Chapter 1

Chapter 1

At first, Old Madam refused to give me to Second Master.

She disliked him for being idle and dissolute, spending his days chasing women. It was disgraceful.

But Second Master begged twice, and in the end, Old Madam’s heart softened.

Old Madam took my hand and sighed. “If I truly matched you with some page boy or guard, I would hate to part with you too. Better that you go to Second Master. Perhaps in the future, you can help him settle down and study properly at home.”

I had entered the Lu Family at ten. First I served Third Master, then I served Old Madam.

Now a full eight years had passed. After so many years, there was bound to be some affection between us.

I wanted to take a gamble.

I raised my head and said softly, “Old Madam, in three months, this servant’s term contract will expire. My parents are getting on in years, and I wish to return home to care for them.”

Old Madam turned the prayer beads in her hand and smiled. “You’ve always had a mind of your own. We’ll discuss it when the time comes.”

I thought Old Madam had relented, so I knelt on the floor and kowtowed to her three times.

But on the night before I was supposed to leave the mansion, I learned just how naive I had been.

It turned out the price of angering Old Madam was unbearably heavy.

Old Madam sent over a dancer’s feathered gauze costume, thin and soft as mist.

Tonight, Third Master had returned to the capital and was hosting a banquet. She wanted me to dance for the guests’ amusement.

Once I performed that dance, even if I went to Second Master, I would no longer be an honorable concubine, but a lowly one.

An honorable concubine at least had a written betrothal document to protect her.

A lowly concubine was nothing more than a plaything who could be sold off at will.

This was Old Madam’s way of telling me.

My respectability was something she had given me.

My dignity was something she had given me too.

I was a thing, and I was not even worthy of being called one.

But Old Madam, who gave you your dignity and respectability?

I still remember how you once wept and knelt before Old Master, begging not to be cast aside as a discarded wife.

If Third Master had not placed first in the imperial examinations, you would have died long ago on an estate in the outskirts of the capital.

In this deep, walled mansion, which woman truly possessed any dignity of her own?

I changed into the dance costume, thin as a cicada’s wing, painted my brows, applied my rouge, and stepped out of my room.

If I was destined to survive only by clinging to a man,

then I might as well seduce Third Master.

At least in this household, no one dared provoke him.

I danced alone beneath the moon, my sleeves and skirts drifting as I revealed my slender waist.

The entire hall fell silent. Every man’s gaze landed on me.

Holding a cup of wine, I knelt before Third Master, looked up at him, and said gently, “Third Master, please have some wine.”

Second Master, beside him, panicked. “Third Brother! This girl is meant to be my concubine. Mother has already agreed!”

Third Master’s deep eyes fixed on me.

Then he smiled. “You heard him. Go offer wine to your Second Master. What are you doing here with me?”

Second Master let out a breath of relief. He shot me a vicious glare, a flash of malice crossing his face.

Tonight, in front of so many people, I had passed him over to seduce Third Master.

If I truly ended up with Second Master, I would meet no good end.

I held the wine in my mouth, rose abruptly, threw myself into Third Master’s arms, and kissed him on the lips.

The wine flowed between our mouths.

Third Master was wrapped in a heavy cloak, and his body was very warm.

I pressed myself tightly against him, my hand discreetly pressing against his lower body.

Softly, I said, “You’re already like this, yet you still insist on being stubborn.”

Third Master seized my arm, the veins on the back of his hand standing out.

He wrapped me in his cloak, scooped me up in one motion, and strode away.

The bells on my ankles chimed through the night.

On the way back to his room, Third Master stroked my feet with his icy hand.

Before coming to dance, I had taken great pains with them.

I soaked them carefully in cow’s milk, then rubbed them with fragrant balm.

At the end, I washed them clean with water and slowly painted them with balsam flower juice.

Barefoot, I had danced upon a soft wool carpet.

As my body swayed, the ornaments at my ankles rang.

Everyone had been looking at me. Only Third Master had been looking at my feet.

Two years had passed, and he was still the same.

The moment he saw my feet, he could no longer control himself.

He held me in his arms, desire burning through him.

I stared at the swaying bed curtains and thought coldly,

Since every last one of them refuses to let me go,

then none of us should expect to live in peace.

I would turn the Duke’s Mansion upside down and make this household restless before I could vent the fury in my heart!