Chapter 2
The decree dissolving my engagement arrived during Xu Ling and Xi Ruyan’s betrothal banquet.
It came with a verbal message from the new empress.
She had heard in the palace that I had made things difficult for Xu Ling over the broken engagement.
She had actually sent her first-ranking chief attendant to reprimand me in public.
I was to remember a woman’s proper place and stop coveting things I had no right to possess.
The looks people gave me were a spectacle in themselves.
Mockery, pity, delight in my misfortune…
Everyone knew I could forget about ever marrying now. Customs in our dynasty were fairly liberal; a broken engagement before marriage was no great disgrace in itself. So long as the fault was not yours, you could still find a future.
But someone like me, rebuked by the imperial family and unloved by her parents, had no road left except to live out her days in a convent beyond the city.
“General Xu will soon be coming to fetch your sister. Chixue, why don’t you leave for a while until this blows over?” My father was throwing me out.
He had always been shortsighted. For years the Xu family’s prosperity had been little more than a façade; Xu Ling had needed my discreet help to sustain it.
Yet neither my father nor Xi Ruyan could see that. Now that Xu Ling had earned rank and fame, they could not wait to curry favor.
Perhaps guilt was the reason my silence only made my father angrier.
He raised his voice. “Just look at yourself! In six generations, our family has produced only one wretch like you. As if bringing an imperial reprimand down upon us weren’t enough, now you dare glare at your own father?”
As he spoke, he stepped forward and raised his hand to slap me.
The next instant, a hand emerging from a cuff trimmed with gold and inlaid with jade stopped him.
My father flared up. “Who dares interfere in my family affairs? …Young Master Li?”
Once he recognized the newcomer, all his bluster vanished. His voice turned ingratiating. “Aren’t you in Yangjin, young master? How have you found time to visit the capital?”
The Li clan had been a powerful aristocratic house for generations. Their longstanding intimacy with the emperor made their influence virtually unrivaled throughout the Yun dynasty.
Li Yunxiu was the sole son of the main line in his generation. From the day he was born, a lifetime of wealth, privilege, and boundless favor had been assured.
In all the Yun dynasty, apart from Xu Ling and me, whom he had made trouble for, no one dared treat Li Yunxiu coldly.
Certainly not my father, who had precious little backbone to begin with.
At my father’s words, Li Yunxiu snapped his gold fan with its jade ribs shut and rested it against the corner of his mouth.
A cold smile touched his pale-gold eyes, their outer corners lifting slightly. “I don’t believe I owe you an account of my movements.”
As he spoke, his gaze flicked toward me. Then, with a conspicuous air of indifference, he added, “I merely heard that a certain person had made a spectacular fool of herself. So I traveled day and night to enjoy the sight.”
For all his words, he flung aside the hand my father had meant to strike me with.
At the same time, a painfully familiar voice sounded inside my head: I told her Xu Ling was no good. Would she listen? Of course not. And now he’s thrown her away.
I widened my eyes in astonishment. The corners of Li Yunxiu’s mouth remained faintly lifted, but his lips had not moved at all.
Yet I heard every word of his thoughts.
She’d have done better marrying me. If my family wished it, that wretched excuse for an empress could be replaced at a word.
Seeming to notice me watching him, he glanced at me, then hurriedly looked away.
Only then did I see that the tips of his ears, white as jade, were tinged red in the sunlight.
Hmph. Why does she keep staring? If she’d married me in the first place, none of this would have happened. Now they’ve bullied her, and I still have to come to the rescue.
Li Yunxiu had not said a word aloud.
In his head, however, he was unleashing a torrent of abuse on Xu Ling, Xi Ruyan, and my parents.
When he got worked up enough, he threw in a few insults for me too.
I was bewildered, racking my brain over our past encounters.
Li Yunxiu and I had first met while doing business in Linzhou. He was there to throw money around for the fun of hearing it land; I was there to make an honest profit.
He was young and arrogant, and I refused to yield an inch. Whenever we met, we argued.
I had never imagined that Li Yunxiu had an entirely different understanding of those encounters.
Why doesn’t she quarrel with anyone else? Obviously I’m special to her. She just won’t admit she likes me.
When I was in a bad mood, I would quarrel with a passing dog. He simply hadn’t seen it…
I truly could not bear to listen to any more of his thoughts, so I ventured to call his name.
“Li Yunxiu.”
“What?” He turned, sounding annoyed.
The next second, my mouth ran away with me, and it was too late to take back the words. “Would you marry me now?”
Li Yunxiu stared for two seconds. Then his hand jerked.
The gold fan with its jade ribs fell to the ground and struck his foot on the way.
Oblivious to the pain, he gaped at me. His fair face turned scarlet, and he backed away two steps as if he had seen a ghost.
“If you don’t want to, forget it.” I turned to leave.
The next instant, he seized my wrist.
“I’ll marry you!” I heard him say. “I’d be no man if I didn’t!”