Remembering You - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Another two months passed. In winter, when the plum blossoms were in bloom, the princess came to the Pei Mansion.

She had come to see Pei Qichen, but he was not there.

So she found me instead, sitting in the pavilion and admiring the snow.

Wrapped in a thick cloak, she demanded, “Why has Pei Qichen been avoiding me lately?”

I found it rather funny.

“Your Highness, compared to me, a Pei by name, you seem far more like his younger sister. If you want to know about him, why come and ask me?”

She gave a little snort and muttered, “It isn’t as if you’re his real sister…”

I did not catch what she said and was just about to lean closer.

But then, as if she had seen something, she suddenly slipped and fell into the water right in front of me.

From a distance, it looked as though I had pushed her.

There was a splash.

Startled, I immediately jumped in after her.

However, another figure had already reached her before me and hauled the princess onto the bank.

It was Pei Qichen, who had evidently just returned to the residence and happened to pass by.

He held the princess in his arms, then glanced at me coldly.

“The princess is of priceless noble blood. How dare you push her?”

I was drenched from head to toe, standing numbly in the cold wind as I tried to defend myself. “It wasn’t me. She fell in on her own.”

But Pei Qichen had no intention of listening any further. He simply carried the princess away.

That night, an eunuch from the palace, one who served at the princess’s side, came with word that he was acting on the emperor’s orders: I was to kneel outside in the snow for the entire night.

When dawn had just begun to break, he helped me up, his manner carrying a trace of sympathy and a faint, almost imperceptible warning. “Speaking of this matter, it was actually the Grand Tutor’s intention.”

“His Majesty had not meant to punish you, young lady, but the Grand Tutor said that the princess is a cherished branch of the imperial family. Since you had the nerve to push her, you ought to be punished.”

My legs were swollen and red from kneeling, and I could barely walk. After I returned, I fell into a deep sleep.

Only after I woke did I learn that once the princess returned to the palace, she had clung to Pei Qichen and cried bitterly.

She questioned him, “Isn’t it enough that I won’t make you my prince consort anymore? Stop avoiding me, all right, Grand Tutor?”

“Otherwise, I’ll go to the Pei Mansion every single day to block your way, and I’ll make trouble for Pei Wanniang…”

I did not know which of her words had moved Pei Qichen. He only sighed softly, interrupted her, and patted her shoulder. “All right.”

Nanny Wang comforted me. “In the future, don’t provoke the princess anymore.”

I thought of Pei Qichen’s favoritism toward the princess and wanted to argue, but I had nothing to say.

It was clearly the princess who had done it on purpose. How had it become me provoking her first?

Nanny Wang looked at my face, thought for a moment, and said again,

“When you were little, my lady, the Eldest Young Master treated you well too. Now that he’s grown up, his temperament has merely turned colder. In his heart, he feels the same toward you as before.

“Besides, the Master is no longer here.

“You are a daughter of the Pei Family. Even after you marry one day, it will still be the Eldest Young Master you must rely on. There is nothing wrong with going along with his wishes a little more.”

I could no longer remember the childhood Nanny Wang spoke of.

But in the depths of night, when dreams came and went, a few fragments had indeed flashed through my mind, telling me that Pei Qichen, too, had once cherished me like something rare and precious.