Chapter 2：Imperial Edict

The main hall of the Mu family was quite crowded.

Those who came were an imperial eunuch and a mama from the Empress. The Empress, it seemed had bestowed upon her many gifts, obviously as a way of compensation for her long wait that in the end, served nothing. The list of things that had been brought was indecently long and even though she was still unmarried, she was already a rich woman in her own right. Mu Rong An's conduct all the while was quite pleasant, letting nothing of her real feeling transpired.

After the gifts, the invitation was passed. In an underhanded manner, she was told that her presence was awaited, using the empress and emperor's name to pressure her. Whose idea was it, she wondered, who wanted to let her loose so much face? The second prince himself? It could be, for after all, what she liked the most was still her reputation, making her a mockery would teach her not to mess with his beloved.

Her face still a little pale for she was sickly still, she received the invitation, saluted the eunuch and mama as they left afterward with the procession of servants that came.

Now that the palace's eyes left, the people in the manor slowly revealed the anger that was clawing at them. Her mother, in tears, was demanding answers from her father, her father was indignant on her behalf but in the end, who was the emperor? The dragon! His words were law. There was no other way. Her older brother wasn't any better and hearing him talk one fear that many could lose their lives if such words reach enemies' ears.

Mu Rong An was seemingly the calmest of the four of them, quietly rereading the invitation. She then closed it to look at her family. Those people, exceptionally today, appeared to her under a new light. Indeed, it didn't matter that she couldn't remember her previous life, in this life, she was extremely loved and doted upon. Sometimes that love was twinged and veiled under political reasons for before her happiness, her father was still trying to make connections, but considering this period, it was quite reasonable, for even then he had never been unbearable in his treatment to her.

Her family, those three flushed people who were still discussing her in anger on her behalf, always sided with her. Ultimately, her strong pursuit of her first love and former fiance would lead them all to an early death, taken to dust with her. It was really she, who had failed them in the end.

With an even voice and a composed face, she calmed them down and some people in the room joined her for persuasion.

In this room, there were also three concubines, two shu sisters and one forever sickly shu brother. Those people, she could only say that she could just stand their presence for there had never been between them all a real feeling of belonging to the same family. Just sweet lies and fakeness.

Between her father's daughters, she was the first born and the most outstanding in consideration of talents. So although those people had an amiable smile trying to ingratiate themselves with her, consoling her for her broken engagement and praising her for her new acquisitions, she knew that they were secretly happy to see her engagement disappear.

The arrogant legitimate daughter's downfall, why would they feel compassion?

Mu Rong An heard them all for a while, holding the long list that she was rereading and glancing from time to time at the carts outside. There were really so many! When she had read it all, she laid the paper down and lifted her face. To their poisonous and veiled knives under sweets nothingness, she responded with a smile larger and warmer than any other day, which made them stiffened immediately. They knew her well enough to know her display of anger. And she was angrier than she had ever been.

"Why? The Empress is so kind. Going to such lengths for my sake it is indeed I who had been wrong. They want me to assist, very well, I will."

With eyes that could now see clearly, she wanted to look at that couple once more.

***

The second prince. Hen Ru Ying. She loved him since she was a child. Being his cousin from the maternal side of the family, it wasn't that difficult to meet with him in their childhood, even more so that the empress was always making opportunities for them to be together. Since young she was repeated that she would be his wife, it was something she knew. He was always in her thoughts every day that she breathed, she would think of him. Waking up, eating, singing, walking even when sleeping she would think of him. She could almost say that she was breathing him. So she had long considered him hers, how then would it be deemed alright for him to just bailed out?

But was it the same even now? She didn't know, she just knew that there was inside her an anger that was expanding by seconds and finding no way to be released! Waiting for the day of their wedding was a torture!

The sounds of zither, qin, and guqin she produced these days were thunderous! The paintings she did were either scary, full of danger or bloody. When playing against her on go, no one saw her using anything other than ferocious attacks! And yet, no matter what, her mood wouldn't calm down! She still felt the ire built more and more, unable to find release.

Why wasn't she enough? What did she lack? Why?

***

Her health a little better but her mood worse than ever, a week an a half passed and it was already time for the big wedding. The emperor wanted for it to happen before the renewal banquet and as such, the Li family had really overworked itself.

To ease their burdens, the second prince proposed to let them be wed in the forest. Actually, it was, Mu Rong An knew, a fantasy of his future wife that he was pleased to accomplish.

It was a novelty. A wedding in the forest premises. Many wanted to complain but in the end, the second prince had his ways and convinced the emperor. Who dared say no to the emperor? In the forest's edge, it would be!

For Li Ming Qi, other than she really wanted to try something like this since her previous life, that forest also had an emotional meaning. It was in that same forest, that she met and saved the second prince who, without her advanced medical knowledge would have turned into a waste.

If the story followed its course, at this banquet, Mu Rong An would try to isolate and physically harm Li Ming Qi and the one who would save her this time would be the second prince. He then would make Mu Rong An's life a living hell before ultimately sending her to another country where she'd be tortured to death. Consequently, when Mu Rong An, the last thorn in their path would be gone, the protagonists would then start their happily ever after.

Really making people feel disgusted!

As she stood there under the shining sun and blue sky failing to admire the forest's beauty, saying light nonsense to other women when talked to, her lips twitched. The kneeling people under the emperor's feet were really unsightly to her. She masked her ugly mood by smiling even more pleasantly letting her eyes roam elsewhere. It caught the sight of Ru Shan Yong, the young general.

Here, a love fool even fooler than her! Or maybe not. He actually had the generosity to let the person he liked chose who she liked. He was not a fool, he was a complete idiot!

He met the newly transmigrated Li Ming Qi first and she even developed a fondness for him. However, he never reciprocated her underhanded advances and, in the end, thinking him uninterested, her feelings morphed and changed for that of a sister only. Ru Shan Yong realized his own feelings too late when Li Ming Qi was already far in love with the second prince. Comprehending his belatedness, he never voiced how he felt to not trouble her; even more so that he wasn't the type to covet his friend's love. Now, trying hard to conceal how he felt, came to celebrate with them.

Mu Rong An didn't know why but the sight of him fuelled her anger more. Why? Why was everyone loving that person? Just why?

This general who at the moment was lost in contemplation of the bride, this current love fool, even him, would later find his own transmigrated heroine to love!

Why?

What was wrong with women of this time?

The bows were finished, the bridegroom, now husband smiled as he took his wife's hands when she lost her footing. Mu Rong An's nails dug into her palm, almost drawing blood, her sweet smile never leaving her face. That darkness inside her that she always repressed, what was the use of hiding it? Repressed, and repressed and in the end, die anyway?

It was better to die on her own terms!

"Is there something wrong?" asked the daughter of the ministry of revenue by her smile.

"Why would it? I'm completely fine" she said almost happily.

***

The ceremony itself finished, they didn't go back, but instead, were going to stay in the edge of the forest the whole day, celebrating here until late at night before going back the noon of the day after.

Originally, Mu Rong An was supposed to drug Li Ming Qi but since she knew the outcome to that and wasn't really pursuing this anymore, she drugged another. One who never thought that he could be her target, thus never guard against her. Ru Shan Yong!

The general wasn't one who liked being waited upon, thus had no servants by his side. His guards weren't by his side either, he had given orders for them to look out for the newly married couple. He wanted them safe -which was originally how they easily noted Mu Rong An's wicked schemes-. Occupied to keep the couple safe from her, he didn't check his own security and was drug quite easily. After all, he had drunk more than he ever did tonight. He just wanted to forget it all. In his own corner, a man was drinking. A really desolate sight. If others could look at him downing one cup after the other, one wouldn't help but wonder if it was actually him who was the bridegroom and his bitter friends were making him drink too much to spend a good night.

In reality, he was just trying really hard to make his aching heart ached a little less... but completely failing!

Since he had isolated himself, no one knew when he lost consciousness nor did they know that he had been taken away. Mu Rong An had her servants prepared a place somewhere a little more inside the forest and held a relatively big tent there. Unconscious as he still was, he was tied him easily and firmly.

When he woke up, unable to move and talk, he could only glare at her. Having taken a bath not long, Mu Rong An was feeling fresh and liking the forest for its coolest way better than she had liked the stuffy sun in the morning.

"Ru Shan Yong" she called him, tasting the sound of his name on her lips. There was an almost feeling of elation. The taste of danger was so sweet! "you can't talk…" she explained when she saw him trying.

He was lying on a mattress, his four members were tied to fours small pikes near each corner of the makeshift bed. A tapestry had been installed on the floor and she sat by his head, touching his silky hair.

"I thought for a long time... In the end, I can't let it be, I am too unreconciled for that."

Maybe it was, she briefly thought, because she was written like that or maybe she just had this irrepressible side in her that wanted to take revenge for every little bit of grievance that she suffered. That was why she couldn't hold onto her temper, the reason why her anger couldn't go away. And what she suffered, she'd give back three times harder!

"However, these two cheating people I can't touch, ah…".

Looking at his frightening glare, she just smiled leaning on to him to whisper in his ears like a confession,

"...but you're here, aren't you?"

Straightening up, she kept on talking.

"You're the one who brought that woman in this forest, the one who let them meet."

Her soft hands that never worked hard a day in her life, drifted from his hair to his face, caressing his forehead, cheeks, nose. She traced his thick eyebrows, so different from Hen Ru Ying's light ones. This man's traits were really far from the effeminate and gentle ones of the second prince. His were manlier, rougher, screaming danger.

Her gentle voice resounded in the tent again.

"Such an exceptional woman. She has a lovely face, wide medicinal knowledge, happens to appreciate mounting horses. Your dear Qi'er,... and later... your dear Xi'er. That one, boyish and with a strong sense of justice, not only would she liked horses and martial arts, she'd also know a bit of medicine and would always be full of ideas about strategies and whatnots. In simple words," she looked into his eyes, as she said,

"A thoroughly modern person!... So distinct from the women here."

She gave a wry smile at that. She couldn't remember anything from her past life, so she really knew very little about it all. In the end, only the memories of this life remained and for her, she was thoroughly an ancient person. Until recently, she found nothing wrong with it. And even now, she thought, there was nothing wrong with it.

Why must they then love others?

The words that she couldn't address the second prince, she would address them to him. After all, even he would later marry a transmigrated woman. Where was the fairness in it all? Who were they, the abandoned women from this ancient time, supposed to marry?

"We talk too softly for you, you say? We are boring? Do you know how arduous it is to learn all those etiquettes about conduct!?"

She traced his lips. They weren't as rough as she thought they would be. Instead, they were supple and agreeable to touch.

"They don't teach how to shout or whistle to a horse to proper ladies, you know? We just know about music and calligraphy? Do you know how painful it is to sit for hours to learn those unnecessary things every day? We assimilated this, try our hardest yet we're never good enough for you!"

There wasn't any fake smile on her face this time. It had long disappeared during her speech, even she didn't know at which exact moment.

"These women just sneak in there yet they get the most outstanding men while we, we are left with the unremarkable ones... and even more we should feel lucky that our lives were spared!"

She got up from where she sat and his eyes followed her to one corner of the tent where rested a bottle of wine and a cup. She didn't touch those things. Rather, she took hold of one of the many unlit incenses that were near the bottle and lit them all with a candle's light. Each incense was then placed at one corner of the tent. Soon, its smell filled the small room.

"Do you know how much it hurts?" She asked, "to be the one left behind. The one whose choices were almost nonexistent. The one whose feelings were never taken into consideration...?"

All the incenses in place, she took the bottle and the cup and approached to sat by his side again. Filling the richly decorated cup, she answered herself,

"No, you don't."

"…"

"But know that it hurts. It hurts so much... It doesn't matter now though."

She drank the whole thing in one go, her face lightly flushed under the numerous candle lights. She filled the cup once more as she talked.

"I found the best way to hurt you back... You, who couldn't snatch the woman you love, who couldn't fight for her… I'll take what that other woman would covet the most from you: your purity… I want to taint you taint you in black, as black as my heart!"

Her smile was radiant as she announced him that. It was a real happy one. One that she herself didn't know how long she hadn't shown or had.

"The wedding night is going on... Our beloveds are having their ways. Let us have ours."

Raising the cup to her lips, she put the liquid in her mouth, then leaned to him, making him drink it from her lips.