The Mad Dog by My Pillow - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I picked up Meng Yu’an when I was thirteen years old.

That was the year I had just been driven out of the Eastern Palace.

My Father King was dead, my mother the Queen was gone, and I had fallen from the legitimate daughter of the Crown Prince to the bloodline of a criminal, someone anyone could trample upon.

I was forbidden from returning to the Phoenix Palace, and the people of the Yeting spoke to me with biting sarcasm whenever they saw me.

Once, as I was passing by the Beast Pen, I heard the sound of chains dragging across the ground.

The eunuch guarding the enclosure smiled and said, “Don’t look, Your Highness. The little maniac inside has bitten people. In a few days, he’s being sent to the Dogfighting Arena.”

I went in anyway.

A youth was huddled in the corner, his hands and feet bound by iron chains.

He was gaunt to the point of emaciation, half his face was covered in blood, and his eyes were as fierce as a starving wolf from the mountains.

I handed him a warm steamed bun. He stared at me for a long time.

Finally, he lunged forward and snatched it away, but he didn’t eat it.

First, he tucked the bun into his shirt, hiding it as if it were his very life.

I thought to myself then: this person is just like me.

Both of us are things that have been cast aside.

I brought him back to Qiwu Villa.

Back then, he couldn’t even speak properly; he only knew how to be on guard against everyone.

When I tried to wash his wounds, he tried to dodge away.

I said, “If you keep dodging and they rot, I won’t care anymore.”

He stared at me, as if he couldn’t believe there was actually someone in this world who would care about him.

The day I gave him his name, the snow was falling heavily.

I held his hand and wrote two characters on a piece of paper.

“Yu’an.”

He frowned, murmuring the name under his breath.

“Yu… an.”

“Yes,” I said with a smile. “The ‘an’ of living a peaceful and stable life.”

He looked at those two characters and remained silent for a long time.

Only later did he say in a raspy voice, “Thank you, Princess.”

I pushed the paper toward him.

“Write it yourself once.”

He didn’t move.

“You don’t know how?”

“Hands are dirty.”

I looked down.

His hands were covered in bloody cracks from the frost, and grime was embedded under his fingernails.

I pressed the brush into his palm.

“If they’re dirty, wash them. If you don’t know how, learn.”

“Meng Yu’an, from now on, you are no longer a thing from the Beast Pen.”

He looked as if he didn’t understand those words.

After a long while, he asked me sullenly, “Then what am I?”

I was stumped by his question.

At that time, I didn’t even know what I was myself.

After thinking for a long while, I said softly, “Start by being a person.”

He looked down at the characters on the paper, his fingertips trembling violently.

When he made the first stroke, it was crooked beyond belief.

I teased him, “That’s really ugly.”

He tensed up instantly, looking as if he wanted to throw the brush back.

I quickly added, “But it’s fine. I was even worse than you when I first started.”

Only then did he settle down.

For many years afterward, I remembered that scene.

The wind and snow were heavy outside the window, while the charcoal fire crackled inside the room.

That little slave, covered in wounds, sat by the table with his head bowed, writing his own name stroke by stroke.

It was as if he had realized for the first time that there was something in this world that belonged only to him.

In these seven years, he grew from a little slave who was nearly beaten to death into the most reliable person by my side.

When I had a fever, he stayed awake all night.

When I was punished, he applied my medicine.

When my period pains were severe, he ran to the Imperial Kitchen in the middle of the night to learn how to boil ginger sugar water for me, nearly burning a hole through the pot.

Everyone in the villa feared him.

They said there was a wicked aura in his eyes, and that the way he looked at me wasn’t how a servant looked at a master.

I never took it seriously before.

Until Jiang Jibai arrived.

Jiang Jibai was a physician newly transferred to the Imperial Medical Bureau.

He said he came to check my pulse by order of the Empress Dowager, but I knew she only wanted to confirm if I was still alive.

When we first met, he was dressed in green robes, carrying a medicine chest, and wearing a gentle, warm smile.

“Your Highness’s pulse indicates stagnant energy and heavy nightmares. You must think less and worry less.”

I gave a small laugh.

“You’d be better off using those words to persuade the palace to stop thinking of ways to torment me.”

He faltered for a moment, then smiled as well.

“If Your Highness truly wishes to leave, it’s not as if there is no path at all.”

I didn’t speak.

Outside the screen, Meng Yu’an stood perfectly still, making no sound at all.

But I knew he was listening.

As Jiang Jibai’s visits became more frequent, he began to bring me news from the outside.

He said there might be a chance to overturn the old case against my Father King.

He also said that Yan Yuheng now controlled the government and would eventually use me as a bargaining chip.

He didn’t always speak with absolute certainty.

More often, he would simply drop a hint and leave the rest for me to figure out.

Once, I asked him deliberately, “Do you truly feel pity for me, or are you afraid I’ll die too soon and you’ll lose a useful patient?”

Jiang Jibai’s hand stopped as he was changing my bandages.

“Neither.”

“Then what is it?”

He looked down and straightened the medical cloth. After a long pause, he said, “It’s just that when someone does something wrong, someone ought to remember it.”

At the time, I simply thought he had a conscience.

Only later did I understand that he did indeed remember the old case.

But remembering didn’t mean he was willing to stake his life on it.

“What kind of bargaining chip?” I asked.

Jiang Jibai looked at me, his voice very soft.

“An alliance through marriage, a peace marriage to a foreign land, or being given to some old prince who needs a royal bloodline to bolster his prestige.”

My hands went cold.

He spoke with such composure, as if he were discussing whether it would snow today.

That night after he left, Meng Yu’an closed the window for me.

I asked him pointedly, “What do you think of Physician Jiang?”

“Nothing much.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

He turned around, his gaze piercingly cold.

“The way he looks at you is not the way one looks at a person.”

“Then what does it look like?”

“Like he’s appraising a price.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“You’ve learned how to read people now?”

He didn’t smile.

He walked over to me and knelt down to tuck in the corners of my quilt.

“This servant has always known how,” he said in a low voice. “It is only that the Princess is always willing to trust people.”

I looked at his lowered eyes and suddenly remembered that blue tassel by the well again.

My heart felt as if it had been pricked by a fine needle.

At that time, I didn’t know yet.

It wasn’t that he knew how to read people.

It was that he knew how to dispose of them for me.