Chapter 2

Chapter 2

After that, I learned that the little fool was named Lan Guan.

He wasn’t a native of Huaili in Yongzhou.

Nor did he come from a respectable family.

He had been displaced as a child and kidnapped by human traffickers who brought him to Yongzhou.

Once washed up, he was a strikingly handsome child. Because of this, he caught the eye of Master Zhao’s steward and was bought into the household to serve as a page.

The name Lan Guan was personally given to him by Master Zhao, who had a penchant for poetry and literature.

But later, they threw him out without a shred of mercy.

Because the boy was a fool, he couldn’t do anything right, yet he had a voracious appetite.

He also possessed Herculean strength and a broken mind. When he couldn’t get enough to eat, he strangled the master’s large dog with his bare hands, skinned it, and ate the meat.

They beat him half to death and tossed him out.

Lan Guan had been wandering the local ruined temples for two years by then.

That he was able to stay alive and well was thanks to his knack for slaughtering dogs and cats.

Sometimes he would slip into the woods to catch a snake to roast and eat.

He and I became very good friends. He would grin foolishly and call me Yinyin.

Later, the two of us often roamed the fifteen counties of Yongzhou. At our peak, we stole and slaughtered ten dogs in a single day.

I even found a Chiyu White Cat in Huaili County.

That cat was as white as snow, so clean it seemed untainted by a single speck of dust. It wore a silver collar around its neck engraved with the character “Yao.”

I knew of the Yao Family.

If my maternal grandfather’s family, the Li family, were considered wealthy and influential in Yongzhou, they wouldn’t even compare to a single finger of the Yao Family.

In the imperial palace of the capital, there was an Imperial Consort Yao who enjoyed the Emperor’s deepest favor and was the biological mother of the Thirteenth Prince.

The Yao Family lived at the foot of the Son of Heaven, occupying a grand estate with a prestigious reputation.

Even back in their ancestral home in Yongzhou, their lintel was so high that even the Prefect had to bow his head when he visited.

The cat I picked up belonged to Second Miss Yao.

She was the younger sister of the current Imperial Consort Yao.

I didn’t think much of it at the time. I stuffed the cat into a burlap sack, took it back, and slaughtered it.

I gutted it, mixed it with the skinned dog meat, and Lan Guan pushed it on a small cart to sell to a restaurant in the city.

We split the money we earned.

I wasn’t a good person.

I never had been, even as a child.

I was cruel and cold by nature; the only sliver of sincerity I possessed was given to my mother.

She said she wanted to take me away to live a good life.

So, I truly wanted to help her live a good life as well.

I used the money from selling dog meat to buy a roast chicken for her.

When I returned, she threw it straight onto the ground and whipped me with a tree branch.

“You haven’t come home for days, and you’ve been out doing such shady business?! Ah Yin, how old are you? How did you end up living like this?!”

She wept and wailed. I was quite impatient with her.

Eventually, I snatched the branch from her hand and threw it on the ground. I picked up the roast chicken, brushed it off, and tore off a drumstick to eat.

After eating, I looked at her as she crouched on the ground, crying bitterly. I couldn’t help but say, “Mother, just accept your fate. In this life, whatever situation you find yourself in, you have to accept that way of living.”

“I can’t be the daughter of a capital official, and you are no longer the young miss of the Li family. So learn to accept it. Let’s just live our lives. I’m not out there murdering or committing arson, nor do I have the ability to. Don’t set your expectations too high for me. In this world, being able to eat your fill and stay warm is enough.”

“It’s not like that, Ah Yin. You shouldn’t be like this. This isn’t the path you should take.”

Mother covered her face, tears slipping through her fingers. “It’s my fault. I should have just hanged myself at the Cui Family back then. It would have saved you from being brought out to live this wretched life…”

“Ah Yin, go back to the Cui Family, alright? Go to the capital and find your father. No matter what, you are a daughter of the Cui Family. They won’t just leave you be.”

I laughed at her words. “Forget it. What’s the point? You know perfectly well that even if I returned to the Cui Family, life wouldn’t be easy.”

“It’s my fault, it’s all Mother’s fault…”

She wailed loudly, on and on.

I sighed helplessly, tore off the other drumstick, and handed it to her. “Eat. Once you eat this drumstick, I’ll forgive you.”