Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“Are you sure you don’t want me anymore?” I asked again.

Marquis Baoding slammed his hand on the table.

“If word gets out, you’ll be the shame of Baoding Marquis Manor. My family can’t afford that disgrace.”

I nodded.

“Fine.”

They froze, startled by how decisive I was.

I went on, “From now on, we have nothing to do with each other.”

“Stop right there!” Marquis Baoding pointed at me. “Don’t be ungrateful. Is marrying you off the same as harming you?”

Marrying me off was for my own good? Then I couldn’t afford that kind of good.

Just you wait. We had plenty of time.

I swept my sleeve and walked out.

Behind me, Madam Ning (eldest branch) shouted, “Let her go. Who knows whose seed she is? She’s been unlikable since she was little. Get out! Get as far away as you can!”

Unlikable, yes. She liked plenty of children-everyone except me.

“Ungrateful little wretch.”

She smashed her teacup.

With her curses ringing behind me, I lifted my head and looked at the sky. The snow was still falling, and the bitter wind swept flakes of snow straight into my face.

I stepped through the accumulated snow, leaving a trail of shallow footprints, but they were soon covered by fresh snowfall.

The only one who chased after me crying was my silly maid.

After saying goodbye to her at the side gate, I went to Fahua Temple.

“I’ll rent it for five days. My friend will come later and give you the money.”

The young novice chanted, “Amitabha,” and left.

Holding a teacup in both hands, I stood in the doorway. The snow had stopped. Everywhere was white, so quiet it seemed there was no one left in the world.

Suddenly, a snowball landed in my tea. I looked in the direction it had come from.

Not far away, a tree branch was buried under a thick layer of snow. And on that pure white branch, there bloomed a flower like a flame-laughing without the slightest restraint.

“Ning Yan, I heard disaster finally caught up with you?”

It was Han Xiao, the second young master of Huaiyin Marquis Manor, and my sworn enemy.

“That’s right. Disaster finally caught up with me.” I leaned against the door and glanced at him sideways. “Did it finally make you happy for once?”

His phoenix eyes lifted slightly, and when he smiled, every bit of his expression was careless and rakish.

“How about this? Call me big brother, and I’ll reluctantly marry you and take you home as my bandit queen.”

I poured the tea in my cup into the snow.

“I couldn’t hold down your bandit fort.” I paused. “But I can call you big brother. After I do, lend me two hundred taels of silver.”

He was one day younger than me, and he had always brooded over it.

The smile on Han Xiao’s face froze for a moment, then he returned to his usual languid air.

“Call me that a hundred times, and I’ll give you ten thousand taels.” He flicked his robes aside, sat down on the simple heated brick bed, and looked up at me with those phoenix eyes. “You don’t have to say them all at once. Spread them out over ten years, eight years, a lifetime. I want to savor it slowly.”

“Just two hundred taels.”

He curled his lip. “You’ve got an important man like me right here, and you’re only borrowing two hundred taels?”

“Yes. Will the important man lend it or not?”

He gave me the money.

He was actually carrying that much cash on him today?

I said, “Then thank you for your generosity, my lord.”

He looked thoroughly pleased. “I never thought I’d live to see Ning Yan lowering her head.”

I rolled my eyes at him.

I turned to pour him tea. When I turned back, the ache in his eyes hadn’t been put away in time. I jabbed a finger at his forehead. “It’s coarse tea. Sorry to make Second Master Han suffer.”

He took a sip, then ground out through clenched teeth, “Tonight, I’ll break that dog He Lingzhi’s legs.”

“I don’t need you to avenge me.”

He scoffed and asked, “What are your plans now?”

I toyed with the teacup in my hands. “The world is not at peace. I’ll go do something to make it so.”

“And while I’m at it, I’ll make everyone who abandoned me today regret it for the rest of their lives.”

I thought he would laugh at me for not knowing my limits.

But instead, he nodded solemnly. “I believe you.”

“I’ll pay you back,” I said, tilting my head to look at him. “But it might take a long time.”

His face was full of indifference. “This young master can wait.”

The next day, I went outside the palace gates to submit a self-recommendation letter to the Imperial Household Department.