She withdrew her hand and touched her own chest. “We both survived him. We triumphed. And I will not let him steal one more day of having a sister.”
LinXin stared at her for a long moment. Then her jaw relaxed—just a fraction. She leaned forward, and JingYi met her halfway.
Their embrace was slow, careful at first. LinXin’s arms enveloped her—strong arms, not the tentative hold of someone broken, but the grip of a survivor.
JingYi closed her eyes, pressing her cheek to LinXin’s shoulder. They weren’t bound by blood, but by grief shared in silence. Battles fought alone in the same gilded prison.
When they finally pulled apart, LinXin’s hand found JingYi’s cheek. Her eyes were still bright, still fierce.
“Sister?” she asked.
JingYi nodded. “Sister.”
CHAPTER 65
JINGYI
It wasn’t every day that the forgotten daughter of the disgraced Lady JingMei was seen dressed in formal robes, a court maid in tow. All her life, she’d been a cautionary tale. Exiled since birth, then demoted to the rank of servants. She’d been sent abroad as a political Omega bride yet returned without a husband. By all accounts, she should’ve been hanged for having brought disgrace, but she was elevated toHighPrincess instead, favoured by the new emperor himself.
The whispers were not new, but for the first time, they carried awe rather than scorn. JingYi didn’t deign to respond. As she walked the garden paths to the Jade Mortar Hall, she kept her head high, spine straight, stride steady—as much as she could manage.
The slippers, soft-soled and practical, helped. They were unlike the shoes sent by the Internal Affairs Bureau earlier—dainty things elevated on a three-inch platform shaped like an upside-down flowerpot, embroidered with golden-threaded plum blossoms. An ode to the winter season, yet wholly useless. Her leg had buckled the moment she tried to stand in them.
She’d chosen these flat slippers instead. Not in fashion, perhaps, not for a High Princess, but they were comfortable, sturdy, and of her own choice.
When they reached the threshold of the Royal Dispensary, JingYi paused, smelling the scent of boiled roots and crushed herbs that brought something close to comfort.
“I’ll be inside for a while,” she told her new maid, Ying. “Go find a place to sit down and rest.”
The young girl’s eyes widened. “But, Your Highness?—”
“Go,” she urged gently. “You’ll only draw more eyes if you linger.”
Ying hesitated, then bowed. “As you wish.”
JingYi turned toward the familiar space. Inside, warmth and moisture hit her all at once. The bubbling cauldrons. The grinding stone. She stood just past the entrance, watching as memories came flooding back. For a moment, the bustle went on, until someone looked up.
A pause, a whisper. One by one, heads turned. Tools stilled. Conversations died. Then, in a ripple, the physicians and their attendants rushed to kneel on the floor.
“High Princess JingYi,” someone whispered.
A chuckle tickled her throat. To receive this treatmenthere—a place where she’d once scrubbed floors and fetched towels under orders barked across the room—was jarring. The Dispensary had once been her prison, her classroom, her sanctuary. Not often kind, but it had been, for a long time, the only place where she’d belonged.
From the far end of the room, a figure in grey robes approached. The same moustache over thin lips. The same posture of a man straining to look taller than he was.
JingYi waited until Master Yu stood before her, until he bowed stiffly as though a bamboo stick had been strapped to his back.
“Your Highness,” he mumbled. The address seemed to pain him. “The Dispensary is honoured by your visit.”
JingYi nodded to acknowledge him, but no more.
“I am glad to see the cauldrons still burn as they used to,” she said, “that it fares well even after dysentery swept through the palace. How fortunate it was that you diagnosed the illness before it spread through the Peony Court, endangering His Late Majesty’s children.”
Master Yu’s jaw ticked. “I am aware that it was due to your . . . diligence that we managed to contain the illness to the servants’ spaces.”
She offered him a faint smile. “Yes. Ihadto be diligent, since credit was so often misplaced.”
Master Yu, so often eloquent before nobles and ministers, stood slack-jawed. JingYi let the pause stretch before speaking, calm but leaving no room for refusal: “Have Wu Ma and Feng meet me in the scriptorium.”