The carriage curtain fell, shutting out the wind and snow.
The carriage had barely left the small courtyard outside West Peace Gate when Cui Shi stopped crying.
She took out a handkerchief and carefully wiped the remaining tears from her face.
Then, facing the little bronze mirror inside the carriage, she smoothed her hair and straightened her slightly crooked Pearl Crown.
The face in the mirror had been streaming with tears and snot before Wei Nisheng only moments earlier.
Now, only a faint redness at the corners of her eyes betrayed any trace of her distress.
The driver sat on the carriage shaft, glanced back at the curtain, and hesitantly asked:
"Madam, shall we return to the residence?"
"Yes."
After answering, Cui Shi stared blankly at the curtain ahead.
Outside, wind and snow rustled; inside, a bean-sized flame flickered, casting shifting light and shadow across her face.
Those eyes of Wei Nisheng's just now, that tone of his-
he was already a different person from the silent, pliable adopted son she remembered.
When had he become like this?
Or had he always been this way, only no one in the Wei Family had ever truly looked him in the eye?
The carriage rattled down the long street.
Cui Shi leaned against its wall and closed her eyes, her thoughts churning endlessly.
East Flower Gate, the Wei Residence.
Since Wei Mingde's impeachment, the atmosphere in the residence had worsened by the day.
The gatekeepers questioned every unfamiliar visitor repeatedly, and the servants walked on tiptoe,
terrified that the slightest sound might provoke displeasure.
The visiting cards that had once poured in without end had dwindled to none.
The colleagues who had once called Wei Mingde brother
had all become strangers overnight.
By the time Cui Shi entered, dusk had