Chapter 52: Promised to Keep Me Safe for a Lifetime

"Princess, it is chilly tonight. Please put on an extra layer."

Qiuming handed over the cloak. Yin Jiaojiao took it and said slowly, "Qiuming, have there been any news from those two martial artists these past few days?"

Qiuming shook her head. "The Prince changed his plans at the last minute; instead of Nanshan Temple, we are heading to Liangzhou. I have already sent an urgent message back, and they should have received it by now. However, investigating old affairs from twenty years ago is not something that will yield results overnight. Please be patient, Princess."

"I know it won't happen that quickly, but it just occurred to me that my grandmother once mentioned in passing that before marrying into the Yin family, my mother lived alone in Liangzhou for three years."

"Alone? I heard the Madam lost her parents at a very young age, but surely she had some distant relatives and friends?"

"The Cen family was once a prominent and wealthy merchant clan across the six northern towns. At their peak, three-tenths of the shops in the six towns bore the Cen name. Later, generation after generation proved incompetent, living off their past achievements. By my mother's generation, the family fortune was less than half of what it used to be, the lineage was withering, and the collateral branches were scattered far and wide. As for the main household, my mother was the sole orphaned daughter. According to grandmother, mother had a strong-willed personality and had been raised like a boy since childhood. After her parents died, instead of seeking refuge with relatives, she took over the family business and managed it herself. My father probably married her, in part, for the Cen family's assets behind her."

Her grandmother had never told her exactly how large the Cen family's dowry was, only that back then, Madam Cen had used her entire family fortune in exchange for marrying Yin Chaozong. Although the Yin family was a noble lineage, before Yin Chaozong, they had declined even more severely than the Cen family. With the combination of Madam Cen's entire fortune and Yin Chaozong's brilliant talent, the family had climbed back to the peak.

"So, Jiaojiao, if you want the Yin family to cough up even a sliver of your mother's dowry, your only hope is to marry far above your station—to fly to a high branch that the Yin family dares not provoke. But that is too perilous. It would be far better to leave Eastern Capital behind and marry into a family of pure literary reputation. It may look like marrying beneath you, but you would be able to live in peace to old age. Though your mother's dowry cannot be recovered, your grandmother will step in to mediate, and she will certainly not let you be wronged."

At that time, Yin Jiaojiao had only half-understood and had not taken it to heart.

Madam Cen had died too young, leaving her with no impression and no affection. To delve deeper, she even harbored resentment toward this birth mother.

Had she not died prematurely, she would not have had to live in such an awkward position within the Yin family—falsely holding the title of the legitimate eldest daughter, yet treated as a thorn in the stepmother's eye and a nail in her younger sisters' flesh, even while acting submissively. The sharp winds and flashing swords of the household forced her to sit on pins and needles every moment in the prime minister's estate, making her life worse than that of an ordinary daughter.

Because of this, she had always felt that her desire to retrieve Madam Cen's dowry was not particularly strong—until she began pursuing Xiao Yuanchi with a madness bordering on obsession.

Aside from her uncontrollable feelings, had there truly been not even a sliver of desire to marry above her station?

There was no higher branch than Xiao Yuanchi; this was her best choice. Even the powerful Prime Minister Yin Chaozong had no choice but to yield when facing the Prince of Qin, who held troops in his hands and enjoyed the Emperor's utmost favor. If she could marry him, at least two or three parts of Madam Cen's dowry might be recovered, which could also be considered a modest display of filial piety from her as a daughter.

She thought that, to some extent, there indeed was.

"Qiuming, tell me, if you were my mother, would you have guarded the family business, taken in a son-in-law to marry into the family, and continued as the head of a borderland magnate clan, or would you have made a desperate gamble to squeeze into the noble houses of the Eastern Capital?"

Qiuming thought for a moment and hesitated. "This... it is hard for me to say."

"Speak your mind freely."

"If I were the Madam, I would probably have taken in a son-in-law to marry into the family." Qiuming pursed her lips. "To the outside world, great noble families look glorious, but the filth inside is unspeakable. Without a sufficiently formidable maternal family, being the mistress of such a household means spending a lifetime in worry and exhaustion. Rather than that, it would be far better to be a powerful and unbullied head of the family in the borderlands—with wealth, leisure, and everyone having to dance to your tune. How carefree that would be."

"I think so too." Yin Jiaojiao frowned. "If the mother in my grandmother's accounts is the true mother, then according to her personality, she should not have chosen to swallow her grievances and endure. Why..."

"Indeed. Merchant families are the most shrewd. Even if she truly wanted to use the entire family's strength to bring glory to the clan, she should have kept a fallback option and a retreat route. Why be so resolute?"

Yin Jiaojiao fell silent.

Surely her mother was not a fool like her, abandoning all reason for the sake of a man, falling in love with Yin Chaozong at first sight?

In her hurried past life, she had never pondered this question. In this lifetime, event after event compelled her to begin doubting these long-settled past affairs. She had a vague intuition that her own checkered fate might be connected to these old secrets.

"How strange, that it had to be Liangzhou," Yin Jiaojiao sighed. "Sun Zhongyou, the man Gu Xuezhi married, also died in battle near Liangzhou, didn't he?"

"Yes. The Battle of Baishi Pass was exceptionally tragic. Even after searching for many days, the Sun family could not gather a complete corpse, so they had to bury a helmet and a long spear in the coffin instead."

A fleeting thought flashed rapidly past. Yin Jiaojiao murmured, "Baishi Pass..."

At that moment, a commotion came from the end of the corridor. It sounded like Xiao Yuanchi had finished his discussion. Yin Jiaojiao quickly gathered her thoughts and walked over.

"Your Highness."

The voice belonged to Gu Xuezhi. "Is there a solution to the plundered military provisions?"

"A countermeasure has been found. Xuezhi need not worry."

"How can I not worry?" Gu Xuezhi sighed. "Your Highness, do you know that the Qingzhou embezzlement case you presided over has concluded? The Prefect of Qingzhou was demoted by one rank with virtually no punishment. In the imperial court, he and the Crown Prince even put on an act of letting bygones be bygones, and His Majesty showered them with praises. The entire embezzlement case was nothing more than a trap, designed to lure you in and make you fall into the net!"

"You guarded against everything yet still fell for it. If not for that birthday banquet where I took it upon myself to invite the Crown Prince, and if not for the Princess's carelessness in letting two assassins slip in..." Gu Xuezhi's voice trembled, "Seventh Brother, is that why you have grown distant from me?"

"Nonsense. I have never blamed you."

"Is that so? Just now at the banquet, the way you and the Princess behaved—was that not put on for me to see?"

"...Why would Xuezhi think that?"

"You are not a person given to frivolous behavior, especially not on such a serious occasion. What the Yin... Princess said and did was truly unseemly. You should have corrected her behavior even without me speaking up, yet you indulged her and allowed her to humiliate the officials of Yanzhou. Was that not intentional?"

Xiao Yuanchi said calmly, "Xuezhi, you are overthinking it. It was merely a banquet; there is no need to be so solemn."

"Is it I who am overthinking, or is it you, Seventh Brother..." She seemed to find it difficult to voice the words, "Because she blocked a sword for you, you have decided to truly become a devoted husband and wife with her, haven't you?"

"..."

"Seventh Brother, what kind of prime minister Prime Minister Yin truly is—His Majesty may not know, but you do. And anyone with discerning eyes can see which person Prime Minister Yin is truly trying to support! The Princess is the legitimate eldest daughter of the Yin family, and her older cousin Yin Yuru is such a clever and formidable woman. How could the Princess be any less? Can you truly believe she is pure, sincere, and harbors no ulterior motives?"

Gu Xuezhi's emotions were stirred, and sorrow tinged her words.

Yin Jiaojiao stopped in her tracks. To step forward was improper; to turn back was equally awkward. She was separated from them by a corner, hearing everything clearly. Their conversation sounded like a vernacular tale she had once read.

A scholar, seduced by a fox spirit, remained hopelessly obsessed, while a virtuous wife exposed the grave dangers in an attempt to awaken the lost lamb.

When she read that story in the past, she had wept for the virtuous wife and cursed the scholar for his fickleness. Yet now, she experienced a much more complicated feeling. After all, in this very scene, she—the legally wedded wife—looked nothing like a wife and far more like a fox spirit.

Then, as a conscience-stricken fox spirit, shouldn't she withdraw three hundred paces at this very moment?

In the stagnant air, Xiao Yuanchi spoke slowly, "Xuezhi, the frontier is not the Eastern Capital. You are wearing too thin a clothes. Put this on and return early."

Over there, something was draped over someone's shoulders with a rustling sound. Yin Jiaojiao could not help but prick up her ears.

"Seventh Brother!"

Gu Xuezhi suddenly let out a tender cry. "The promise you made to me when I was eight years old—the promise that you would protect me for the rest of my life—does it still count?"