heir’s current feelings for her, where would her mistress have a place in this residence in the future? She naturally wanted to stop the young lady from coming back, but as a mere maid, what power did she have to do so? Xueya furrowed her brows in distress, pondering over it. Suddenly, her eyes lit up. Holding Gu Qing’s shoulders, she said, “Mistress, you should write to Madam!”
“Mother?”
Gu Qing was stunned, not quite understanding at first. With tears still hanging in her eyes, she looked at Xueya and asked, “Why should I write to Mother?”
Xueya’s face showed helplessness. “My foolish mistress, you are alone and without support now. Of course, you should have Madam come and stand up for you! She has always loved you dearly—she won’t just sit by and do nothing.”
“But…” Gu Qing hesitated, biting her lips. “Sister is still Ah Ye’s wife. If they can reconcile, wouldn’t Mother also be happy?”
“Don’t forget, Madam always hoped for you and the heir to be together. If not for the old madam’s disapproval, you would already be the heir’s wife in the Earl Manor!” Xueya coaxed, noticing the struggle in Gu Qing’s expression and knowing that she was wavering. She pressed on, “You don’t have to worry. I’ll write the letter to Madam myself. I won’t say too much—just that your health isn’t well.”
“As for everything else, you have already lost your reputation for the heir’s sake. You can’t let them treat you so lightly!”
She couldn’t help but grumble about Lanyin again. “Really, it’s all the young lady’s fault. If she never intended to separate from the heir, why did she leave in the first place? Now you and the heir bear the disgrace, while she enjoys all the pity… They say she is kind-hearted, but to me, she’s like a silent dog—biting the hardest without making a sound!”
“Xueya!”
Gu Qing’s brows tightened upon hearing these words, and she scolded in a low voice, “Don’t speak of her like that. She is still my sister.”
Xueya pursed her lips. “You’re too kind—that’s why you let people walk all over you!” But in the end, she said no more ill of Lanyin and only told Gu Qing, “I’ll go write the letter now and have Madam come as soon as possible to stand up for you.”
With that, she turned and walked toward the outer chamber.
Gu Qing watched her retreating figure, hesitating for a moment but ultimately not calling her back. Her pale, delicate hands tightly gripped the hem of her dress, and the flickering candlelight made the light in her eyes seem faint and uncertain. In the end, she simply bit her lip and said nothing.
—
The next day, Xiao Ye learned from Steward Xu that Xueya had sent someone to deliver a letter to Lin’an. He assumed that Gu Qing had felt wronged last night and wanted to complain to her mother—or perhaps she wanted to go home.
He didn’t think too much about it.
He knew that what he was doing was unfair to Qing’er, but he couldn’t continue making mistakes.
He did not deny that he had once had feelings for her.
That year, in that remote mountain village, they had only each other to rely on. Gu Qing’s kindness and innocence had deeply healed the part of him that had lost all memory. So even after regaining his memories, even after learning that he already had a fiancée, he had still wanted to bring her back home. At the time, he had thought that if she was willing, he would take care of her for a lifetime, treat her well—everything except the title of wife, he could give her.
But he had never expected Gu Qing to be the second daughter of the Marquis of Changxing.
The very same daughter who had once crossed paths with him briefly but was kidnapped at a young age—the younger sister of his fiancée. The Gu family would never allow their long-lost daughter to become his concubine. He wasn’t shameless enough to demand such a thing.
Back then, he had struggled. On one side was Gu Qing, the girl who had moved his heart. On the other was Lanyin, the one he had been betrothed to since childhood…
But in the end, he had chosen Lanyin.
Perhaps it was responsibility, perhaps it was duty, or maybe it even contained traces of the first stirrings of youthful affection.
Besides, though Lanyin spoke well of it, who at the time didn’t know that the one he was supposed to marry was the legitimate eldest daughter of the Gu family? If he had truly married Gu Qing, how would Lanyin have been able to carry on? Her mother did not favor her, her father was stationed far away at Yanmen Pass, and her grandmother paid her no mind. Would she have had to return to the Wang family and live under her maternal grandmother’s roof once more?
He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want to see that happen. He didn’t want to see her cast aside again, with nowhere to rely on.
So he married her.
Before heaven, before the ancestral halls, before all their gathered kin and friends, he made a vow to grow old alongside her.
His promise was real.
Even though, at that time, there was still Gu Qing in his heart, the moment he vowed to marry Lanyin, he had never considered separating from her. He had never thought of keeping lingering ties with Gu Qing… Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to abandon Gu Qing either.
She was someone he had brought back.
She had spent ten years outside, utterly unaccustomed to life in the marquis’s residence. Because of his duty and promise, he could not marry her, but he could protect her as much as possible.
So as long as Gu Qing wrote to him, no matter where he was, he would rush to Lin’an to see her.
He did all this only in hopes that she could live a little better.
But it had been a long time since they last communicated. Ever since Gu Qing married Fang Yanru, their correspondence had ceased. He would never take the initiative to contact Gu Qing, and perhaps Gu Qing had come to terms with things, as she never wrote to him again. That was why, when she suddenly sent him a letter not long ago, he had been so anxious.
If nothing had gone wrong, Gu Qing would never have reached out to him at such a time.
As soon as he received the letter, he rushed to Lin’an overnight.
And sure enough.
After Fang Yanru’s death, his illegitimate younger brother seized control of the Fang family. Unlike Fang Yanru’s gentlemanly and upright nature, that brother, who had lived in the shadows since childhood, was like a phantom walking in darkness—silent and unseen until the crucial moment when he struck to take lives.
He sidelined Fang Yanru’s father, placed his mother under house arrest, and took complete control of the Fang household. And Gu Qing… had become something trapped within his grasp.
Even now, when Xiao Ye recalled the scene he saw upon arriving at the Fang estate that day, he could not suppress the surge of fury in his chest. That illegitimate son had locked Gu Qing inside a gilded birdcage, her ankles bound in golden chains. She cowered in the farthest corner, terrified of speaking to anyone. It wasn’t until she heard his voice that she slowly regained clarity.
At that time, Gu Qing could not communicate with anyone except him.
For the sake of her reputation and safety, he had no choice but to discuss with his mother-in-law and bring her back to Bianjing, keeping her by his side to care for her. He just never expected that things with Lanyin would escalate to this extent.