She followed the sound into the backyard, her pupils contracting sharply.
The dying cat, curled into a tight ball, was severely injured. Its fur was covered in terrifying blood, and it trembled all over, only able to emit weak whimpers. It was clearly beaten by someone and then thrown down from a high place!
"Luzhu..." Mu Yuanzhi choked up, her eye sockets instantly wetting.
The pet cat she had raised for three years had ended up like this after just three days with Pei Yunxi!
Luzhu was a birthday gift from her father the Emperor. It was cute and well-liked. In the past, she would carry it out into the sun every day. The clingy little cat was her inseparable companion and family. Naturally, Pei Yunxi would not let it go upon seeing it. Whenever something belonged to Mu Yuanzhi, Pei Yunxi would use her tried-and-true coquettish tactics to demand it.
When Mu Yuanzhi was locked away in Yongxiang, Luzhu naturally became Pei Yunxi's to take back and raise.
With a heart full of anguish, Mu Yuanzhi picked up the blood-covered little cat from the ground, whose original color was no longer distinguishable. She stroked its fur soothingly, but it no longer responded to her, save for its broken claws weakly clutching at its former owner's familiar strands of hair.
"Your Highness!" Xiaonianzi, the eunuch who had hurried over upon hearing the commotion, came to a sudden halt.
A woman in blood-stained prisoner's attire holding a similarly blood-drenched, lifeless lump presented a bizarre and desolate scene.
"Your Highness..."
"Dig a hole and bury it," Mu Yuanzhi finally said after a long silence.
"Understood!" Xiaonianzi hesitated before nodding, feeling a strange sensation in his heart. As he drew closer, he could barely recognize that what Mu Yuanzhi was holding tightly in her arms was indeed that pet cat, Luzhu!
Everyone within the palace gates knew how much Mu Yuanzhi treasured this pet cat. The cat had clearly died under abnormal circumstances, yet she was not making a huge fuss?
"Make the burial casual, so no one can find it," Mu Yuanzhi added. Having regained her composure, she crouched down and gently laid the cat's corpse on the ground.
Xiaonianzi did not understand the reasoning, but he obeyed nonetheless. After burying the cat, he used a shovel to smooth out the surrounding soil so that no one would ever know the ground had been disturbed here.
"Remember, nothing happened tonight." Mu Yuanzhi raised her eyes to look at Xiaonianzi, her gaze cold and firm.
Xiaonianzi nodded like a chicken pecking at rice. For some reason, he felt a faint dread toward this new mistress—a feeling he had never experienced before.
Mu Yuanzhi turned and walked back inside. She knew Pei Yunxi would certainly want to make a big issue out of Luzhu—perhaps shifting the blame by claiming Mu Yuanzhi had killed the cat herself, preferring to kill it rather than let her younger sister raise it.
After all, such tricks were Pei Yunxi's habitual tactics.
"Your Highness." Hongdou, returning from the Imperial Household Department, was carrying a pitifully small amount of inferior firewood along with a stove, two packets of medicinal herbs she had managed to secure hanging from her waist.
When she went to the Imperial Household Department, the officials there were rushed off their feet, busy delivering top-grade silver-thread charcoal to Pei Yunxi's Changle Palace. Huge bundles of silver-thread charcoal far exceeded the average quota for any palace, enough to last through several winters.
Hongdou stated her purpose, and after waiting for a long time, the manager impatiently tossed her a few sticks of wood that were practically damp.
"Can this even be burned?" Hongdou frowned.
The charcoal she usually burned was far better than this.
"Better than having no charcoal fire at all in Yongxiang, isn't it?" the manager sneered. "Be on your way, Girl Hongdou, and don't get in the way of our work, or you won't be able to bear the blame if His Majesty takes offense."
Hongdou pressed her lips together and spoke again, "Brother Li, what about daily necessities like bedding and clothes? Weiyang Palace lacks everything. Without these, my mistress can't even sleep."
"Girl Hongdou, it's not that I don't want to help, but we simply can't spare the manpower. His Majesty and the princes are all accompanying the little princess in Changle Palace. If we deliver late and neglect them, we'll be in deep trouble. Tomorrow, we will definitely send them tomorrow, alright? That's that."
Without waiting for another word, the manager pushed Hongdou out.
With no other choice, Hongdou had to return and report back.
"Your Highness, if you don't mind, this servant still has a change of clothes and bedding that you could use for now?" Hongdou's voice grew softer and softer.
Naturally, she knew that this arrogant princess was accustomed to using only the best. How could she possibly lower herself to use things belonging to a servant?
Mu Yuanzhi said indifferently, "I'm not that particular. Go get them."
It was too freezing; she needed to take a hot bath and change her clothes.
"This servant will go right away." Hongdou let out a sigh of relief. After taking a few steps, she turned back to look at Mu Yuanzhi. Once she stepped out of the bedchamber and ran into Xiaonianzi, she hesitated and asked him, "Should we go tell the Fourth Prince?"
With the freezing weather, how could anyone sleep with just one charcoal stove?
Hearing this, Xiaonianzi's expression turned peculiar as he reminded Hongdou, "We are people of Weiyang Palace now."
Hongdou pressed her lips together and ultimately said nothing more.
Out of the corner of her eye, Mu Yuanzhi caught them whispering outside. She still could not figure out whether these individuals had been sent by Pei Shangling to monitor her.
To survive in this vast Imperial Palace, her most urgent task was to find a new path forward.
The hot water was ready, and thick clouds of steam warmed the entire room. Mu Yuanzhi submerged herself in the scalding wooden tub, the heat coursing through her limbs and bones, giving her the sensation of coming back to life.
She greedily clung to this hard-won warmth, terrified that it might be an illusion and that closing her eyes would plunge her back into the lightless, sunless dark alley.
As Hongdou heated more water for Mu Yuanzhi, she could clearly see the various shades of deep and shallow scars covering her mistress's body.
With a young lady's skin injured like this, what would happen to her in the future?
Just as she was thinking this, Xiaonianzi's voice came from outside: "Your Highness, the Grand Secretary has sent someone over with some healing ointment."
Hongdou smiled at Mu Yuanzhi and said, "The Grand Secretary is still thinking of Your Highness!"
Confusion clouded Mu Yuanzhi's mind. Why was Xiao Yichen still putting on a show? He was already Pei Yunxi's betrothed husband.
"Leave it there."
Outside the door, Xiaonianzi acknowledged the order and left.
Hongdou was utterly baffled. Didn't her mistress love the Grand Secretary to distraction? Why was her reaction so cold?
After a trip to Yongxiang and back, Hongdou found herself understanding this new mistress less and less. "Your Highness, the Grand Secretary cares about you so much. Aren't you happy?"
"I don't need the care of someone else's betrothed husband," Mu Yuanzhi said expressionlessly.
Hongdou was completely lost in the fog. "Are you feigning anger with the Grand Secretary?"
Sensing something amiss, Mu Yuanzhi thought to herself: Could it be that things had changed, and her father the Emperor had not transferred her marriage contract with Xiao Yichen to another?
Was it the butterfly effect?
When she remained silent, Hongdou took it as tacit confirmation.
Yet, even if her mistress were angry with the Grand Secretary, within half a day she would be overjoyed and running off to find him. Who in the capital did not know that the mistress loved the Grand Secretary with all her heart?
She remembered best the year of the Grand Secretary's birthday, when the mistress had ordered a hundred miles of red silk to be laid across the main streets of the capital, with flower petals scattered across the sky. It had caused a sensation throughout the capital, and everyone said the princess was desperate to wed. Yet this headstrong mistress didn't care about anyone's opinion at all, still spending her days chasing after the man of her heart.
After bathing and putting on the old clothes Hongdou had brought, Mu Yuanzhi prepared to sleep. Hongdou couldn't help but say, "Your Highness, the healing ointment sent by the Grand Secretary has a large amount of Golden Gentian Herb added to it. It's the most effective remedy for clearing scars."