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The days following her recovery passed in the peaceful solemnity of a courtyard seemingly forgotten by the broader world. No one from the main residence ever stepped foot in Cloud Moon Pavilion. Sithli wasn't even sure if the rest of the compound knew whether or not this eldest young miss was dead or alive, well or still sickly. A fact which would have wounded the real Jiang Ming Yue. Sithli, however, was even more indifferent to the Jiang family than they were to her.

Out of the silence, she built herself a steady place, leisurely assimilating her new environment. She had her patterns, her ways of marking time in tea made heavy with honey to hide it's weak flavor, sleeping late through the cold, brisk-early-mornings and waking to the plain meals delivered to the House of Cloud Moon from the kitchens. She bathed in water fragranced by the blossoms from the plum tree in the rear yard and spent golden afternoon into indigo evening devouring books about this unfamiliar world.

When it came to reading, Jiang Ming Yue had seemed to favor Romantic fictions and poetry, but Sithli managed to find a few histories, a handful of biographies, and more than a few treatises on etiquette, deportment, and other subject suitable for a young lady of noble background.

Aside from these writings, her two little maids, Ruo Mei and Ruo Lan, proved to be founts of information. Over the weeks, Sithli mined them for details about the Ruan and Jiang families. Ruan Mei Xiang they spoke of with almost reverential adoration. Apparently, Ming Yue's mother had been a truly kind woman, talented and virtuous and well loved by her subordinates.

"Nothing like Jiang Second Madam," Ruo Lan said bitterly. "She pretends to be benevolent, but she's cruel and spiteful. She once had an allergic reaction to a maid's saffron satchel and beat the girl to death as punishment. The General doesn't know, but she was behind the deaths of at least two other concubines. She surely had a hand in Madam's death as well. Madam was so healthy and full of life; how could she die in childbirth!? How could her baby be stillborn!"

"Ruo Lan, hush!" Ruo Mei's eyes flickered nervously towards the door, hands twitching against the air as if they itched to cover Ruo Lan's runaway mouth. "If anyone from Second Madam's courtyard heard you, even if you had ten lives, it wouldn't be enough."

Ruo Lan huffed, obediently closing her mouth though only for the sake of pouting sulkily. "Young Miss asked. I was only telling the truth."

Sithli said nothing, lithe fingers curled around a brush as she seemingly focused on painting a pot of begonias. She was in no position to judge this step-mother of hers. Harem struggles, it seemed, were the same all worlds over. In hers, Sithli's machinations had gone far beyond what she imagined Jiang Second Madam could even dream of. She had stripped the first queen of the royal mes and forced her to bow low before her presence; cast high born consorts and favored concubines into damnation with a single word. She had caused the crown prince to be hung from the neck by his own father, nothing much as a broken wineskin where once he had been so highfalutin and haughty. Silently, she dipped her brush into paint and added a nimbus of carmine to the flower pot.

Ruo Mei watched her lady's impassive face with sad eyes. Before her illness, Ming Yue had always treated them closely. Although she was their lady, she was also someone that had grown up beside them their entire lives. About the Eldest Young Miss, there was nothing that she and Ruo Lan didn't know.

Or at least that's how it had been. Now, their lady was distant; remote and inscrutable as the moon. She was not unkind, but she was no longer warm and open with them, sharing her thoughts and concerns. Although Ruo Mei knew it wasn't her place to feel as such, being treated like a stranger broke her heart.

Sithli remained unaware of Ruo Mei's anguish. The idea that the relationship between Ming Yue and these two attendants might have been anything but simple master-servant had never crossed her mind. Her connections with people had always been contentious and duplicitous at the worst of times, shallow and mercenary at the best; what did she know about the bonds of confidants. She was not like the original Ming Yue, who had poured her heart and soul out to these young playmates and who'd been cherished by them in return. Maids were simply maids; they did their job and there was nothing of sincerity or feeling about it. All of Ruo Mei and Ruo Lan's attempts to re-establish the closeness they'd had with the real Ming Yue, therefore, were lost entirely on Sithli.

She had been in this world for almost a month the afternoon Ruo Mei abruptly collapsed while serving tea.

Sithli had been taking note of the uncharacteristic clumsiness to the little maids movements just seconds before she crumpled like a marionette with it's strings cut; broken porcelain and pale orange Assam spreading out into a mess across the rugs.

Ruo Lan let out a cry — concern, but not surprise, Sithli noticed — as she rushed over to the fallen girl.

"Don't move her," Sithli cautioned, coming up behind Ruo Lan, who had dropped to her knees and was reaching out towards Ruo Mei's shoulders. "If she hit her head when she collapsed, jostling her will make it worse."

"Young miss, please don't worry." Ruo Lan offered a reassuring smile, but it was a flimsy thing that wobbled unsteadily on her lips. "Because of her moon cycle, Ruo Mei has been feeling a little unwell since this morning. Told her not to push herself."

Sithli's response was a low noncommittal sound, hummed out from behind her lips. She swept aside jagged bits of broken cup with a foot and crouched down. Up close, Ruo Mei's face was wan and a bit pallid, but nothing else about her screamed serious sickness. One of the shards of shattered porcelain had nicked her hand when she fell and a ribbon of blood stained the side of her thumb. Sithli reached out to roll back her sleeve for a better look.

"Young miss!" Ruo Lan cried out in protest, but it was too late.

With her wide sleeves out of the way, Ruo Mei's gaunt wrist was left to view. Not just her wrist, her entire arm was pitifully stick thin and looked breakable as a winter twig. Sithli's face froze, hands going shock still for a moment before they rushed to the front of Ruo Mei's robes to pull them open. Beneath the layers of vibrant linen fabric, the girl was so wan she could almost count the ribs beneath her pale white torso.

"Ruo Lan, what is this?"

"Young miss." The words came damp, sobbed out between the tears that had welled up and now overflowed Ruo Lan's dark eyes. "Ruo Mei…she said…she said we shouldn't tell you. We didn't want you to worry."

Sithli stamped down on her reflexive impatience, natural callous frustrations for weeping and emotional displays held down struggling by the throat.

"Worry about what?"

"The kitchen…ever since you got sick, they've been sending less and less food for each meal."

Sithli frowned. "What are you — "

Her words were shorn off by a sudden flash of understanding. She had assumed the reason why her meals were so simple was because she was an unfavored child of the household. It turns out, the kitchen staff had been practically starving her altogether. She hadn't noticed because Ruo Mei and Ruo Lan had been supplementing her meals with their own. The reason her dishes were so plain was because it was servants' food.

"Why would you do that?"

Ruo Lan was still crying. "Young Miss, you've been sick for so long. How could we let you starve? This time you came so close to dying, and we were useless. How can we not do all we can to protect miss now you've been saved? Young Miss may have forgotten about us, but Young Miss is still our important person. "

Sithli remembered this feeling. This all at once shock and warmth like being plunged into temperate waters. Like sunshine snuck out from behind cloud cover. Everything felt keener with apathy's rust scrubbed away, and she stared at the two little maids like someone seeing them for the first time.

"How can you be so stupid?" Her soft tone belied the harsh words, like honey stirred into tea to take the bitterness away. She reached out and used her own sleeve to dry the weeping girl's eyes, all her earlier impatience vanished. "Stop crying now. Help me get Ruo Mei to the bed."

Despite her request, the servant girl was so emaciated, that Sithli could have lifted her on her own. With Ruo Lan's help, she tucked Ruo Mei beneath the coverlet then passed the pot of tea into Ruo Lan's hands.

"Get her to drink the rest of this. I'll be back shortly."

Ruo Lan accepted the tea pot, fingers clutching at the painted porcelain fretfully as she watched her mistress stride towards the door. "Miss, where are you going?"

"To the kitchen."

Her tone was light, but the glitter in her eyes would have sent a chill down the spine of anyone who'd seen it.