Two Years

Young Master Kong chuckled, unoffended, and gestured toward the shelter with his fan.

"I heard that Lady Liu was abandoned by her husband. Perhaps the man had a shred of decency, though, and gave her some silver so she could settle down in Wu Commandery."

Su Jingyun's heart jolted.

A woman so beautiful, abandoned by her husband while she was pregnant?

"How outrageous! How could the laws of Great Zhang tolerate such a heartless, faithless scoundrel? Why didn't she report him to the authorities?"

Young Master Kong waved his fan and sighed.

"I heard Lady Liu doesn't remember her past. She came from the north, over a thousand mountains and ten thousand rivers. Even if she wanted to bring a charge, she wouldn't know whom to accuse."

Su Jingyun asked, "Then how does she make a living?"

"There." Young Master Kong gestured toward the shelter with his chin. "What do you think she's doing?"

"People are climbing the mountain today, so she was worried someone might feel unwell or suffer heatstroke. She's treating them here for free."

"She opened a pharmacy in Wu Commandery, you see, and at first she treated only the poor. Later, the physician she hired turned out to be so skilled that even a few wealthy families in the city came seeking treatment after hearing of him. These days, Lady Liu's name rings loud and clear in Wu Commandery."

Su Jingyun gazed at the moon-white figure in the shelter, an indescribable feeling rising in his heart.

A pregnant woman, all alone, had put down roots in this unfamiliar place, opened a pharmacy, hired a physician, and treated the poor.

He said quietly, "She's a kindhearted woman."

"Isn't she? And Lady Liu is beautiful. Even though she's pregnant, quite a few men in Wu Commandery have set their hearts on her and said they want to marry her."

Su Jingyun's brows furrowed again.

A pregnant woman struggling alone in the world-only she knew how many dangers she faced, how much suffering she endured that no one knew of.

How many of those men who said they wanted to marry her were sincere?

How many weren't after that face?

Only after living in Wu Commandery for several months did Qiao Shuyi truly come to understand what it meant when people said, "The times are hard."

Poor families could afford to fall ill, but they couldn't afford treatment.

A single dose of medicine cost several days' worth of food.

One visit to a medical hall meant borrowing from every neighbor.

At the Hall of Saving the World, the pharmacy she had opened, she kept medicine prices extremely low. When people truly couldn't come up with the silver, she gave it to them for free.

As more and more people came for treatment, several pharmacies in the city could no longer sit still.

That was how things had always been in this world: block someone's path to wealth, and they would cut off your path to survival.

Besides, she was only a pregnant woman, alone and without anyone to rely on-the easiest sort of person to bully.

Qiao Shuyi didn't care about any of that.

Opening a pharmacy had never been her only reason for coming to Wu Commandery.

She needed to get close to Su Jingyun.

Only through him could she appear before Zongzheng Heng two years later in a way that seemed perfectly natural, without arousing the slightest suspicion in the mistrustful emperor.

Su Jingyun had received little attention in the original book, but he had been described clearly enough:

He was upright, single-mindedly intent on making his mark at court, and always followed the rules-a scholar who couldn't have been more proper.

A man like that was the easiest to "win over."

There was no need to scheme against him or curry favor with him. All you had to do was make him think you were someone worth helping.

Then he would help you.

On the Double Ninth Festival, she had calculated exactly when to descend the mountain and which path Su Jingyun would take.

She "fainted" in front of him, and he reached out to catch her.

She was too "weak" to speak, so he took her back to the city.

A few days later, she had someone deliver an invitation, asking him to dinner to thank him for saving her life.

He came and sat properly across from her.

A few days after that, she "happened to run into" him on the street, and he invited her to a meal in return, saying it was only proper to reciprocate.

She accepted with a smile, and over the meal spoke only of Wu Commandery's local sights and the small affairs of the pharmacy, never mentioning anything else.

Later still, someone came to make trouble at the pharmacy. She went to find him with her pregnant belly, and before she had finished speaking, her eyes turned red.

Without another word, he went to those pharmacies himself. No one knew what he said, but from then on, no one came to cause trouble again.

Going back and forth like that, the two gradually grew familiar.

She called him Lord Su, and he called her Lady Liu.

She invited him to meals, and he helped her with things.

She gave him several packets of freshly made medicinal tea, and he gave her several medical books he had brought from the capital.

There was always a foot of distance between them, neither too far nor too close. Like two rivers flowing side by side, they grew accustomed to each other's presence as they went along.

To Su Jingyun, Liu Susu was a pitiable woman.

Pregnant and abandoned by her husband, she was making a living all alone in an unfamiliar place.

He helped her out of a sense of duty, taking on the responsibility expected of a judicial officer.

The Su Family would never allow him to have any entanglement with a married woman, even one who had been abandoned.

Nor had he ever thought of having one.

She was pregnant, and he was an official. Everything between them was perfectly aboveboard: he had merely helped her a few times, and she had invited him to a few meals.

What was wrong with that?

Two years passed in a hurry.

Lady Liu of Wu Commandery was no longer the pregnant woman with no one to rely on who had just arrived.

The Hall of Saving the World had opened three branches in the city and set up free consultation stalls in several of the counties and towns below it. Physician Shen's medical skills were renowned far and wide, and even people from neighboring counties came seeking him out.

The city's pharmacies no longer dared make trouble for her-not because they didn't want to, but because they didn't dare.

Who in Wu Commandery didn't know that the judicial officer Su Jingyun stood behind Lady Liu?

In early spring, the fringe trees in the courtyard were in full bloom, tree after tree white with flowers.

Qiao Shuyi sat in a rocking chair beneath the covered walkway, holding her son, who had just turned one.

The child looked as if he had been carved from pink jade, his black-grape eyes rolling about as he found everything new and fascinating.

Now he was reaching up with two plump little hands for the branches hanging overhead. Unable to reach them, he kicked his legs in frustration and cried, "Ah, ah!"

Qiao Shuyi's lips curved into a smile. She reached out, picked a cluster of flowers for him, and tucked it into his hands.

Once he had the flowers, he stopped fussing at once. He held them in both hands, turning them this way and that to look at them, then brought them to his nose for a sniff. Apparently finding them fragrant, he broke into a toothless smile, his eyes and brows curving with it.

He held the flowers up to her and mumbled indistinctly, "Mama... Mama..."

Qiao Shuyi gazed at the pink-and-jade little face in her arms, growing fonder the longer she looked. Unable to resist, she planted a smacking kiss on his tender cheek.

The kiss tickled him, and he scrunched up his neck and giggled.

Liu Xuan.

That was the name she had given the child.

Liu Xuan looked like Zongzheng Heng.

His brows and eyes were especially alike: thick, long brows and deep, dark eyes. Even at such a young age, he already carried a hint of cool, noble bearing.

It was just as well that he resembled his father. He could be recognized at a glance, and it wouldn't arouse suspicion.

Before long, that man would be coming.

She looked down at the child in her arms, then raised her eyes to the fringe tree in the middle of the courtyard.

She had specifically had the locust tree that once stood there removed and replaced with this fringe tree.

Two years ago, sitting on that man's shoulders, she had smiled and said, "I ask for no ladder to the azure clouds, only that we grow white-haired together beneath the fringe tree."

He had replied, "Having promised to grow white-haired with you beneath the fringe tree, I promise to share every spring and autumn of this life with you."

Now the fringe tree had flowered for two years, and the person she was waiting for would soon be here.

"Xuanxuan, Mother has lived a life of fine silks and rich food. These past two years, I've also seen all there is to see of how hard the world can be."

Qiao Shuyi stroked the child's cheek, but her gaze was fixed on empty space.

"So Mother understands better than anyone that the best thing in this world isn't silver. It's power."

"Before, Mother wore Shu brocade. Now I'm not even entitled to buy it, so I can only dress you in fabrics I once wouldn't have given a second glance."

"So Mother is going to take you to the highest place. When that time comes, you'll have whatever you want. No one will make you kneel."