Palace maid Shuoning

(Up)

The palace doors were closed.

The courtyard was quiet for a moment.

Suddenly, a crisp sound came from inside the hall, and it could still be heard clearly through the door.

Qing'er was so startled that she almost dropped the scissors. She stole a glance at Jiang Shuoning.

Jiang Shuoning stood still, still holding the scissors in his hand, his expression unchanged, as if he hadn't heard anything.

The eunuchs and palace maids in the courtyard all lowered their heads, none of them daring to look towards the main hall.

Inside the hall, Suihe knelt on the ground, her left cheek burning with pain from the slap. She dared not cover it, but gritted her teeth.

Consort Rong sat on the soft couch, holding a teacup in her hand, without even lifting her eyelids.

"I heard it with my own ears. You said, 'It's like that.' Like what? Like whom?"

Suihe pressed her forehead to the ground: "Your Majesty, please understand, I only spoke carelessly for a moment, I meant no other..."

"A slip of the tongue?" Consort Rong put down her teacup and finally looked up at her. "If this gets back to the Emperor, will he think it was just a slip of the tongue, or will he think I taught you to say it?"

Suihe trembled all over: "This servant knows her mistake, this servant knows her mistake..."

"How many years have you served me?"

"Your Majesty, it has been fifteen years..."

She entered the palace at the age of thirteen, following the fifteen-year-old Consort Rong, and has remained there for fifteen years.

"Fifteen years," Consort Rong repeated softly, her tone carrying an indescribable quality. "Fifteen years? Not even as good as a newcomer who knows his place."

Suihe gritted her teeth, not daring to reply.

"Don't you know what the Emperor hates most? Anyone who mentions that good-for-nothing is doomed. And you, you dare to say it in the courtyard."

"Your Majesty, it was Qing'er who brought it up first."

"Qing'er brought it up first?" Consort Rong interrupted her, her voice not loud, but every word like a needle. "Qing'er is a chatterbox, is that the first time you've known? She's a chatterbox, so you're chattering along with her? She asks you a question, and you answer? Are you a three-year-old?"

Suihe was speechless.

"I don't care who brought it up first." Consort Rong picked up her teacup and slowly blew away the foam. "All I know is that I heard it with my own ears—it was you who said it. Go out and kneel. Kneel until I'm satisfied. Let everyone see what happens when you can't keep your mouth shut."

"Yes...this servant thanks Your Majesty for your kindness."

Suihe withdrew from the main hall.

Her left cheek was swollen and bright red, with a faint trace of blood seeping from the corner of her mouth. A few strands of her hair were slightly disheveled.

No one in the courtyard dared to look at her.

Suihe walked to the center of the courtyard and knelt down.

Qing'er gasped, her lips trembling, wanting to say something but not daring to.

Jiang Shuoning didn't speak, nor did she look at Suihe. She turned around and continued pruning the red plum blossoms, the scissors snipping away slowly and deliberately.

Suihe knelt in the courtyard, head bowed, her left cheek burning with pain.

She remembered the sketchbook Jiang Shuoning had mentioned, where the young master looked like the master, and the more he resembled him, the less she liked him.

Then Qing'er asked that question.

She answered.

Suihe suddenly raised her head and looked down at the red plum tree.

Jiang Shuoning was still pruning and didn't look at her.

She smiled.

The smile was brief, gone in a flash, like a knife slicing through ice.

(under)

On the twentieth day of the twelfth lunar month, the weather was freezing cold. A biting wind howled as it swept across the palace walls.

Zhou Zhengyin hung the last piece of clothing on the clothesline, rubbing his red, swollen, and ulcerated hands and breathing on them to warm them.

He glanced down at his hands. Although he had applied medicine at night and soaked them in dirty water during the day, the smell of urine still seeped from between his bones, as if it could never be washed away.

Suddenly, there was a "snap" sound behind me.

He turned around abruptly. Xiao Shunzi was clutching the severed end of the rope; his freshly washed clothes lay scattered on the snow.

Xiao Shunzi shouted in a high-pitched voice, "Father-in-law, the mute servant is up to no good!"

Everyone from Changmen Palace poured out. Clothes were scattered on the snow, blindingly white and heartbreakingly dirty.

All eyes were fixed on Zhou Zhengyin like needles.

He hurriedly waved his hand, opened his mouth as if to say something, but only a hoarse whisper came out of his throat.

Eunuch Qiao walked out from the crowd, step by step, and took out a thin whip from his sleeve.

Zhou Zhengyin's heart pounded like a drum. He felt a sudden, burning pain down his spine.

His old and new wounds hadn't healed yet, and he really didn't want to be beaten anymore.

In a flash, he suddenly remembered someone.

I remember kneeling at her feet.

Suddenly, he knelt down.

His knees slammed onto the snow with a dull thud.

Suddenly, everything fell silent.

He'd been at Changmen Palace for half a year, and he'd never learned to kneel. When he was beaten, he would only crouch down and cover his head, like a curled-up wildcat.

Today, he knelt down.

Eunuch Qiao walked up to him and stopped.

He looked down at Zhou Zhengyin for a long time, his tone indifferent:

"Finally, your knees buckled? If I'd known this would happen, I would have avoided so many beatings."

Eunuch Xin stepped forward and said unhurriedly, "The clothesline is so thick, it just broke for no reason. If the mute servant had that skill, his hand would have healed long ago."

Xiao Shunzi's smile froze on his face.

Eunuch Xin was an old servant in the palace. Three years ago, he served the wrong tea to the emperor and was banished to Changmen Palace. Here, Eunuch Qiao still gave him some face.

Eunuch Qiao didn't look at Xiao Shunzi, but said indifferently, "How the rope broke is none of our business. The clothes are dirty, the mute servant can wash them again."

After saying that, he turned and left.

The crowd dispersed.

Eunuch Xin reached out and helped Zhou Zhengyin up, brushing the snow off his knees, and whispered:

"In this palace, if you don't want to get beaten, you have to bend your knees. If you bend them, they'll calm down, and you'll get one less beating."

He patted Zhou Zhengyin on the shoulder: "Your knees are still valuable. Don't let them become worthless."

After saying that, he turned and left.

Zhou Zhengyin stood alone in the snow.

The wind rushed into my collar, chilling me to the bone.

He stared at the clothes scattered on the floor, his shoulders trembling slightly. His knees still ached, as if they had been split open.

In order to avoid being beaten, he actually knelt down.

So this is what she meant by "rules".

It's not her rule. It's the rule of this deep palace.

It's been eleven days.

She never came back.

He suddenly became uncertain. Was the way she looked at him genuinely looking at him, or was he just a stone she picked up casually as she passed by, looked at once, and then threw away?

He clenched his festering fingers tighter.

pain.

But at this moment, he needed to grasp something so that something broken in his body could be immediately repaired.

In the dead of night, the cold wind whipped up snowflakes that stung my face.

After Zhou Zhengyin washed the clothes clean again, everyone had turned off the lights and gone to bed.

At that moment, a figure appeared under the moon gate, seemingly out of nowhere.

The figure slowly walked towards him. The familiar fragrance of Du Ruoxiang gradually enveloped him.

She's here?

His heart skipped a beat.

The pale moonlight shone down faintly. Jiang Shuoning was dressed in a moon-white palace dress, with velvet trim on the collar and cuffs, and it was still so clean, without a single wrinkle.

It was also accompanied by that very pleasant fragrance of eucalyptus.

Jiang Shuo stood quietly under the moonlight, cold as frost.

"Come inside."