Chapter 5
Over the next two weeks, Murong Zhu and I raced ten times, each of us winning our share.
As rewards, she gave me medicine, food, and even gold and silver.
I turned around and shared it all with the other enslaved girls.
“Thank you for your generous rewards, Princess Murong.”
Murong Zhu tipped my face up with her riding crop. “I can reward you with far more than that.”
“Chu Yusu, would you like to become my brother’s consort?”
For a female slave, there could be no better opportunity.
Slaves did the hardest labor every day, ate spoiled food, and were beaten or cursed by their masters at the slightest whim.
Even an unfavored consort had servants, beautiful clothes, and exquisite meals.
Murong Zhu waited for me to fall to my knees and thank her in awed delight.
Instead, I said calmly, “No.”
Her gaze filled with utter confusion.
“Then what do you want?”
I looked at her.
The vast light and drifting clouds above the grasslands were reflected in both our eyes.
After a long silence, I said in a voice only she and I could hear,
“I want to serve as your adviser.”
For one brief instant, Murong Zhu did not understand what I meant.
Then her expression changed.
She understood.
“Absurd!”
She rebuked me sharply, but my expression did not move.
One conviction remained firm in my heart: in this life, Murong Zhu was the one person I had to win to my side.
Only after arriving in Qiangrong had I discovered that most of Murong Jin’s brothers were thoroughly mediocre, while he had one exceptional younger sister.
Murong Zhu’s bloodline was extraordinarily noble. She was the only daughter of the Qiangrong king and the Grand Princess of Guyue. Raised in the army by her maternal grandfather, she had studied the books of the Central Plains from childhood. In the saddle, she could wield a blade in battle; on the ground, she could read and reason with the best of scholars.
Unfortunately, in my previous life, I had been Murong Jin’s favored consort. No matter how I tried to befriend Murong Zhu, she believed I was a spy sent by her brother and never trusted me.
But in this life, I was still a slave with no allegiance.
Winning Murong Jin’s favor offered no future. Only by joining Murong Zhu could I hope to restore my kingdom.
“Princess Murong, whether in birth or talent, you are no less than your brother Murong Jin.”
“You are the granddaughter of Guyue’s sovereign. The finest cavalry in the Western Regions was your grandfather’s dowry to your mother.”
“Yet after your mother was murdered, that cavalry fell into Murong Jin’s hands.”
“In a few years, he will choose some vassal kingdom and marry you off to it. Then he will use the army your mother left behind to make himself master of the realm, while history remembers you only as an anonymous princess sent away in a political marriage.”
“Can you accept that?”
Murong Zhu’s expression grew uglier with every word.
At last, she cut me off.
“Silence.”
“Chu Yusu, are you trying to turn me against my own brother?”
“Do you realize that any one of the things you just said is enough to have you killed a hundred times over?”
With that, Murong Zhu wheeled her horse and rode away without looking back.
I remained where I was and smiled.
Indeed.
My words were enough to have me killed a hundred times.
Yet she had spared me.
That alone proved it.
She was tempted.