The Vicious Supporting Villainess’s Chronicle of Serving Pleasure (Historical 1v1, H) - Chapter 20

Seeing him dodge as if scorched, Shen Chiying fumed in secret. Using the moment when Feicui helped her down from the carriage, she shot a vicious glare at that retreating back.

Coral carried the incense, candles, and paper money they’d prepared long ago. Mistress and maids trod the weed-choked, muddy path and slowly approached the lone earthen grave in the courtyard.

Wild grass ran riot atop the mound; only a few stalks of wild chrysanthemum swayed in the wind, making the place look all the more desolate.

“Your Majesty, this place is rather…” Feicui hesitated. “Now that you are empress, why not have Madam Meng moved to the Shen ancestral cemetery?”

Shen Chiying lowered her eyes; long lashes cast a shadow beneath them. Her voice trembled. “Mother hated the Shen family most in life. Being buried here was her wish.”

“Mother…” Her fingertips brushed the mottled headstone; she choked in a whisper, “Ying’er has always remembered your words—trying hard to live…”

“It’s only that I’ve been unfilial—eight years have passed before I came to see you…”

When her birth mother died, she was taken back to the Marquis of Wuxing’s residence, yet, as a concubine-born daughter of a prince consort, she was bullied at every turn.

It had been hard enough to stay fed and warm—how could she have managed the long journey to the outskirts to sweep a grave?

Later, turning and turning until she reached the Prince of Xin’s residence, she thought only of clinging to Huan Jin to escape the Shens, and spared not a thought for this desolate grave.

Standing before it now, Shen Chiying knew nothing of the rites; she simply let Coral and Feicui arrange the incense and candles while she clumsily fed paper money into the brazier.

Gold foil fluttered in the firelight; the smoke stung her eyes red, and tears slid down.

Inside and outside the courtyard, more than a dozen shadow guards lurked like ghosts, vigilance taut as a wire.

Qi Yan stood not far off, gaze complicated as he fixed on the woman kneeling and weeping before the grave.

Unlike her usual splendid finery, today she wore only an ivory gauze dress, no rouge or powder, a white-jade hairpin set slantwise—so plain it seemed absurd.

Her looks were lush and striking, unsuited to such dress; and yet, somehow, a fragile, plaintive grace bled through, stirring pity in spite of oneself.

At that thought, Qi Yan’s brows cinched hard; he even let out a cold laugh—this Madam Shen was ever arrogant and overbearing, throwing her weight around in the palace on the strength of imperial favor. What here was worthy of pity?

When the offerings were done, Shen Chiying wandered the courtyard alone. Among the fallen walls and broken eaves, memories of relying on her mother for survival surfaced one by one.

Her birth mother Meng Ji had been registered as low-status at the Bureau of Entertainments—rumored to be a disgraced official’s daughter—yet she had never spoken of her past before she became a dancing girl.

Shen Chiying and her legitimate elder sister Shen Wanhua were only a year apart; no doubt the Marquis of Wuxing, while the Princess Royal was confined awaiting birth, had gone off to sow wild oats—and so she, a bastard, had come into the world.

Base status passed from generation to generation and could never be shed. The marquis must have counted on that when he dared act so wantonly.

He had never imagined the Princess Royal would step forward and acknowledge this concubine-born girl.

At the time the old Madam Shen was still alive; she arranged for mother and daughter to be placed here and sent grain and cloth every few months.

But underlings skimmed their cuts in layer upon layer; by the time things reached their hands, almost nothing was left.

Meng Ji had no strength even to wring a chicken’s neck and could not hunt in the hills; she could only clear two little vegetable plots in the yard to scrape by…

In a flash, a thought streaked through Shen Chiying’s mind.

She lifted her eyes without thinking and looked toward the austere figure by the broken wall—Qi Yan stood with arms crossed, the stone-blue hem of his robe snapping in the wind.

As if sensing it, he raised his gaze—just in time to see Shen Chiying pick up her skirt and patter toward him in tiny steps.

She looked like a happy little sparrow—where was the poise befitting the mother of the realm?

Qi Yan pressed his thin lips tight and, without a flicker, stepped back several paces, deliberately opening the distance.

At his waist the xiuchun sabre knocked against a jade pendant with a crisp clang, as if sounding a warning.

“Commander Qi…” Shen Chiying stopped just three steps from him, lips parting on soft breaths, that snow-white swell at her chest rising and falling with her haste.

“Would you be willing to find some skilled craftsmen to do a bit of repair on this courtyard for me?” Her voice was gentle, the tail-note carrying just the right tremor.

In an instant Qi Yan’s throat tightened; heat spiked to his head. His hand gripped his hilt on reflex; veins rose stark over his knuckles.

Before he could answer, Shen Chiying pressed on, “With the fighting so tense of late, His Majesty toils early and late…”

“For a trivial matter like this, I cannot bear to trouble his sacred ears…” She tipped up a face bright as peach blossom, thick lashes flickering.

Dawn glazed her creamy skin; those apricot eyes brimmed with feeling, and as her gaze flowed, allure poured out in waves.

Qi Yan jerked his head aside and swore hard in his heart—this Empress Shen, mother of the realm, dared bat her eyes at an outside man!

Seeing his expression ice over, Shen Chiying edged half a step closer without a trace, her earnest look deepening.

If she wanted to send people to fix the place, a single order would do; asking Qi Yan in particular was only to take the chance to draw him in.

Once the work was done, she could invite him into the palace with “thanks” as her pretext. With a few such comings and goings, how could they fail to build a connection?

Shen Chiying knew perfectly well—Qi Yan, the devoted supporting man smitten with the heroine in the chapbook, would one day stand against her.

She didn’t dream of winning his favor; she merely hoped he wouldn’t corner her at every turn the way the chapbook had written.

“I must refuse.” Qi Yan’s voice was cold as ice. “Repairs are not within the Jinyiwei’s remit.”

“Her Majesty might summon the Inner Treasury or the Ministry of Works. I imagine they would serve with zeal.”

Shen Chiying blinked, clearly not expecting such a clean refusal.

Her fingers twisted her kerchief without thinking. She angled her body slightly, exposing a sliver of snow-pale throat.

“But this… was my childhood home.” Her voice dipped soft, deliberately fragile. “Other than the Commander… I truly trust no one.”

“Your Excellency is His Majesty’s cousin by bl00d—so you are, naturally… my family as well.”