Chapter 2
Living under another family’s roof naturally meant enduring exclusion.
Wei Yun, the Wei family’s legitimate daughter, was goaded on by a young lady from the Ning family in the capital.
She ignored my eldest aunt’s explanations and advice and treated me with open hostility.
Her torments came one after another.
A basin of cold water dumped over my head when I opened a door.
Centipedes and scorpions hidden in my books.
Even being deliberately locked in the study for an entire night.
At first, for my aunt’s sake, I yielded time and again.
But my forbearance only encouraged her to press harder and grow more vicious.
My patience ran dry. I put away my good temper.
At a flower-viewing banquet, Wei Yun slipped a laxative into my tea and tried to force me to drink it before all the other young ladies.
I struck without warning.
Seizing her by the hair, I slammed her against the stone table. As everyone gasped in horror, I gripped her jaw and poured the entire bowl of hot tea down her throat.
The others rushed forward to help her and restrain me.
I pressed a hairpin to Wei Yun’s throat.
“You want to see the outcome? I will give it to you. But wait for the time it takes one stick of incense to burn.”
“If you cannot wait, prepare a coffin for Wei Yun.”
None of the young ladies had ever seen anything like this. Every face went white.
Wei Yun struggled and begged, nearly hysterical.
The hairpin bit into her flesh. The pain silenced her.
At last, the laxative took effect.
Wei Yun, trembling all over, could no longer hold it in.
She clutched her stomach, her face draining of color.
I released her and sprang ten paces back.
The other young ladies hurried to surround her with concern.
They found Wei Yun staring around in terror, her face ashen.
Then came an explosive barrage of foul-smelling noise.
Every lady and servant in the courtyard froze.
When Wei Yun reached out pleadingly, they covered their noses and mouths with handkerchiefs and edged farther and farther away.
Humiliated beyond endurance, Wei Yun screamed at me through tears.
“You did this on purpose! You made me drink the laxative so I would disgrace myself in public. Chu Xirong, I swear I will never forgive you!”
“You useless servants, fetch water and summon a physician!”
Perhaps she spoke too forcefully, or perhaps the laxative was simply too potent.
The instant she finished, another earthshaking explosion rang out.
The young ladies flinched and retreated several more steps in unison.
Only then did I look down at Wei Yun, who was biting her lip bloody with shame and fury, and ask with a smile,
“Weren’t you the one who ordered the courtyard gate locked and forbade the servants from coming and going?”
Wei Yun’s pupils contracted. She stared at me.
“You knew?”
“I knew today’s banquet was a trap prepared especially for me.”
“You drugged the tea and locked the gate so you could force me to humiliate myself in public.”
Understanding dawned on the other young ladies.
Wei Yun looked ready to cry.
I continued,
“It does not feel pleasant when your own scheme lands on you, does it?”
“When you plotted against me, did you ever wonder how I was supposed to face the consequences?”
“You should be grateful that everyone here is either your cousin or your closest friend. Otherwise, the legitimate daughter of the Wei family would be ruined. The man you hope to marry would remember this stench for the rest of his life and never bear to look at you again.”
The truth left everyone trembling.
I lowered my voice and spoke softly to Wei Yun.
“I could have replaced the laxative with poison the moment you bought it and let it eat through your entrails.”
“When the truth came out, I could have stood over your corpse and wept that I knew nothing. You began it, and you suffered the consequences. People would call it no more than what you deserved. If the Wei family pursued the matter, they would first have to admit you plotted against me.
To protect its reputation, your family might send me back to the capital at worst. You, however, would be well and truly dead.”
“Wei Yun, would trading your life to force me back to the capital be worth it?”
Wei Yun was spoiled and arrogant, but she was a coward at heart.
She had suffered a loss, and my hairpin had held her life at its tip.
All she felt toward me now was fear.
I removed my cloak and draped it over her, preserving the last shred of her dignity.
“Be clever. Do not be foolish enough to match schemes and ruthlessness with an orphan who has nothing to lose.”
Wei Yun collapsed on the ground, unable to speak.
Disgraced and badly frightened, she fell ill for a long time.
Her two elder brothers directed all their anger at me.