When Gu Lan stepped out, Tong Mama hurriedly slipped into the main hall to avoid her. Only after Gu Lan had gone did she emerge again.
She had witnessed the scene just now and could not help but sigh. No matter what, the Eldest Young Master had at last stopped taking the Second Young Miss at her word. Yet what the Second Young Miss said was not without weight. The Eldest Young Master had sunk into such dejection; his thoughts must be trapped in Madam’s death. He blamed himself, wishing he could do something—anything—to make amends.
After pondering a moment, Tong Mama decided to go and tell Jinchao.
Gu Jinchao was in the study leafing through books. She had just cleared away the letters and was searching for how one ought to tend cacti. There was not much recorded. Only one volume claimed they needed hardly any care, no watering at all—saying these plants were so hardy that even if left in a study ten days or half a month without a glance, they would not die.
She had just set the book aside when Tong Mama came in and recounted in detail what had happened at Jingfang Pavilion .
Jinchao sat in silence for a long while after hearing it.
In truth, she still harbored resentment toward Gu Jinrong; that was why she had kept her distance. Yet if the boy went on like this, he would only wither further.
Memory pulled her back to the previous life: Gu Jinrong had come to the Chen household to look for her. Though tall, he had somehow seemed smaller than she was, his back hunched, his features prematurely aged and haggard.
A dull ache pressed through Jinchao’s chest. After a moment’s thought, she instructed Tong Mama, “Go to the manor’s ice cellar and fetch a block of ice. Then tell Caifu to carry a message to Jingfang Pavilion —say I have matters for the Eldest Young Master.”
The ice carved in winter was stored whole in the ice cellar; even in summer it could still be put to use.
Tong Mama assented and went. With Qingpu’s assistance, Jinchao washed her hands and headed to the small kitchen.
Over at Jingfang Pavilion , Gu Jinrong had not spoken since Gu Lan’s departure. No matter what Qing’an and Qingxiu said, he did not seem to hear them.
He stood at the study window staring at the plantain in the courtyard. A pale yellow cluster of blossoms had just opened, washed to tender freshness by the rain.
In summer, when he was small, a heat-sickness would unfailingly set in. He became fretful and uncomfortable, unable to eat. Mother would peel a banana and feed it to him. He would bite where her fingers held it, then burrow his head into her arms with a grin. Only after her thousand soft coaxings would he tilt up his face for another bite.
Mother never grew angry, never scolded—she was endlessly patient.
He thought of that sweetness, and now even the memory tasted bitter.
Such a good mother—and it was he who killed her… The thought gnawed his heart raw each time it rose.
Seeing that the Eldest Young Master would not answer him regardless of what he said, Qing’an pursed his lips and kept the news about Tong Mama to himself. Before long, however, a little maid arrived with a message: Caifu, the eldest young lady’s maid from Qingtong Courtyard, had come.
Gu Jinrong invited Caifu in. Hearing that his eldest sister was asking for him, his expression dimmed.
He felt he did not have the face to see her.
He ordered Qing’an to bring water so he could wash his face, adjusted his robe, and only then followed Caifu toward Qingtong Courtyard.
Jinchao had not yet returned. Gu Jinrong sat on an embroidered drum-stool in the west side chamber and let his gaze travel over the room. By the window stood a long altar table with a shrine to the Bodhisattva Guanyin; incense was already burning in the censer. The opulent ornaments that had once filled the room were nowhere to be seen. He remembered his eldest sister used to have a hundred-birds screen inlaid with white jade and jadeite, a small table of gold-thread nanmu worth a thousand in gold, and bed-curtains trimmed with gold filaments. Now the curtains were replaced by satin of warm agarwood hue patterned with curling vines, the screen by a landscape painting, the little table by a luxuriant pot of trailing pothos.
Mother had liked keeping pothos in her rooms as well, saying they lent a quiet grace.
Heat prickled Gu Jinrong’s eyes; he dared not look longer and turned his face to the window lattice. In the courtyard stood a trellis heavy with grapes, clusters of purple hanging thick.
When Jinchao came in, she found him gazing at the grape arbor. Smiling, she said, “If you’re craving them, I can have someone pick a few.”
At the sound of her voice, Gu Jinrong sprang to his feet.
She studied him. His fine-boned face was terribly thin, his brow still soft with youth. He wore a plain indigo robe, a square of mourning hemp stitched at the chest to match her own. When he had first returned from Qifang Hutong, he had stood almost eye to eye with her; now he had shot past her by a head—yet was lean as a bamboo pole.
“It’s better not to trouble you, Eldest Sister…” he mumbled.
But Jinchao took him by the hand and drew him outside. “Why not pick them ourselves?” she said, and told Yuzhu to fetch a flat bamboo basket and a pair of shears.
Yuzhu had been eyeing those grapes for days but had not dared touch them without her mistress’s word. Now she brightened at once, hurrying off to rummage up the basket and shears. Mistress and maids set to picking. For the clusters she could not reach, Jinchao had Gu Jinrong do the cutting. She passed him the shears; he rose on his toes and with ease snipped the highest, darkest-purple bunch—so neatly that Yuzhu’s eyes curved to crescents with delight.
Caifu and Qingpu came to help as well, drawing water to wash the fruit.
The vine, as thick as a wrist, yielded two brimming baskets, to the point they nearly overflowed.
Jinchao set aside one basket to be sent to her father and two younger sisters, and carried the other into the room, rewarding each maid with a bunch.
The girls all smiled, eyes bright. Only Gu Jinrong remained quiet and withdrawn.
Jinchao said to him again, “You may come here often. If nothing else, your elder sister can always feed you properly.”
He nodded. He did not ask why she had sent for him.
After a while, Tong Mama came in with a tray. Upon it stood two small celadon bowls, exquisite in shape.
At the sight, Gu Jinrong froze.
Jinchao took one bowl of honey-shaved ice and, smiling, offered him the other. “When I first came home,” she said softly, “I noticed how every summer Mother would make honey-shaved ice for you. Once she forgot, and you clung to her, refusing to leave. I wondered then what this ‘honey ice’ was. Later I pestered her to teach me. This is what Mother taught me to make. Tell me—does it taste the same?”
Gu Jinrong scooped a spoonful of crushed ice and let it melt on his tongue. As the ice turned to water and the honey unfurled, a gentle sweetness spread—comforting beyond words.
This is the very taste of Mother’s honey-shaved ice. Winter-stored ice, chipped and heaped into a porcelain bowl; a spoon of red bean paste crushed to a velvet pulp; a few drizzles of honey—cool upon the tongue and fragrant with sweetness. Nothing better for summer’s heat.
Gu Jinrong wanted to tell Jinchao it tasted exactly right, but when he opened his mouth, a sob burst out instead. “Eldest Sister, I… I miss Mother…”
Clutching at Jinchao’s sleeve, he cried till he was breathless, trembling as he curled in on himself and slowly sank into a crouch.
Jinchao let out a quiet sigh and stroked his back to soothe him. “Your sister is here. It’s all right.” At first, perhaps the pain was not so sharp; yet Mother had seeped, little by little, into every corner of his memory, and the more he thought, the more it would ache.
“In the past, it’s not that I didn’t harbor resentment against you,” she told him, “but all of that must one day pass. If Mother’s spirit in the heavens were to see you tormenting yourself like this, she would surely feel distressed… Rong-ge’er, if you truly cannot bear it, then study well and bring honor to our family. That would be the best offering you could make to her…”
Gu Jinrong raised his head at that. Through a blur of tears he said, “Eldest Sister, can you forgive me? I—I know it was all my fault. I believed Gu Lan and harmed you and Mother. I won’t do it again… I want to honor you as I should…”
Thinking of what Tong Mama had reported, Jinchao understood well enough.
She smiled a little. “What use is forgiveness, by itself? You must do something of use.”
He fell silent for a long while, as if something of his sister’s meaning had at last begun to dawn. The maids had already slipped out; the room lay quiet. Jinchao drew a sachet from her sleeve and set it in his palm. “Go back and think it through,” she said. “When you’ve understood, come find me again.”
Then she, too, rose and walked out. Gu Jinrong untied the sachet and found, within, two tiny beans of gold.
He stood wordless for a time, then closed his fingers tight around the sachet.
Dusk deepened; no candles had yet been lit.
When Song Miaohua woke from her nap, she found only darkness before her eyes. She slipped on her shoes and left the bed. In the west side chamber she saw the two newly arrived little maids holding a lacquered casket, giggling as they took out its contents to preen and compare.
Leaning against the doorframe, Song Miaohua said nothing. By the feeble glow of a pea-sized flame, the girls were playing, a chased-gold filigree hairpin—its setting a yellow tourmaline—twirling between their fingers.
It was hers.
The one called Huangli wore several kingfisher-inlaid bangles on her wrists. Still laughing, she stuck the hairpin into the other girl’s bun. The two of them crowded before a small, exquisite bronze mirror rimmed with white jade, tilting and turning their heads and chattering without end.
Song Miaohua’s grip tightened on the frame; her hands shook with fury. But she said nothing. She retreated quietly to the inner room and sat on the heated kang, staring into space.
Lan’er had not come to see her in a long while. These two new little maids were even worse than the last—no respect at all! To dare, openly, to take her things and play with them—before, she would have snapped both their hands without a second thought!
What has happened? Has Gu Jinchao moved something against me again?
After a moment, Song Miaohua called out in a clear voice for the maid by name: “Huangli, bring a lamp!”
A crisp reply drifted back: “Auntie, please wait a bit. The candles are gone. Caoying has gone to fetch a butter lamp.”
…The candles are gone? And what, pray, were you using just now?
Rage surged through Song Miaohua, yet beneath it her certainty only hardened. Fallen though she was, she was still a pregnant concubine. If not for “matters outside,” these two would never dare be so brazen.
What am I to do? I’m penned up here—heaven will not answer, earth will not heed. Who can help me?
If this drags on, Lan’er will not be able to see me. And if Gu Jinchao truly sets her mind to harm me, what strength have I to strike back?
A bleak confusion crept over her. Gu Deshao loathed her now; her only prop was the child in her belly. Without that, Gu Jinchao and Ji Wu-shi would long since have forced her into a nunnery. Ever since the incident, she had found no way to send word to the Song family—otherwise they would surely have shielded her and Lan’er both.
Her father was the Shaoqing of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, barely past fifty—not old. The Taichang Temple Minister, however, was over seventy; in a few years he must retire. If that post were vacated, her father might well ascend to it—a Third-Rank office.
Years ago, when she insisted on entering the Gu household as an honored concubine, her father had been gravely displeased; for years on end he forbade anyone at home to write to her. Later, when she brought Lan’er back for a visit, the frost had thinned a little.
Originally, her father had no desire to involve himself in her affairs—but for the sake of his prospects, he would never allow a legitimate daughter of his to be cast off into a convent.
And Lan’er was outside, alone. If she herself was treated thus within these walls, how much hardship must Lan be suffering beyond them?
If only I could reach the Song family, my father would stand behind Lan’er; Gu Deshao would not dare make things hard for her. Father has always liked Lan—he would help.
Song Miaohua sat very still, pondering many things. It seemed that now, the only ones who could aid her and Lan’er were the Songs.
But so long as she remained confined like this, it was all empty talk.