Chapter 3
I stopped there.
What would happen if I exposed our affair?
Xing Ye had once said, “Climbing walls and slipping through windows every day is troublesome.
“Would you like the palace, Yaoyao?
“Perhaps I should build a golden house and hide you inside it.”
He wanted me with a kind of obsessive possessiveness. Once the scandal broke, however, the Wen family would not condemn him. They would do everything possible to cover for him.
He was the future emperor and their cherished son-in-law. His glory guaranteed theirs. They were all in the same boat.
Without hesitation, they would give me to him.
I could humiliate the Wens and make Wen Mingzhu miserable for a few days. Then what?
Their house would remain prosperous. Wen Chongshan would remain a revered Senior Grand Secretary. Wen Mingzhu would become Crown Princess, then Empress. The Wen clan would pass its splendor down through generations.
And I would still be the unknown Lian Yao trampled beneath them all.
Always lesser.
I lowered my eyes and gave a cold laugh, then whistled softly.
A white blur shot from the corner, claws extended toward the honored guest.
Someone shouted, “Catch that wildcat!”
The banquet dissolved into chaos.
“Had I been more watchful and kept better control of my cat, its claws would never have hurt His Highness. Please forgive me.”
People surged around Xing Ye. He stood among them with a cold gaze fixed on me from across the hall.
I had merely seen through his intentions.
Serve him alongside Wen Mingzhu, with her as wife and me as concubine?
Not even for the Crown Prince.
I had spent too long in one abyss to leap willingly into another. I would never bow beneath Wen Mingzhu for his sake.
Heaven knew how deeply I hated her.
Four years earlier, she had demanded the jade pendant my mother left me.
“Wild girl. Give me that.”
It was the only thing of my mother’s I possessed.
“No.”
A weak person’s refusal had no weight. Wen Mingzhu ordered the servants to take it. They shoved, kicked, and trampled me until pain rolled over every inch of my body.
Then she walked over in her fluttering red skirt, laughing like silver bells.
“Want it back? Bark like a dog, and I will return it.”
I barked. She said I was too quiet. I obeyed, louder and louder, sounding more like a dog each time.
Anything to save my mother’s jade.
At last Wen Mingzhu clapped. “Very well. I will give it back.”
I looked at her pleadingly.
She raised the pendant high and smashed it to the ground.
“There. I returned it.”
She left with an innocent smile and a bright paper kite.
She had never wanted the jade. She had destroyed my treasure simply because she could.
Unforgivable.
It takes very little time for a person to turn wicked.
I shoved Wen Mingzhu into a freezing pond and nearly drowned her. In the end, I was the one who almost died.
A weak person’s rebellion was merely an egg hurled at stone.
They threw me into a mass grave.
Lying among rotting corpses, I made myself a promise: if I survived, I would destroy Wen Mingzhu and the entire Wen family, whatever the price.
“Aunt has shown me profound kindness. How could I be angry?”
Xing Ye emerged from the crowd with my cat in one arm. His dimple shone like a small jewel.
To my astonishment, the vicious creature sprawled obediently against him, licking its paws.
He stopped before me and smiled.
“This little thing was disobedient, not Aunt.
“And if I truly punished it, I fear I would not have the heart.”
The cat rolled over in his arms and offered a perfectly timed meow.
He stroked its thick white fur with a tender smile.
He looked calm. Yet the smoothest sea often concealed the worst storm.
I had once watched him twist an enemy’s neck until it broke. Blood covered his hands and spattered his face, making him look like a demon guarding hell.
Then he had smiled and asked for my handkerchief. He cleaned away every stain with great care.
“How filthy.
“Am I clean now, Yaoyao?”
The expression he wore today was the same one he had worn after that killing: sincere, pure, almost guileless.
When I first met him, I too believed he was a gentle, honorable young man.
A kind nun had found me in the mass grave and taken me to Qing’an Temple. No one there knew who I was.
One day, a young man in black robes came to visit. While serving tea, I heard someone address him as “Your Highness.”
The Crown Prince. Wen Mingzhu’s future husband.
So refined. So beautiful.
I lured him away and bit his arm hard enough to leave a deep purple mark. He glanced at it lazily and said nothing.
He asked my name and who I was.
“Yaoyao.”
Lian Yao—not Wen Lianyao, not Wen Lanyu. Only Lian Yao.
As for what I was, the river nearby blazed with red lotus blossoms, brilliant as the setting sun.
“A lotus demon who feeds on handsome men.”
His lips curved. “So you are a little demon.” His voice was indecently husky.
I asked his name, though of course I already knew.
“Yanzhi,” he told me.
After that, his attachment to me grew as naturally as the tide.