Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Back in my room, I looked at myself in the mirror. The woman reflected there was drenched in fragrant sweat, her face streaked with tears, the rouge on her lips completely eaten away. An endless wave of humiliation spread through my chest.

A hoarse voice came from behind me. “You use me up and throw me away. Isn’t that a little too heartless?”

“What do you want, then?”

“………”

I sat before the bronze mirror and slowly washed away the remains of my makeup with clean water. With a self-mocking smile, I said, “He bullies me, and now you bully me too!”

“Who is ‘he’?”

“You don’t need to know.” I turned around and glared at him with eyes as swollen and red as peaches. “All you need to do is stay quietly in this courtyard and be my, Jiang Chouyu’s, man.”

“If you’re lame, I’ll feed and house you. If you die, I’ll collect your corpse!”

He gave a derisive snort. “And if I refuse?”

“I don’t need your consent. In any case, that leg of yours is rotten to the root. Go if you like. I won’t stop you.”

“……..”

I watched him lower his expressionless gaze, as though brushing away a speck of dust. My heart did not stir in the slightest.

After all, he was not the first person to regard me as something beneath notice.

And so the storm passed.

I knew, however, that this peace was only temporary.

Perhaps I should leave Chuzhou and take Father somewhere else to hide. But under heaven, all land belonged to the king. We were only a few old, weak women and children. Where could we possibly run?

Several days later, I took my ax and went to the riverside as usual to strip bark.

Most of the morning light had already passed when a man suddenly approached from ahead.

He was tall and powerfully built, with a scarf wrapped around his head and face, revealing only a pair of dark, deep-set eyes. His bearing was rather similar to a certain someone.

“Young lady, have you seen a tall man nearby, one who carries a curved saber at his waist?”

“………I have not.”

I refused him flatly and continued chopping at my bark. Before long, another man came to the riverbank, dressed the same way and asking the same question.

I answered coldly, “Someone already asked me just now. No!”

Yet after taking a few steps away, the man turned back and took a familiar-looking jade pendant from his sleeve. “Young lady, have you seen anyone carrying this?”

“This was found nearby. It is something my master keeps on his person.”

Without a word, I picked up my hoe and hurried home. The two men exchanged a look, then followed me from a distance.

Fine.

I shouldered my willow basket and sighed. “Come with me, then.”

When we returned to the Qu Residence, the two men entered that room and immediately dropped to their knees with a thud.

I closed the door for them, then went to the kitchen to work.

Ah Er had just hauled in a net of small roe fish that morning, and they were still lively and jumping in the large vat. I scooped some out, cleaned their bellies, coated them in flour and bran, then tossed them into the pot to fry.

I had just finished frying a basinful when a shadow flashed before me. It was the man who had followed me home. His hands were hidden behind his back, and he was staring straight at me.

“You scared me!”

I patted my chest, then handed him the basin of little fish. “Take this to your master. You can all eat some too.”

“……….”

Seeing him stare blankly at the basin of fish, I picked one up and held it under his nose. “Smell it. Fresh, isn’t it?”

“……….Fresh.”

After hesitating for a moment, he silently carried the fish away.

His expression was rather strange.

I did not think much of it. I fried another basin of fish and sent it to Father, who was confined to bed. Little did I know that at the other end of the courtyard, someone was flying into a rage over that basin of crispy fried fish.

“Sha Yan, has that woman been dealt with?”

“………..No.”

“So I told you to kill someone, and you brought me a basin of fish?”

“N-no, it’s just that the young lady had just fried a pot of little dried fish and told me to bring it for you to eat.”

“………..”

Seeing this, another man cautiously asked, “Why don’t you eat the fish first?”

“Exactly. Fried little fish has to be eaten hot. It’s so fresh it’ll knock your eyebrows off!!”

“Shut up!”

The room instantly fell into dead silence.

One man asked, trembling, “Master, then… then are we still killing that young lady?”

Only after a long while did that rough, hoarse voice answer coldly.

“………Then we’ll kill her in a few days.”