Let Lost Love Lie - Chapter 5

The candle flame flickered. An open wooden box was pushed toward me from the other side of the table. Inside lay a glossy black pill.

Steward Chen put away the firelighter he had used to light the candle.

“This medicine is too precious. These children haven’t been as fortunate as you, Cousin Miss, nor as exceptional as you were from childhood. We can only give them the dregs from failed batches first, to help them adjust.”

He sighed, as though regretting the waste.

“Those who don’t survive have to be dumped at the mass burial ground and burned. This child has done best of the lot.”

“She’s the most like you were back then. No matter how we lock her up, she always escapes.”

“But she won’t last much longer. I hear she was vomiting blood a few days ago.”

“His Lordship was so angry that he accidentally smashed a vase bestowed by the emperor. He’s been hiding at home in terror ever since. It took me such trouble to find a counterfeit.”

He rambled on, sounding rather aggrieved. Then he looked at me and beamed.

“Really, you’ve always been my benefactor.”

“Ten years ago, I became the household steward because of you. Now, when I’ve reached the end of my rope, here you are to save me again.”

He pushed the box a little closer.

“Please take the medicine, Cousin Miss, so this old servant can report to His Lordship.”

I said nothing. He waited patiently until I swallowed the pill before his eyes. Only then did he seem reassured.

He put away the box and rose to catch the child.

Just as he was about to seize her, I slowly snipped the bright candlewick without looking up, then casually tossed the wick trimmer onto the table.

The room went dark. The trimmer struck the edge and fell to the floor, raising a cloud of dust with a clear clatter.

“Steward Chen.”

My voice was calm.

“Do you remember how you got that scar over your left eye?”

He froze.

In the darkness, the child slipped out as nimbly as an eel and soon vanished.

I looked away and continued at my leisure.

“Ten years ago, when I first tested the medicine, you caught me trying to escape. That was how you rose to become the marquis’s steward. Such glory.”

He turned back. With the moonlight behind him, the smile finally cracked on his face. His eyes were full of hatred.

“Later, you thought you had power, and forgot you were nothing but a lowly servant.”

I had been only seven or eight. Marquis Xie, my uncle in name, locked me in the courtyard where Mother had once lived to make me obediently test the medicine.

When I was pinned down and my clothes were being torn off, I clutched the wick trimmer and slashed his eye.

I stabbed wildly at him several times. His screams brought the maids outside running. When they arrived, I looked up, covered in blood, still gripping the blade. Horror filled their faces. They stumbled backward instinctively.

When Marquis Xie heard, he shook with rage and meant to have Steward Chen beaten to death. But somehow the man said something that saved his life.

I stood, looking indifferently at Steward Chen as he trembled with anger, his head bowed. Then I walked past him and out.

“After all these years, why haven’t you learned?”

“Do you think your precious master would order both your eyes gouged out to keep me alive?”

I paused. As though something had finally piqued my interest, I smiled brightly.

“Or shall I do it myself?”

“After all, I know where to stab with a wick trimmer now if I truly want to end a life.”

Snow was falling again outside. Clouds hid the moon. Layer upon layer of fresh snow had completely covered the child’s footprints.

Just as I was about to leave the courtyard, Steward Chen’s hoarse voice followed me through a cough.

“Now that you’re back, Cousin Miss, His Lordship won’t care whether these mute children escape or die. You may put your mind at ease.”

“But don’t forget: they have neither fathers nor mothers. They have no attachments. You’re different.”

He coughed, then said with naked malice, “If you still want to see your mother, you have never had the right to refuse.”

“This time you saw a mute child testing medicine in your place. What about next time? Will it be your mother’s corpse?”

“You have never had a choice.”

Not long after Mother brought me to seek shelter with Marquis Xie, everyone said she had drowned.

But that was not what happened. I had seen him have her taken away. Six months later, he obtained a prescription and began using me to test it.

Longing’s Bane. Such a beautiful name. It was said that whoever took it could meet the person they longed to see in their dreams.

I did not know whom Marquis Xie was trying to please with these pills. At first I refused to eat and resisted, willing to die rather than submit.

Before long, he brought me Mother’s sachet and a letter.

He said she was alive. If I obediently tested the medicine, I could see her again.

Over the years, the prescription changed again and again. The medicine damaged my body; in the beginning, there were times I nearly did not survive. Later, perhaps it really did start to work. Sometimes I could spend a quiet moment with Mother in my dreams.

But the person Marquis Xie worked so hard to please was terrified of death. Before each dose, I had to take mine several days ahead of time, lest the accumulating poison of Longing’s Bane grow too much for a body to withstand.

Using a child’s closest loved one to threaten her was surely the vilest, most despicable method in the world.

Now I finally knew who had devised it.

I gave a mocking smile. Without turning, I left him with one last remark.

“There is one thing you were right about—”

“No matter how many children you find to test the medicine, none of them will ever compare to me.”