Chapter 1
Chapter 1
My cousin’s birthday was fast approaching.
The young ladies of the extended family were pulling out every trick they knew to prepare gifts for him. I could not afford to be as perfunctory as usual, or there was no telling how he would mock me this time.
With great reluctance, I opened my purse and bought fine cloth to sew him a fragrance pouch.
Longevity Hall was packed with guests that day. Once I had completed my gift-giving duty, I breathed a sigh of relief and hid in a corner to devour my meal.
Wonderful. Many of the dishes on the table were my favorites.
When I happened to glance up, I saw my cousin’s long, elegant fingers lift my blue-green pouch for inspection. His cool gaze swept over the many young ladies before he asked with distant courtesy, “Who gave me this birthday present?”
I hurriedly swallowed my osmanthus cake, raised a hand, and stared at him in confusion. “I did. Is something wrong with it?”
He merely said, “After all these years, this is the first gift Cousin Ah Cheng has ever spent money on.”
Soft laughter immediately rippled through Longevity Hall.
“Zhang Cheng is stingy enough on ordinary days, but to give her cousin such a shabby present for his birthday…”
“I heard her family in Qingzhou has fallen on hard times. She’s here to sponge off the marquis’s household, plain and simple.”
“She is rather pretty. Shame she’s so dim.”
Embarrassed, I explained, “For the past few years, I sent everything I earned home to pay for my mother’s treatment. I only had some money to spare this year, so I bought gold thread and pearls for the pouch. Please don’t take offense, Cousin.”
I truly had not expected him to notice. He had received so many gifts, yet he had rummaged through them all and dug my little pouch out from a corner.
One of the girls laughed. “The way Ah Cheng tells it, you’d think the marquis’s household mistreated us. Aunt gives each of us a monthly allowance of five taels. Don’t tell me you send all of that home too?”
The others joined in.
“The Zhang family has some nerve, living off their daughter like this.”
“Exactly. Whoever marries her will have to support her entire family.”
I answered honestly, “I have never taken a monthly allowance from the household. Being permitted to stay here is generous enough. I have two good hands and can support myself. The family may be wealthy, but Aunt works day and night to manage the estate. Their silver doesn’t simply fall from the sky.”
The laughter stopped at once.
My cousin pinched the pouch I had given him and raised one eyebrow. “Why has everyone stopped laughing? Has someone steeped coptis root in the tea and made it too bitter for you to smile?”
Puzzled, I lifted my cup and took a sip. “No, the tea is wonderfully fragrant. Is yours different, Cousin?”
Unable to suppress my curiosity, I peered at his cup. I had never tasted tea flavored with bitter coptis root.
He cast me an indolent glance and cupped his hand protectively around his tea, as though afraid I might snatch it away. I withdrew my gaze sheepishly.
When the banquet ended, my friend Zhang Baozhu linked her arm through mine and asked excitedly, “When did you and the heir become so close? The way he defended you today was immensely satisfying! I don’t know what those three are so smug about. They’re all here to sink their teeth into the heir’s fortune. None of them is any nobler than the rest.”
Zhang Baozhu came from a merchant family and had money to burn. The other three young ladies were daughters of scholarly families and looked down on her.
Naturally, they looked down even more on the daughter of a constable like me. If my mother had not shared a distant family connection with the marchioness, I would never have had the chance to come here and sponge off the family.
Under Baozhu’s relentless questioning, I said unhappily, “The heir and I aren’t close.”
His defense of me today was bound to cause trouble. I had no idea what had gotten into him, making him single me out in front of everyone.
While I was talking to Baozhu, I saw him leave. I quickly took a shortcut and intercepted him outside the courtyard.
My cousin held a post at the Court of Judicial Review, where I also worked as a constable. The court was some distance from the residence, and a donkey cart there cost me ten copper coins. Sometimes I shamelessly hitched a ride with him.
Today, however, he blocked my path and said coolly, “Since Miss Zhang and I are not close, it would hardly be proper for us to share a carriage.”
I cursed inwardly. Did he have a monkey’s ears? How had he overheard what I said to Baozhu?
He was no longer even calling me Cousin Ah Cheng. He was genuinely angry.
I hurriedly grabbed his sleeve and squeezed past him. “Of course we’re close,” I said with an ingratiating smile. “How could we not be?”
The cool fragrance clinging to him made heat surge through my body. My nose grew warm, and only then did I realize it was bleeding.
I quickly pressed a handkerchief beneath it. Afraid of staining his robes, I shrank into a corner.
His gaze settled on me.
“The passion parasite is acting up,” I explained. “Don’t worry, Cousin. I can endure it.”
He gave a scornful laugh. “You were infected with it half a year ago while saving me. If I watched you suffer an attack and did nothing, I would be worse than a beast.”
He paused, fingers closing around the blue-green pouch at his waist. His dark gaze fixed on me. “Come here. You always insist on enduring it, only to break into my room in agony in the middle of the night, bite me until I’m covered in wounds, and torment me so badly I can’t get out of bed the next morning. Does that make you feel better?”
He truly had a filthy way of putting things.
It was not as though I could control what I did when the parasite took hold.
Covering my nose, I shuffled over to him. The moment my body touched his, I felt somewhat better.
But my cousin lifted his robes and spread his legs. Leaning against the cushions, he said evenly, “Climb on. Don’t waste time.”
I could not help sighing inwardly.
How difficult this must be for him. A man so aloof and pure had been forced into such wanton behavior just to treat my passion parasite.
Heaven knew how ashamed he must feel when night fell and he was alone.