Chapter 8
Out of respect for Steward Liu’s many years of loyal service, my father ultimately did not send Liu Chaoming to the authorities.
Later, Steward Liu also left the Zhang Residence.
I continued to live quietly as the Zhang family’s Second Miss, born of a concubine.
The matter of my elopement was ruthlessly suppressed by my father. Everyone in the residence knew what had happened; their eyes brimmed with contempt and ridicule whenever they looked at me, but no one dared to say a word.
In the dead of night, I always recalled the last thing Liu Chaoming said to me, always remembered how he told me he was sorry.
It was because I was too foolish, too impulsive. I was the one who destroyed every possibility between us. There would never be another chance for us.
I had few friends. After I returned from my failed escape, only Xiao Dezi came to see me. The Crown Prince punished Li Rongchuan for his unruly conduct, and so he would never trouble me again.
Li Rongchuan, whom I once feared and dreaded, was nothing but an ant before Yin Jiuqing, utterly insignificant.
Power truly is an intoxicating thing.
I, too, wanted to live with dignity, like a real person – not so lowly, not so humiliated. I wanted everyone who had bullied me to crawl at my feet like dogs, weeping and begging for my forgiveness.
And I would toy with them mercilessly, never forgiving them.
I began to think about how I could obtain power. Day and night, I pondered, unable to sleep. In the end, I sadly realized that, aside from this enviable face and my youthful body, I had nothing.
I resolved to use my body to achieve something monumental. I planned to sleep with Zhang Jincan’s man and the Crown Prince, who is second only to the emperor. I wanted to disgust Zhang Jincan, disgust my father, and disgust everyone in the Zhang Residence who looked down on and mocked me.
I thought I must be mad, but this was the most effective, most satisfying, most vicious, and most direct method my barren mind could come up with.
Perhaps I would be killed for it, but everyone dies, sooner or later. If I were lucky enough to survive, then everyone who bullied me would have to die.
I locked myself in my room, focusing intently on studying the Jinling Bedchamber Arts, which had once repulsed me.
Every year, on the second day of the New Year, Yin Jiuqing would come to stay at the Grand Tutor’s Mansion.
I set my plan for that day.