Chapter 1
Once the guests heard him say that,
they understood at once.
Within moments, they had all changed their tune.
One after another, they praised my courage and loyalty to my master.
Xie Qingheng, his eyes hazy with wine, lifted his chin with languid impatience.
“Since the gentlemen have all spoken so highly of you, Ah Fu, you ought to offer them a toast.”
When I did not move,
his brows drew together.
“Ah Fu?”
I forced a smile and slowly unclenched the fingers hidden in my sleeve, their nails buried in my flesh.
My fingers were so stiff that the wine cup trembled in my hand when I raised it.
“Ah Fu thanks you all for your kind words.”
The fine wine slid down my throat, leaving only bitterness behind.
Forcing myself to my feet, I dipped into a curtsy.
“Ah Fu cannot hold her liquor, so I will take my leave.”
As I stepped through the door, I heard one of his friends joke,
“Brother Xie, are you not going after her? Take care your pretty lady does not get angry.”
Xie Qingheng gave a soft laugh.
“I have never married. Where would this pretty lady of mine have come from?”
I sat alone in my room for half the night.
At midnight, the door opened.
The familiar scent of bamboo and ink, mingled with the sharpness of wine, enveloped me from behind.
“What is this? Are you angry?”
During our three years in Lingnan, he had always been dignified and courteous.
Never had he carried himself as boldly as he had today, commanding the room with easy eloquence.
Triumph shone in his every glance.
I rose and pulled free of his embrace.
“How would I dare? As a loyal servant, it is already the greatest blessing that my lord personally brought me to the banquet.”
No lamps had been lit in the room.
Only moonlight spilled inside, outlining his tall, slender figure.
He sighed. “Duke Xiang was among the guests tonight. I had no choice but to speak that way if I wanted to protect you.”
“Ah Fu, you must understand.”
He had said those words to me many times on our journey back to the capital.
The noble families there were bound together by countless ties.
A tug on a single thread could shake the whole web.
When the time came, there would be many things beyond his control.
“So, Ah Fu, you will understand me, will you not?”
Back then, I had placed my hand over his and told him myself.
Whatever happened, I would remain by his side.
I simply had not imagined
that the irony would come back around so quickly.
I spoke softly. “Of course this servant understands. It is only what I should do as your loyal servant.”
There was no emotion in my voice, yet to his ears it sounded like mockery.
“Ah Fu, you do not understand the treacherous currents of the capital.”
“If I insist on taking you as my wife, I will only bring disaster upon you.”
I said nothing.
We stared at each other across the darkness.
After a long silence, he sighed. “Enough. One day, you will understand that I did this for your own good.”
He turned and left.
Only the scent of wine remained in the room.
Silence settled over it once more.
Suddenly, I let out a quiet laugh.
It held neither mockery nor resentment.
I laughed only because I had lost my wager.
Four years ago, when I collapsed in front of his carriage, I had placed a bet on my own life.
I wagered that whoever sat inside would save me.
I made that wager ten times.
Ten times, I threw myself down.
Nine times, I was beaten.
The tenth carriage belonged to Xie Qingheng.
Just as the driver’s whip was about to strike me,
a cool voice came from behind the carriage curtain.
“Why torment someone already so wretched? If the household still needs hands, give her some work.”
He never lifted the curtain.
Yet he gave me hope of survival.
Only after entering the household did I learn that my savior was Xie Qingheng, the young master of the Xie clan of Nanyao.
Xie Qingheng.
I lingered over that name and engraved it in my heart.
That time, my wager paid off.
Three years ago, the Xie estate was confiscated and Xie Qingheng was exiled to Lingnan.
I placed another wager on him, betting that he would rise again.
I dared stake so much because I had heard with my own ears what he said when bidding farewell to the Old Madam.
“Three years at the earliest, five at most. The moment the Crown Prince ascends the throne, your grandson will return.”
By then, the entire Xie estate had fallen into chaos.
The servants wrapped up their valuables and fled one after another.
I alone took the wages I had saved and followed him to Lingnan.
I told him honestly how he had once saved me.
Although he no longer remembered it, he treated me with a measure of respect afterward.
For three years, I attended to his every need and cared for him with painstaking devotion.
All so he would remember what he owed me.
Then, when we returned to the capital, he could repay the favor.
I had already decided what I wanted in return.
A thousand taels of gold and an officially issued travel permit.
To him, that would have been a trifle.
To me, it would have been enough to establish a household of my own and live the rest of my life without want.
But what he offered was far greater.
That night beneath the moon, when he took my hand and told me he would marry me,
my heart stirred.
I was only human.
Facing such a handsome face day after day,
how could I not fall for him?
I hid my affection well.
I released it only in dreams at midnight, when no one could know.
I was never a wholly forthright person.
From beginning to end, I had made my own calculations.
He was the one who gave me hope, who made me seriously imagine that a common pheasant might become a phoenix.
Now I had merely been beaten back into my proper shape.
A pheasant was a pheasant.
It could never become a phoenix.
He always believed I understood nothing.
But he underestimated a woman born at the bottom and her determination to carve out a life above it.
His excuses, his pretty explanations—
they amounted to no more than this: his prospects and his power
both mattered more than I did.
I understood perfectly.
The schemes traded among nobles were not something a lowly maid like me could disrupt.
The label “loyal servant” was the neatest possible explanation of my place.