From the moment the old matriarch and Madam Jiang stepped into the hall, Yun Xi’s face had been a portrait of cold reserve. So when she watched her father stand before his mother, voice thick with guilt as he defended her, something like a knife slipped under her ribs. Her expression flickered.
Because of Madam Jiang she had blamed her father before—had even tried to shut him out. But she was not blind to his difficulty. She had refused to think through it then, afraid a single wavering thought might make her concede, and once she began to soften, Madam Jiang’s malice would never die. If she relented even a little, it would be her who fell into an abyss with no return.
“Father, please—don’t say anything more. This is my fault. It’s because I’m unlikeable. It has nothing to do with Grandmother.” Yun Xi stepped forward and gripped her father’s sleeve, voice urgent. She did not want him to bear the crude charge of having “angered his own mother to death” because he spoke for her.
Her attempt to soothe him earned no softening from the matriarch. The old woman’s finger trembled as she pointed at Yun Xi; her jaundiced eyes brimmed with loathing.
“You little beast, don’t put on that act! If you weren’t always whispering in your father’s ear, how could he have uttered such insolence?” the old woman rasped. “I think you were made to ruin this house, to collect debts from the Yun family!”
Madam Jiang, standing nearby with her head bowed, allowed a slender, contemptuous smile to show at the corner of her mouth. Good—she thought to herself. Even if Yun Xi had escaped death, what did that change? The more the master sheltered that little wretch, the deeper the matriarch’s hatred would grow. All the flattering and scheming she had planted over the years would not be uprooted so easily.
“Mother, please watch your words.” Yun Sheng’s anger rose. His own mother’s accusations were reckless; his patience thinned. But Yun Xi shook her head at him, a look of absolute resolve on her face.
“You’re right, Father. Grandmother is right—there is no place for me to stay in the Chancellor’s household. I do not fit in. I’m not liked, and I know it.”
She took a step back, then, without hesitation, knelt before her father and grandmother. The click of her knees striking stone sounded crisp in the quiet hall.
“This household may be grand, but it has no room for Yun Xi. For the peace of the Yun household, and so Grandmother may live more comfortably, I request leave of the house. From today on, I sever all ties with the Chancellor’s household.”
Her words landed like iron. Her eyes were steady; she struck three deliberate kowtows, rose as composed as she had knelt, and turned to leave.
Everyone in the room went rigid. Even Yun Sheng had not expected such a clean, irrevocable decision. He stood, breath gone, then hurried after her as if pulled by some sudden memory.
“You cannot go!” he grabbed her wrist. Pain flared through his face. “The Yun household is your home. You’re a young woman—where do you think you can go alone?”
He tried to be the voice of the Chancellor who could make nobles tremble, but in the face of his daughter he was only a father—ashamed of past neglect, terrified of losing her.
Yun Xi smiled, and it was not the helpless smile of a child.
“Father, I’m not a child anymore. There are plenty of places in the capital I can lodge. I only need Yuzhu with me; nothing else matters.” Her voice grew quieter, measured. “I will write to my grandparents in Jiangcheng myself and explain. This is my decision alone; it has nothing to do with the rest of the household.”
“If you must call me unfilial, then consider me as though I were not here.”
There was no room for bargaining.
The matriarch finally found speech—and fury. Her cane struck the floor with a resounding thud as she rose, flung off the hand that supported her, and strode toward Yun Xi as if she would beat sense into her.
“Do you mean to kill me with worry?” she spat. “If you weren’t born into the Yun name I might turn my back, but as long as these old bones stand, I will not permit you to tarnish the Yun reputation!”
An unmarried girl threatening to cut ties with her family, to uproot herself in the capital and set up house as if she were independent—what affront to the family face! What’s worse, the girl in question had been recently granted the title of Commandery Princess by the emperor and enjoyed a measure of favor in the capital. The matriarch could not simply have her dragged away and shut in a nunnery to silence scandal. She was, for the first time in her life, being thwarted by a mere girl—and the thought made her seem about to faint with rage.
Yun Xi watched her grandmother’s ashen, furious face with an expression of quiet innocence.
“Grandmother,” she said softly, “you used to call your granddaughter a harbinger of trouble, that I brought shame on you and the household. Now that I’ve resolved to leave, isn’t that exactly what you said you wanted?”
“You should be pleased. Why are you angry with me for making trouble?”
She had grown out of childhood illusions. Yun Xi no longer expected the old woman to be moved by regret. She knew the matriarch’s insistence now came not from affection but from wounded pride.
She fixed the grandmother with a painfully honest look. “What do you actually want from me? Do you need me completely gone before you are satisfied? The New Year is approaching—surely you don’t want to invite ill luck on the household.”
The words sharpened into a caustic edge. Yun Xi’s memory flared bright: when she had been missing and almost killed, Grandmother’s chief worry had been how the timing would look for the New Year, not whether she was alive. They had not sent out searchers; they had beaten Yuzhu for causing trouble. The thought made the name “grandmother” bitter on Yun Xi’s tongue.
The matriarch had no answer. She opened her mouth but could not find a true retort; the color drained from her face. She knew as well as anyone that Yun Xi’s leaving would not merely be a private loss. The household would be the talk of the capital, a subject of ridicule. The family in Jiangcheng—no gentle force—would not stand idly by; they would retaliate as fiercely as they had when Su Yun died years ago. If a public quarrel erupted and the matriarch found herself outmatched in rhetoric, she could not guarantee she would not lose more than pride—perhaps half of the long life she had left.
For all her bluster, the old woman’s face now betrayed fear.
“Little ancestor,” she muttered, caught between fury and calculation, “what do you want, truly?”
If this outburst was merely youth venting, then perhaps they could patch things up. Hold her for now, the matriarch thought; find a husband for the brat afterward. That would save face, and all would be well.
But Yun Xi had already risen, steady as if she were stepping onto a bridge she had chosen herself, and the decision in her eyes was unchanging.