When Xing Muzheng returned to the manor, night had fallen. Xing Pingchun sat with a small solemn face, feeding Jiaoniang spoonfuls of porridge. Jiaoniang, facing her son, remained utterly silent. Bandages wrapped her throat, and she only opened her mouth mechanically, one spoonful after another. From behind the screen Xing Muzheng watched; she could have raised her eyes and seen him, yet she acted as if blind.
When Xing Pingchun finished the bowl, he turned and wiped away tears unseen, only then noticing his father standing there like a mountain.
“Father,” Xing Pingchun called, eyes red. He already knew what had happened that day. For the first time, with his maternal family’s return, he realized his mother was hard-mouthed but soft-hearted. Though she had been hurt by them, she still wanted to treat their illnesses, still willingly served them. But his grandmother—her heart was so vicious, leaving his mother wounded in body and soul…
“Mm.” Xing Muzheng removed his sword and placed it on the stand by the bed. Qian Jiaoniang’s eyelashes fluttered like butterfly wings; she lifted her eyes, summoned her breath, and said faintly: “The Marquis has returned.”
Xing Muzheng turned his head to look at her. “Mm, does your wound still hurt?”
“I just took medicine, it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
Xing Pingchun sniffled and carefully fed Qian Jiaoniang another half bowl of congee, but she shook her head, refusing more. Xing Pingchun grew even more worried—she had eaten so little, not even half of her usual portion. How could she possibly regain her strength like this? So he said, “Mother, let me feed you some soup instead.”
Qian Jiaoniang still shook her head. Xing Pingchun deliberately acted spoiled, pestering her—something he hadn’t done in a long time. Xing Muzheng disliked it when he acted soft and spoiled; if he saw it, he would punish him. But today he let it be. Pestered by her son, Qian Jiaoniang had no choice but to agree to drink the soup. Xing Pingchun quickly went out to ask Hongjuan to bring a bowl. There was some simmering in the small kitchen, so Hongjuan soon delivered it. Xing Pingchun poured out a bowl, tasted it—it was a little hot—and gently blew on it.
Xing Muzheng sat on the bedside, watching his son feed Jiaoniang. The room was quiet. He silently watched her drink down half a bowl of soup.
Qian Jiaoniang refused to drink more. Xing Pingchun had no way to insist. He glanced at Xing Muzheng, who nodded at him, signaling him to leave. Xing Pingchun wanted to ask about his maternal grandparents’ family, but he was afraid it would wound his mother’s heart, so he swallowed the question and left. Before going, he reminded Qian Jiaoniang to rest early.
Qian Jiaoniang smiled as she watched her son leave, but her gaze gradually turned cold. She leaned against the bed, eyes lowered, silent. Her long hair draped over her shoulders; beneath the thin silk robe her body was wrapped in bandages. Her delicate face looked as cold and fragile as carved jade.
Xing Muzheng looked at her quietly, a surge of pity in his heart. He had come from battlefields littered with corpses, where pity was scarce—but all of it, he gave to Qian Jiaoniang. He wanted to make up for all that he had owed her in the past, yet there always seemed to be people set against him.
He gently touched her shoulder, his thumb brushing it. “Forgive me, for letting you be hurt again.” Back then, killing Mother Qian would have been easy, but stopping her wasn’t. He couldn’t strike down her own mother before Jiaoniang’s eyes—it would shame her. It was precisely that moment’s hesitation that gave that vicious woman the chance to do such a deranged thing. Even a tiger does not eat its own cubs—yet she stabbed her own daughter with such ruthless abandon! Thinking of that instant, Xing Muzheng clenched his back molars tight. To let her simply watch her son die—still too cheap for her.
Qian Jiaoniang slowly shook her head. “How is it Marquis fault.” Her voice was soft and low, tinged with loneliness, more still with shame.
Such a ridiculous farce. The humiliation from years ago, when she was sold, had returned once more. Qian Jiaoniang rustled as she slowly lay down, turning her back to Xing Muzheng. She felt she had no face to see him.
Xing Muzheng lay down beside her without removing his clothes, wrapping an arm around her waist. Qian Jiaoniang did not move.
The two of them were silent for a long time, just lying there quietly. Qian Jiaoniang did not ask a single word about what had happened after Xing Muzheng went out with her family. As if nothing at all had occurred.
“…Qian Dafu and Mother Qian have already gone back to their hometown,” Xing Muzheng said.
Qian Jiaoniang looked at the silver-red bed canopy, silent for a moment. “And Qian Baogui?”
“Dead.”
Qian Jiaoniang’s body went stiff.
She knew Xing Muzheng would never yield so easily to threats. Perhaps he would drive her heartless parents away, have them turned back from the yamen gates, or refuse them any visit through the prison bars. But if he said Qian Baogui was dead, then surely… he had killed him before their very eyes. He was still as ruthless as ever, always striking straight to the vital point.
Her parents—thinking they had saved their son—now forced to watch him die before them. To them, it must have felt like the sky had collapsed.
Qian Jiaoniang wanted to laugh, but couldn’t; wanted to cry, but no tears came. She didn’t know what storm of emotions was surging through her chest—shock, hatred, fury, grief, all at once.
“Are you angry?” Xing Muzheng asked softly against her ear.
Qian Jiaoniang rasped, “Not angry… he was going to die anyway.”
“Does it hurt?”
Qian Jiaoniang was silent for a while. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“Oh?” Xing Muzheng’s hand brushed the bandages on her neck, then slipped downward beneath the layers of cloth. “It doesn’t hurt?” He pressed lightly on her wound.
“…It doesn’t hurt.”
Xing Muzheng pressed down harder. The snow-white gauze bloomed with fresh blood. “Doesn’t hurt?”
His pressure was so heavy that Qian Jiaoniang gasped sharply, tears welling in her eyes until great drops rolled onto the pillow. She suddenly sat up, pounding at Xing Muzheng with her uninjured hand. “You press me like this—how could it not hurt!” She struck him again and again, tears falling endlessly. “It hurts, it hurts so much—!”
Her own mother had hated her enough to want to kill her—kill her own daughter to save that beast of a son! Her parents’ hearts had not spared her a single shred! The love other children had in abundance from their parents, she had not even the tiniest bit. She had nothing, nothing at all! The pain in her heart piled up like a mountain, and she wailed in anguish.
Xing Muzheng rose and gathered her tightly in his arms, letting her sob against his chest, his eyes overflowing with aching pity.
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