“What should I tell him?”
The Grand Madam let out a cold snort. “Just tell him that this child belongs to the eldest branch and that raising him in the Marquis’s residence is only right and proper. If he’s really got nothing better to do, he can marry a wife and have a child of his own.”
The Marquis was left speechless. He slunk away in defeat.
Once the sound of the Marquis’s footsteps had faded, Nanny Zhou moved closer to the Grand Madam and asked in a lowered voice, “Grand Madam, are you really going to answer Second Master like that?”
The Grand Madam said nothing. She merely stared at Shi Huai.
Shi Huai felt his scalp prickle under her gaze, but on the surface he continued playing and laughing as usual, pretending to be an innocent, ignorant child.
“What do you think?” the Grand Madam suddenly asked. Her voice was as soft as a passing breeze. “Does this child resemble Second Brother?”
Nanny Zhou studied Shi Huai carefully for a moment before answering hesitantly, “There are… some similarities around the eyes and brows.”
“How many?”
The Grand Madam’s tone was pressing.
Nanny Zhou swallowed. “F-five… perhaps fifty percent.”
The Grand Madam nodded. Then, without warning, she reached out, lifted Shi Huai from the couch, and held him up before her, examining him from head to toe.
Suspended in midair, Shi Huai found himself staring straight into the old woman’s eyes. His heart was pounding.
“He resembles him by half,” the Grand Madam murmured to herself. “But who does the other half resemble?”
Nanny Zhou’s expression changed. Her voice dropped until it was barely audible. “Grand Madam, you couldn’t possibly mean… that person?”
“Silence!” the Grand Madam snapped, cutting her off.
But her hands were trembling—violently.
Shi Huai’s heart gave a lurch.
That person? Who was she talking about?
The Grand Madam said nothing more. She placed Shi Huai back on the couch, then rose and walked to the window. With her back turned to everyone, she stood there for a long time.
That night, Shi Huai lay in the brocade bedding of the heated chamber, unable to fall asleep.
He tossed and turned, thinking over everything the Grand Madam had said that day.
Each word was like a piece of a puzzle, but he had far too few pieces in hand to see the whole picture.
Second Uncle Shi Yuanping wanted to take him in as a godson. There was something strange about it.
A second son of the Marquis’s household who had already moved out to live separately suddenly wanted to raise an illegitimate child of unknown origin. What could he possibly be after?
And then there was the Grand Madam’s remark about “that person.”
Who exactly was that person?
Surely she couldn’t mean the woman who had tried to strangle him back then?
These questions spun through his mind all night. It was nearly dawn before he finally drifted into a fitful sleep.
Early the next morning, when Qinghe entered carrying a bowl of steamed egg custard, she noticed the dark circles beneath Shi Huai’s eyes.
“Oh, my little ancestor, didn’t you sleep well?”
Qinghe picked him up and fed him the custard while muttering, “You’re just a little child. How have you already learned to suffer from insomnia?”
Shi Huai thought to himself, What would a twelve-year-old girl like you know? This is called excessive worrying.
Life soon returned to its outward calm.
Every day, Shi Huai ate and slept in the Grand Madam’s Shou’an Hall. From time to time, Nanny Zhou would carry him over for the Grand Madam to look at, and he would put on a show of obedience and act cute.
His looks improved a little each month. By the time he reached his first birthday, most of the birthmark on his face had faded, leaving only a few darker patches.
At this rate, it would probably take another three years for it to disappear completely.
Still, looking at his pitted little face, Shi Huai sighed.
His face looked like the surface of the moon. It was really unpleasant to look at.
One morning, when Qinghe entered the heated chamber carrying a bowl of noodles, the sight before her nearly made her drop it.
“Y-you’re sitting up?”
She stared wide-eyed at Shi Huai, who was sitting cross-legged on the bed. Her voice cracked with shock.
Shi Huai flashed her a grin, revealing four tiny milk teeth. He thought, I’m almost a year old. What’s so surprising about me sitting up?
Qinghe set the bowl on the table, then hurried over and pulled him into her arms. She felt him all over, checking that he had not fallen before finally letting out a sigh of relief.
“My little ancestor, you scared me half to death! What if you’d fallen?”
Shi Huai raised his chubby little hand and patted her cheek twice, making two soft “ah-ah” sounds in consolation.
Qinghe froze for a moment. Then, with reddened eyes, she smiled.
“All right, our little young master is growing up. He can sit up now. In a few more months, he’ll be walking too.”
When the Grand Madam heard that Shi Huai could sit up, she made an exception and had Nanny Zhou carry him to the main hall, where he showed his face before all the guests who had come to offer birthday congratulations.
Of course, they were all female members of collateral branches and women from families with longstanding ties to the household.
Proper officials of the imperial court would never come to celebrate the birthday of an old lady from a marquis’s residence.
Besides, with the head of the Yongning Marquis’s household proving so disappointing, the family had already fallen out of the ranks of the first-class nobility.
The Grand Madam was sixty-six that year. By custom, her birthday celebration should have been a grand affair, but she disliked noisy crowds and had invited only a few tables of close acquaintances.
The moment Shi Huai was carried out, all the women in the hall fell silent.
Their gazes landed on his face in unison. Some were surprised, some curious, and others could not hide their distaste.
A middle-aged woman in a lotus-colored jacket covered her mouth and gave a small laugh.
“Oh, so this is the one the Marquis brought back from outside? He certainly looks… very blessed.”
Shi Huai could hear the sarcasm in her words, but he did not care. He was indeed ugly at the moment, and she was merely stating a fact.
The Grand Madam took Shi Huai from Nanny Zhou and settled him on her lap. Her expression did not change, and her tone was as casual as if she were commenting on the weather.
“He’s only a child. He’ll look better once he grows into his features. My eldest son was ugly as a child too, and look at him now—he turned out perfectly respectable.”
The women in the hall gave a few awkward laughs. No one dared pick up that particular thread of conversation.
Just then, a deep male voice came from the doorway.
“Mother is right. Grandmother used to say that Big Brother was terribly ugly as a child. When he fell into a mud pit at the age of six, no one could even recognize him.”
Shi Huai turned toward the voice and saw a man in his thirties striding into the hall.
He wore a moon-white robe secured with an ink-dark belt. His face was lean, and there was a slight resemblance between his brows and those of the Marquis, Shi Yuanzhi, but their temperaments were entirely different.
The Marquis had the unmistakable air of someone raised in comfort and luxury.
This man, by contrast, exuded a cool, distant aura from head to toe, like a sword waiting inside its sheath.
The Grand Madam’s arms suddenly tightened around Shi Huai. He could feel them stiffen ever so slightly.
“Second Brother, what brings you here?”
The Grand Madam’s voice revealed no emotion, but her eyes were clearly troubled.
Shi Yuanping walked up to the Grand Madam and bowed respectfully. Then he straightened and let his gaze fall upon Shi Huai.
The instant their eyes met, a strange feeling welled up inside Shi Huai. He could not quite describe it. It was as if something had fixed its gaze upon him.
Shi Yuanping studied him for a full five breaths before the corners of his lips slowly curved upward.
“Mother, is this Big Brother’s child? He certainly looks… somewhat familiar.”
Everyone in the hall exchanged glances, and the atmosphere suddenly grew delicate.
