His wild, beast-like behavior truly frightened me.
At first, when I saw him go still, I merely watched him from afar, not daring to breathe heavily.
Gradually, I noticed him collapsed on the ground, motionless, and a sense of fear crept into my heart, wondering if he had died. If someone discovered him tomorrow, I would have a hard time explaining myself...
So I mustered my courage, approached him, squatted down, and gently shook his shoulder, calling out to him.
He didn't respond. Upon closer inspection, I saw a large lump swelling on his head, which looked rather comical, and his knuckles were scraped and bleeding profusely.
I took some ash and applied it to his wounds, then tore a piece of cloth from my outer garment to bandage him.
At that time, I had no sympathy for him. I merely thought that if anything happened to him, I would be implicated too.
And so I sat by his side, keeping watch over him for half the night.
As dawn broke, he awoke.
Looking at me, then at the still-locked door, he couldn't help but ask in surprise:
"Why are you here?"
"Last night, I brought offerings and saw His Highness Jiang Muye performing rituals, so I hid and didn't dare disturb," I replied truthfully.
I had thought that, considering I had tended to him all night, he would at least not make things difficult for me, even if he didn't express gratitude.
But who would have imagined that when I tried to help him up, he pushed me away unceremoniously and questioned me:
"Why didn't you wake me up?"
I fell heavily to the ground, my tailbone aching so much that tears nearly welled up in my eyes.
The next moment, when the palace maid on duty opened the hall's door, he ran off in a panic.
I lay on the ground, rubbing my bottom while watching his hurried retreating figure, and muttered under my breath:
"What an unpleasant wretch. I shouldn't have cared whether he lived or died - he deserved to die!"
I had originally thought the incident was over, but I never expected Jiang Muye to be such a petty and narrow-minded person!
The next day, when he returned to Zhu Yin Hall, he happened to cross paths with me as I was cleaning fallen leaves in the courtyard.
I respectfully greeted him, but he ignored me like a blind man, and even deliberately bumped my shoulder as he brushed past me!
Fortunately, I was prepared this time, or else my bottom would have suffered again...
From that day on, I rarely saw him leave his quarters.
Concurrently, my daily meals also became increasingly inadequate to satisfy my hunger.
At first, there were still some non-greasy side dishes and two steamed buns, enough to fill me up.
But gradually, the side dishes turned into a small plate of dry radish cubes, and the steamed buns disappeared, leaving me with only a small bowl of watery porridge for two meals a day.
Not only that, but the palace maids serving in Zhu Yin Hall also began treating me worse, and even the head maid became increasingly impatient with me.
When I told her that I often felt faint from hunger, contrary to her usual demeanor, she snapped at me:
"You should be grateful to have food at all. What are you complaining about?"
In my heart, I suspected that Jiang Muye must have secretly instructed them to make things difficult for me.
The more I thought about how he had repaid my kindness with resentment, the more I disliked him.
But what good did disliking him do?
As a servant in Zhu Yin Hall, I had to accept whatever food the master provided, and had no right to dislike him.
If they hadn't rescued me that day, I would likely have died when the Qi Army attacked and conquered the capital.
In the time that followed, I could only drink a bit of porridge every day, with a steamed bun every three to five days - not to mention any hope of having vegetables to eat with it.
After being hungry for so long, I naturally had no energy to work.
One day, while gathering firewood in the woodshed, I suddenly felt dizzy and passed out from hunger.
I must have been extremely famished, for even in my dreams, I could smell the aroma of chicken.
That scent only made my hunger pangs worse. With great difficulty, I managed to open my eyes, only to find myself lying on the warm bed in Jiang Muye's quarters.
And he was seated beside me, waving a chicken drumstick tantalizingly in front of my face...
Startled, I was about to ask what had happened, but before I could open my mouth, he mercilessly shoved the drumstick into it:
"Don't talk, eat first."
The oily chicken skin exploded with flavor in my mouth. Ravenously hungry, I didn't care about disliking him anymore and snatched the drumstick from his hand, wolfing it down.
It was only later that I learned from Jiang Muye that he had never instructed anyone to mistreat me. Not only had my rations worsened, but all the palace servants were essentially living on a shoestring budget.
The head maid hadn't treated me poorly either. The steamed bun I could get every three to five days had actually been her own portion - she had given me her best.
The reason for this situation was that Zhu Yin had signed an unequal treaty with the Qi Dynasty. Zhu Yin had agreed to pay the Qi Dynasty hundreds of thousands of taels of silver and tens of thousands of stones of grain annually, as well as send a Zhu Yin prince to the Qi Dynasty as a hostage prince. Only then did the Qi Dynasty agree to cease their invasion, temporarily withdrawing their troops.
After I had eaten a long-awaited filling meal, Jiang Muye told me:
"The one who locked us in Candle Dragon Palace that night was my elder brother. I was the one originally meant to go to the Qi Dynasty as a hostage prince, but my brother took my place..."
He spoke with such sadness that I didn't know how to console him. All I could do was share half of my drumstick with him and gently say, as my mother had comforted me before:
"Don't worry, everything will get better."
But life often defies our wishes. On New Year's Eve that year, the crown prince was sent back.
The Qi Dynasty claimed he had suddenly fallen ill and died, and on that joyous night of family reunion, they returned his corpse to spend the New Year with his family.
