Chapter 2

Chapter 2

When my eldest uncle learned that I had agreed to break the engagement with Pei Ling’an, he was overjoyed.

He rushed to the Pei Mansion immediately, hoping to substitute my tenth cousin into the marriage contract. However, he couldn’t even make it through the front gates.

It was said that Pei Ling’an only sent a personal page to meet him. The boy looked at my uncle with his head held high, full of arrogance.

“What does Lord Shen take our master for? Does he think a betrothal can be swapped just like that? Look around the capital-countless families are desperate to marry into the Pei Clan. Since your daughter is so ungrateful, why should our master lower himself to marry into a family of such diminished status?”

That blow finally snapped my uncle back to reality.

He finally realized that the Pei Clan’s willingness to marry into our family was out of respect for my late father, not for the current Shen Clan, which was held up by a mere sixth-rank official.

He rushed back home without a moment’s rest and ordered me to apologize to Pei Ling’an. He even declared that if Pei Ling’an refused to forgive me, I was to kneel outside their gates until he did.

Of course, I didn’t go.

Not only did I refuse, but I also displayed a perfectly calculated mix of heartbreak and stubbornness. With tears trembling on the verge of falling, I looked so pitiful that my uncle’s raised hand slowly lowered.

It wasn’t that he’d suddenly found his conscience or felt bad for his niece. Rather, he felt that with a face this beautiful, there was no need to worry about Pei Ling’an not forgiving me. And since I looked so devastated, it was clear I still had feelings for the man, which made things even easier.

What man could refuse a woman who was both beautiful and infatuated?

My uncle sent my mother and me away to Qingju Monastery.

He told me to reflect on my actions. I would only be brought back once I had come to my senses and was ready to apologize to Pei Ling’an.

As we were leaving the city, someone intercepted my carriage.

It was a page from the Pei Mansion.

Pei Ling’an looked down on me, and his personal page had never been polite when speaking to me either.

“Our master says that if the young lady goes to apologize right now and takes back her agreement to dissolve the engagement, the position of the young madam of the Pei family will still be yours. Otherwise…”

I followed his gaze to a spot not far away. A group of young noblemen were resting in a pavilion; the one surrounded in the center was Pei Ling’an.

He gave me a cold glance before arrogantly averting his eyes, seemingly certain that I would step down from the carriage immediately to beg for his forgiveness.

“There is no need.”

I lowered the carriage curtain, shutting out the mocking gazes of the crowd. “Please tell Young Master Pei that Shen Yusu’s greatest mistake was not agreeing… the very first time he mentioned breaking the engagement.”

The carriage slowly moved forward.

From the direction of the pavilion, there seemed to be the sound of a porcelain cup shattering.

I curled my lips into a slight smile.

Bastard. Die of anger for all I care.

Qingju Monastery was located twenty miles outside the capital. It used to be a place where the female relatives of disgraced officials were confined. Although it had since been converted into an ordinary Daoist monastery, it remained a bleak, desolate place with few visitors.

It was enough to drive any pampered young lady mad.

But that didn’t include my mother and me.

My mother didn’t care because, ever since my father passed away, she cared for nothing in the world except me.

As for me, it was because my better option was waiting right at the foot of this very mountain.