Chapter 7

The footsteps of a patrol sounded in the distance.

I kept my head bowed, my heart pounding.

The night was late and heavy with dew. Pei Xuan sounded careless.

“Forgive you?”

“You’ve been with your mistress since childhood. Naturally, I can’t dispose of one of her people as I please.”

He bent down and took the gold bracelet from before me.

He was so close that I could almost hear his steady breathing.

“A bracelet to buy off your offense. Interesting. I won’t expose you.”

I breathed out in relief and dared to straighten.

“Thank you for your great kindness, General. I will never forget it.”

I stood and hastily turned away.

“It’s late. I—I won’t trouble you any further. I’ll leave at once…”

I had taken several steps and was almost out of that secluded corner

when a leisurely voice sounded behind me.

“Stop.”

At some point, Pei Xuan had come to stand behind me.

He studied my rigid, ashen face, then suddenly smiled.

“The bracelet paid for your theft.”

“What will you offer in exchange for deceiving me?”

His voice turned icy in an instant.

“Lin Shunian. You’re still pretending?”

“Have I been too good-tempered with you,”

“that you dare hide the truth and lie to me like this?”

I was taken to Pei Xuan’s command tent.

He locked me away and told everyone I had gone missing.

Bound to a couch behind a screen, I heard Lu Yan’s hoarse voice on the other side.

He had come to ask Pei Xuan for permission to take soldiers out to search for me.

Pei Xuan was generous. He even sent his own personal guards to help.

But how could they possibly find me?

Through a gap, I could see the dark shadows beneath Lu Yan’s eyes.

For days he had searched day and night, taking neither food nor water. He looked frighteningly haggard.

I wanted to call out, but a strip of cloth gagged my mouth.

All I could do was watch through reddened eyes as Lu Yan searched again and again, only to be disappointed every time.

Pei Xuan brought food and tried to feed me.

I turned my head away. He did not grow angry.

“Weren’t you in the capital? How did you end up on the frontier?”

“I valued Lu Yan. Promoted him. Groomed him as a trusted man.”

He played with my hand, then gave a sudden, chilling smile.

“And all the while, he’d secretly married my fiancée.”

“Lin Shunian. How heartless of you.”

I would neither eat nor drink. Whenever Pei Xuan came close, I scratched and bit him.

Whenever he loosened the ropes, I smashed everything I could in the tent.

We tormented each other like this until Pei Xuan truly lost his temper.

“Trying to run? Trying to get back to that husband you picked up?”

“Keep making trouble, and I’ll have him bound and killed this instant.”

I stopped at once.

Yes. I could not go on like this. There was still Lu Yan. Lu Yan, who had been kinder to me than anyone.

After knowing Pei Xuan so long, I knew how to soothe his anger.

“I heard what you said that day. You said you would make me your concubine.”

I lowered my head.

“I didn’t want to be degraded like that. I was shut in the woodshed, and your family sent another letter breaking off the engagement.”

“I was frightened. I felt so hurt. So I wanted to marry someone else. It didn’t matter who, as long as I wasn’t a concubine.”

My choked voice reached him. His body stiffened, but the hand gripping mine slowly loosened.

“That was only a joke. If I’d wanted you as a concubine, I wouldn’t have come to this bitter place to earn military honors.”

Pei Xuan was silent for a while. Then his voice softened.

“It was my fault. I didn’t explain, and you misunderstood.”

“We’ll put it behind us and start again. You won’t be a concubine. You’ll be my only wife, for the rest of my life.”

No,

I thought. Lu Yan is my only husband.

But I merely raised my head and spoke meekly.

“Then let me write him a letter. Lu Yan is a good man. I used him to get away. I don’t want to drag him into this any further.”