Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I did not choose to stop loving Xie Lin’an.

I simply had no way to keep loving him anymore.

After Xiao Yu realized I had feelings for Xie Lin’an, he pinned me beneath him. His hand closed around my throat, his fingers nearly crushing my jaw.

“Have you and I settled our accounts? And you dare yearn for Xie Lin’an?”

At the time, my body hurt so badly it felt as if my soul had been split clean in two, numb and yet horribly awake.

I raised a hand to cover my eyes, as if that would keep me from seeing Xiao Yu violating me.

“Why don’t you just kill me?”

“Kill you?”

At that, Xiao Yu laughed. He dragged my hands away from my eyes, his voice soft and faint.

“An Ran, death is the easiest thing in the world. I won’t let you off that lightly. We have a long future ahead of us.”

After Xiao Yu had vented himself on me, he rose and straightened his clothes. Before he left, I heard him coldly order the guards stationed outside the door.

“Keep an eye on her. Don’t let her kill herself.”

A while later, the door opened. Someone came in quietly, carrying a basin.

I recognized her as Xiao Yu’s wet nurse, Nanny Qiu.

She came to my side, looked at the wounds covering me, and sighed. Then she wrung out a cloth and began wiping my face.

I lay there blankly, letting her wash me like a puppet on strings.

But when her hand touched me there, my tears suddenly would not stop falling.

“Nanny Qiu, Nanny Qiu…”

I clutched tightly at her sleeve, all hope turned to ash.

“Palace maids can be released from the palace when they turn twenty-five. Nanny, tell me… will I live to see that day?”

Nanny Qiu let out another heavy sigh and gathered me into her arms.

“Don’t cry, don’t cry… My poor child… What sin brought this upon you?”

Xiao Yu hated me. Everyone in the imperial palace knew it.

I had once been a lowly sweeping servant at Prince Liang’s Manor. Back then, Prince Liang was at the height of his power and meant to humiliate Xiao Yu, who was still the crown prince. On a sudden whim during a banquet, he traded me for Xiao Yu’s most favored maid.

That maid was named Lian Cheng. I heard she had been by Xiao Yu’s side since childhood, and that Xiao Yu had long held affection for her. He had originally planned to report it to Her Majesty the Empress after the New Year festivities and raise her to the status of concubine.

To Xiao Yu, my existence was not only an insult. It had also torn apart a pair of lovers for no reason at all.

But I had been given by Prince Liang, so Xiao Yu could not kill me. Instead, he kept me at his side every day as his personal maid, a show of closeness for others to see.

All these years at Xiao Yu’s side, I did everything I could to please him.

Xiao Yu had a weak stomach. The imperial kitchen made food that looked pretty but tasted awful, so I spent my entire monthly wage begging the oldest granny in the palace to teach me a few dishes that would nourish the stomach.

When Xiao Yu’s fever would not break, I kept watch by his bed day and night until I exhausted myself and fainted.

When Xiao Yu was attacked on his journey south, I fell with him to the bottom of a cliff. By sheer luck, a great tree caught us. I made a stretcher from several broken pieces of wood, and with my own bare hands, dragged him, gravely wounded, for over a hundred li.

But all that effort did little good.

Because after Lian Cheng was traded to Prince Liang’s Manor, she soon contracted a mysterious illness and died.

From then on, the way Xiao Yu looked at me grew darker and harder to read.

Late at night, when all was quiet and only the two of us remained, he once stripped away his mask of restraint, lifted my face, and said coldly, “An Ran, the sight of your face alone disgusts me.”