Cicadas sang in harmony with the crickets, and the new moon hung like a crescent hook in the sky.
Inside the Changping Marquis estate, the main courtyard had gone dark, the lights extinguished — to all appearances the household had retired early, none of the daytime bustle remaining. Because the night sky held a bright moon and sparse stars, the maidservant Doukou borrowed the moonlight to carry out her mistress's foot-washing basin, wringing the wet hem of her sleeve that had been dampened when the basin tipped over. She picked up the copper basin and turned to head back, eyes half-lowered.
"Y-your… your sachet dropped." In the darkness, along the pebbled path, a young man in half-worn clothes stooped to retrieve a fallen sachet. His complexion was pale with a faint dullness; he pressed his lips together, looking slightly awkward. His features were clean and refined, and a pair of clear, dark eyes held three parts warmth and two parts timidity.
Doukou stopped walking and felt the empty space at her waist, knowing the sachet was hers.
She turned and accepted it from the young man. A look of mild surprise crossed her face, and she gave a lopsided little bow. "Young Master, it's so late — why are you still wandering around the rear courtyard? Be careful the servants from Madam's quarters don't spot you, or they'll have you kneeling in the ancestral hall again."
Bai Guo pulled the worn collar of his thin robe a little tighter against the breeze, let Doukou have her say, then replied slowly: "The… the kitchen forgot dinner… and I'm hun… gry."
Doukou was a maidservant in the Chrysanthemum Courtyard belonging to Concubine Lan, and ordinarily had little to do with Bai Guo — but at this moment she could not help feeling a flicker of pity for the timid, cowering young man before her. He was, after all, the son of a marquis's household — he ought to have been raised in gold and jade. Yet despite being the eldest legitimate son, his birth mother had died young, he had fallen out of the Marquis's favour, and in a household that always looked up to the mighty and down on the weak, even the lowliest servant felt entitled to mock him for being a simpleton.
Was it not said that Heaven loved to play tricks on people?
Doukou turned the messy affairs of the inner household over in her mind, then fished a few copper coins from her sleeve and pressed them into Bai Guo's hand. "Young Master, take these coins to the gatehouse," she said, her tone a dismissal. "You should still be able to get a white-flour steamed bun from Feng San over there."
"I… I don't need your…" Bai Guo pushed the coins away twice, the tightly pressed corners of his mouth curving up to reveal two small, neat dimples.
Doukou was still in a hurry to return to the Chrysanthemum Courtyard — lingering too long would earn her a scolding from the Concubine — and impatience crept into her expression. "If the Young Master doesn't want them, then go to bed hungry tonight. A wasted act of kindness on my part."
Bai Guo opened his mouth to explain himself — it wasn't like that — but seeing the tilt of Doukou's chin, that perfunctory look of giving charity to a beggar, he dropped his gaze and said nothing.
Doukou saw him standing there dumbly like a thin wooden post, then remembered the rumour going around the estate: the First Young Master was not only a simpleton who stuttered, but anyone who spent too much time with him risked catching his affliction. Impatience aside, she could not help but let a trace of disgust show on her face.
She simply flung the copper coins onto the ground at his feet, turned away with a darkened expression — silently calling it bad luck — and walked off, copper basin in hand.
Bai Guo stood in place for a moment, dazed. He did not go to pick up the scattered coins on the ground; instead, he pulled from his breast pocket an oil-paper package containing a half-warm vegetable bun, and sighed.
He knew how to beg for food on his own. No matter how wretched his circumstances, he would not stoop to taking a maidservant's cast-off coins and begging for a meal.
Come to think of it… Bai Guo himself did not really wish to go on carrying himself this way, so soft and easily bullied. But his temperament took after his early-deceased mother — he had never been one to compete with others. Add to that certain physical deficiencies, and whenever people said harsh things to him, he invariably found himself unable to answer back. Over the years, with his stepmother's cold neglect and his father's indifference layered on top of it, people had grown all the more convinced that he was an easy mark.
He patted his stiffened cheeks, lowered his eyes, and walked eastward toward the secluded side courtyard where he lived. But just as he stepped through the gate of the annex, a streak of white light split the sky overhead, and a tiny grain-sized jade earring dropped straight into his palm — slightly warm to the touch.
Startled, Bai Guo looked left and right. The courtyard around him was pitch-dark, without a trace of another soul.
His fingers curled slightly. The jade earring emitted a soft, gentle glow from all sides. Bai Guo steeled his courage and examined it carefully — then heard a strange, chiming "ding-dong," and a voice of peculiar timbre appeared in his mind: "Welcome, host, to the latest 5S-class prenatal preparation system from the Interstellar network. This system will assist you in selecting the highest-quality match for conception purposes and provide the most considerate and comfortable prenatal planning until the host body is fully prepared to welcome the precious arrival of a newborn."
"…W-who's there?" Bai Guo stumbled back a step, eyes wide, face draining of colour.
System: "…Hmm?"
Bai Guo was close to tears. "A… an immortal? A demon?"
The system sensed something was very wrong and felt a bit muddled, but asked politely: "Excuse me, is this Miss Pierce?"
Bai Guo had no idea what it was talking about. He froze completely, not daring to move.
System: "…" Good heavens, it seemed the space-time coordinates had been sent to the wrong location.
Bai Guo was almost ready to fling the burning earring away.
The system sensed his panic and quickly spoke up: "Young man, do not be afraid. I am a good system. I mean no harm."
As a premier interstellar prenatal preparation system, the system itself was thoroughly bewildered. Its own startup routine had already activated before it realised the courier had made a mistake — not only delivering to the wrong space-time, but having the system signed for by the young man standing before it.
And most critically: once their prenatal systems were transmitted, they were non-refundable. No returns.
This was… extremely awkward.
So what to do now? The prenatal system was fretting over how on earth to fulfil its mission, while Bai Guo's inner world was similarly churning.
Though he didn't know what a "good system" was, the words "mean no harm" in that strange voice had made him listen more carefully. He pressed his lips together and reasoned: if the thing in his hand was as good as it said, he would beg it to spare his life. And if it wasn't good — if this unknown thing, whether immortal or demon, had merely deceived him — then he could only accept his fate and go underground to meet his birth mother early.
Weighing it this way and that, Bai Guo found himself gradually growing calmer.
— — —
At that same moment, in the Chrysanthemum Courtyard of the estate.
A glamorous young woman in a peach-pink skirt swept into the courtyard with several maidservants, fury written all over her face.
"Is the Concubine asleep yet?"
The night-duty maidservant shook her head and didn't dare block the way, letting the young woman push straight into the room.
Right on her heels, Doukou returned to the Chrysanthemum Courtyard with her copper basin. She ran into the night-duty maidservant, who quickly relieved her of the basin and whispered hurriedly: "The First Young Miss just arrived. I could see she was in a black mood, Sister — I'd advise you to wait before going in to serve the Mistress. Don't set the Young Miss off."
Doukou let out a quiet breath and murmured back: "The First Young Miss is at it again, giving the Mistress grief?"
The night-duty maidservant shushed her sharply, tucked in her neck, and wisely said no more.
Inside the main room of the Chrysanthemum Courtyard, a single candle burned with a dull yellow glow. A beautiful woman in sleeping robes had just trimmed the candle wick and settled back onto her divan, eyes gently downcast.
"Concubine Mother!" Bai Yuwei had thrown her arms around Lady Li and was half-draped over her birth mother's shoulder, weeping pitifully, her brows knotted with grievances. "You simply must help me this time. I truly cannot bear to enter the palace!"
Three days prior, an imperial edict had come down from the Empress Dowager, stating that since the late Empress had passed away for more than three years and the Inner Palace was without a mistress — with high-ranking concubine positions left vacant — all daughters and gers from families of officials ranked seventh grade and above, as well as from great families, who were of marriageable age and not yet betrothed, were required to enter the palace for selection within a fortnight.
The Changping Marquis held an honorary title granted to a different surname; the household's children naturally qualified for the palace selection. The current Marchioness's intention was to put the household's eligible young woman into that slot.
Bai Yuwei, naturally, was unwilling.
"The First Young Miss has a hard fate," Lady Li said, her soft, beautiful eyes filled with sorrow. "It is Concubine Mother's uselessness, not being able to carry you in the First Madam's belly. Otherwise, it would not have been the Second Young Master who stepped ahead of you to claim your heart's desire, and you would not have been reduced to this."
She could have said anything else — but the moment the words "heart's desire" were spoken, Bai Yuwei felt a stab of pain through her chest. She gripped her handkerchief and forced a snort: "Second Brother is a legitimate son, so naturally everything he has is better than what I get. The fact that Madam betrothed him to the Gu family's son only proves my taste was good all along. But Concubine Mother, you must still find a way for me — I want no one but the Gu family's son for a husband. I refuse to go be some old Emperor's concubine!"
Lady Li hurriedly covered her mouth. "First Young Miss, watch your tongue! The current Emperor is in the prime of his years — how can you describe him like that?"
Bai Yuwei, seeing Lady Li frightened, looped her slender, soft arms around her and clung to her. "Concubine Mother, please help me."
"…Is the First Young Miss here again to beg embroidery work from your Concubine Mother?" Lady Li was still fretting over her daughter when Doukou finished tidying things outside and lifted the curtain to enter. Seeing Lady Li's poor complexion, she gave a bow. "This servant has come to make up the bed."
Lady Li saw her return and frowned. "What took you so long?"
"This servant ran into the First Young Master outside the courtyard. It caused a small delay."
"Very well — don't be late next time." Lady Li mildly rebuked her, then her expression shifted. After a moment of thoughtful silence she drew Bai Yuwei to the small divan, leaving only Doukou to make up the bed.
"Concubine Mother?" Bai Yuwei called to her again.
Lady Li furrowed her shapely brows and raised a hand to stroke the young woman's smooth, flowing hair. After much deliberation, she said quietly: "In truth, this matter of entering the palace should not have fallen on the First Young Miss in the first place."
"After all, with the late Empress gone and the Inner Palace insufficiently filled, having only illegitimate sons and daughters of great families put forward for selection would hardly seem appropriate."
Bai Yuwei's heart stirred. "Concubine Mother means to have a legitimate son of the household enter the palace? Of course — Second Brother is out of the question, but there is still Elder Brother above him — though… that one is supposed to be a simpleton. Can it work?"
"The First Young Master is merely not nimble of tongue; when did he become a simpleton?" Lady Li's jade finger tapped lightly on Bai Yuwei's rosy cheek, her beautiful eyes suffused with tender warmth. "The Emperor choosing a consort and establishing a new Empress is a grand affair. Madam may have been hasty in her thinking. Having a legitimate son present while sending an illegitimate daughter as substitute — how would that look? If Concubine Mother were to mention it to Madam tomorrow, she would likely see the wisdom of it herself."
Bai Yuwei's lovely face broke into a bright smile, thoroughly satisfied. "As I thought — Concubine Mother is the one who cares for me most."
Lady Li smiled too, drawing her close and murmuring: "Naturally, Concubine Mother must plan for you. First Young Miss, all you need do is look after yourself and live well."
Nearby, Doukou kept her eyes down and waited on them carefully. The Chrysanthemum Courtyard was warm and tranquil for a time, as though not a trace of scheming lingered in the air.
By the time the late-night whispers in the Chrysanthemum Courtyard had all been said and the candle had burned past the halfway mark, Bai Yuwei had come in a rage and left in high spirits — quite a commotion. The servants in the main courtyard caught wind of it but decided against disturbing the Marquis and Marchioness, who were for once sleeping soundly in the same bed, and quietly withdrew to report the matter the next morning.
