Remarriage (1v1, H) - 7
Song-mammy murmured a few polite words, then broke every rule of rank by flicking a sharp glance at Lu Xiniang before slipping back inside.
Lu Xiniang’s pulse hammered.
Her childhood tutor had drilled it into her: Filial piety is the root of virtue. The dynasty had been built on that single word. If Lady Qin chose to cry “unfilial,” Wang Chong’s career would shatter like thin ice.
Lady Qin had always loathed the boy.
Servants had pinched and starved him until, half by accident, he stumbled through Lu Xiniang’s gate.
One banquet, one carefully worded plea in her dead husband’s name, and the neglected bastard was transferred to the childless second branch.
Wang Zhi had died young; no one else lit incense at his tablet.
A spare son for a spare grave.
Lu Xiniang stole a look at Wang Chong.
His face was carved granite.
She guessed the truth: he had dragged his bride to offer morning tea to a dead woman, and Lady Qin was punishing him for it.
Inside the bedchamber, Lady Qin half-reclined against bolsters, cheeks sunken, eyes bright with fever or fury.
Two maids knelt at her feet, kneading swollen calves.
At Song-mammy’s approach she waved everyone out.
When the door shut, Song-mammy bent close.
“I saw her, my lady. The maids spoke true.”
Lady Qin’s hand jerked; tea sloshed to the rim of the cup.
“Has Wang Chong guessed anything?”
She had sent spies twice at dawn.
Both times the answer came back: His Grace and the new madam have not yet risen. No sound, no movement.
Song-mammy lowered her voice to a conspiratorial thread.
“Your Ladyship may set your heart at rest. The bride-joy woman lost her nerve and botched the dose. She dropped dead before c0ck-crow; no trail leads back to you.”
Lady Qin exhaled, half relief, half weariness.
“Even so, with a Lu girl under this roof I dare not strike again. Wang Chong already quarrels with me over the marriage. If she vanished now, he would smell my hand in it. Like it or not, Dalang and I must eat from his bowl for years to come. Were it not for Dalang’s disgrace, I would never have bowed to a bastard.”
Song-mammy clicked her tongue.
“His Grace is no ingrate. When Minister Xiao fell, who begged the Emperor for mercy? As for the Lu chit—childbirth is a ghost-gate even for strong women. Why borrow trouble?”
Lady Qin’s mouth twisted into something like a smile.
“May Heaven grant it. If that foster-mother of his had not died so suddenly, I would have picked a cousin’s boy and kept the coronet clean. Enough. Call them in.”
Outside, Wang Chong and Lu Xiniang had stood the length of one stick of incense.
Song-mammy reappeared, flanked by two little maids.
“Your Grace, the dowager refused to spoil your bridal day. She forced herself up despite the pain. She begs you will forgive the delay.”
“Your trouble is noted,” Wang Chong said.
They crossed the threshold into chambers Lu Xiniang had not entered in a decade.
Lady Qin sat propped on the daybed, shrunken inside a jacket that once fit. Three years had silvered her temples and hollowed her cheeks until the brocade hung loose as mourning cloth.
“Erlang,” she greeted, voice papery, “you know my health broke when your elder brother shamed us. I meant to stay abed, yet I could not leave a bride waiting.”
Her gaze slid to Lu Xiniang.
“Pretty as a peach-blossom. No wonder you lost your head. I kept your brother and his wife away—bad luck on a wedding day.”
Lu Xiniang dipped in a faultless curtsey, heart hammering against borrowed ribs.
Three years, and the woman who once loomed like a thundercloud now looked small enough to blow away.