The news of the Duke getting punished by the Emperor spread across the capital. Everyone had different speculations about why he was punished; only one person and two ghosts knew the real reason.
The Emperor kept him outside, kneeling for a day and a half, and asked guards to take him back after he fainted. If only the Duke knew what was to come.
Mei spent most of her day in the palace, and after the Duke was taken back, she was alone again. Ling'er was currently obsessed with the General and had no time to laze around. So, Mei, with nothing to do, just went around the capital. She didn't know how she came to this side of the capital, as she was absent-minded, but she ended up in front of her father's estate. The last time she was there was three days after her wedding for the ceremony of the bride returning home.
She was accompanied by the Duke, and with new hope in life, she was very energetic, with a blush on her cheeks. But she returned to an empty home, to her stepmother, as her father didn't even bother waiting for her, not even to see her for a moment.
The meeting was awkward, and after a few exchanges of words, the Duke also left, leaving her and her stepmother in the hall. The two of them barely spoke, and after a while, her stepmother left her, and Mei remained in the hall alone. As she sat there, she felt tears pooling in her eyes, and she broke down alone in the middle of the hall. Mei wondered if things would have been different if her mother had been alive. Maybe she would have had a different experience, one that included warm food and embraces.
In the evening, the Duke came to take her back, and when leaving, she met her father at the door, where they exchanged a few words, mostly with the Duke. That was the final time she ever met her dad. To this day, Mei still believes that her in-laws treated her the way they did after they saw her own family's treatment of her.
She wanted to go in, but her feet were heavy. Even as a ghost, she dreaded being there as she always felt a hollow ache in her heart whenever she was there. But she needed closure, so she dragged herself in.
She started with the ancestral hall, where she paid her respects to her mother and grandmother. That was the only place in the whole estate where she felt at home because, as a child, whenever she made a mistake or fought with Rui, she would be locked there to repent, so she was very familiar with it.
She floated to her former courtyard, where she spent most of her short life. The courtyard was debilitated, and weeds and tall plants overran the plot. It looked like no one had taken care of it since she left. It mirrored her life: ignored and abandoned.
She left and went to her stepmother's courtyard. And there she was—the woman who made her life a living hell, who pretended to be a sweet mother just to make Mei look like an ungrateful kid. She always instigated tensions between Mei and her father. And now, she was in a chair, drifting off to sleep while a maid massaged her shoulders. She was the Madam of the household, the mother-in-law of the Emperor, and the mother to the only heir of the Minister of Agriculture's household.
Life was good for her. Although she was in her early forties, she looked like she hadn't aged a day after twenty-eight years old. No wonder her father was a henpecked husband.
Feeling irritated at the sight of her, she left and ended up in her father's study. As a young girl, she always wanted to come and stay with her father in his studies, just like Rui did. She wasn't allowed in, so she gave up trying. And now she was standing at the gate, not as that young girl, but as her broken ghost.
She entered to find her father sitting in a chair reading some documents. He looked aged; in the last three years she hadn't seen him, his usually dark goatee and hair were now white. In other aspects, he looked just like his father, the man she loved and wanted to earn his love, but couldn't.
She felt her hand tremble and her body violently shake. She didn't know what overcame her, but she was experiencing a violent outburst. Dark mists surrounded her, and her father looked around the study, spooked. She rushed out of the study, floating as far and as fast as she could.
She didn't know how or why, but when she regained her senses, she found herself in the Throne Room, sitting next to the Emperor. One look at him and she felt all the dark energy surrounding her dissipate, though her hand was still shaking. Mei didn't know what happened, but she had a feeling it wasn't something good.
Ling'er arrived in the Throne Room, skipping as she hummed a song. "Mei, guess what?" she said, but immediately stopped in her tracks, noticing something wasn't right.
She rushed to Mei's side, very concerned, asking what had happened. Mei sighed tiredly, explaining how she went to her father's estate and what she experienced. The more Mei narrated what happened, the more Ling'er's face changed. She stood up and hugged Mei tightly.
Her voice cracked. "Mei, promise me you won't let hatred and anger overtake your spirit. You'll become a dark spirit ghost, and then there's nothing I can do for you. Promise me, please," she said, hugging Mei tighter.
"Okay, I promise. Let me go now," Mei said, wiggling out of Ling'er's embrace. "You almost killed me twice," she said, laughing, and Ling'er laughed, relieved.
"We can enjoy gossip, looking at handsome men, watching courtesans fight you can't do that if you let your dark spirit take over," she said. Then she looked at the Emperor and then back at Mei. "You looked for him in your moment of crisis," she said, her smile growing bigger. "That means you see him as your anchor!" she declared, moving around Mei in circles.
"Stop, you'll make me dizzy!" Mei said.
Ling'er replied, "Ghosts don't get dizzy, as a matter of fact."
Mei then remembered, "Were you just singing the song we heard at the brothel when coming in?" she asked.
"Hehe! I was happy, and brothel songs are all I know," she said, shrugging.
Mei shook her head. "Maybe we should go to theatres too, instead of just brothels," she suggested.
Ling'er replied, "Why would I go watch an acting drama when I can watch a real one in the brothel?" And Mei was speechless.