Chapter 14: The Barracks, Anger Rising from the Heart

“Hanyi is back!” Upon seeing a small head poke through the door, Xifeng couldn’t help but set aside her needlework. The weather had turned cold, and as a mother, she always wanted to knit a few thick garments for her child.

“Mother, I’m home,” Chu Junhan replied, grabbing a pastry from the table and devouring it hungrily.

Xifeng, delighted by Chu Junhan’s adorable manner, beamed. “Slow down, dear, don’t choke.”

Before long, Yingdie entered, carrying several coarse outfits for a young boy. “Miss, these are from the master for young master. He wants him to start morning drills with him tomorrow.”

“This is simply outrageous! In this bitter cold, how can my child endure such hardship? Does he actually intend to go through with this? Where is he?” Xifeng, fiercely protective of her child, was seething with anger.

Understanding her mistress’s temperament, Yingdie shrank back and replied, “The master is still at the training grounds ten miles away. He won’t be back tonight. He said he knew you’d be angry and told me to pass along his message.”

Xifeng’s chest heaved with fury.

“Mother, I am not afraid of hardship,” said Chu Junhan, hardly a pampered child.

Though incensed, Xifeng would never vent her anger on others, least of all her precious daughter.

She knelt down, gazing fondly at the small figure before her. “That’s right. No child of Xifeng’s is so delicate. Tomorrow morning, I’ll take you to see your father myself. I’d like to see if he can bear to watch you suffer.”

“Please don’t be angry, Mother. Father isn’t trying to make me suffer—he means well,” Chu Junhan said. She knew her mother had a fiery temper but was reasonable once she calmed down.

Thus, Father’s decision to stay ten miles away at the training ground was a wise one indeed!

No one knows a mother better than her own daughter. After tossing and turning in anger all night, Xifeng was calm by dawn, waking Chu Junhan as if nothing had happened.

Chu Junhan rubbed her eyes, drowsy and endearing in her confusion.

At the sight of her daughter’s sleepy face, Xifeng’s anger reignited. Her child ought to be cherished like a songbird, pampered and protected. Yet now, stripped of her crown as princess consort, she was to rise before dawn and train like a boy.

Chu Junhan was still half-asleep when she sensed her mother’s fury burning in the tent and immediately crawled out from her warm blankets. “Mother, I’m awake.”

Facing her little one, Xifeng struggled to contain her anger and instead put on a loving expression. “Come here. I finished this fur coat for you just days ago. The barracks are nothing like our tent—you have to dress warmly.”

So, under her mother’s doting gaze, Chu Junhan was bundled up in layers until she resembled a rice dumpling.

“Mother, I’m hot,” Chu Junhan complained after being forced into yet another fur coat, feeling as if she would suffocate. She shook her little head and tried to peel off the outermost layer.

Finally, Xifeng paused, holding the last plush cloak in her arms. “This is tiger skin I got from hunting years ago. Put it on quickly. You may feel hot now, but you’ll wish for it when the cold of the barracks sets in.”

Sweat beaded on Chu Junhan’s brow, but upon hearing her mother had made it herself, she immediately stopped trying to remove the coat.

She remembered her previous life—separated from her parents at four and a half years old. To have a garment made by her mother, even a word of concern, had been an unattainable luxury.

“Hanyi, what’s wrong? Why are you crying all of a sudden?” Alarmed, Xifeng sat at the bedside, seeing the tears glistening in her daughter’s wide, shining eyes. She quickly wiped her cheeks with a soft handkerchief.

Only those closest to Chu Junhan would ever see her like this.