WBICDPH Chapter 29 Part 2

She smiled at Chu Ji. “It’s all right. I’m used to it. As long as you’re safe. You’ve been in here three days—no one can stay in such a dark, confined place forever. There happens to be an empty room next to mine. Why don’t I help you settle in there first? The madam gave me a few days. At least for the next two or three days, she won’t trouble you.”

Chu Ji had knelt for too long. Her legs were stiff, and she staggered slightly when she stood.

Winter Si quickly supported her. Chu Ji thanked her, then paused at the door of the black room and glanced back, asking thoughtfully,

“Do you often suffer punishments like this? Is every girl treated this way when she comes in?”

“If they don’t obey, yes.”

Winter Si lowered her eyes and closed the door behind them.

“I’ve been here for years. The girls locked in there either cry and scream or stubbornly fight the madam. In the end, every single one bows her head. Some lose hope and smash themselves against the wall—I’ve seen that too. You’re the first I’ve seen who lasted three days. Even the madam didn’t know what to do with you.”

“That’s nothing,” Chu Ji said, smiling despite herself.

“When my father punished me by making me kneel in the ancestral hall, I was just like this. People said I was stubborn, said I was deliberately opposing him. But truthfully, people don’t have that much anger. Refusing to bow one’s head just means one hasn’t thought things through yet. Like now—resistance has lost its meaning, and smashing my head against a wall isn’t worth it. At the very least, I need to convince myself first. I need to give myself an answer—how I’ll walk the road ahead, and how I’ll live this life.”

As Winter Si listened, she glanced at Chu Ji quietly. When she lowered her gaze again, the corners of her lips curved unconsciously.

Winter Si had said she would persuade Chu Ji on the madam’s behalf, but it was merely a delaying tactic. She had no intention of interfering with Chu Ji’s own thoughts. She’d only wanted to get her out of that dark, suffocating room.

Chu Ji moved into the room next to hers and did not step outside even once afterward.

Winter Si thought Chu Ji was truly interesting. She was stubborn, determined to find an answer to anything she couldn’t understand. Before, she had done her thinking in the black room. Now, she locked herself in her own room, imposing her own confinement.

Winter Si did not interfere. She instructed Fang Qingtang to bring Chu Ji meals on time. Later, Fang Qingtang whispered to her that Miss Chu looked cold and sorrowful between the brows, like an aloof beauty of ice and snow—but when food arrived, she ate more heartily than anyone, and when she spoke, she was lively and clever, like a mischievous older sister next door.

Winter Si couldn’t help laughing. Fang Qingtang blinked at her and laughed along.

The snow in Zhongyun City stopped for two days. On the morning of the third day, snowflakes once again drifted down from the sky like goose feathers.

Later that evening, Winter Si felt stifled by the brazier in her room and opened the window for some air. As she did, she happened to glimpse a figure standing below.

Someone stood in the rear courtyard of Mantingchun, feet planted in the snow. She was slender and delicate, dressed all in white, blending into the snow itself.

She tilted her head slightly, watching the falling snow. After a moment, she raised her hand, catching flakes in her palm and watching them melt into water.

The snowy night was bitterly cold. Chu Ji wore only a thin garment, yet she didn’t seem cold at all.

Snow settled in her hair and on her lashes. From behind her came faint laughter from the small building. In her peripheral vision were the chaotic lights cast by the ornate lanterns, and before her stretched the vast darkness filled with falling snow. She found herself lost in thought.

Then, suddenly, the scattered lights on her body were swallowed by a single shadow, and the cold no longer fell upon her hair and brows.

She smelled a faint, pleasant fragrance of flowers and fruit. Turning instinctively, she saw Winter Si standing behind her, holding an oil-paper umbrella. The umbrella tilted slightly, shielding Chu Ji from the wind, snow, and the lanterns’ disordered light.

Chu Ji had known Winter Si was beautiful from the first moment she saw her.

“It’s cold outside,” Winter Si said with a smile. “If you stand here like this, you’ll fall ill tomorrow.”

She draped a plain white cloak over Chu Ji’s shoulders.

“You haven’t stepped outside your room in days. Now that you’ve come out, have you thought through your problem?”

Chu Ji tied the cloak and stepped back to stand beside her.

“I’ve thought it through—and yet I haven’t. What I want to do is too far out of reach. Even if I were free, I might not be able to achieve it, let alone now, trapped here with no way out. But if I resign myself to wasting away here, I can’t answer to my own heart.”

Winter Si studied her profile and couldn’t help asking, “What is it that you want to do?”

“Me?” Chu Ji laughed suddenly. “I want to do something outrageously rebellious, something people will laugh at!”

She turned to Winter Si, her voice ringing clear.

“I want to overthrow the foolish emperor who ruined my family and brought me to this state! I want to save the people from suffering! I want peace and clarity across the realm!”

“Hey—” Winter Si’s heart jumped. She hurriedly raised a hand to cover Chu Ji’s lips. “You can’t say things like that. If the wrong person hears, it’s a death sentence.”

“But I already said it to you,” Chu Ji blinked.

“That’s different.”

“How is it different?”

Winter Si’s eyes curved slightly. “Because I want the same thing.”

Chu Ji froze, then burst into laughter, nearly doubling over.

Winter Si couldn’t help smiling as well.

“Ever since I was little,” she said softly, “I’ve wondered why girls can’t study for the examinations like men, can’t enter office and serve the state. The country belongs to everyone, yet a woman’s life is said to have no greater purpose than marrying well, supporting her husband, and raising children. Being granted the title of an honored wife is considered the highest achievement. But I don’t want a borrowed title. I want to earn honor myself.

“No matter how much a woman studies, the first thing people look at is her face. They judge the flowers in her hair, the shape of her body beneath her robes. No one looks at her ambitions, her character, her learning.

“Back then, I thought—if only this could change. If only one day they would allow me to write a few words, speak a few thoughts, treat me as an independent person instead of an ornament or a plaything. I thought these wishes were within reach, that effort alone could make them real. Now I see how laughably naive that was.”

Chu Ji listened, transfixed. Seeing her expression, Winter Si realized belatedly she had said too much.

“I’m sorry,” she said lightly. “I’ve made a fool of myself.”

“No, not at all,” Chu Ji said quickly, her voice softening. “I just think… Miss Winter Si, you don’t belong here.”

Winter Si instinctively clenched her fingers inside her sleeve.

She forced a smile. “No woman belongs here.”

“Oh, no—I didn’t mean it like that,” Chu Ji hurried to explain. “I just mean you’re different. You’re special. Unlike most people I’ve met.”

She extended her hand beyond the umbrella. Soon, her palm filled with melting snow.

“What you said just now—I’ve thought the same things. And I know someone. If there’s anyone who could turn those words into reality, I believe it would be her.”

“Oh?” Winter Si raised an eyebrow slightly.

Chu Ji smiled, a trace of nostalgia in her expression.

“When I was little, my father once took me to the imperial capital. He brought me to visit Grand Secretary Xu Wei. At his home, I saw the Third Miss of the Xu family. I never spoke to her—only saw her from afar. She was practicing archery in her courtyard, drawing her bow with such ease and grace.

“Lord Xu seemed to like me. He showed me the Third Miss’s library, her calligraphy, and her paintings. When we left, he asked whether I liked reading. When I said yes, he gave me a copy of the Treatise on the State of Qi.

“My father never allowed me to study. He said reading was useless for girls—that learning women’s virtues was enough. But when we returned, I planted my hands on my hips and said to him, ‘You admire Lord Xu so much, model yourself on him in everything. He allows Miss Xu to ride horses, to read widely, to discuss state affairs and write political essays just like men. Why don’t you learn from him?’”

Chu Ji laughed softly.

“After that, my father gave in. The first book I read was the Treatise on the State of Qi. At first ,I couldn’t understand it, but Miss Xu had filled it with annotations and notes of her own thoughts. After years of working through it, I came to admire the Third Miss Xu just as my father admired Lord Xu.”

She looked directly into Winter Si’s eyes, smiling as if she could see straight through her heart.

“From that moment on, I decided that one day, I would become a woman just like Third Miss Xu.”