JingYi glanced toward them, uncertain, until LinXin delicately cleared her throat.
Ah. They were waiting forher.
It took a breath to remember that she could. That it was her place now.
“Leave us,” she told them. The words felt strange in her mouth. For a moment she half-expected someone to laugh, or correct her, or strike her for presuming.
No one did. The maids simply bowed and slipped from the room.
The silent moment that followed was awkward. They sipped their tea, letting it fill the space where words could not yet reach. The cakes remained untouched on their delicate porcelain plates, more ornamental than appetizing.
At last, ShunLi set his cup down with a clink on the lacquered table.
“It must be confusing for you,” he said, his tone measured—tentative, even. “To return here. To all this. To us.”
JingYi met his gaze without flinching.Confusing.The word sat wrong in her mouth, too soft for what she actually felt.
“Confusing isn’t quite the word I would use,” she said.
ShunLi arched a brow. “Disorienting, perhaps? Even unwelcome.”
She let the silence stretch. Let him feel the weight of it. “That, at least, would be honest.”
LinXin toyed with the embroidered edge of her sleeve. “We don’t expect you to forget what was done to you, JingYi.”
A laugh nearly escaped her. She swallowed it down and flicked her eyes to meet her sister’s. “Good. Because I haven’t.”
ShunLi nodded, accepting her words without argument. “Even so, this is your home. You are not here as a guest. The Magnolia Palace belongs to you, as it once belonged to Princess MinLuö. You may appoint your own staff, alter the chambers as you wish. Nothing is off limits to you here.”
“I won’t pretend this isn’t disorienting.” JingYi lowered her gaze to her cup. The tea had gone lukewarm, but she held it between her palms anyway. “To be offered tea and silk cushionswhen for most of my life, I was treated as little more than a blemish to be scrubbed out of sight.”
She placed her cup on its saucer, then set her eyes on ShunLi. Every word trembled off her tongue. She would not silence them again. This time, she’d let them bleed.
“You arranged my marriage,” she went on. “You sent me away, possibly to protect me, or put me out of the way. But before that, you did . . . nothing.” Her fingers curled around her knees. “For yearsI suffered, and you didnothing.”
It hurt to share this—a raw, scraping ache. Degrading, even. But the words kept coming anyway, as if they’d been waiting years for permission to leave.
“I was six when my mother died. When the kitchen staff stopped bringing food. Wu Ma found me and took me to the Jade and Mortar Hall. She told me I could be useful there. So, I worked. I cleaned. I learned. Because it was the only way not to starve.”
With each pain, something shifted. The shame didn’t vanish, but it loosened its grip, just enough for her to breathe past it.
“When I was fifteen, one of the Dispensary attendants touched me. He told me I should be grateful anyone would want a broken, disgusting Omega like me.”
Her voice broke, but she kept speaking, “I ran and told the royal physician. He stripped me naked in the courtyard and beat me. Called me a liar and a slut. Slapped me so hard, I couldn’t chew for a week. He said someone like me should watch her tongue if I wanted to stay.”
The silence throbs the way her right leg did when the weather turns. She looked at ShunLi now, heart open and bare.
“And still,” she said, “I let myself believe when you stopped those Alpha boys by the courtyard, and I left that peach on your porch. . . maybe I wasn’t forgotten. Maybe you saw me.” Sheshook her head. “But you didn’t come. You never came. And I learned not to expect rescue.”
JingYi paused and bit the inside of her cheek, keeping away the tears burning to escape, turning her sorrow into bitterness. “So imagine what it felt like when Xu Haorán came to my prison cell with a peach, and why it is difficult to reconcile your past indifference with your sudden kindness. Did our father’s death truly change so much between us?”
The room fell silent. The only sound was the soft crackle of incense ash crumbling in its bronze dish. A breeze slipped through the latticed window.
Then, ShunLi said, quietly, “His death changed everything.”
JingYi tilted her head. “Did it? Or did it simply make it easier to look at me? To face what you let happen?”
LinXin’s lips trembled, her eyes glassy. “You don’t know?—”
