Chapter 49

Shen Xinian could never have come to the Capital.

Especially not as a child.

After Xie Jingtang divorced and took Shen Xinian from the Capital to Jinling, his frail condition—where he’d gasp and cough after just a few steps—mysteriously improved.

At the time, Xie Jingtang figured it must be Jiangnan’s nurturing climate and waters, which only strengthened her resolve to raise him in Jinling.

Later, as Shen Xinian slowly grew, Xie Jingtang tried letting her son interact with people outside the mansion when he was four. But after that one encounter, he spiked a high fever that night and nearly didn’t pull through.

From then on, Shen Xinian lived a completely reclusive life, interacting only with a fixed handful of maids and no strangers.

~~~

How could such a Shen Xinian have left Jinling at the tender age of five to come to the Capital, a place Xie Jingtang had always thoroughly despised?

Not to mention…

The Benefactor was a Great Fortune Bearer. If he’d met him as a child, his mother surely would have noticed how much better his health was in the Benefactor’s presence.

Back then, she’d scoured everywhere for doctors on his behalf, filling the back courtyard with all sorts of rare herbs and medicines. If she’d spotted such an obvious effect, no matter the cost, she would have sent him to grow up by the Benefactor’s side.

This wasn’t one of Shen Xinian’s memories.

Having been stuffed back into a human body after so long, Shen Xinian awkwardly flexed his arms and legs. Standing there, he even forgot how to walk on two feet for a moment.

He raised a hand to rub his cheeks, giving them a pinch.

Though his congenital frailty had kept him from developing any baby fat, a child’s cheeks were still wonderfully pinchable even if they weren’t chubby.

Perfect for bullying.

The thought flashed abruptly through Shen Xinian’s mind.

He muttered softly to himself, then looked up again to survey his surroundings.

The layout was familiar, the furnishings strange. This was definitely Pei Mansion—or rather, the National Duke Mansion, draped in mourning white.

Before the Benefactor took charge, the sign over Pei Mansion’s gates had always read National Duke Mansion.

Having lived two lifetimes before, Shen Xinian willed his unfamiliar legs into submission and shuffled slowly toward the front hall.

A suspicion began to form in his mind.

He’d always returned to his memories this way before, essentially entering his own dreams. So…

Could this possibly be the Benefactor’s dream?

No servants or stewards came to halt Shen Xinian’s steps, and he knew the mansion well enough.

He made his way deeper inside without spotting another soul.

In the distance, he saw a spirit hall with a coffin, and before it knelt a boy folding paper ingots.

Shen Xinian’s eyes widened bit by bit as he stared fixedly at that slender yet sturdy boyish back.

No matter if the Benefactor remembered this dream after waking, it had to be their first meeting after they’d come to know each other…

He stood there floundering for a moment, then drew a long breath and slowly exhaled, forcing himself to calm down. Then… he inched toward the Benefactor in boy form.

Shen Xinian wanted to play it cool and clever, but this body was downright disobedient!

Damn it, it was just a dream—why make it feel so real?!

Hearing the stumbling, odd footsteps, the boy Pei Du turned his head, clear surprise on his face.

He clearly hadn’t expected anyone else to appear here besides himself.

When he caught sight of the exquisitely carved-jade-like little Shen Xinian, Pei Du’s pupils contracted sharply in an instant.

“Ben—”

Shen Xinian hadn’t even finished calling out when his unruly foot snagged on the high threshold, sending him pitching forward headfirst.

Pei Du rushed over and caught the soft, squishy child in his arms.

Shen Xinian, who had deliberately thrown himself into the catch, mentally flashed a big victory sign. With thick skin, he snuggled into the teenage Pei Du’s embrace, sneaking peeks at his expression now and then.

“Who are you?”

The teenage Pei Du’s voice lacked the warm, magnetic timbre of his later years; it was hoarse and rough instead.

It was such a simple question, yet Shen Xinian’s mouth opened and closed without a sound, truly at a loss for an answer.

Once he’d shed the little bird’s form, his relationship with Pei Du had indeed grown a bit ambiguous.

The teenage Pei Du didn’t let go, just holding the child in his arms. Shen Xinian was happy enough not to walk and simply dangled from the boy’s arm.

Shen Xinian was carried to a nearby chair and set down.

The chair was tall; seated on it in his five-year-old form, Shen Xinian could look the teenage Pei Du right in the eye.

“Who are you?” teenage Pei Du asked again.

Shen Xinian was still agonizing over how to reply.

After all, if Pei Du remembered this dream upon waking, any nonsense he spouted here would mean social death for Little Bird.

The child drooped his head, hands clasped in front, fingers twisting together—just like the way he’d flutter his wingtips as a bird.

Deep in thought, Shen Xinian missed the fleeting amusement in teenage Pei Du’s eyes.

“Fine… I’m the little bird you raised.”

He’d run through every possible label and tie in his head, only to realize dispiritedly that this was the only one he could claim with any righteousness.

He and the Benefactor did have a mentor-student reality as little bird and owner, but in this era, that required kneeling to offer tea and proclaiming it to the world. As for bed-warming relations, those were even less sayable…

Fine.

Little bird it was.

Shen Xinian threw caution to the winds. In a child’s piping voice, thin and frail, it came out oddly soft and endearing.

The child stressed very solemnly, very earnestly: “Even though I’m just a little bird, we’re on really, really good terms.”

Adorably so.

The hand hanging at teenage Pei Du’s side clenched hard into his palm to suppress the upward tug of his lips.

Pei Du hadn’t expected to dream at all.

Much less to see Xinian as a child in his dream.

Since Shen Jiujiu had appeared, Pei Du hadn’t dreamed in ages. Yet here he stood amid the nightmare of his past, feeling a measure of relief.

Especially upon seeing this obedient little Xinian perched motionless on the chair before him, his face a riot of vivid expressions.

Pei Du felt a pang of regret.

If only… if only he’d met Xinian sooner.

He surely would have raised him better.

The youth lightly poked the child’s cheek, just like he did with the little bird on ordinary days—gentle, careful.

Still too skinny. No meat on those cheeks at all.

The child habitually pressed his cheek against the young man’s fingers, rubbing back with perfect naturalness.

But as he rubbed along, something felt off. Shen Xinian looked down.

The tips of the young man’s five fingers were already rubbed raw, laced with thin threads of blood.

How much that must hurt.

Shen Xinian reached out and took hold of Pei Du’s other hand as well.

Sure enough, it was the same.

The child sniffled, cradling the young man’s hands with utmost care. He didn’t dare touch them, much less rub at them. Instead, he blew on them softly, little by little, just as his mother had once soothed him after he’d tumbled while learning to walk.

The Pei Du in this dream was utterly obedient, letting Shen Xinian hold his hands and blow on them again and again.

Shen Xinian was just about to ask when his peripheral vision caught sight of a copper basin blazing with flames before the mourning hall not far away—and beside it, stack after stack of gold ingots arranged with meticulous neatness.

The child’s expression froze for a moment. Then he whipped his head toward the spiritual tablet enshrined at the center of the offering table.

“Imperial Zhou First-Rank Pei, Lady Lin Spiritual Tablet”

This place was…

Pei Du, meanwhile, was still studying the little child’s face, scrutinizing it from temple to brow with careful attention, inch by inch.

But Shen Xinian braced his hands against the chair’s armrests and hopped down from his seat.

Pei Du blinked in faint surprise.

There was the tiny child, rummaging through every accessory on his person—even carefully unwinding the red cord from his hair—and setting them all on a nearby table. Then, inching forward bit by bit, he reached the mourning hall and dropped to his knees with a thud right beside the cushion where Pei Du had knelt.

His small face set in solemn gravity, he pressed his palms together and bowed deeply, with utter sincerity.

Pei Du’s gaze softened, little by little.

He stepped to the cushion and knelt, but reached out to scoop the kneeling child into his arms.

Shen Xinian clutched at Pei Du’s forearm. By the time he gathered his wits, he was already perched atop the cushion.

“How can…”

Pei Du spoke in a gentle voice. “There’s nothing amiss with it. I’ll kneel—that’s enough.”

“Mother was always kind and warmhearted. She’d only be delighted to see you. She wouldn’t want you on your knees.”

Shen Xinian made several stealthy attempts to shift his position, but Pei Du firmly guided him back each time. In the end, he had no choice but to hug his knees, huddling obediently on the cushion—though his body instinctively edged closer to Pei Du at his side.

Beside Pei Du lay several thick stacks of gold paper; he was still folding more ingots.

Shen Xinian had a thousand questions but no idea how to voice them. He simply watched Pei Du’s hands for a good long while before giving his sleeve a light tug.

Pei Du turned to him, paused in thought, then separated out a small portion of the gold paper and placed it between them.

Shen Xinian unfolded a sheet of gold paper and, with clumsy motions, imitated Pei Du’s folds to make an ingot. His lips pursed tight, the faint pear dimples beside his cheeks flickering in and out of view.

Indeed, no matter the place, the Benefactor was still the Benefactor who understood Little Bird’s wordless tongue.

He had no idea how long the dream lasted, but by and by, the ingots beside the youth and child piled up into a little mountain.

The youth spoke abruptly. “My mother and Consort Liang of the palace were blood sisters.”

Consort Liang…?

A spark flared in Shen Xinian’s mind.

Wasn’t she the New Emperor’s birth mother, the one he’d posthumously ennobled after taking the throne?

Which would make the Benefactor cousins with the Emperor?

“Consort Liang had a palace maid at her side whose great-great-grandfather was a Former Dynasty Imperial Physician.”

Former Dynasty Imperial Physician… Qianji?

Shen Xinian had only just heard tales of the previous dynasty before slipping into this dream—the timing at its most acute—and the pieces fell into place at once.

Could the one who’d poisoned the Benefactor be his own maternal aunt, Consort Liang?!

But why?

If it was to aid some prince’s bid for the throne, shouldn’t Consort Liang have drawn the National Duke Mansion closer, to secure their aid?

The child’s fingers tightened around his gold ingot, denting its once-plump roundness.

The youth’s fingers glided over the gold paper, folding it with care, while the nearby firelight danced across his cheek as the foil whispered past.

“Ten days ago, a massive blaze erupted in the palace without warning. Mother and Consort Liang perished in the inferno. Only the Seventh Prince survived, because Mother had shoved him out of the hall.”

“His Majesty issued an imperial decree.”

Even years later, every word of that decree remained burned into Pei Du’s memory, indelible.

“‘Zhen has learned that Consort Liang and the Duke’s Consort Lin Shi quarreled in the palace over private grievances, heedlessly setting the hall ablaze and unleashing calamity. This crime merits the severest punishment. Yet, in light of the National Duke’s house’s generations of loyal service and contributions to the realm, Zhen’s heart is moved to mercy. We hereby pardon the mansion and forgo pursuit.'”

“‘The National Duke Mansion is to retrieve Lin Shi’s remains at once and conduct a private funeral, observing all due rites. But this affair touches the palace’s honor and dignity; it must not be proclaimed far and wide, nor gossiped abroad.'”

“‘Violators will face merciless punishment.'”

Those final eight words Pei Du repeated three times—each recitation slower, each heavier than the last.

Shen Xinian finally understood why Pei Du clung so fiercely to every detail of propriety in his funeral rites, yielding not an inch.

Cremation. A secret mourning.

It had twisted into an unbreakable knot in Pei Du’s heart.

That was why he’d folded ingots by hand before his mother’s shrine until his fingertips bled, never once pausing.

That was why… he could never accept Shen Xinian—himself consumed by flames—being laid to rest so carelessly.