Chapter 1
I was born delicate, but my temper had always been fierce.
When I was little, the Third Prince called me a sickly ghost and said I could forget about marrying him.
I called him a coward in return. He did not want the marriage but lacked the courage to defy the imperial arrangement, so he took his anger out on me instead.
During the quarrel, he shoved me into a pond so hard that I fell gravely ill.
Afterward, the Noble Consort tried to make the matter disappear with three chests of jewels.
The Third Prince pulled a face at me.
“Yes, I’m bullying you, sickly ghost. What can you do about it?”
“Next time, I’ll push you off the rockery and leave your head split open for everyone to laugh at.
Mother Consort has more jewels than she can count. She won’t miss another few chests paid in compensation.”
“But once that sickly face of yours is ruined, don’t even dream of marrying me.”
I could not beat him then, but I carved every word into my memory.
Several years later, at another palace banquet,
I deliberately stood beside the rockery, loudly calling myself the Third Prince’s betrothed as I waited for him to come looking for trouble.
When he charged at me with malice blazing in his eyes,
I slipped aside and shoved him with all my strength.
He tumbled from the rockery, breaking his leg and mangling his face. He howled for his parents, writhing in pain and humiliation.
The Noble Consort wept before the emperor.
I knelt before His Majesty with tears in my eyes and presented the three chests of jewels, every piece untouched.
“His Highness was right. My father dying while shielding Your Majesty from an arrow, and my mother coughing up blood and dying when she heard the news, are no excuse for me to cling to him.”
“The last time His Highness pushed me into the pond, I nearly died. He said three chests of jewels were more than enough to buy my worthless life. If I still refused to break the engagement, he would take my life at the palace banquet.”
“I should have known my place. When I survived the first time, I should have withdrawn from the engagement of my own accord. I should never have forced His Highness to injure himself so badly just to escape marrying me.”
“I want neither the jewels nor the engagement.”
“I beg Your Majesty to show mercy and grant me a way to live.”
The Third Prince had resented an imperially arranged marriage and secretly tormented the orphaned daughter of a meritorious subject.
The emperor was furious.
The Noble Consort was confined to Guanju Palace for six months.
The Third Prince had not only broken his leg and ruined his face; he had also destroyed his reputation and prospects.
With my father’s merit in saving the emperor and the entire capital’s knowledge of the prince’s persecution, I had my revenge.
Grandmother kindly took me to visit the bedridden Third Prince.
He hurled a teacup at me and snarled a threat.
“Chu Xirong, I will remember this. Sooner or later, I’ll make you wish you were dead for today’s humiliation.”
My eyes red as a rabbit’s, I brushed the spilled tea from his quilt.
Then I deliberately planted one hand on his broken leg and arched a brow.
“Try harder next time. Because next time, I’ll take your whole life.”
The Third Prince shook with rage and pain.
When he raised a hand to push me, I stepped aside.
He fell out of bed, and the bone that had just been set split apart again.
How wonderful.
He got to suffer through the agony of setting it all over again.
Fearing the Noble Consort would retaliate against me, the Chu family claimed I was gravely ill and sent me south to Jiangnan to recuperate with my eldest aunt’s maternal family.