Chunxi was silent for a moment before saying carefully, “Liangdi thinks Seventh Wangfei is unusual.”

“Everyone in Tianjing thinks he is unusual now.”

“But Liangdi means something else.”

Bai Ruoyao looked at her.

Chunxi immediately knelt.

“This servant spoke too much.”

Bai Ruoyao watched her for a breath.

In the past, she would have said it was fine, let the matter pass, and pretended not to notice the fear. Now she understood that pretending not to notice fear only taught people to hide it better.

“You did not speak too much,” she said. “You only spoke accurately.”

Chunxi remained kneeling.

Bai Ruoyao turned the cup in her hands. “Seventh Wangfei understands danger. That is enough reason to treat him carefully.”

“And Lin gongzi?” Chunxi asked before stopping herself.

The room went quiet.

Outside, a clump of snow slid from a branch and landed softly on the ground.

Bai Ruoyao looked toward the courtyard.

Lin Qing’an had not yet appeared.

But he would.

Good intentions always liked an audience.

When he came this time, he would find the stage less empty than before.

Bai Ruoyao set down her teacup.

“Send someone to watch the southern guest residences, the academies, and the charity halls near the eastern market. If a young man from outside the capital begins speaking of famine relief, common people, tofu, equality, or sincerity, I want to know before he finishes his second speech.”

Chunxi’s face paled slightly at the strange list of words, but she bowed at once.

“Yes, Liangdi.”

“And Chunxi.”

“This servant is here.”

“No matter what anyone says in the future, no account leaves this courtyard with my seal unless I have read every character.”

Chunxi lowered her head more deeply.

“This servant will remember.”

Bai Ruoyao looked down at her own hand.

In her last life, this hand had signed papers she did not fully understand. It had held a dying child. It had gripped prison straw until her nails broke. It had lain bound before the execution blade fell.

Now it rested clean and warm beside a cup of tea.

Heaven had returned her to this year.

It had not returned her innocence.

That was fine.

Innocence was a lovely ornament, but Bai Ruoyao had no use for ornaments that could not keep her child alive.

From the next room came her son’s small voice reciting characters with great seriousness and very little accuracy.

Bai Ruoyao listened.

A slow, quiet smile touched her lips.

Lin Qing’an would come.

The famine would come.

The Crown Prince’s household would once again dress ambition as benevolence and call disaster an accident if no one stopped it.

But this time, Bai Ruoyao would not be a gentle name on someone else’s account book.

This time, if kindness came without clean water, storage, transport, ledgers, and responsibility, she would strip it bare in public and let everyone see the rot beneath the white robe.

And if Lin Qing’an stood before her again with red eyes and an apology polished smooth by tears—

Bai Ruoyao lifted her cup and took a slow sip of tea.

This time, she would make sure he learned that apologies were not shields.

“Mother!”

Bai Ruoyao crouched and caught him.

The child tumbled into her arms with the reckless certainty of someone who believed the world would always make room for his small body. He smelled of milk, warm cloth, and the faint sweetness of pastries he was not supposed to eat too many of.

Alive.

Warm.

Heavy in her arms.

For a moment, the prison, the execution ground, and Lin Qing’an’s red eyes all faded beneath the pressure of her son’s small hands around her neck.

“Mother,” he said, voice muffled against her collar, “why are you hugging so tight?”

Bai Ruoyao loosened her arms at once.

“Did I hurt you?”

He shook his head. “No. But Nanny said I must learn characters. I don’t want to.”

Bai Ruoyao looked at his small, bright face.

In the last life, he had not lived long enough to learn many characters.

Her throat tightened.

“Then learn three today,” she said softly. “After you learn three, Mother will tell you a story.”

He immediately bargained. “Two.”

“Three.”

“Two and a half?”

Bai Ruoyao almost laughed.

Children did not know that half a character could not be learned. They did not know famine. They did not know politics. They did not know adults could turn kindness into a blade and apology into another kind of silence.

Good.

They should not know.

She touched his cheek gently. His skin was soft beneath her fingers, warm with the careless heat of life.

“Three,” she said. “Mother will learn with you.”

Only after coaxing him back to the study did Bai Ruoyao enter her inner room.

The door closed behind her.

The latch fell into place with a soft click.

Her expression changed.

The softness did not disappear, but beneath it, something sharp unfolded.

Her personal maid, Lianxin, stepped forward quietly.

“Liangdi, the person sent to watch the eastern market has returned.”

Bai Ruoyao sat down. “Speak.”

“There has been unusual movement among soybean merchants. Several small shops have been quietly purchasing beans at a higher price. Not much each time, but often. Also, someone has been asking about stone mills and clean wells near the outer city.”

Bai Ruoyao closed her eyes.

It was starting.

Earlier than she remembered?

Or had she simply failed to notice the beginning last time?

Lin Qing’an had not yet appeared openly before the Crown Prince’s household, but his shadow was already moving.

He liked preparing dramatic moments. He liked appearing when praise could be harvested at its ripest. He liked making people feel that he alone had seen what others ignored, as though compassion were a lantern only he had thought to light.

In the last life, tofu relief had seemed like an inspired act of mercy. Bai Ruoyao now understood that even shallow knowledge required preparation if one wanted public credit. Someone had arranged beans. Someone had found mills. Someone had located water sources. Someone had prepared the stage before the curtain lifted.

She had been too timid to ask who arranged what.

This time, she would ask before the play began.

Lianxin continued, “Liangdi, should we stop them?”

“No.”

Bai Ruoyao opened her eyes.

Stopping Lin Qing’an now would only scatter the pieces. He had charm, and people liked protecting those who cried beautifully about good intentions. If she struck too early, others would say she was jealous, narrow-minded, or afraid of a person who only wished to help commoners.

She had carried enough blame in one life.

She would not rush to carry more.

“Buy soybeans,” Bai Ruoyao said.

Lianxin startled. “Liangdi?”

“Not through our usual accounts. Use the small merchant route from my dowry. Quietly. Do not hoard enough to raise suspicion. Buy steadily.”

“Yes.”

“Find women who know how to make tofu properly. Not just household cooks. I want those who have sold it in markets and understand spoilage.”

Lianxin’s expression grew serious.

“Yes.”

“Find clean wells near the outer city and temples willing to lend courtyards. Record the distance from bean supply, water source, firewood storage, and distribution routes. I want names, locations, quantities, and risks. Nothing vague.”

Lianxin hesitated. “Liangdi, are we… doing relief?”

Bai Ruoyao looked at the lamplight.

The flame trembled faintly inside the glass cover, bending whenever the winter wind pressed against the window paper.

In her last life, tofu relief had not been evil in itself.

That was the cruelest part.

Food was food. A hungry person did not care whether a bowl was inspired by charity, ambition, or stolen knowledge. They cared whether it was clean, filling, and safe.

What destroyed people was not tofu.

It was carelessness dressed as compassion.

It was praise gathered faster than responsibility.

It was a system built around one person’s shining heart while everyone else carried the weight when the light burned out.

Bai Ruoyao said, “We are preparing.”

“For what?”

“For a chance to live.”

Lianxin lowered her head.

“Yes.”

Bai Ruoyao took out a blank booklet.

Her handwriting was neat, much steadier now than in the last life. The brush settled between her fingers with familiar weight. She dipped it into ink, watched the black gather at the tip, and wrote the first line slowly.

Soybean purchase record.

Then the second.

Water source verification.

Then the third.

Storage and spoilage risk.

She paused with the brush above the page.

In the last life, Lin Qing’an had used tofu relief as his first great public achievement. With it, he had stepped into the eyes of the Crown Prince, the court, and the people. Praise had wrapped around him like spring vines.

When rot grew beneath those vines, Bai Ruoyao had been the one buried.

This time, she would not wait for him to hand her a script.

She would move first.

Not because she wanted applause.

Not because she wished to become another Lin Qing’an.

Because famine would come.

Because hungry people would still need food.

Because her child was alive in the next room, struggling over three characters with a pout.

Because she had died once for someone else’s unfinished kindness.

Bai Ruoyao dipped her brush in ink again.

“Lianxin.”

“This servant is here.”

“Send someone to inquire discreetly whether the Seventh Prince’s residence has any public-welfare channels or medical contacts outside the capital.”

Lianxin looked surprised. “Seventh Wangfei?”

Bai Ruoyao’s eyes remained lowered.

“Do not approach him directly. Only inquire.”

She did not know Shen Yuheng.

She did not trust him.

But she remembered his words in Fengyi Palace.

Medical preparation is not the same as fear.

A person who could say that might understand another sentence too.

Relief is not the same as praise.

For now, Bai Ruoyao would not seek alliance.

She would only observe.

Outside, the wind moved through the courtyard. Somewhere beyond the wall, her son complained that the character for “grain” was too difficult.

Bai Ruoyao listened, and her grip on the brush steadied.

The first move that had once belonged to Lin Qing’an would not belong to him this time.

This time, before he entered the stage with bright eyes and borrowed compassion, Bai Ruoyao would already have placed the first stone on the board.