Chapter 8

In truth, the moment they began planning it, Wei Zhao’s confidant came to tell me.

For one thing, an earl faking his death was a grave matter. No one dared take it lightly.

For another, I was the household’s true mistress. Once the shining silver was handed out, even the old serving woman who’d attended my mother-in-law for decades became mine.

Through his confidant, I learned every detail of Wei Zhao’s plan.

So he and Wen Lihua had barely reached Qingzhou when “mounted bandits” robbed them.

I stood on a hillside, having pushed Yan Changxi there in his chair, watching the convoy surrounded below.

Sitting in the carriage, Wei Zhao and Lihua were terrified at the countless “bandits” pouring in from every direction.

Stealing their valuables wasn’t enough. The bandits dragged Wei Zhao out and kicked and beat him until he rolled across the ground.

Wen Lihua wasn’t spared either. However helpless she pretended to be, however she pleaded, she still fell into their hands.

Their screams echoed through the valley.

I asked Yan Changxi, “Does it hurt?”

His eyes were blood-red.

“That whore almost got away with it. I have too much hatred left to feel pain for her.”

I’d told him of their plan long before.

At first he hadn’t believed me. Only when he secretly watched Lihua stage her own death, set fire to the courtyard, and climb out a window with gold, silver, and valuables did he finally believe.

These “bandits” were his trusted men too.

In Qingzhou, he’d prepared a carefully constructed “cage” for the pair.

It was a mine in a desolate place. They were thrown into it to work all day.

Two pampered people, stripped of their gold and jewels, became the laborers they had once despised most.

They mined without rest from morning to night and were often bullied and beaten by other miners. Life was worse than death.

Within a month, the luminous skin Lihua had been so proud of was sun-blackened and shriveled, like dead wood.

Wei Zhao put on airs at first. After several rounds of beatings from the overseers, he finally became the very sort of groveling, flattering little man he claimed to despise.

They worked apart by day and huddled in the same straw shed at night.

The ground swarmed with insects, rats, and snakes. Hungry and barely clothed, they fought viciously over a single coarse steamed bun, cursing each other.

Even a heavenly pair of lovers had to bow before reality.

Yan Changxi had all news from the mine suppressed. The two were already “dead.” Even if they vanished there, no one would know.

But he wouldn’t let them find release too soon.

He only ordered his men to humiliate them day after day, using the cruelest methods to make them regret what they’d done.

Afterward, I visited Yan Changxi once.

The young man who’d once been so spirited and dazzling now sat lifelessly in his wheelchair.

“I fell because Wen Lihua drugged my horse out of jealousy over the concubines.”

“She meant to frame one of them and rekindle my feelings for her.”

“But the drug was too strong. The horse went mad, threw me violently to the ground, and trampled my legs until they broke.”

He’d learned this only later.

He hated Lihua, hated the unscrupulous woman who’d turned him from a promising young man into someone condemned to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

He regretted abandoning me and marrying her.

“Lishu, if my heart hadn’t changed back then, would I never have given her this chance? Would I have escaped this harm?”

I couldn’t easily answer. I rose to leave.

This was probably the last time we would meet. He watched my retreating back in helpless pain.