Chapter 1

# Chapter 1

Gu Jinxin and I rejected the match in perfect unison.

Both sets of parents stared at us in astonishment.

Gu Jinxin cast me an unreadable glance, then turned to the Marquis and Marchioness Gu. “I will explain when we return home, Father, Mother. But I can promise you this: Song Jiaruo would make a disastrous wife.”

My father looked up at him and smiled faintly at the marquis. “Your son is certainly a spirited young man. I admire such candor, but I think it best that we forget this marriage.”

The meaning beneath his courtesy was plain: Gu Jinxin was nothing but a reckless fool.

The Song clan of Yingchuan stood among the foremost aristocratic houses. Our ancestors had served at court for three hundred years, and generation after generation of our sons and nephews still held office. The Gu family, by contrast, had only recently been ennobled by His Majesty. Among the old clans, they scarcely counted for anything.

The Gu family had sought a daughter of an established house to secure its footing in the capital. My father had once thought well of Gu Jinxin and did not want me marrying into the imperial family, so he had agreed to let the Gus visit and allow me to meet him.

It had been an act of kindness.

Gu Jinxin had squandered it.

In my previous life, once Old Marquis Gu’s funeral was over, Gu Jinxin moved into his study. We saw each other only at meals.

I sensed his coldness and tried more than once to draw out the reason. He told me not to imagine things. If I pressed him, he said that what had happened during our wedding rites was a knot he could never untie-that whenever he looked at me, he remembered his father’s death.

His words even hinted that I brought misfortune to my elders.

Did he truly blame me for Old Marquis Gu’s sudden death?

He never said so outright. Whenever I asked, he accused me of thinking too much.

Only when I lay dying and heard him speaking to his children did I learn that he had secretly resented me all his life.

Now that I had been granted another life, I was delighted to have nothing more to do with him.

I stepped out from behind the screen and regarded him coolly. “You came to ask for my hand, yet you are also the one slandering my name. The Song family truly cannot afford to associate with a man so two-faced. Someone, show our guests out.”

Gu Jinxin glanced at me, the contempt in his eyes unmistakable.

This was the Gu Jinxin who had returned from decades in the future. By then he had become one of the Nine Ministers and enjoyed the emperor’s favor. Any fear he had once felt toward the great clans had long since vanished, which was why he could look down on me with all the arrogance of a superior.

“Better two-faced than born ill-omened enough to bring death upon one’s elders,” he said coldly.

A chill passed through me.

There it was. He truly had blamed me for his father’s death, even while insisting that it was all in my head.

What a consummate hypocrite.

I suppressed my anger and gave a calm order. “Men, throw this liar out.”

“Song Jiaruo, you wouldn’t dare!”

Oh?

He could watch me dare.

I clapped my hands. A troop of burly servants filed in and shoved the Gu family toward the gate. Gu Jinxin was less fortunate: they beat him soundly, then flung him out of the Song residence in full view of the street.

My father said nothing. He merely sipped his tea at leisure.

When I returned, took a drink, and settled my temper, he finally asked, “Why do you hate him enough to humiliate him so completely?”