The plum blossoms had begun to fall again.
Yuan stood in the courtyard beneath the old tree, the pale pink petals caught in the wind like fragments of a forgotten dream. Yueli loved this tree. She once painted it in ink and gold, calling it "stillness amidst sorrow." He hadn't understood it then. Now, the meaning clung to him with a suffocating clarity.
She was still gone. Weeks had passed since her quiet departure to the capital, and in her absence, the estate felt colder—more lifeless. He found himself listening for her footsteps down the hall, imagining the soft rustle of her robes. But what would he have done if she had returned? Said the same tired things? Looked past her again?
Perhaps she was right to leave.
He had not been a kind husband. And worse, he had not been a shield. Not when she had needed him most.
….
In the capital, Yueli moved through marbled halls, her bearing regal, her words calculated and sharp as blades. Her presence at court had earned praise once more—consulting with Xu Jin on an outbreak spreading through the southern provinces, offering strategies no physician had considered. She had been invited again to assist, this time in a more public setting.
"You were born for more than embroidery and small talk," Xu Jin said with quiet admiration.
She smiled, tiredly. "And yet embroidery and silence is what is demanded of me at the Lin estate."
"You should not return."
But she had to.
Because despite everything, her heart still beat for a man who looked at her and saw duty, not devotion. For a home where every glance from the Dowager cut like knives and every word from her sisters-in-law dripped venom.
….
When she returned, the first thing she noticed was the change in the air.
The moment she crossed the threshold of the Lin estate, a maid rushed to take her cloak—not out of courtesy, but to inspect it.
"You travel with no chaperone now? Have you grown too proud?" sneered Lin Suyin, standing in the corridor like a warden awaiting a prisoner.
"I was summoned by the court," Yueli replied, weary but composed. "Not by choice."
"That tongue of yours," Suyin muttered, eyes narrowing. "Needs taming."
It wasn't long before the whispers turned to actions.
Two nights after her return, Yueli was called to the Dowager's quarters. The room reeked of incense, thick and oppressive. Her sister-in-laws lingered like vultures by the doorway.
The Dowager's voice was cold. "You've brought disgrace. Wandering around the capital like some minister's consort. I should have known better than to let your family's 'refined daughter' into our home."
"I served where the Empire called me," Yueli said quietly.
A sharp crack echoed in the room as Suyin struck her across the face.
Yueli staggered but did not fall.
"You forget yourself!" the Dowager snapped.
"I remember exactly who I am," Yueli said, voice trembling—not from fear, but from the fury she could no longer hold back.
She felt her scalp scraping from her skull as Minhua pulled her hair, while Suyin strucked her again. Yueli's lip split. Her knees weakened.
She turned her head, searching—perhaps even hoping—for Yuan. He stood in the corner, silent, watching.
She looked at him helplessly, searching some form of shield as her bloodied lips trembled.
He looked away.
And then the rain of physical abuse continued.
….
Later that night, her body ached. Bruises blossomed along her ribs and cheek, and she could feel clumps of dried blood clotted on her lips. A servant girl left a cloth soaked in ginger and warm wine by her bedside, whispering an apology she wasn't allowed to say aloud.
Yueli sat alone, unflinching.
She stared at the window, at the moonlight spilling through. Her fingers trembled over her lower lip. What had she become? A prized ornament battered for daring to gleam?
If he had married Wen Qingxue, she thought bitterly, would he have watched her bleed in silence too?
But she already knew the answer.
….
In the days that followed, Yuan was haunted by the memory of her crumpling figure and the blood at the corner of her mouth. He told himself he didn't step in because he didn't want to escalate things. He told himself it was for her own good. At least this will remind her to stay home.
But each time he repeated the lie, it tasted more like cowardice.
Yueli, meanwhile, said nothing. Not even when Xu Jin came to visit again, under the pretense of court matters. She greeted him with her usual grace, though her movements were slower, more guarded.
He noticed the faint bruise beneath her eye and her still still healing lips, the way she kept her sleeves long to hide her wrists.
Xu Jin's expression darkened, but he said nothing aloud. Not yet.
That evening, after he left, Yueli stood at the plum tree. The petals drifted onto her shoulders.
She looked up, whispered to no one, "I'm not sure how much longer I can keep this up."
….
Yuan heard her words. He had come to speak to her, but hearing that, he froze.
He wanted to reach out. Say something—anything. But guilt gripped his throat like a vice. Instead, he stood there in the shadows, listening to the woman he once believed didn't need him crumble, piece by piece.
The plum blossoms kept falling.